Monday with Mounce

The other day Paul asked about the two-fold requirement in Heb 11:6, and it is a great verse to illustrate two techniques in translating Greek that have helped me through the years.

Every once in a while I see a translation where there is no Greek in any form behind the English. I know at times this is necessary for convey meaning, but every once in a while I suspect something else is in play.

I was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, from kindergarden through Junior High School, and one of the oddities I picked up is the tendency to end a sentence with a preposition. Whenever I say, “Do you want to go with?” my California-raised wife smiles. But maybe this is why Paul’s use of verbal compounds formed with σύν sounds so natural.

Why do we do what we do? Some of us are motivated by duty; we do things because we ought to. Some of us are motivated by a sense of right and wrong; we do things because it is the right thing to do. But how many of us are motivated by love?

Have you ever been in a new church and were asked to say the Lord’s Prayer out loud? What almost always happens? You say, “Give us this day our daily bread ...” and then you pause. Does this church say “debts” or “trespasses”? What is the difference, and why?