2 Samuel 20:6

20:6 Then David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will cause greater disaster for us than Absalom did! Take your lord’s servants and pursue him. Otherwise he will secure ¹  fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”

Matthew 10:24-25

10:24 “A disciple is not greater than his teacher, nor a slave ²  greater than his master. 10:25 It is enough for the disciple to become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more will they defame the members of his household!

John 13:14

13:14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet.

John 13:1

Washing the Disciples’ Feet

13:1 Just before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that his time ³  had come to depart ⁴  from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the very end. ⁵ 

Colossians 1:25-27

1:25 I became a servant of the church according to the stewardship ⁶  from God – given to me for you – in order to complete ⁷  the word of God, 1:26 that is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints. 1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious ⁸  riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ⁹  brothers and sisters ¹⁰  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹¹  from God our Father! ¹² 

Colossians 2:3-4

2:3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 2:4 I say this so that no one will deceive you through arguments ¹³  that sound reasonable. ¹⁴ 

Colossians 2:12

2:12 Having been buried with him in baptism, you also have been raised with him through your ¹⁵  faith in the power ¹⁶  of God who raised him from the dead.

Hebrews 12:1-2

The Lord’s Discipline

12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, ¹⁷  we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, 12:2 keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. ¹⁸ 

[20:6]  ¹ tn Heb “find.” The perfect verbal form is unexpected with the preceding word “otherwise.” We should probably read instead the imperfect. Although it is possible to understand the perfect here as indicating that the feared result is thought of as already having taken place (cf. BDB 814 s.v. פֶּן 2), it is more likely that the perfect is simply the result of scribal error. In this context the imperfect would be more consistent with the following verb וְהִצִּיל (vÿhitsil, “and he will get away”).

[10:24]  ² tn See the note on the word “slave” in 8:9.

[13:1]  ³ tn Grk “his hour.”

[13:1]  ⁴ tn Grk “that he should depart.” The ἵνα (Jina) clause in Koine Greek frequently encroached on the simple infinitive (for the sake of greater clarity).

[13:1]  ⁵ tn Or “he now loved them completely,” or “he now loved them to the uttermost” (see John 19:30). All of John 13:1 is a single sentence in Greek, although in English this would be unacceptably awkward. At the end of the verse the idiom εἰς τέλος (eis telos) was translated literally as “to the end” and the modern equivalents given in the note above, because there is an important lexical link between this passage and John 19:30, τετέλεσται (tetelestai, “It is ended”).

[1:25]  ⁶ tn BDAG 697 s.v. οἰκονομία 1.b renders the term here as “divine office.”

[1:25]  ⁷ tn See BDAG 828 s.v. πληρόω 3. The idea here seems to be that the apostle wants to “complete the word of God” in that he wants to preach it to every person in the known world (cf. Rom 15:19). See P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC), 82.

[1:27]  ⁸ tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”

[1:2]  ⁹ 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.

[1:2]  ¹⁰ 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).

[1:2]  ¹¹ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ¹² 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.

[2:4]  ¹³ tn BDAG 812 s.v. πιθανολογία states, “persuasive speech, art of persuasion (so Pla., Theaet. 162e) in an unfavorable sense in its only occurrence in our lit. ἐν πιθανολογίᾳ by specious arguments Col 2:4 (cp. PLips 40 III, 7 διὰ πιθανολογίας).”

[2:4]  ¹⁴ sn Paul’s point is that even though the arguments seem to make sense (sound reasonable), they are in the end false. Paul is not here arguing against the study of philosophy or serious thinking per se, but is arguing against the uncritical adoption of a philosophy that is at odds with a proper view of Christ and the ethics of the Christian life.

[2:12]  ¹⁵ tn The article with the genitive modifier τῆς πίστεως (th" pistew") is functioning as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[2:12]  ¹⁶ tn The genitive τῆς ἐνεργείας (th" energeia") has been translated as an objective genitive, “faith in the power.”

[12:1]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “having such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.”

[12:2]  ¹⁸ sn An allusion to Ps 110:1.