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This site explores the meaning of Christ's words, often by
looking at their Greek and Hebrew roots. This page is updated daily as we go
though Christ's words in the Gospel one line at a time. Our assumption is that Christ was
not just speaking to the people around him in the context of his life. He was
speaking to us as well about our lives.
Mar 5:34 Daughter, your faith has made you whole; go in peace, and be whole of your plague.Alternative: Daughter, your faith has kept you alive, go away in tranquility and be healthy of your scourge.The word that is translated as "made you whole" actually doesn't mean being cured of a disease. It means preserving or saving from death or keeping alive. It is usually translated as "save" in the Gospels but the meaning is specific to being saved from death or destruction. So Christ is not saying that faith cures us of ills but that it preserves us through times of troubles. It was Christ's power that cures. " Daughter" is the Greek, thugatêr (thugater), which means "daughter" or more generally a female descendant, later, it was used for "maidservant." " Faith" is from pistis ( pistis), which means "confidence," "assurance," "trustworthiness," "credit," "a trust," and "that which give confidence." " Has made whole" is from sôizô ( sozo), which means "save from death," "keep alive," "keep safe," "preserve," "maintain," "keep in mind," "carry off safely," and "rescue." " Go" is from hupagô ( hupago), which means "to lead under," "to bring under," "to bring a person before judgment," "to lead on by degrees," "to take away from beneath," "to withdraw," "to go away," "to retire," "to draw off," and "off with you." " Peace" is eirênê (eirene), which means "time of peace," "peace," "tranquility," and "harmony." It is the name for the goddess of peace. In Hebrew, the word for peace was used in salutations and as an inquiry as to one's health. " Whole" is from hugiês ( hugies), which means "sound [in body]," "healthy," "safe and sound," "sound in mind," "virtuous," and "in good condition." " Plague" is from mastix ( mastix), which means a "whip," "lash," or a "scourge." It is used metaphorically to mean a plague of disease or of war.
Mar 5:30 Who touched my clothes?Christ feels the power go out of him when the woman touches his clothing, seeking a cure for bleeding. The interesting implication of this statement is that the curing was not voluntary or conscious on the part of Christ. He was a conduit for power, but he did not consciously control the power. It was the woman's conscious actions not Christ's that triggered the release of power. Christ uses clothing as a symbol for power. In several places in the NT, Christ identifies kings by their clothing. It is the outer symbol of their power as the body in the outer sign of the soul. However, here his clothing isn't an intellectual symbol of social power but a physical conduit of spiritual power. The power travels though the physical instead of through the word. The implication here is that Christ's channeling of God was a physical function of his body not just a conscious function of his mind. His clothes become a channel as well simply because they touch his body. The woman received God's power, completing a circuit of power and need, by simply touching Christ's clothing. In the previous mental healing of the possessed man, Christ transferred his power through his words, the symbol for mental realm. Christ also cure physical ailments by speaking words as he does with the lame man who he tells to pick up his bed and return home. However, here and several other places in the Gospels, we see Christ curing physical ills though physical contact as when he rubs the blind man's eyes with mud. "Touched" is from haptomai, which means to "fasten to," "to adhere to," "to cling to," "to have intercourse with a woman," ""to touch" and "to assail." "Clothes" is from himation ( himation), which was an oblong piece of cloth worn as an outer garment. The term generally means "clothes" and "cloth."
Mar 5:19 Go home to your friends, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for you, and has had compassion on you.Alternative: Retire to your home and to yours and report to them as much as the Lord has done for you to have pity on you. It is an interesting coincidence that the term use for "home" appears often in stories of demonic possession. It appears in Mat 12:44, where the spirit is out looking for a home. Here, and in Mar 7:30, when Christ cures a girl of her demons and the mother finds her at home and the demons gone. There is a connection between the spirit as a home for the spirit, and the homes that we live in. It is also interesting how Christ sends people to their homes after being cured as he did with the crippled man in Mar 2:11 and the blind man in Mar 8:26. The feeling here is that being cured from a infirmity is like going home. This home wasn't just a "house", which is a slightly different word oikia ( oikia), but the family and your personal relationships. Christ refers to the temple as "God's home" not just his house. He refers to the tribe of Israel as the home of Israel, the family of Israel. People are sent home after they are cured because these are the people with whom the cured person has emotional relationships. In a sense, in healing these individuals, Christ is healing the entire household. People often approach Christ asking for mercy and often not for themselves, but for other people in their home. It was natural for people to share the emotion of mercy for others in their household. What was unnatural was to have people give mercy to others as Christ did. In a sense, it was his indication that we were part of his house. " Go" is from hupagô ( hupago), which means "to lead under," "to bring under," "to bring a person before judgment," "to lead on by degrees," "to take away from beneath," "to withdraw," "to go away," "to retire," "to draw off," and "off with you." " Home" is from oikos, which means "house," "dwelling place," "room," and "home." Any dwelling place but not exclusively a separate house. " Friends" is from sos ( sos), which means "yours." " Tell" is from anangellô ( anangello), which means to "carry back tidings," "to report," "tell," and "proclaim." From the root word for "angels" meaning "messengers." " Great" is from hosos ( hosos), which means "as many," "as much as," "as great as," "as far as," and "only so far as." " Has done" is from poieô ( poieo), which means "to make," "to produce," "to create," "to bring into existence," "to bring about," "to cause," "to render," "to consider," "to prepare," "to make ready," and "to do." "Compassion" is from eleeô, ( eleeo) which means "to have pity on," and "to show mercy to." It is from the Greek eleos, which means "mercy," "pity," and "compassion."
Mar 5:9 What [is] your name?Christ asks this question of the unclean spirit but as always I will analyze as if Christ is addressing all his words to all of us. This raises the question of what Christ concept of a "name." Christ says that his Father's name is worth of worship, but the Father's name has a meaning, in Hebrew, it means "the being of existence" or the existence of being," which is more of a concept than a name. In this case, the demon's name, legion (in Greek legeôn ( legeon)), also has the very specific meaning of a certain size body of troops (6826 men, 6100 foot soldiers and 726 horsemen), but the sense is a troop of warrior's so large that they have no distinct individual identities. But what is a "name" for a regular person? The Greek concept was that name was your social reputation. This was separate from the real spirit of the person. It was "just a name." The assumption was that a social reputation wasn't the real person. Christ's system however is different. For Christ there is the four levels of spiritual, physical, intellectual, and emotional/social. The Greek sense of name exists only on the "emotional/social" level as the reputation and relationship, but the names of God and this demon exist on every level: the spiritual, physical, intellectual, and emotional/social. In asking this question, is Christ suggesting that we each have names on all four levels as well? Names that we don't even know? " What" is from tis, which can mean "someone," "any one," "everyone," "many a one," "whoever," and so on. In a question, it can mean "who," or "what." " Name" is from onoma, which means "name." It means both the reputation of "fame," and "a name and nothing else," as opposed to a real person.
Mar 5:8 Come out of the man, unclean spirit.IN Christ's words, the are a interesting contrast referenced in this short line. The spirit is an awareness that is contrasted with the body. There is the regular spirit of a person, and unclean spirits, and the Holy Spirit. In the Gospels, the idea that people can lack spirit (poor in spirit) is one of the first ideas that Christ teaches. In the New Testament, person who who we would call mentally ill is describes as being possessed by an unclean spirit. It is from the Holy Spirit, that is, God's spirit, from which we gain knowledge that we cannot normally get. Spirit is described as having an existence separate from a body. Unclean spirits can leave a body and return, but when they leave, they still exist outside of the body. They are not gone in the same sense that we think a mental condition is cured through treatment. A dead spirit can even be reborn into a new body (Elijah). Our spirit is also separate from our mental processes. The spirit might inspire a thought or an action, but it is not the thought itself. Christ describes unclean spirits that are separate from the body as still having thoughts even though they don't have bodies. Though spirits can exist without bodies, a spirit with a body can act in the world. Christ describes people in the afterlife as having bodies as well, but of a different form, like the bodies of angels. Christ describe his words of being of the spirit. People are born of spirit and baptized by spirit. " Come" is from exerchomai, which means "to come or go out of " or "to come out." "Out" is from ek, which means "out of," "away from," "from," or "by." "Men" is from anthrôpos ( anthropos), which "man," and, in plural, "mankind." " Unclean" is akathartos ( akathartos) which means "foul," "uncleansed," and "morally unclean." It was the term used to refer to a woman's menses. " Spirit" is pneuma ( pneuma), which means "blast," "wind," "breath," "the breath of life," and "divine inspiration."
Mar 4:40 Why are you so fearful? how is it that you have no faith?In the Greek, being fearful is associated with low-born and poor. In contrast, being confident (translated here as "faith") is associated with being trustworthy and gaining other people's trust. The idea is that your mental state and world view are connected to your place in society. Being low-born creates a state of fear, which is one reason the Christ's followers were to be "born again." The world chosen for fearful here, deilos, is especially interesting. There are many Greek words that mean "fearful" that do not have the sense of low-born, for example deidêmôn. Like the Hebrew word for fearful, yare', this adjective just mean having fear. Why choose deilos? Especially since this is the only place in the New Testament (with the parallel verse in Matthew, Mat 8:26) that this term is applied to Christ's words? There is more evidence that this is because of its connection to social standing. A very similar Greek word, deimos, means "fearful" in a directly opposite sense: being fearful, that is, generating fear in others by being strong, powerful, and clever. In a very clear sense, deilos and deimos are opposite ends of the social spectrum. Again, as so many ideas in Christ, this is connected to the cycle that Christ describes connecting the spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional (relationship). Here, the physical storm plus a mental state, lack of faith, causes an emotional state. That emotional state is, as always, connecting to relationships with people. While Christ doesn't care about social relationships as much as personal, here the results of faithlessness and fearfulness are the same: having others not trust you and seeing no value in you. "Fearful" is from deilos ( deilos), which means "cowardly," "miserable," "wretched," "low-born," and "poor." "How is it" is from pôs ( pos) which means "in any way," "at all," "by any means," and "I suppose." "Faith" is from pistis, which means "confidence," "assurance," "trustworthiness," "credit," "a trust," and "that which give confidence."
Mar 4:39 Peace, be still.Alternative: Be still, be silent. The second word used here translated as"be still" and more specifically meaning "be silent" was last used in Mar 1:25 to address the demons inside of a person. Here it is used ostensibly use to address a storm, quieting the wind and the waves, or is it used to address his apostles who were frightened by the storm. How does this thought fit into the larger context of this chapter, the parable of the sower? The parable is about how the seed of an idea, if given the proper ground, grows naturally over time. However, in this part of the chapter, it is the seed of doubt that is planted by the storm that grows until the apostles are forced to wake the sleeping Christ. What is Christ's advice about what to do regarding this seed of doubt? He says that we must simply still our minds and quit hurting ourselves. This echoes precisely the advice to the man that was possessed by demons. Christ told that man to be silent and come out of himself. If we live in God's kingdom, we realize that we are always safe. Pain and suffering exist for a purpose, to give us challenges to overcome and reasons to come together. Even if we die, we still survive, because we are eternal spirits. We know that this life is temporary. Its purpose is to allows us to learn, grow, and bear fruit, that is, to give us the opportunity to lead productive lives. Dangers are challenges, but the only real danger is our doubt and despair because in doubt and despair we turn on backs on what is real and divine. " Peace" is from siôpaô ( siopao), which means "keep silence," "to be still," "keep secret," and "speak not of." " Be still" is from phimoô ( phimoo), which means "to muzzle," "to be silent," and "to be put to silence."
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