He Loves Us
(NIV) “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
“loved”?
“d,” not “s”?
That single letter made my fingers, which had been typing so confidently, pause in doubt. I had wanted to encourage someone of God’s unfailing love through trials, yet this verse didn’t really work as well as I thought it would; at least not the English translation, anyways.
Swiveling my chair to face my end table, I extricated my Greek New Testament from a mass of books. Thumbing the pages, my brow slightly scrunched in frustration, I turned to a few verses before and began to read, trying to see if I’d missed something in the context.
As I went along, I made certain to note the different tenses and moods. When I arrived at the word of my confusion I set the Bible down and tried to digest what I’d read, thoughts just as unsettled as when I began. My eyes sought the familiar purple binding of the Greek grammar on my shelf. Opening it, I hoped to find a solution within its well worn pages. I eagerly refreshed my memory on gnomics and constatives, and then checked myself. My Greek professor had once jokingly called me a legalist who tried to make everything line up with the categories listed in “the purple book.” I didn’t want to make that same mistake again. What was God really saying? Not what I wanted His words to mean, or what neatly fit with the grammar book, or the translation; I wanted to know how to accurately express, in my language, the encouragement God meant to give when His Holy Spirit first put those words to parchment.
As I mulled all the information over in my head, praying for the same Spirit to give me understanding; the answer came. I knew that this verse, like a key thread in a beautifully woven tapestry, was meant to convey a simple, timeless truth for those that are His; He loves us, and through Him we are more than conquerors.
“loved”?
“d,” not “s”?
That single letter made my fingers, which had been typing so confidently, pause in doubt. I had wanted to encourage someone of God’s unfailing love through trials, yet this verse didn’t really work as well as I thought it would; at least not the English translation, anyways.
Swiveling my chair to face my end table, I extricated my Greek New Testament from a mass of books. Thumbing the pages, my brow slightly scrunched in frustration, I turned to a few verses before and began to read, trying to see if I’d missed something in the context.
As I went along, I made certain to note the different tenses and moods. When I arrived at the word of my confusion I set the Bible down and tried to digest what I’d read, thoughts just as unsettled as when I began. My eyes sought the familiar purple binding of the Greek grammar on my shelf. Opening it, I hoped to find a solution within its well worn pages. I eagerly refreshed my memory on gnomics and constatives, and then checked myself. My Greek professor had once jokingly called me a legalist who tried to make everything line up with the categories listed in “the purple book.” I didn’t want to make that same mistake again. What was God really saying? Not what I wanted His words to mean, or what neatly fit with the grammar book, or the translation; I wanted to know how to accurately express, in my language, the encouragement God meant to give when His Holy Spirit first put those words to parchment.
As I mulled all the information over in my head, praying for the same Spirit to give me understanding; the answer came. I knew that this verse, like a key thread in a beautifully woven tapestry, was meant to convey a simple, timeless truth for those that are His; He loves us, and through Him we are more than conquerors.