Today's Greek Lesson...."methistemi"

I'm not really that good at Greek, I'll leave those honors to scholars who spend their entire careers immersed in the ancient language. However, there were two words in this past weeks sermon text that seemed to jump out at me more than normal. In Colossians 1:13 (the entire text was Col. 1:11-20) most english translations read, "He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." The word I want to draw attention to is the word "transferred." In Greek this is "Methistemi." What I have found really interesting about this word is that it has a special meaning often times used to describe the practice in those days when a conquering army would transfer (methistemi) the citizenship of the surviving citizens in the conquered land to their own empire. So what the text is saying is that through Christ, God has transferred the believers' ultimate citizenship into the Kingdom of God. What an insight! When we profess faith in Christ, we have allowed God to conquer our personal kingdoms and transfer our citizenship to the kingdom of God. God has transferred us from darkness to light, from slavery to freedom, from condemnation to forgiveness, from the power of Satan to the power of God.

The second word is "eikon" which most of the time is translated as "image" in English. This word occurs after verse 15 in as I like to say Paul's introduction of the real Jesus to the church at Colassae. The text here says that Christ is the "image (eikon) of God." Once again, in Greek, there is a deeper meaning to the word. If the image or "eikon" was perfect enough, the meaning of eikon would mean not just image but manifestation. So in the face of what would become known as Gnostic philosophy which at its core claims that Christ was only an emanation or spirit and not fully human, Paul is saying that Christ is the perfect manifestation of God. He was not a spirit, ghost or emanation. Christ is the perfect manifestation of God, the full revelation of God to mankind! So if you want to know God, look to Jesus. This is incredibly important for the believer because it confirms that Christ was real, and so his defeat of death brings us the opportunity for salvation.

Hope you enjoyed your Greek lesson....