“Out of my bondage, sorrow and night; Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come;
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light, Jesus I come to Thee”.
So reads the first verse of the popular invitational hymn by William Sleeper. It is based on a solid biblical foundation.
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It is the small words that make a big difference in understanding the Bible. In a book I’m reading at the moment, the author writes, “God uses three Greek prepositions to reveal “in Christ” truth.” I would probably include more than three but they are enough to get deep into vital truth.
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In the first decade of my life as a minister I read an article “Little Words of Great Meaning” by Henry Jacobsen in the Christian Life magazine. Conjunctions, prepositions and so on; you know, the “ands” and “buts” and “ins”.
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During the recent “In Christ” seminars in the US, I shocked some people when I said I was not only an Ephesians 4 teacher but also a Hebrews 5:12 teacher. That sent them to their Bibles! “By this time you ought to be teachers yourselves, yet here I find you need someone to sit down with you and go over the basics on God again, starting from square one” (Hebrews 5:12 Message Bible).
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This phrase from II Corinthians 13:4 jumps up to get your attention in the list of “In Christ” scriptures. “We are weak” and “we are… in him”, both are true, but are we “weak in him” (Christ, verse 3)? That is what we call an apparent contradiction.
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Here’s a statement from the internet this week: “Bibles are not translated by atheists. If they were, maybe they would be more accurate” — Ray Smith. This was in answer to a question about which translation would be best to use.
It was so much easier when I became a Christian.
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I ran across this comparison recently in Ephesians 1:1 — “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus” ESV. Notice the two prepositions “in”. The saints are both “in Ephesus” and “in Christ Jesus”; in two positions or places at the one time.
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