‘And you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbour’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.’ (Deuteronomy 5:21)
The tenth commandment is different to the other nine because dictates the internal life. It is centred on desire not behaviour, on what drives action not the actions themselves.
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Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)
The noun ‘love’ translates: ἀγάπη; agapé; this word denotes love or goodwill that comes from moral preference. It occurs 116 times is the New Testament in every book apart from the Gospel Mark and the James’ encyclical.
Love is then a disposition, God is disposed to love and chooses to act upon it:
For God so loved (apapeo) the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
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And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:3-5)
Day is יוֹם yom in Hebrew and the word has a range of meanings including a sidereal day to an age; it means a defined period of time.
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‘If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8:32)
The Greek word for freedom is ἐλευθερία eleutheria, specifically manumission, the freedom from slavery, and it is of this context Jesus speaks and to which his audience takes offence:
“We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free?”’ (ibid 8:33)
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Oh, how I love your law!
I meditate on it all day long. (Psalm 119)
The longest psalm is a paean to God’s law. It extols God’s decrees, statutes and precepts; all synonyms for His commandments.
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When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom. (1 Corinthians 2:1)
Eloquence translates not one Greek word, but two, ὑπεροχὴν λόγου huperochen logou, ‘superiority of speech’ or ‘fine words’ (huperoxe being the prominence of a mountain, the pinnacle.)
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Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52 ESV)
Many of the believers in Corinth struggled to understand what death held for them. Paul calls the journey to the afterlife a mystery, and it can only be so. But he does not mean they were left clueless, because the prophets and apostles were given revelation, and this is what he means by a mystery, that which is revealed by the Spirit of God through the Word of God.
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Apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:21-24)
The word translated ‘justify’ is δικαιόω dikaioo which is word taken from a legal setting, dike is ‘to be proved right’ or ‘to gain judicious approval’. The word translated above as ‘righteousness’ as the noun based on the same root, δικαιοσύνη dikeaiosune.
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… And deliver us from evil…(Matthew 6:13)
In giving us a pattern for prayer, Jesus tell his followers to pray to be delivered from evil. The Greek word that is translated ‘evil’ is πονηρός poneros, which derives from ponos pain, thus poneros is literally pain-ridden, or more properly that which gives pain.
The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:2-3)
The Greek word translated baptism is βαπτίζω baptizó.
God Breathed Words 