1 Corinthians 1:18

The Message of the Cross

1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1 Corinthians 1:21

1:21 For since in the wisdom of God the world by its wisdom did not know God, God was pleased to save those who believe by the foolishness of preaching.

Acts 2:47

2:47 praising God and having the good will ¹  of all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day ²  those who were being saved.

Romans 1:16

The Power of the Gospel

1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ³ 

Romans 1:2

1:2 This gospel ⁴  he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures,

Colossians 2:15

2:15 Disarming ⁵  the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ⁶ 

Ephesians 2:8

2:8 For by grace you are saved ⁷  through faith, ⁸  and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Ephesians 2:2

2:2 in which ⁹  you formerly lived ¹⁰  according to this world’s present path, ¹¹  according to the ruler of the kingdom ¹²  of the air, the ruler of ¹³  the spirit ¹⁴  that is now energizing ¹⁵  the sons of disobedience, ¹⁶ 

Ephesians 1:9

1:9 He did this when he revealed ¹⁷  to us the secret ¹⁸  of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth ¹⁹  in Christ, ²⁰ 

[2:47]  ¹ tn Or “the favor.”

[2:47]  ² tn BDAG 437 s.v. ἡμέρα 2.c has “every day” for this phrase.

[1:16]  ³ sn Here the Greek refers to anyone who is not Jewish.

[1:2]  ⁴ tn Grk “the gospel of God, which he promised.” Because of the length and complexity of this sentence in Greek, it was divided into shorter English sentences in keeping with contemporary English style. To indicate the referent of the relative pronoun (“which”), the word “gospel” was repeated at the beginning of v. 2.

[2:15]  ⁵ tn See BDAG 100 s.v. ἀπεκδύομαι 2.

[2:15]  ⁶ tn The antecedent of the Greek pronoun αὐτῷ (autw) could either be “Christ” or the “cross.” There are several reasons for choosing “the cross” as the antecedent for αὐτῷ in verse 15: (1) The nearest antecedent is τῷ σταυρῷ (tw staurw) in v. 14; (2) the idea of ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησία (edeigmatisen en parrhsia, “made a public disgrace”) seems to be more in keeping with the idea of the cross; (3) a reference to Christ seems to miss the irony involved in the idea of triumph – the whole point is that where one would expect defeat, there came the victory; (4) if Christ is the subject of the participles in v. 15 then almost certainly the cross is the referent for αὐτῷ. Thus the best solution is to see αὐτῷ as a reference to the cross and the preposition ἐν (en) indicating “means” (i.e., by means of the cross) or possibly (though less likely) location (on the cross).

[2:8]  ⁷ tn See note on the same expression in v. 5.

[2:8]  ⁸ tc The feminine article is found before πίστεως (pistews, “faith”) in the Byzantine text as well as in A Ψ 1881 pc. Perhaps for some scribes the article was intended to imply creedal fidelity as a necessary condition of salvation (“you are saved through the faith”), although elsewhere in the corpus Paulinum the phrase διὰ τῆς πίστεως (dia th" pistew") is used for the act of believing rather than the content of faith (cf. Rom 3:30, 31; Gal 3:14; Eph 3:17; Col 2:12). On the other side, strong representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts (א B D* F G P 0278 6 33 1739 al bo) lack the article. Hence, both text-critically and exegetically, the meaning of the text here is most likely “saved through faith” as opposed to “saved through the faith.” Regarding the textual problem, the lack of the article is the preferred reading.

[2:2]  ⁹ sn The relative pronoun which is feminine as is sins, indicating that sins is the antecedent.

[2:2]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “walked.”

[2:2]  ¹¹ tn Or possibly “Aeon.”

[2:2]  ¹² tn Grk “domain, [place of] authority.”

[2:2]  ¹³ tn Grk “of” (but see the note on the word “spirit” later in this verse).

[2:2]  ¹⁴ 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).

[2:2]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “working in.”

[2:2]  ¹⁶ 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.

[1:9]  ¹⁷ tn Or “He did this by revealing”; Grk “making known, revealing.” Verse 9 begins with a participle dependent on “lavished” in v. 8; the adverbial participle could be understood as temporal (“when he revealed”), which would be contemporaneous to the action of the finite verb “lavished,” or as means (“by revealing”). The participle has been translated here with the temporal nuance to allow for means to also be a possible interpretation. If the translation focused instead upon means, the temporal nuance would be lost as the time frame for the action of the participle would become indistinct.

[1:9]  ¹⁸ tn Or “mystery.” In the NT μυστήριον (musthrion) refers to a divine secret previously undisclosed.

[1:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “purposed,” “publicly displayed.” Cf. Rom 3:25.

[1:9]  ²⁰ tn Grk “in him”; the referent (Christ) has been specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.