Amen!! Praise God that Jesus fulfilled the perfect Law and came to indwell us, now openly willing to live out the Law in and through our mortal bodies. His work is my rest.
With four more books to go in my NT reading cycle before returning to Romans, I wasn't eager to dig in to Romans 7, which presents as quite a difficult chapter to understand, but OK, I guess it was time for another look. In another reading cycle I am currently in Psalm 119, reading one or two "letters" a day. That chapter also has proven difficult for me in the past.
This time through, I have backed off a little in trying to understand the words chosen by the translators, and instead focused on the patterns of response of the psalmist to those words. I recognize those patterns -- I feel those things myself. It's the translated words that aren't clear to me.
Back to Romans 7, and specifically v. 12. Same thing. What do these words mean? Time to go into the Greek. Forget the commentaries, just look at what we have from the original text. Two words stand out, a familiar one, νόμος (law) and a less familiar one, ἐντολή (commandment). I am using lexical forms here, which should correlate with Strong's. BDAG defines this latter word in context as "a mandate or ordinance, command". νόμος is defined in context as "constitutional or statutory legal system".
This is quite a distinction. I can't stop to explore it in depth right now (I have a small group study to go to), but through the Septuagint this distinct usage can be matched with Psalm 119. As I begin to do that, the words of the Psalm begin to make more sense. A well-written and referenced commentary could be very helpful here.
While I have a sense of what might be going on with these words, I have a memory that Paul sometimes uses νόμος in what seems like conflicting ways. I would rather wait until I have more time to look at both words before saying anything more.
Amen!! Praise God that Jesus fulfilled the perfect Law and came to indwell us, now openly willing to live out the Law in and through our mortal bodies. His work is my rest.
With four more books to go in my NT reading cycle before returning to Romans, I wasn't eager to dig in to Romans 7, which presents as quite a difficult chapter to understand, but OK, I guess it was time for another look. In another reading cycle I am currently in Psalm 119, reading one or two "letters" a day. That chapter also has proven difficult for me in the past.
This time through, I have backed off a little in trying to understand the words chosen by the translators, and instead focused on the patterns of response of the psalmist to those words. I recognize those patterns -- I feel those things myself. It's the translated words that aren't clear to me.
Back to Romans 7, and specifically v. 12. Same thing. What do these words mean? Time to go into the Greek. Forget the commentaries, just look at what we have from the original text. Two words stand out, a familiar one, νόμος (law) and a less familiar one, ἐντολή (commandment). I am using lexical forms here, which should correlate with Strong's. BDAG defines this latter word in context as "a mandate or ordinance, command". νόμος is defined in context as "constitutional or statutory legal system".
This is quite a distinction. I can't stop to explore it in depth right now (I have a small group study to go to), but through the Septuagint this distinct usage can be matched with Psalm 119. As I begin to do that, the words of the Psalm begin to make more sense. A well-written and referenced commentary could be very helpful here.
While I have a sense of what might be going on with these words, I have a memory that Paul sometimes uses νόμος in what seems like conflicting ways. I would rather wait until I have more time to look at both words before saying anything more.