Friday Night Message

June 16, 2023

Good evening Brethren

Last week we had a message explaining the difference between Eisegesis and Exegesis… and we also advised that it is better to first understand what the message meant to the original people who heard it.  After that, then it is OK to try to comprehend what the message means for us today.

I would like to examine another principle before more closely examining the Greek words that are translated as “watch” in the English translations of the Bible.  Here is that principle:

●       Understanding Anachronisms

Do you know what that means?  Literally, it comes from two Greek words … ANA, which means “against”, and CHRONOS, which means “time”.  Put them together … against time.  Basically an anachronism is something that doesn’t fit, time-wise.

Let me give you some examples of visual anachronisms.

1.     In the TV show “The Wild, Wild West”… The lead actor was a James Bond-like character in the American western frontier using gadgets and technologies that largely don’t exist even today, let alone 150+ years ago).

2.     In the movie “Spartacus” … the producers used quite a few UCLA students as fill-ins for  certain scenes… and the film editors did not notice that some of the students were wearing wristwatches before they released the movie.

3.     Near my home town in WISC there is a small theme park … with carvings of Biblical characters and events … and some of the people carved are reading from a bound book rather than a scroll.  Bound books were not available for about 1500 years after the time of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

We need to be careful of linguistic [having to do with language] anachronisms when we read the Bible.  Be careful to NOT apply modern-day meanings to words or phrases which didn’t exist when the Bible was written.

Examples:

1.     Matt. 24:20 – “pray that your flight not be in winter”.  Obviously this does not mean that when things get hot in Jerusalem, you get a trans-Atlantic airline ticket and rush to safety going 600 mph at 35,000 feet.  Man didn’t truly fly until 1903, when the Wright brothers made history at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

2.     Mark 13:10 – “the gospel must be published in all nations” That word publish really means to herald, preach or proclaim.  Another dictionary meaning is “to make public”.  Yet in the 1970’s I heard sermons about how the invention of the printing press was divinely inspired by God so that this particular scripture could be fulfilled by printing millions of Plain Truth magazines.

3.     Rev. 3:16 – “So then, because you are lukewarm”.  For centuries this word simply meant tepid – a temperature that was neither hot nor cold.  Only in relatively modern times has it come to have the connotation of “lack of zeal or enthusiasm”.  In Biblical times this word did not remotely have the meaning of “half-hearted”.  Yet how often have you heard or assumed that this is the precise meaning of this passage in Revelation?

Those are just a few examples of linguistic anachronisms. And I believe that the interpretation of Luke 21:36 that I described in the introduction of this sermon, regarding the word watch … is somewhat suspect as well.

Good Sabbath to you all,

Fred