Perseverance is Greek To Me

Spirituality Column #61
January 8, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Perseverance is Greek To Me
By Bob Walters

The word “perseverance” doesn’t appear at all in the Old Testament, and appears only once in most versions of the New Testament (King James, English Standard, Revised Standard, Message, etc), in Ephesians 6:18.

(Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. Eph. 6:18 KJV)

The New International Version lists “perseverance” 12 times in the New Testament, but oddly not in Ephesians 6:18.

“Perseverance” in the NIV replaces the words “patience” or “patient” which appear in most other versions.

I’m not writing though about versions of the Bible or specific verses. I’m writing about perseverance. Persevering in faith, in prayer and in Christ are all huge New Testament callings.

Turns out, courtesy of my friend George Bebawi (a world renowned religious scholar and Bible translator who happens to live in Carmel), that the New Testament says “perseverance” because it was written mostly in Greek, and the common Hebrew word from the Old Testament for the same concept was “faithfulness” which was not a common word in Greek literature.

On the modern American scene, in any translation, “perseverance” can be understood as “hang in there.”

Faithfulness is understood in the Old Testament not to be “our” faithfulness (the faithfulness of sinful man); but the faithfulness of God. This idea of God’s faithfulness, George points out, forms the heart of the Old Testament and especially the Psalms.

In plain English what the Bible is saying is: Man cannot truly be faithful … only God can be faithful. And since we often don’t understand God’s faithfulness – although sometimes we do – we must persevere in our faith to trust God no matter what.

I was thinking about New Year’s resolutions, persevering in them (if you’re still abiding in them heading into Week 2 of 2008, congratulations … that’s perseverance), and being faithful.

Jesus Christ gives us a reason to persevere, because in Him we can connect directly to the faithfulness of God, even if we ourselves can’t exactly pull it off.

So what I’m wondering is, are you “hanging in there?”

There is good reason to.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) agrees with his friend George that the most important thing in which to persevere in the New Year is our love for each other. Now that’s huge.