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Don Johnson

Don Johnson

2008-06-10

The way I understand 1 Tim 2:15 (my translation) is: She will be saved through the Childbearing; if they each continue in faith and love and holiness with self control.
The last Greek word is sophrosune, which means sanity or self-control; in any case, it is something that a specific person has, not a group.  So I emend the text to add “each” to clarify this.

So I see it as POSSIBLE that Paul is talking about individuals in a group.  Each person’s salvation is based on that person’s actions, my working out of my salvation depends on what I choose, not my spouse or friend or whomever.

Part of the challenge in interpreting 1 Tim is that Paul had a shared context with Timothy that we today lack, so Paul could write in a compressed form and Timothy would know what Paul was referring to, while we are less sure.

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Original Article

Noodling With The Greek Grammar

2008-06-09