the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Language Studies
Greek Thoughts
When the Greek Tense Makes Sense
Paul's first correspondence to the Corinthians is one of my favorites of the Pauline corpus. In this intriguing book, yes, intriguing from many vantage points, Paul seeks to correct numerous problems that existed among the Corinthian Christians. This concept of correction is all too obvious. A cursory reading of this letter in one setting will reveal such: for our convenience, the correspondence has 16 chapters and 15 of those chapters deal with problems. There are divisions, sexual immorality, lawsuits, and so on. But Paul still refers to these dysfunctional Christians as "the church of God," "to those who have been sanctified," and "saints by calling" (1 Corinthians 1: 2, NASB). Commenting on the concept of the church existing in the city of Corinth, John Stott adds, "Yet in this heathen city there lived a small group of people whom Paul called the church of God in Corinth, the divine community in the human community. It was like a fragrant flower growing in and out of the smelly mud." F1
In chapter 14, Paul seeks to correct the abuse of spiritual gifts and then he introduces the fundamental planks in the platform of the gospel presentation: the good news of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus for the salvation of fallen man. Paul tightens and makes his presentation of the gospel thrilling for the modern reader by the use of various Greek tenses.
First, a word must be said about the Greek tenses. Today we view tenses in terms of time, when an action takes place. The NT writers, however, placed their emphasis on the kind of action expressed the verb. "Tense deals with these aspects of verbal expression [time of action and kind of action], kind of action being the chief idea involved, for time is but a minor consideration in the Greek tenses." F2 Let us mine these amazing Greek tenses:
First, "For what I received I passed..."--the word "received" (aorist act. ind. 1st pers. sing. from paralambano, "to receive") and "passed" (aorist act. ind. 1st pers. sing. from paradidomi, "to entrust") are both forms of the simple past tense, the aorist tense. The aorist tense views the action as a point with either the beginning or the end of the action emphasized, or the action is viewed as a whole irrespective of its duration. F3 The gospel message of Christ that Paul "passed" to these Christians is a message that he himself had "received" in the past, with no comment on when he did.
Second, "Christ died for our sins..." the verb "died" (aorist act. ind. 3rd pers. sing. from apothnesko, "to die"). Our Lord died once and for all for our sins (Heb 9.28)-a historical fact!
Third, "He was buried..." the word "buried" (aorist pass. ind. 3rd pers. sing. from thapto, "to bury")-again, signifying that Jesus was buried only once--a historical fact!
Fourth, "He was raised…"(perfect pass. ind. 3rd pers. sing. from egeiro, "to raise up")-notice how Paul intentionally changes from the aorist tense to the perfect tense. The perfect tense "combines in itself, so to speak, the present and the aorist in that it denotes the continuance of completed action." F4 By using the perfect tense in reference to the resurrection of Christ, Paul, thus affirms that Jesus Christ is alive and "remains in a state of risenness, in contrast to his death and subsequent burial and appearances (aorists are use to describe these actions)." F5 This change was by designed.
Fifth, "He appeared" (aorist pass. ind. 3rd pers. sing. from horao, "to see")-the appearances of Jesus over a 40 days period, truly resurrected the dead faith of those early Christians. And now we can be blessed from their testimonial evidence of Jesus. They saw him-a historical fact!
Finally, when you think of the first eight verses of Paul's first correspondence to the Corinthians, remember the amazing truths that are awaiting there discovery in a study of the original. And yes, the gospel of Christ is established upon unshakable historical facts.
FOOTNOTES:
F1: John Stott, Basic Christian Leadership (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVasity Press, 2002), 21.
F2: H.E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (NY: Macmillan Co, 1927), 177.
F3: F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1961), 166.
F4: Ibid., 175.
F5: David Alan Black, Learn To Read New Testament Greek (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1994), 69.
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Bill Klein has been a pastor, counselor, and educator for the past 41 years. He has had extensive training and education in biblical languages, and has authored a Biblical Greek course.
He is currently serving as Professor of Biblical Greek at Master's Graduate School of Divinity, and president of BTE Ministries - The Bible Translation and Exegesis Institute of America, a non-profit organization located in California that provides Bible study tapes and Greek study materials through their website BTEMinistries.org.
