Psalms 89:7

89:7 a God who is honored ¹  in the great angelic assembly, ² 

and more awesome than ³  all who surround him?

Psalms 111:1

Psalm 111 ⁴ 

111:1 Praise the Lord!

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,

in the assembly of the godly and the congregation.

Acts 20:28

20:28 Watch out for ⁵  yourselves and for all the flock of which ⁶  the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, ⁷  to shepherd the church of God ⁸  that he obtained ⁹  with the blood of his own Son. ¹⁰ 

Ephesians 1:22

1:22 And God ¹¹  put ¹²  all things under Christ’s ¹³  feet, ¹⁴  and he gave him to the church as head over all things. ¹⁵ 

Ephesians 5:24-27

5:24 But as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 5:25 Husbands, love your ¹⁶  wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 5:26 to sanctify her by cleansing her ¹⁷  with the washing of the water by the word, 5:27 so that he ¹⁸  may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. ¹⁹ 

Colossians 1:24

1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body – for the sake of his body, the church – what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ²⁰  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 3:5

3:5 So put to death whatever in your nature belongs to the earth: ²¹  sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, ²²  evil desire, and greed which is idolatry.

¹ tn Heb “feared.”

² tn Heb “in the great assembly of the holy ones.”

³ tn Or perhaps “feared by.”

⁴ sn Psalm 111. The psalmist praises God for his marvelous deeds, especially the way in which he provides for and delivers his people. The psalm is an acrostic. After the introductory call to praise, every poetic line (twenty-two in all) begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

⁵ tn Or “Be on your guard for” (cf. v. 29). Paul completed his responsibility to the Ephesians with this warning.

⁶ tn Grk “in which.”

⁷ tn Or “guardians.” BDAG 379-80 s.v. ἐπίσκοπος 2 states, “The term was taken over in Christian communities in ref. to one who served as overseer or supervisor, with special interest in guarding the apostolic tradition…Ac 20:28.” This functional term describes the role of the elders (see v. 17). They were to guard and shepherd the congregation.

⁸ tc The reading “of God” (τοῦ θεοῦ, tou qeou) is found in א B 614 1175 1505 al vg sy; other witnesses have “of the Lord” (τοῦ κυρίου, tou kuriou) here (so Ì⁷⁴ A C* D E Ψ 33 1739 al co), while the majority of the later minuscule mss conflate these two into “of the Lord and God” (τοῦ κυρίου καὶ [τοῦ] θεοῦ, tou kuriou kai [tou] qeou). Although the evidence is evenly balanced between the first two readings, τοῦ θεοῦ is decidedly superior on internal grounds. The final prepositional phrase of this verse, διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου (dia tou {aimato" tou idiou), could be rendered “through his own blood” or “through the blood of his own.” In the latter translation, the object that “own” modifies must be supplied (see tn below for discussion). But this would not be entirely clear to scribes; those who supposed that ἰδίου modified αἵματος would be prone to alter “God” to “Lord” to avoid the inference that God had blood. In a similar way, later scribes would be prone to conflate the two titles, thereby affirming the deity (with the construction τοῦ κυρίου καὶ θεοῦ following the Granville Sharp rule and referring to a single person [see ExSyn 272, 276-77, 290]) and substitutionary atonement of Christ. For these reasons, τοῦ θεοῦ best explains the rise of the other readings and should be considered authentic.

⁹ tn Or “acquired.”

¹⁰ tn Or “with his own blood”; Grk “with the blood of his own.” The genitive construction could be taken in two ways: (1) as an attributive genitive (second attributive position) meaning “his own blood”; or (2) as a possessive genitive, “with the blood of his own.” In this case the referent is the Son, and the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. See further C. F. DeVine, “The Blood of God,” CBQ 9 (1947): 381-408.

¹¹ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹² tn Grk “subjected.”

¹³ tn Grk “his”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ sn An allusion to Ps 8:6.

¹⁵ tn Grk “and he gave him as head over all things to the church.”

¹⁶ tn The Greek article has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

¹⁷ tn The direct object “her” is implied, but not found in the Greek text. It has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the passage.

¹⁸ tn The use of the pronoun αὐτός (autos) is intensive and focuses attention on Christ as the one who has made the church glorious.

¹⁹ tn Grk “but in order that it may be holy and blameless.”

²⁰ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

²¹ tn Grk “the members which are on the earth.” See BDAG 628 s.v. μέλος 1, “put to death whatever in you is worldly.”

²² tn Or “lust.”