Monday with Mounce

One of the beauties of Greek is that it is possible to indicate the expected answer to a question. A question prefaced by οὐ means the intended expected answer is “yes,” and μή shows that the expected answer is “no.” While we can do the same thing in English, it is pretty clunky and so most translations under-translate questions, not giving the expected answer.

One of the real values of knowing Greek is to be able to clearly see the sequencing of ideas. Greek is more than capable of lining up a series of prepositional, participial, infinitive (and other) phrases, since it is a paratactic language. This means it can place series of phrases side-by-side (παράταξις), without conjunctions to indicate the relationship between them.

All translations add English words that have no direct equivalent in English. Every one of them. The NASB and ESV tend to add just a single word here and there; CSB too. NIV is open to adding a few more words as is the NET, and the NLT can add significantly more. They are different types of translations, and more or less freedom is required to achieve their goals. But no translation is totally transparent to the Greek; otherwise, its English would be senseless.

Paul is encouraging the Philippian Christians to “conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, which means they will stand firm (στήκετε). This is a fun passage to phrase because it forces you to see the connection of ideas.

Peter tells us to take our anxious worries off of ourselves and place them on God. Easier said than done!