Welcome to More Painless Greek, 1 John. We're in session five, and this time we're looking at 1 John 2, verses 12 through 14. This small, short section of text has 60 words in Greek. 54 of those are words that are already in the glossary So there's just six new words, and in fact, because some of them are used more than once, there's only four unique words in this section of text. Because there are so few words, we'll learn all of the new words first, and then walk through the Greek text, and as is our pattern, walk through the entire text at the end. So we'll begin with this noun, neoniskos, neoniskos, a youth or young man. You may recall that the adjective neos, new, fresh, or young, was included in a painless introduction to Greek in lesson 12 on the comparative and superlative forms. Neoniskos, young man, young ones in the plural. Paideion, an infant, babe, a child. The Greek words pais, child, and paideion are the source of our English words. Pediatric, that is care for infants and children, and of course, pediatrician, a doctor who provides care for infants and children. If you'll notice at the end of Paideion, that eon ending is a form that indicates the diminutive. So for example, there's a word ployon that means small boat. So when you see that suffix, it may be an indication of a diminutive form that is a small form of whatever the noun is. And we have this adjective, iskoros, iskoros, or maybe I should say iskoros, for strong, mighty. And this is a good time to review the concept of the positive forms of an adjective and the comparative forms. The positive forms are simply ascribing a particular quality to a certain noun or other substantive. In this case, something is said to be strong. In the comparative form, it's more so. It's comparing two things or two people, and one is said to be stronger than the other. And if we look at the forms here, in the positive sense that this iskuras is used, you'll notice that in the masculine, they're very standard, second declension, masculine endings, the os, oo, on, et cetera. The feminine uses the first declension feminine nouns, the alpha pattern, ah, ahs, ah, an, and then of course in the feminine, the plural forms are shared between both the alpha and the eta adjectives. and nouns. Then notice in the neuter, we only have one form, the accusative plural, iscura, but it also follows the second declension neuter endings. Then considering the comparative forms, there's only three of these that actually appear in the New Testament, iscurateras, stronger, nominative singular masculine, is curateran, the nominative singular in the neuter, and then the nominative plural, stronger, more than one, is curateroi. So we simply have this ter, morpheme, the tau epsilon rho that is the indicator for the comparative form. So in this case, stronger. Then we have one verb to look at, nikao, to conquer, overcome, prevail, et cetera. I'm sure you're familiar without even knowing the Greek word Nike, which means victory. And so, of course, we have a popular line of shoes and athletic clothing that is named after that Greek word for victory, and phonetically, very close to nikapo, I conquer, I overcome, I prevail. So we're ready for our text and beginning in 1 John 2, verse 12. There's no new words in this verse. So you've already learned all of the words here. Notice at the beginning, grapho, who mean, and that grapho is capitalized, most likely indicating the beginning of a new section. And as you know, the capitalization of individual words in the Greek text is a decision made by the editors of the text. The original Greek text had no cases, everything was written in what we recognize as uppercase or unciels. So, in the text, grapho, who mean I write or I am writing, present tense, who mean to you, I am writing to you, and then who is he writing to, verse 12, technia, dear children, little children, So this verb is a little difficult to unpack. Afeontai is a perfect passive indicative, third person plural, from afiemi. So you can see a lot has happened here. But remember that in the perfect tense, the middle and perfect voices have exactly the same form. So theoretically, this could either be middle or passive. So if you recall, we have those endings for the middle voice, oh my, a, atai, amatha, esthe, untai, and you see the nntai here in atheuntai, atheuntai. So again, perfect, passive indicative, third person plural, they have been forgiven. Now what's the they? It's the hai hamartiai, the sins forgiven to you who mean. So John is saying, I'm writing, I write to you little children because the sins forgiven you. And obviously we would smooth that out in English, your sins have been forgiven. And then notice in the second line, dia ta anima autu. Now the dia we recognize as a preposition and like many of the prepositions, it has two meanings. that depend on the case of the associated words in the prepositional phrase. So the meanings of dia are through and because of, through in the genitive, because of in the accusative. So we need to look at the related words and then try to understand what their case is, and then that will make the meaning of the preposition dia more precise. So in this case, we have the article ta, which is a neuter article. But then you may recall, well, wait a minute, the ta form is used with both the nominative case and the accusative case. How do we know which one is appropriate in this instance. But then you may further recall that prepositions are never used in the nominative case. So if talk could either be nominative or accusative, but it's used with a preposition, it has to be an accusative. So that pinpoints the meaning of our preposition dia, because of. Because of what? Ta'anama'autu, the name of him, because of his name. And we understand that it is not simply saying there's something magical or mystic in Jesus' name, although it is the name by which or under which every knee will bow when the Lord Jesus comes in all his glory, but this is helping us understand that our sins are forgiven because of the Lord Jesus and his work. So as we move on then to verse 13, John continues this similar pattern. Grapho, notice here we don't have the capital letter, I write or I am writing present tense to you, pateres, and You may recall that pater, the word for father, is a third declension noun. So we expect its forms to be different than regular, for example, second declension nouns. And so this is a plural form, a nominative plural form, pateres, fathers. I'm writing to you, fathers, pati egnokate, because agnocate. Now, what is that? You recognize it's a form of gnosco. Obviously, several things have happened here. We see an augment, that epsilon at the beginning. And then we see the addition of a kappa. So that kakte is a perfect form. So this is a perfect example of gnosko. I'm writing to you fathers because you have known. You've known what? Tanaparches. And we've seen this little phrase before, particularly the Ab-Archais, from the beginning, and the Tan article substantizes that little phrase. So we understand this to mean the one who is from the beginning. And it's interesting to consider that, of course, this seems like an echo of John's gospel in chapter one, in the beginning, what was from the beginning, and certainly earlier in chapter one of 1 John, the one who is from the beginning. And so John is saying, you fathers, and of course it's an exegetical decision, what exactly does he mean? And what is the distinction between the children and the fathers and the young men? But in any case, he's saying, because you have known this one who is from the beginning, perhaps indicating a particular depth of relationship with the Lord. Then in the second line of verse 13, we see repeated again, grafo umin, I'm writing or I write to you, nianiskoi. So this is the new word we've learned. This is a vocative form because of course it's used in direct address, which is also true of papyrus and the children in the prior verse. So this is a vocative plural masculine of nianiskos, young people or young men. I'm writing to you, young people, young men, plural form here, hati, because, nanike kate, tang paneran. So we look at this verb, nanike kate, and we notice there's reduplication, plus a kappa. So we have all the clues to tell us this is a perfect form. And in fact, it's a perfect, active, indicative, indicative, second person plural of nika'o. So in my vernacular, this is y'all have overcome, second person plural. Y'all have overcome, y'all have conquered, tanpaneron, the evil, but we of course would understand the evil one. You have overcome the evil one. I write to you fathers because you have known the one from the beginning. I'm writing to you younger ones, younger men, because you have conquered, you have overcome the evil one. Then the first part of verse 14, notice that the tense of the verb has changed. So we had three groups addressed with grafo, I am writing to you, humin. Now we notice a grapsa, humin. What word do we have here? Well, of course, this is RAFO again, but notice we have an augment, the epsilon at the beginning. And grothol is a word that ends with one of those special consonants that combines with the sigma. So the fee and the sigma of the saw ending, remember saw, sauce, sen, salmon, saute, son, those aorist endings. Here, we have an aorist form, I wrote, or I have written, that sounds a little bit more like a perfect form, but many English translations show it that way. So as just a pure aorist, I wrote. I wrote to you, idea. This again is evocative form, it's evocative plural neuter of idea, children. I wrote to you children, Hati egnokate tangpatera, because you have known the father. So this is a benefit, even of the children, if we're going to make some distinctions among these various groups. Then continuing in the second line of chapter two, verse 14, eg rapsa humin, I have written, or I wrote to you, pateres, fathers, ati egnokate tan ap arches. This is the exact same phrase, because you have known the one from the beginning. Then continuing to the last part of verse 14, here we have a heavy concentration of our new vocabulary words. Egrapsa umin, I wrote to you. Mianiskoi, the younger ones, young men. Hati iskuroi, because you are strong, you plural, we could perhaps say y'all. are strong, that este is a form of amy, and the iskuroi is a plural form of iskuras. I wrote to you younger men, younger ones, because you are strong. And second line, kaihalagastu theu, the word of God, and who mean mene. Now, what word is that mene at the end? And perhaps you're shouting at the screen, it's meno, it's meno, abide, stay, remain. And in fact, this is the word of God in you abides. put in proper English, the word of God abides in you, remains in you. Third line, and, nanikekate tanpaneran. This is, again, a perfect, active, indicative, second-person plural of nika'o, y'all have overcome, y'all have conquered. And if you compare the first address to the neoniscoi, the younger ones, the younger men, the first time it was simply that you have overcome the evil one. Now we have the addition, you are strong and God's word remains in you. So now let's go through the entire text, just these three verses 12, 13, and 14. I'm writing to you, little children, because the sins are forgiven you because of his name. I'm writing to you, I write to you fathers, because you have known the one from the beginning. I write to you younger men, young men, because you have overcome, you have conquered the evil one. The next section, I have written, or I wrote to you, children, because you know the father. You have come to know, you have known the father. I wrote to you, fathers, because you have known the one from the beginning. I wrote to you, younger ones, younger men, because you are strong. and the word of God abides, it remains in you and you have conquered, you have overcome the evil one. Well, I hope that is helpful and we'll continue next time in verses 15 through 17.