Article November 15, 1941 Issue

Bible Notes

[The Biblical citations given in the Christian Science Quarterly are from the Authorized King James Version. The Bible Notes in this column can be used, if deemed necessary, to elucidate some of the words or passages contained in the Bible Lessons. The Notes in this issue are related to the Lesson-Sermon designated to be read in Christian Science churches on November 23, 1941.]

"Let us watch and be sober" (I Thess. 5:6)—The Greek verb which is rendered "watch" in this passage is "gregorein," which means "to be awake; to give strict attention to; to be cautious or active," and represents, as Dr. Thayer expresses it, "a waking state as the result of some arousing effort;" while the word translated "be sober" is regularly used in the New Testament in a more figurative sense, meaning "to be claim and collected in spirit; to be sensible, temperate, circumspect." So one might render: "Let us be alert and sensible."

"Abstain from all appearance of evil" (I Thess. 5:22)—The Greek word "eidos" means not only "appearance or visible form," but also "kind or species." Thus Weymouth (Fifth Edition) suggests: "Keep yourselves aloof from every form of evil;" and the Twentieth Century New Testament: "Shun every form of evil."

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly" (I Thess. 5:23)—The phrase rendered "the very God" means more literally "God himself." The Twentieth Century New Testament suggests: "May God himself, the giver of peace, make you altogether holy." Moffatt prefers to render simply: "May the God of peace consecrate you through and through!"

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