Wednesday Bible Study: The deep dig

So it was mentioned last time by ye who have commented the fascinating way some Bible versions vary in translation.  I want to bring up two related issues before we get back to business.  One I will have touched upon in Sunday Message, that being that the more you come seeking in obedience, the more the Lord will open up for you.  Second,   I believe that these "extra translations" are no accident, but rather the way God takes you step by step to understanding .  Which, as I've said, I am formulating into the yet untyped Sunday Message you'll be reading before this, so I just mention this by tying in.


Anyway, we go back to our path, which is in Romans this week.  Part of what I am doing right now (again with the Sunday tie-in) is going through Psalms, and so I notice that Paul's lead-in to our verse is taken from the passage THAT I HAD JUST READ from Psalm 14:

Rom 3:9  What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 
Rom 3:10  as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 
Rom 3:11  no one understands; no one seeks for God. 

Paul follows up with a continuum of quotes from both Psalms and Isaiah:


Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 
Rom 3:13  "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." 
Rom 3:14  "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." 
Rom 3:15  "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 

And then, stepping past our verse, he continues:

Rom 3:17  and the way of peace they have not known." 

Rom 3:18  "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 

All of which I have taken from the ESV for the ease of reading.  But now I'm going to switch to MKJV so you can get the gist of this, our verse, separated out for a reason:

Rom 3:16  destruction and misery are in their way, 

I came to notice, as I looked through Paul's tour through OT quotes around it, that THIS VERSE ALONE, of all the verses from 10-18, was NOT a quote from Scripture.  The JFB Commentary suggests that Paul added this as a "supplementary" verse, tied to the previous verse about feet, and pointing to " the mischief and misery which men scatter in their path, instead of that peace which, as strangers to it themselves, they cannot diffuse."   But, as usual with our 16's, there's more to the story.

Both the Greek words translated as "destruction" (suntrimma) and "misery" (talaipōria) are used ONLY HERE in the NT.  Paul intended this verse to be stressed, and thought about.  But why?  And what did they mean?

Suntrimma is formed from a series of words which denote, combined, destruction on a scale hard to imagine.  Basically, it means to turn something- as literally as I can get it- into one complete gnawing wound, deep in its ruts.  "Grinding to powder" comes to my mind.

Talaipōria is translated as utter wretchedness, but to break the word down you come up two concepts:  to "bear the weight" of a test, and that test being "to be pierced through".  These were quite possibly the strongest words that Paul could have used.  So why add them?

First, look at the context.  In the first part of this chapter, he's trying to get through to Gentiles that despite what Greek logic might tell them, their concept of sinning more to get more grace is wrong.  The next part, he is trying to get through to Jews that they aren't any better off spiritually despite understanding that single concept better.  So he goes through a set of quotes that they would recognize and understand- and then sets suntrimma and talaipōria in the midst of them.  Why?

Speculation on my part:  Just as he is teaching the Gentiles to let go of the self-righteousness they have in their "logic", he has to get the Jews to let go of the self-righteousness they have as possessors of "the Oracles of God", which he mentioned just upstream in v2.  He could only do that by stressing that the end BOTH groups were headed for without Christ was an ending beyond their imaginations- and not reserved just for the enemies of the Hebrew nation.  He had to get through to them a destruction so complete it could not be conceived as an earthly destruction that they could say in say, 2018, "that's nothing we haven't already been through".

And what does it say to us?

1- God has meaning in EVERY word he chooses.

2- God has meaning in EVERY story He tells.

3- We all have pre-conceived notions that we use like cookies for a webpage to skip past "givens" and aid us in understanding the world- and God wants us to ABANDON them.  And what I am learning is without the deep digging, I'll never see what they are, and never get everything I need to out of life.