Saturday, April 16, 2005

Mat 9:22 Daughter, be of good comfort; your faith has made you whole.

"Daughter" is the Greek, thugater, which is generally a female descendant. It is only interesting because the term translated as "son" that Christ used to address the cripple in Matt: 9:2 was teknon, which means offspring. We take it for granted that Christ addresses people of any age as descendants not brothers and sisters, but is interesting.

"Be of good comfort" is tharseo, which means in a good sense, having courage, and in a bad sense, being over-bold. In general, it means not being afraid and having confidence.

"Faith" is pistis, the Greek term that means at once believing in something and faithfulness.

"Made whole" is from the Greek, sozo (soizo), which means "to keep alive" when applied to people or "to keep safe" when applied to things. It also mean"keeping" the law.

Christ here is first connecting faith with courage. Saying you believes something is not the same as acting upon it. Acting on your faith is a sign of confidence. Next, Christ say that it is our faith that keeps us alive. So cowardliness leads to death. Several words translated as "evil" in the Gospels, including the most common, poneros, have a secondary meaning of "cowardly." Christ clearly equated courage, boldness, and confidence with his sense of how people should behave.