John 3:28-29

3:28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ ¹  but rather, ‘I have been sent before him.’ 3:29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly ²  when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This then is my joy, and it is complete. ³ 

John 7:18

7:18 The person who speaks on his own authority ⁴  desires ⁵  to receive honor ⁶  for himself; the one who desires ⁷  the honor ⁸  of the one who sent him is a man of integrity, ⁹  and there is no unrighteousness in him.

John 7:2

7:2 Now the Jewish feast of Tabernacles ¹⁰  was near. ¹¹ 

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ¹²  brothers and sisters ¹³  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁴  from God our Father! ¹⁵ 

¹ tn Or “the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

² tn Grk “rejoices with joy” (an idiom).

³ tn Grk “Therefore this my joy is fulfilled.”

⁴ tn Grk “who speaks from himself.”

⁵ tn Or “seeks.”

⁶ tn Or “praise”; Grk “glory.”

⁷ tn Or “seeks.”

⁸ tn Or “praise”; Grk “glory.”

⁹ tn Or “is truthful”; Grk “is true.”

¹⁰ tn Or “feast of the Tents” (the feast where people lived in tents or shelters, which was celebrated in the autumn after harvest). John’s use of σκηνοπηγία (skhnophgia) for the feast of Tabernacles constitutes the only use of this term in the New Testament.

¹¹ sn Since the present verse places these incidents at the feast of Tabernacles (a.d. 29 or 32, depending on whether one dates the crucifixion in a.d. 30 or 33) there would have been a 6-month interval during which no events are recorded. The author is obviously selective in his approach; he is not recording an exhaustive history (as he will later tell the reader in John 21:25). After healing the paralytic on the Sabbath in Jerusalem (John 5:1-47), Jesus withdrew again to Galilee because of mounting opposition. In Galilee the feeding of the 5,000 took place, which marked the end of the Galilean ministry for all practical purposes. John 7:1-9 thus marks Jesus’ final departure from Galilee.

¹² tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

¹³ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

¹⁴ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

¹⁵ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.