Category Archives: logos

Follow Me

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Follow Me comes after listening to a sermon on John 21 where Jesus is leading Peter to start on His road again. As it frequently happens, I hear something and a thought pours in. My extra thought was when Jesus first called Peter with the words “follow Me”. I went to Matthew 4:19, which is also Mark 1:17, and got a surprise when I found that the Greek may be translated as ‘follow me’ but there is a better way to think about what He said. (I will put several links below for further study.)

Jesus has started on the Road the Father planned for Him that will take Him to pay the Bride’s price for His Church and will bring Him back again. Holy Spirit has led Him to the wilderness and then to Nazareth and now He is inviting others to join Him on this Road.

The phrase here is deute opiso egō, which could say, ‘come behind Me’. Then in Matthew 4:20 and 22 the men followed Jesus, the word here is ēkolouthēsan which is a form of Strong’s Greek: 190. ἀκολουθέω (akoloutheó) — To follow, to accompany; another way to think of this word is ‘get on the road’. So, I see this as ‘Come behind Me on the road I travel’.

Please, go all Berean and join me in the study of these Greek words.

My ink and leaf version of Strong’s list these three words in the Appendix.

The ‘follow Me’ we think of is first used by Matthew in Chapter 8 and is Greek Concordance: Ἀκολούθει (Akolouthei) — 16 Occurrences Yes, this is the form used in John 21:19,22; here is a highlight list.

  • Matthew 8:22 is the disciple who wants to go bury the dead.
  • Matthew 9:9, Jesus calls Matthew the tax-collector.
  • Matthew 19:21 is the invitation to the rich man to become His disciple.

Matthew 10:38 is Jesus instructing us about being on the road with Him and carrying our cross. akolouthei Follows opisō After mou Me (one of the forms of ego)

“The Way” Jesus traveled is also our Road. In John 21, we can learn from Peter that it is not about our job, friends, food, or rivals; it is me FOLLOWING JESUS.

Luke 4

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Luke listened, saw, and believed in the Lord of the kingdom Paul was proclaiming. Luke then listened more, interviewed witnesses, collected words, and sorted what he heard; then he organized and wrote it. I believe that like the prophets before him the Holy Spirit led this Greek, this Gentile, as he proclaimed Jesus. He gleaned from Matthew, Mark, Mother Mary, and countless others the narratives he writes to build faith in people for centuries. Thank you, Luke.

Chapters 1 – 3 are the formal introduction of Jesus with some background history. Luke 4 is the beginning of His ministry; it also has some connections to Israel’s past when they were in the wilderness after being called from Egypt. His baptism connects with the journey through the Red Sea and the forty days in the desert mirrors the forty years it took for Israel to get to the Promised Land. This is the first of two special forty-day periods in Jesus’ life. This story is also in Mark 1 and Matthew 3-4.

Our Lord’s return to Nazareth is interesting. (Luke uses Nazareth more than any other Gospel writer.) His return to Galilee (the Northern Kingdom) is important. Matthew quotes Isaiah twice about these locations: Isaiah 9:6 is in Matthew 4:15-16 about the land of Zebulun and Naphtali and an obscure mention to Him being called a Nazarene. The root word for Nazareth/Nazarene is netzer which means branch. So, Isaiah 11:1, Zechariah 3:8, and Jeremiah 23:5 are those prophetic announcements. (See post below.) Second, I think there were safety issues; not only staying away from Herod, but the rulers in Jerusalem. Third, this is the land of the Northern Kingdom. Think of the promises to Israel in the writings of the prophets who lived in the shadow of Assyria; this is the fulfillment of many of those, like Nahum 1:15a. Forth, massa, like Isaiah 53:3 had to happen, Luke records the rejecting starting in Nazareth.

The Holy Spirit is a key figure in Luke 1-4; He is part of the action 12x. When Jesus is baptized, Luke 3:21,22, the Trinity is all there; the Father speaks and the Holy Spirit physically lands on Jesus in the form of a dove. Why? Luke 4:1 has Jesus “full” of the Holy Spirit at the Jordan and then the Spirit led Him into the desert; verse 14 Jesus returns “in the power” of the Spirit to Galilee. Luke 4:1-30 has four displays of the Spirit’s gifts that I will point out.

  1. When Jesus took control of the questions from Satan, He had a logos of wisdom and used God’s Word to answer.
  2. In verse 23, He had a logos of knowledge about the people and their thinking.
  3. Verse 24-27 was a prophetic message about things He was going to do. He went to the region of Sidon and helps a woman with her child, Mt 15:21 and Mk 7: 24-30. In verse 27 is story of a leper, who was the enemy; Jesus healed a leper in Luke 17:15 from Samaria. Elijah and Elisha had done the first miracles.
  4. Jesus walked through an angry crowd and ‘went on His way’! Walking through an angry crowd that liked to throw rocks, untouched, is miraculous. That gift is not listed in 1 Corinthians 12 or Romans 12; okay, maybe the gift of miraculous powers. It was not the only time He did this, John 8:59 and 10:39. Peter was escorted out of prison by an angel, the Apostles were released from jail in Acts 5:19, and Philip was taken from the eunuch by the Spirit in Acts 8:39.

Luke records more workings/gifts of the Holy Spirit and the offices of the five-fold ministry in the rest of Chapter 4 and 5; not a bad way to start a world changing ministry.

Nazirite, Nazareth, and Grapevines | Mark’s Bible Study

The Root, The Branch, The Fruit – The Christmas Story | Mark’s Bible Study

GOOD

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What does an excited teenager describing something, me talking about my blood pressure, and a lukewarm conversion about a movie have in common? Well, good could have been used in all of those moments. (The teenager used slang that in my old mind does not fit.) Then I thought how God describes things and Genesis, especially Chapter 1, took over. This will help you in your own study. Hebrew Concordance: ṭō·wḇ — 271 Occurrences   Strong’s Hebrew: 2896. טוֹב (towb) — Good, pleasant, agreeable, beneficial, beautiful, best, better, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, fair, favor, fine, glad, goodly, graciously, joyful, kindly, loving, merry, pleasant, precious, prosperity, ready, sweet, wealth, welfare, well-favored

In Genesis 1 God uses the word tov. God bless translators. As you can see the base-word for tov is used in many applications. If you look in a thesaurus or dictionary, in English, there are many listings for good; add in adjectives that go above ‘good’ and the compound words of good, the idea is huge. In Hebrew those jots and tittles, and prefixes and suffixes are used by the translators to help us out. I am finding that the ‘occurrences’ list helps me with the understanding of specific uses of a word. Back to Genesis.

I have taken classes, read, and studied the first part of Genesis many times. So, I may have seen this before, but I do not remember it. Tov surprised me with its various forms, and where it was absent in the first three chapters.

Day 1 and 7, according to the Bible app/Englishmen’s Concordance that I use is ט֑וֹב. The sky/expanse is not called tov, at this time. Day 3 through the animals in Day 6 are called tov, but it is written טֽוֹב׃; the best explanation I found for those two dots was it may be a pronunciation mark. In Day 6 man got blessed but not called tov. Day 7 pronounces everything very tov, and God rest; Day 1 is light. I have more questions than answers at this point, but now maybe a time to keep silent. The only thought I had about Day 2, and the air was in Ephesians 2:2.

Chapter 2 – the food from the trees was a form of tov, but spelled וְט֣וֹב. The ‘good’ used with the Tree of Knowledge is ט֥וֹב. Hebrew Concordance: wə·ṭō·wḇ — 15 Occurrences

All of these words are tov. So, why did the Holy Spirit use these different forms of tov? The easy and possible explanation is grammar and tenses, but I find the associations of these various forms of tov in Scripture interesting.

With all that said, I now have no problem calling something tov without trying to beef up my comment using many adjectives or ‘better’ words.  

Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus

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As I read 2 Timothy this morning, I thought it would be good to write what I have learned about these terms – Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus. To be perfectly clear, Jesus is the Christ/Messiah. He was born of the Virgin Mary, was killed on Good Friday for our sins, and rose in victory on Easter morning. He has sent His Spirit to those who chose to believe and would have everyone repent and follow Him.

In a little naivety I thought this would be an uneventfully study. I was almost correct. First, Jesus is His name. There are a few variants of that name in Hebrew and in Greek, like Joshua and Justus. Christ (Greek) or Messiah (Hebrew) is a title that connects to God. So, Jesus Christ could be understood as the Man-God while Christ Jesus should be thought of as God-Man. I looked for my reference on that and could not find it, I thought it was from the Vine’s Dictionary in my Strong’s Concordance.

Then I went to step-two in the study and was going to list Scripture verses. My reading this morning was in the NIV. The references I started to compile were in the KJV. I soon found out that the editors of the KJV seemed to have followed the 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV). The Greek Interlinear in Bible Hub is in agreement with the NIV and NASB and many others. I will offer what may have happened and some other things I noticed.

  • The Gospels and the Letters from Hebrews to Revelation use Christ or Messiah when referring to the One who will redeem mankind.
  • Jesus (by itself) is used in the narratives of the Gospels.
  • Paul in his Letters use Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus. He is specific when he uses them. I have found that reading Man-God where Jesus Christ is written and God-Man where Christ Jesus is written adds to the understanding of the text.
  • If you use BibleGateway you will see different totals in the numbers of times the terms are used between translations. The first thing to remember is that some of them use headings in their writing and this can add up quickly. Even the 1599 Geneva has commentaries, and they use the terms Jesus and Christ in them. I did read that one reason for the King James being written was to get rid of those Commentaries. The English Crown did not like them.
  • I may not be perfect in my observations; I looked through several translations.

Was there anything nefarious going on, no. I believe it was a matter of keeping it simple for the readers (not sure on that point). Society was coming out of the Dark Ages and being able to read God’s Word in your own language and home was a big deal. We take so much for granted.   

In 2 Timothy Paul uses Christ Jesus the most and Jesus Christ only in 2:8. Paul had been in prison for a while and I think it shows in how he wrote to Timothy and where his thoughts were.

Epiousios a Second Thought

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Bread in the Bible – Epiousios is my post on this great concept that first appeared in the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew. My second thought about this word/concept comes as I have mused on its possible meanings and origins. I will count myself as one who sees if it is in the New Testament, it has as a foundation in our Old Testament. So, what was Jesus thinking about in the Sermon on the Mount, and saying in Hebrew or Aramaic, that Matthew wrote in Greek with a brand-new word? I hope this gives you something to think about.

There are two separate provisions for food that caught my attention. I will say that even these flow from Father God’s desire for our faith to be proved as we pray for the miracle.

Manna for the Sabbath

Israel had seen the power of their God in the plagues He used to set them free. They walked through the Red Sea and danced about because of the deliverance. Then they complained instead of seeking that awesome God about water and food. What if? Father may your will be done and forgive us our debts. Yes, I have come a long way and still have some to go.

Exodus 16:22 is the instructions to collect a double portion AND that it would stay good for the seventh day. Work for six and fellowship on the seventh, nobody went hungry and not a lot of cooking. Prep and planning were needed, but that was still on the workday.  

The Year of Jubilee – This event/term gets thrown around a lot, but I am not sure that the “resting” part is properly brought into the sermons. See Leviticus 25:8. Jubilee is a second year of rest FOR THE LAND and the Children of God. It only happens every 50th year and follows the Sabbath Year of rest, see Leviticus 25:1. Yes, the Father wanted His land to rest eight years out of every fifty. The exile to Babylon is tied to Israel’s failure to give the land its rest (See 2 Chronicles 36:21). Yes, there is more to that story. Yes, other things happened during Jubilee.

Work six and rest one, does that sound familiar? The Children had to have the faith that God would provide in the sixth year for the seventh, and in Jubilee that the sixth year would produce enough for two years and the following year until the crop had matured.

I want to believe that during Joshua’s lifetime that it was observed. We have to remember that in the travels of the Exodus they did not plant or store supplies. It is not recorded anywhere that Jubilee was observed. “What if” is the only thought that echoes in my mind.

One for a Gentile Widow and Elijah

1 Kings 17 has two narratives about miraculous provision. Elijah was fed by the ravens and the widow was able to feed Elijah and her family during a drought because of believing God’s word. These may not fit the pattern I gave, but they are still part of the lesson for faith and provision.

Give us today our epiousios bread.