Digging Deeper…

Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father!

You know Lord, I love it when You plant a seed in my heart and it drives me to seek out answers.  Such was the case with the Scripture verse I posted to my Facebook Wall today:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.” – 2 Corinthians 13:11 (NIV)

But apparently You weren’t done with me on this one.  Over the following hours, the phrase “Strive for full restoration…” kept running through my head, over and over.  Finally, I decided to do some research on that particular expression in context and see where it led me.

Now Father, as You know I usually reference the New International Version (NIV) Bible as that’s the version that speaks to my heart most often.  However, when I run into a passage that churns in my head one of the first things I do is to compare it to other translations to see it from other perspectives.  In the case of this verse, the variance seems to be significant across translations… even in the case of the previous NIV (1984):

“Finally, brothers, good‑by. Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.” – (NIV 1984)

“Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.” – (KJV)

“Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, set things right, be encouraged, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.” – (NET)

“And that’s about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair. Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure.” – (MSG)

Wow… There’s obviously some differences there Lord.  Realizing that these translations stem from words that may not have an exact English equivalent, I then decided to dig deeper and see what the Biblical Scholars had to say on this phrase.  From what I found, it appears the original word was Καταρτιζεσθε, which according to Clarke’s Commentary converts to mean : “Be compact; get into joint again; let unity and harmony be restored”.  Other commentaries were similar, but the description that finally settled my heart was from Wesley’s Notes which stated : “Be perfect – Aspire to the highest degree of holiness.”.

Strive for full restoration…

I love seeing where Your whispers take me Father.

Heavenly Father, I thank You for making Your Presence known through these quiet instructions to my heart.  I pray that You continue to challenge me to dig deeper into Your Word, so as to bring my Walk even closer to Your side.  Amen.

~Phather Phil