Monday with Mounce

There is a lot of flexibility in the significance of subjunctive. Once you move a statement out of fact (indicative) into possibility or probability, lots of nuances can be present.

What do these three have in common? My life today. What does a normal person do when they are getting ready to drive 2 1/2 days home from vacation? Get a puppy! He is an alpha male German Shepherd, and we named him "Brady," the G.O.A.T. But in between the chaotic times (Brady can find bear poop faster than anyone I have ever seen), I have been thinking about how to teach our children about God's sovereignty.

When Jesus was arrested, did he go to Annas (John 18:13) or Caiaphas (Matt 26:57) before going to Pilate? Mark 14:53ff. does not name the high priest. Luke 22:66ff. refers to “elders of the people ... both chief priests and scribes.” So John is alone in specifying that Jesus went first to Annas.

My nephew Dave Gundlach preached an excellent sermon (at 39:00 in the video) this morning (March 24, 2024) that alerted me to something I had never seen before. It's about singular and plurals. James 4:1 says, “What accounts for the quarrels and disputes among you? Is it not this—your desires that are at war in your members?”

My assumption is that Paul’s use of Greek would have been relatively easy for a native speaker to understand. Peter‘s objection (2 Peter 3:15), I assume, would have more to do with Paul's concepts than his use of Greek. But when I see passages like Romans 7:2–3, I am reminded how much is lost by not being a first-century Jew. Our distance from Paul's context should encourage an element of humility as we attempt to exegete his writing.