Fall 2024 Group
Biblical Skills Group: Here are some OIA from Session 4’s Assignment. Add some of your own Observations, Interpretations, and Applications.
This assignment takes on passages of scripture that are difficult to explain: loving and hating one’s life.
Hint: These passages reveal the meaning of discipleship
John 12:25 NASBS
He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
Luke 14:26 NASBS
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
For a head start, let’s look up the main words in Greek using a concordance:
Loves: Strong’s g5368
Lexical: φιλέω
- Transliteration: phileó
- Part of Speech: Verb
- Phonetic Spelling: fil-eh’-o
- Definition: to love (of friendship), regard with affection, cherish; to kiss.
- Origin: From philos; to be a friend to (fond of (an individual or an object)), i.e. Have affection for (denoting personal attachment, as a matter of sentiment or feeling; while agapao is wider, embracing especially the judgment and the deliberate assent of the will as a matter of principle, duty and propriety: the two thus stand related very much as ethelo and boulomai, or as thumos and nous respectively; the former being chiefly of the heart and the latter of the head); specially, to kiss (as a mark of tenderness).
- Usage: kiss, love.
- Translated as (count): loving (6), I dearly love (3), loves (3), do you dearly love (2), I shall kiss (2), theylove (2), have loved (1), He loved (1), loved (1), might love (1), to kiss (1), would love (1), You love (1).
Hates: Strong’s g3404
Lexical: μισέω
- Transliteration: miseó
- Part of Speech: Verb
- Phonetic Spelling: mis-eh’-o
- Definition: to hate, detest, love less, esteem less.
- Origin: From a primary misos (hatred); to detest (especially to persecute); by extension, to love less.
- Usage: hate(-ful).
- Translated as (count): hating (10), hated (7), hates (6), have hated (2), he will hate (2), shall hate (2), will hate (2), hate (1), having been hated (1), I hate (1), I hated (1), it has hated (1), it hates (1), should hate (1), They hated (1), to hate (1), you hate (1).
Life (of him): Strong’s g5590
Lexical: ψυχή
- Transliteration: psuché
- Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
- Phonetic Spelling: psoo-khay’
- Definition: (a) the vital breath, breath of life, (b) the human soul, (c) the soul as the seat of affections and will, (d) the self, (e) a human person, an individual.
- Origin: From psucho; breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from pneuma, which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from zoe, which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew nephesh, ruwach and chay).
- Usage: heart (+ -ily), life, mind, soul, + us, + you.
- Translated as (count): life (35), soul (34), souls (18), lives (5), minds (2), the soul (2), a soul (1), heart (1), in soul (1), mind (1), of life (1), of soul (1), of souls (1).
Also, don’t forget the context – Jesus was foretelling his disciples about his imminent death. Go back to John 11:47 and understand the context regarding the priests.
How did you do? By no means do I have an all-inclusive answer, but this is what I have found.
Observations:
- Jesus uses John 12:24 as a metaphor of what was to happen – His death, burial, and resurrection.
- He reveals that there will be “much fruit” if Jesus, the seed in the ground, allows Himself to be buried.
- The “life” in John 12:25 comes from the Greek “psuché”, the physical life you possess on this earth, not your eternal spirit (Greek “pneuma”).
Interpretation:
This is what John 12:25 means. If we cling to our life as if it has supreme value, then we’ll end up as a dead seed never planted. But if we see that Christ is supremely valuable, then we will lose our life in Him. We will, as verse 26 says, follow Jesus — even if it means death or loss of material things. Our life will be spent in service to Christ. And the Father will always honor this. We will not be lonely seeds, but rather fruit bearing trees.
This does not mean to “hate that we have ever been born”. Context of the rest of the Bible shows us this:
Mark 12:31 NASBS
The second is this, ‘You SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.
Ephesians 5:29 NASBS
for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,
Galatians 2:19-20 NASBS
For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. [20] I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Applications:
- We can only be true disciples of Jesus if we value Him more than what we have here in life on earth, even our own earthly life.
- We are to value our lives in what they were intended to be – in service to our Lord.
This exercise used just about all the Bible Tools we have covered so far:
- Observation
- Interpretation
- Application
- Linguistic Method
- Context
Thanks for hanging in there! We have more to come . . .
Consider God's Word 