2:1 And although you were 4 dead 5 in your transgressions and sins,
“Awake, 8 O sleeper! 9
Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you!” 10
2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, 13 and for those in Laodicea, and for those who have not met me face to face. 14
1 tn Or “necessary.”
2 sn By referring to him as your brother, the father reminded the older brother that the younger brother was part of the family.
3 sn The theme he was lost and is found is repeated from v. 24. The conclusion is open-ended. The reader is left to ponder with the older son (who pictures the scribes and Pharisees) what the response will be. The parable does not reveal the ultimate response of the older brother. Jesus argued that sinners should be pursued and received back warmly when they returned.
4 tn The adverbial participle “being” (ὄντας, ontas) is taken concessively.
5 sn Chapter 2 starts off with a participle, although you were dead, that is left dangling. The syntax in Greek for vv. 1-3 constitutes one incomplete sentence, though it seems to have been done intentionally. The dangling participle leaves the readers in suspense while they wait for the solution (in v. 4) to their spiritual dilemma.
6 tn Or “by grace you have been saved.” The perfect tense in Greek connotes both completed action (“you have been saved”) and continuing results (“you are saved”).
7 sn The following passage has been typeset as poetry because many scholars regard this passage as poetic or hymnic. These terms are used broadly to refer to the genre of writing, not to the content. There are two broad criteria for determining if a passage is poetic or hymnic: “(a) stylistic: a certain rhythmical lilt when the passages are read aloud, the presence of parallelismus membrorum (i.e., an arrangement into couplets), the semblance of some metre, and the presence of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, chiasmus, and antithesis; and (b) linguistic: an unusual vocabulary, particularly the presence of theological terms, which is different from the surrounding context” (P. T. O’Brien, Philippians [NIGTC], 188-89). Classifying a passage as hymnic or poetic is important because understanding this genre can provide keys to interpretation. However, not all scholars agree that the above criteria are present in this passage, so the decision to typeset it as poetry should be viewed as a tentative decision about its genre.
8 tn Grk “Rise up.”
9 tn The articular nominative participle ὁ καθεύδων (Jo kaqeudwn) is probably functioning as a nominative for vocative. Thus, it has been translated as “O sleeper.”
10 sn A composite quotation, possibly from Isa 26:19, 51:17, 52:1, and 60:1.
11 tn The article τοῖς (tois) with παραπτώμασιν (paraptwmasin) is functioning as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).
12 tn The word “nevertheless,” though not in the Greek text, was supplied in the translation to bring out the force of the concessive participle ὄντας (ontas).
13 tn Or “I want you to know how hard I am working for you…”
14 tn Grk “as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.”
15 tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.