the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Helps
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or ‘Help’ (ἀντίλημψις) is fairly common in the Septuagint , in the Psalms, and in 2 and 3 Maccabees. In Sirach 11:12; Sirach 51:7 we have persons who are in need of ἀντίλημψις. The plural ἀντιλήμψεις occurs in 1 Corinthians 12:28, coupled with ‘governments,’ and nowhere else in the NT. The verb from which it comes (ἀντιλαμβάνεσθαι) is found in Luke 1:54 in a quotation from the Septuagint , where it is frequent; also in Acts 20:35 in a speech of St. Paul. The verb means ‘to take firm hold of’ some one in order to help (1 Timothy 6:2 is different); and by ‘helps’ or ‘helpings’ St. Paul probably moans the succouring of those in need, as poor, sick, and bereaved persons. Perhaps the helping of those in mental perplexity or spiritual distress, and all whom St. Paul calls ‘the weak,’ is also included. H. Cremer (Bibl.-Theol. Lex.3, 1880, p. 386) is mistaken in saying that this sense of ‘helping’ is ‘unknown in classical Greek’: it is frequent in papyri, in petitions to the Ptolemys (G. A. Deissmann, Bible Studies, Eng. translation , 1901, p. 92). The Greek commentators are also mistaken in interpreting ‘helpings’ as meaning deacons, and ‘governings’ as meaning elders; such definite official distinctions had not yet arisen. St. Paul is speaking of personal gifts. He is not speaking of select persons whom he or the congregation had appointed to any office; and neither he nor they can confer the gifts; that is the work of the Spirit. He exhorts the whole congregation to ‘continue to desire earnestly the greater gifts’; and individuals might receive more than one gift from the Spirit.
We have an instance of the gift of ‘helping’ in Stephanas and his household (1 Corinthians 16:15-18), and it is expressly stated that they ‘appointed themselves to minister to the saints.’ The Apostle did not nominate them to any office of ‘helper,’ nor did the congregation elect them to any such post. A person who believed that he possessed the gift tried to exercise it. If he was right in this belief, the people accepted his ministrations. There was no other appointment, and there was no class of officials into which he entered.
Literature.-F. J. A. Hort, The Christian Ecclesia, 1897, pp. 156-160; Robertson and Plummer, 1 Corinthians, 1911, pp. 280-284; H. A. A. Kennedy, Sources of NT Greek, 1895, p. 96; H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the NT, 1909, p. 186f.; article ‘Helps’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) and Hastings’ Single-vol. Dictionary of the Bible .
A. Plummer.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Helps'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/h/helps.html. 1906-1918.
