Getting across the moat...

“Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.” [this quote is universal, but recently credited to chick-lit author Stephanie Klein in the current issue of Reader's Digest]

And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. --Mark 4:39 (NASB)

The purported Klein quote provides the backdrop for this post (yes, I know, it's been long overdue-- more than a month!) (tsk tsk). And this post is a quasi-follow-on to my last post 38 days ago, Once I walked to North Dakota...

Somewhere along the way, a person begins to build a moat around the castle and over time fills it with preconceived notions, such as those about vocations. To illustrate, a quick quiz: What comes to mind when you think of... A police officer? A car salesman? A kindergarten teacher? An NFL player? A politician? A Republican? A Native American? President Trump? A service member deployed in the Middle East? A Muslim woman in a hijab? A Roman Catholic priest? A pastor?

It's that last one that I want to zero in on. In church or out, church member or not, everybody seems to have their own definition of pastor, regardless of church or denominational affiliation. Since leaving the seminary, I have encountered at least a dozen different attitudes and vibes from as many folks. One encounter yesterday surprised me. My wife was preparing a devotional for her coworkers that included Mark 4:39 (above). She asked me matter-of-factly if the Greek word "quiet" in the ESV translation of Jesus' words spoken to calm the sea actually meant "hush." She was assuming that my level of Greek acuity (okay, that's definitely the wrong word, but it colors this anecdote nicely) included a fastest-gun-in-the-West recall of a given New Testament verse in the original Koine Greek, followed by a quick mental juxtaposition of more common English translations from various Bible versions... Flattered as I was for a split second, I responded "I don't know." "What do you mean you don't know?! You took Greek in seminary, didn't you?"

Just to set the record straight, I know enough biblical Greek to work competently with it... I can barely recall Bible verses in English, much less in their original language(s-- Hebrew is nearly a lost cause).

Anyway. As I was helping my wife with her question, it occurred to me that there are probably more-- a lot more-- like her who ascribe certain expectations (I was going to say gifts or, maybe, superpowers, but thought better of it) to a pastor. I think she was just as surprised at my initial response to her inquiry as I was at the question itself...

Well, of course I went right to BDAG (if you have had no dealings with New Testament Greek, then "BDAG" will mean nothing to you and that's okay). So Jesus' words from this verse in the original Greek are Σιώπα, πεφίμωσο. And this is typically translated as “Quiet! Be still!”

The first imperative means, in the simplest sense, to be quiet/silent; however, I learned something new as I was looking into BDAG-- there was a reference to The Epistle of Barnabas (an anonymous 4th century, extra-canonical theological writing that attempts to reconcile the New Testament with Judaism), verse 10:3, in which the same Greek word is used for "silent":

He mentioned the swine for this reason: you shall not consort, he means, with men who are like swine, that is to say, when they have plenty they forget the Lord, but when they are in want they recognize the Lord, just as the swine when it eats does not know its master, but when it is hungry it cries out, and after receiving food is again silent.

I didn't see "to hush" as a translation, but there are often nuances in translating, so...

The 2nd word is literally "to muzzle." But it is used in a few places in the Bible in the meaning of "to be silenced." More nuancing here, as Jesus likely wouldn't have meant "Be muzzled!" in His command to the raging storm and tossing sea...or maybe that's exactly what He meant...

Really, one could write an entire sermon on this verse and why it is translated this way or that way.

But back to preconceived notions. Everybody has a moat. Even my wife (she keeps hitting me with the drawbridge...). Some are harder to get across than others.

El SEÑOR te bendiga y te guarde.