Wednesday message- I was Greeked

I could really come to hate Greek.  More in a minute.

This week our verse is one I would have never thought controversial, or would lead me on such a merry chase.  We are up to- and I really should have known it would from where it's located- 1 Corinthians:

1Co 3:16  Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 

As I looked at the commentators, I saw my preconceived notions buffeted.  Because, where I had always thought that this referred to every believer as a temple- we've ALL been taught that- the original meaning is that we AS A CHURCH are that temple.  And that bothered me- I guess because if you consider yourself a temple, you have less excuse for sin, more reason to AVOID sin- and I could really use that!  But if you are a brick in a building (which makes sense Biblically), you might lean on the CORPORATE morality and not so much your own.

So I asked the webs- which is it?  And I came upon a GREAT article by Bill Webb on a site called Word and Way.  He references a study by  David May, professor of New Testament at Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, KS, which makes several valid points.  First of which is that, the Greek translated as you in all three cases are PLURAL.  Which makes sense, I guess, because Paul wasn't writing to "the Corinthian".  Here are some excerpts:

“Paul is not writing about individual Christians being individual temples with separate Spirits in each temple,” May explained. “Paul highlights that many folks make up one temple, which is the community of faith/church. And in that one community is the one Spirit (unity)...

“A small band of believers is created as a temple without walls that stands in contrast to the various pagan temples in Corinth and its environ,” he explained. “It is David against Goliath but just set in a different form. How can this ‘temple’ thrive and survive when it does not have all the necessary characteristics of a temple: building, rituals, priests, sacrifices and public festivals?”

May believes it survives and thrives because of its distinctive — the Spirit in its midst.

May further believes that the conclusion of verse 16 translated “God’s Spirit dwells in you” or similarly in several translations is best captured in the NIV: “God’s Spirit dwells in your midst.” In this context, it is not so much that a person is possessed by God’s Spirit, but rather that God’s presence among God’s people allows them to worship and serve God.”

For May, verse 17 — “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple” — should not be separated from the previous verse. (Emphasis mine)

So I thought, "Well, this is a useful happenstance.  I wonder if it could be applied to Matthew 16:18- the verse that calls Peter a rock and leads Catholics to name him Pope?"

Never shoulda went there.

What I found was a fascinating- if possibly apocryphal- exchange between a Catholic and a Jehovah's Witness.  The Jehovan brought up the points I would have, after looking at the verse, because in the Greek Peter is masculine and "rock" as in "on this rock" is feminine.

At this point, I hope you will allow me a fragment of a dirty story to make the point that was about to skewer me.  Working around many Mexicans, I picked up some, er, "gutter Spanish".  I learned in Spanish, everything had a grammatic gender- with masculine marked with an "o" at the end and feminine with "a".  So I asked a friend why the word for the masculine sex organ ended with the feminine "a"?  He told me, "Because it is strong enough for a man, but made for a woman."

Point being:  It might make sense to a speaker, but it'll never make sense to me.

The Catholic answered the Jehovan that the Greek in Matthew had to come through the original Aramaic, which was not a gender language.  For them, rock was rock.  In the Greek, though, the large mass of rock on which Christ would build the Church was in the Feminine gender- and he couldn't give Peter a feminine name.  So he became Cephas, which is more like "pebbles"- and Flintstones aside, that WAS masculine in Greek.

I shook my head and left the bunny trail.

So I set out to find if there was any place that could bring me back to the concept of the Spirit living IN the individual.  For most of my quest, the only thing I learned was: If KJV says "ye", it's plural; if "thou", it's singular.  Not much help.

Then I came to Galatians 4:

Gal 4:4  But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 

Gal 4:5  to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 

Gal 4:6  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 

Gal 4:7  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. 

And in 4:7, son, slave, and heir are all singular.  So I guess I am happy now.

This should be a lesson to all of you:  I am not Paul, Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.  I do my best, with a LOT of help, but you need to check up on me.  There may be a lot of times- like this one- where I "translate" based on my preconceived notions, and don't know it.  I am just a learner like you.