14:1 The same thing happened in Iconium 6 when Paul and Barnabas 7 went into the Jewish synagogue 8 and spoke in such a way that a large group 9 of both Jews and Greeks believed.
4:2 Be devoted to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.
4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, 12 urge you to live 13 worthily of the calling with which you have been called, 14
1 tn Or “and was chosen to have a share in this ministry.” The term λαγχάνω (lancanw) here and in 2 Pet 1:1 can be understood as referring to the process of divine choice and thus be translated, “was chosen to have.”
2 sn Appointed elders. See Acts 20:17.
3 tn The preposition κατά (kata) is used here in a distributive sense; see BDAG 512 s.v. κατά B.1.d.
4 tn Literally with a finite verb (προσευξάμενοι, proseuxamenoi) rather than a noun, “praying with fasting,” but the combination “prayer and fasting” is so familiar in English that it is preferable to use it here.
5 tn BDAG 772 s.v. παρατίθημι 3.b has “entrust someone to the care or protection of someone” for this phrase. The reference to persecution or suffering in the context (v. 22) suggests “protection” is a better translation here. This looks at God’s ultimate care for the church.
6 sn Iconium. See the note in 13:51.
7 tn Grk “they”; the referents (Paul and Barnabas) have been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 sn See the note on synagogue in 6:9.
9 tn Or “that a large crowd.”
10 tn The emphasis on Christ is continued through the use of the intensive pronoun, αὐτός (autos), and is rendered in English as “it was he” as this seems to lay emphasis on the “he.”
11 sn Some interpreters have understood the phrase pastors and teachers to refer to one and the same group. This would mean that all pastors are teachers and that all teachers are pastors. This position is often taken because it is recognized that both nouns (i.e., pastors and teachers) are governed by one article in Greek. But because the nouns are plural, it is extremely unlikely that they refer to the same group, but only that the author is linking them closely together. It is better to regard the pastors as a subset of teachers. In other words, all pastors are teachers, but not all teachers are pastors. See ExSyn 284.
12 tn Grk “prisoner in the Lord.”
13 tn Grk “walk.” The verb “walk” in the NT letters refers to the conduct of one’s life, not to physical walking.
14 sn With which you have been called. The calling refers to the Holy Spirit’s prompting that caused them to believe. The author is thus urging his readers to live a life that conforms to their saved status before God.
15 tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
16 tn While the sense of the passage is clear enough, translation in English is somewhat difficult. The Greek says: “by the trickery of men, by craftiness with the scheme of deceit.” The point is that the author is concerned about Christians growing into maturity. He is fearful that certain kinds of very cunning people, who are skilled at deceitful scheming, should come in and teach false doctrines which would in turn stunt the growth of the believers.
17 tn Or “meekness.” The word is often used in Hellenistic Greek of the merciful execution of justice on behalf of those who have no voice by those who are in a position of authority (Matt 11:29; 21:5).
18 tn Or “putting up with”; or “forbearing.”
19 tn Or “to the praise of his glorious grace.” Many translations translate δόξης τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ (doxh" th" carito" autou, literally “of the glory of his grace”) with τῆς χάριτος as an attributed genitive (cf., e.g., NIV, NRSV, ESV). The translation above has retained a literal rendering in order to make clear the relationship of this phrase to the other two similar phrases in v. 12 and 14, which affect the way one divides the material in the passage.
20 tn Grk “the beloved.” The term ἠγαπημένῳ (hgaphmenw) means “beloved,” but often bears connotations of “only beloved” in an exclusive sense. “His dearly loved Son” picks up this connotation.
21 sn The relative pronoun which is feminine as is sins, indicating that sins is the antecedent.
22 tn Grk “walked.”
23 tn Or possibly “Aeon.”
24 tn Grk “domain, [place of] authority.”
25 tn Grk “of” (but see the note on the word “spirit” later in this verse).
26 sn The ruler of the kingdom of the air is also the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience. Although several translations regard the ruler to be the same as the spirit, this is unlikely since the cases in Greek are different (ruler is accusative and spirit is genitive). To get around this, some have suggested that the genitive for spirit is a genitive of apposition. However, the semantics of the genitive of apposition are against such an interpretation (cf. ExSyn 100).
27 tn Grk “working in.”
28 sn Sons of disobedience is a Semitic idiom that means “people characterized by disobedience.” However, it also contains a subtle allusion to vv. 4-10: Some of those sons of disobedience have become sons of God.