Welcome to this session of More Painless Greek, an examination of the Greek text of 1 John. And this time we're looking at 1 John 4-5. And this section of text has 149 words in the Greek text. And of those 146 are already in our glossary, and three are new words, each of which occur just one time in this text. One of them is a single occurrence in the New Testament, and you may recall that the term for that is a hapax legomena, once spoken. So this time we'll learn those three new vocabulary words first, and then we'll work through the Greek text verse by verse, and then finally at the end, we'll walk through the entire passage to get a feel for the overall flow. So let's begin with our vocabulary, and our first word is barus, weighty, heavy, or burdensome. And this is the word that we'll see John uses to say that our Lord's commands are not burdensome. And as an adjective, you may recall that it can be used to describe a quality of something, weighty, heavy, important, that sort of thing. But it can also be used in a comparative sense, and there's a special ending for that. And notice here that there is one comparative use, and that is where Jesus accused the Pharisees of neglecting the weightier aspects of the law. So same word, same adjective as we have here, baroos. And we have Nike, victory. And it's possible that you're wearing a pair of Nike shoes right this minute. And that company derives its name from this ancient Greek word for victory. Now we've seen the cognate verb, nikao, several times in First John, and it's more commonly used. But this noun, nike, for victory or overcoming, if you will, is only used one time in the entire New Testament, and it's in this particular passage. We'll see how it appears, and particularly in the context with occurrences of nika'o, overcoming, overcome. And finally, pistis, faith. I had to double check that we haven't already had this word in the painless introduction to Greek class, or previously in our First John class. But here it is, 243 times, pistous, faith. Now we have seen many times, and we'll see also in this passage, the verb form, pistous, and we've also seen in other contexts, the adjective faithful, which is pistous, And so you can see those three forms are cognates of each other, pistos, faith, pistos, faithful, faithfulness, and pistou, I believe. So we're ready to look at our text, beginning in 1 John 4, verse 20, and here's the first half of that verse. So he says here, So beginning again at the first part of verse 20, this is a conditional word, if, and it always is a signal of the subjunctive mood to follow. So if, Tis, and remember this is the indefinite pronoun, someone, anyone. If someone, epe, may say. So you may recognize this is a form of epon, second heiress of Lego. If someone may say, and then the contents is introduced with the word hati. And in some cases that word hati is not translated in the context of direct speech. And many people feel like it functions very similarly to our modern quotation sign. But of course, there's no corresponding mark at the end of a quotation. So I'll simply translate it as that. If someone may say that, agapo tantha'an, I love God. And you'll notice Agapó is capitalized, and that is consistent with it being the beginning of a quotation. So someone is saying, this is hypothetical, but John is saying, if someone might say, I love God, and then notice in the second line, Cayetan Adelfan Altu, and the brother of him and his brother, Misé, He hates, or he may hate, continuing the subjunctive mood triggered by the Ekon. So if someone says, I love God, and he hates his brother, sustes, liar, esteem, he is. John has strong language for someone who claims to love God, and yet, in their relationships, they do not love their fellow believers or those who have actually been born of God. So John is calling into question their faith itself. Someone may say, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. And then in the second part of the verse, he explains, So notice at the beginning, again, we have this little word, gar, which we'll normally pull out and move to the front. For, so this is an explanatory clause. Agapón, the one not loving. So this is a substantive use of the participle from the verb agapó. And this is our familiar form that we'll see several times in this text, very familiar in 1 John, a present active participle, nominative singular masculine. For the one not loving, Tanah Delphah now to the brother of him. That is the one not loving his brother. And notice how John qualifies or further identifies. Han he-orak-en. Han whom and he-orak-en whom he has seen. This is from Harappo and It's a perfect form, you see the kappa there. The one who doesn't love the brother whom he has seen, and then notice in comparison in the second line, tan-te-an, tan-uk-he-ro-he-o-ra-ken. God whom he has not seen, u-du-na-tai-a-ga-pan, not, he is able to love. So the second part again, reordered slightly, God whom he has not seen, he is not able to love. So taken all together, John is saying, the reason why I'm calling this person a liar who claims to love God, but does not love his brother is a liar because the one not loving his brother whom he has seen is not able to love God whom he has not seen. And then he continues and draws in these themes of love for God, love for brothers, and God's commands all tied together like a cord of three strands. So notice in verse 21. So beginning at the first of verse 21. This is demonstrative pronoun and This, tein entolain, commandment, this commandment, echamen, we have, first person plural, apaotu, from him. And then in the middle, kinah, so that or that, ha-agapon, same present active participle, singular, nominative, masculine form. The one loving God, tanteton, Agapa, now this is a subjunctive form, but it really has an imperative feel or usage. And I think it's because we're in the context of him explaining a command. Entole is the singular form of command. Notice we had tein ou entolein earlier in the verse. This is the commandment that we have from him that the one loving God must love also. So I'm translating Caius also in this case, also Tana Delphano too must love his brother. This commandment we have from him that the one loving God must love his brother also. And then, crossing over into chapter five, we notice there's a capital letter at the beginning, but I think logically it all fits together. Again, this cord of three strands, love for God, love for one another, God's commandments, all woven together. So, Has, which could be each or every, notice we have a singular form, Hapestuon. This is another substantive participle from Pistouho. So each one believing, Hati Iesus estin ha Christos, that Jesus is the Christ. Ectutheu gegeneitai, tai pas ha agapon. So each person believing that Jesus is the Christ, That is to have a full and accurate understanding of the nature, the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the eternal second person of the Trinity who was not created, has existed for all eternity, took on a body, came to the earth and lived a perfect life, was crucified, dead, buried, resurrected, and ascended back to heaven. So a full understanding of who Jesus is, the Messiah, the promised one, each one believing that Jesus is the Christ, ectutheu gegenetai, has been born of God. So notice that's a perfect form, gegenetai. So, It's something that has occurred in the past, but obviously has a very significant ongoing relevance, permanent. The person who genuinely believes in Jesus' identity as the Messiah has been born of God. And then continuing, kaipas agapon, and each one loving, tan gegenesanta, So each one loving, and I'll simplify it to say the parent. We could technically say the begetter, but that's somewhat unfamiliar. The one bringing forth. I think it's easier to simply consider it as parent. The one loving the parent, agapa. So here again, we have that subjunctive form but really seems to have an imperative sense, must love Kai also, tan gege nemenon, the one having been born ex autu, from him. In simpler language, if you love the parent, you must love the child born of that parent, or in the perfect, as it is here, having been born of the parent. Each one believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And each one loving the parent must love also the child born, the one having been born from him. And then continuing in chapter five, verse two, and tuto gnoskamen hati agapomen In this, and this is familiar, we've seen John use this introductory phrase several times, particularly in the most recent chapters in 1 John. In this, we know first person plural, Hati Agapomen. We know, we know that we love Tateknatuthehu, the children of God. Here's how we know that we love the children of God. It's not just a warm feeling, some emotion, but rather it is based on our actions because love translates into action. So notice in the second line, hatan, when, or whenever, I think when works best here, hatan tan the'an agapomen, when we love God. Kai tas entolas autu hoi omen, when we love God and the commandments of him, his commandments, hoi omen, we do. Seen before, and we'll see again, that John likes to use the verb tereo, I keep, I guard, but here he uses hoyeo, I do. So here's how we know, in this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and we do his commandments. And then continuing in verse three of chapter five, haute gar estine, he agape tuthe, kinatas entolos autu te Roman, cae, cae entoli autu, bare ai, uc asin. Returning to the start of verse three, haute, this is another demonstrative pronoun, And notice we have a gar, so we'll pull that to the beginning. For this esteem is he agape to the, oh, the love of God. So here's the love of God. Again, not simply an emotional feeling. Second line, hinna, that, so that, tas entolas, out to the commands of him, teromen. we may keep. So this is his use of tereo and notice in the prior verse he used poeo here tereo. So here's the love of God that we do we keep his commandments and then notice in the third line chi high entolai, so plural form of entolai, high entolai, the commandments out to of him, his commandments, barei. So here's our new vocabulary word, barous, heavy, weighty, or burdensome. Burdensome, uke, asin, not, they are. We're used to seeing quite frequently the third person singular form of a me, which is esteem. And here we have the third person plural form, eisen, they are. And the commandments of him, his commandments are not burdensome. They're not a pain, a difficult, a disagreeable thing. because he has given us of his spirit and we love to do his will. Not that it won't ever be a struggle or involve difficulty and sacrifice, but it is something that by his grace, we enjoy doing. Then moving on to the last two verses, chapter five, verse four, That's a mouthful. each one having been born of God. Nika overcomes Tanqasman, the world. And I think it's so striking that while we might easily agree that we collectively as the church, all the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ overcome the world, John is emphasizing here that each one who has been born of God, each individual one overcomes the world. And he continues, kai haute, and this, estine he nike, this is the victory. And again, that word nike is that single occurrence, apax legomenon, One occurrence in the New Testament, this is the victory. And then he elaborates, notice in the last line, he nikesasa. So this is a participle, but used substantively. This is the victory, the overcoming, ton kosmon, the world. Hephistos hemon, the faith of us or our faith. So again, the all of verse four, each one having been born of God, overcomes the world. And this is the victory, the overcoming the world, our faith. And then finally in verse five, tis de estin hanikon ton kasmon, e me hapistuon hati yesus estin Ahuyastu tehu. So he's asking a question here. Notice the semicolon at the end of verse five. So the indefinite pronoun is used here to ask this question, who? Who is it? And we'll take the de, obviously we need to move it forward. And we're not sure at the first, whether it's a but, in contrast, or an and, or even left untranslated. But in this context, I think and is the best rendering. So, and who Esteen is on Nikon Tan Cosmo? Who is the one overcoming the world? And then, a may, we typically take these together and translate it, except. Now, literally, If not, and sometimes people will speak this way, who is the victor if not the one who believes in Jesus? That's the sense of it. So you could render it, if not, or accept. Ame, accept. Hapistuon, the one believing. Hatiesus estin, ahuiastu, the one believing that Jesus is the Son of God. And again, this is the full understanding of Jesus' identity and his work. His identity as the God, the Son, the second person of the Trinity, existing eternally, coming to the earth, taking on a human body, living a perfect life that is credited to our account dying to bear the penalty of our sins on the cross, buried, resurrected, appeared to many and ascended back to heaven, a full understanding of his person and his work. This is the person overcoming the world, the one believing in the fullness of Jesus' identity, that he is the son of God. So let's Roll through the entire passage. If someone may say that I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one not loving his brother whom he has seen is not able to love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that the one loving God also must love the brother of him. His brother must also love his brother. Each one believing that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God. And each one loving the parent must love also the one having been born from him. In this, we know that we love the children of God. When we love God and we do his commandments, or this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. That each one having been born from God overcomes the world. And this is the victory, the overcoming the world. our faith. Who and who is the one overcoming the world except the one believing that Jesus is the Son of God? Again, a good reminder of the foundational role that our faith in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ has. Thank you so much for joining me for this session of more painless grief.