Isaiah 28:9

28:9 Who is the Lord ¹  trying to teach?

To whom is he explaining a message? ² 

Those just weaned from milk!

Those just taken from their mother’s breast! ³ 

Matthew 11:25

Jesus’ Invitation

11:25 At that time Jesus said, ⁴  “I praise ⁵  you, Father, Lord ⁶  of heaven and earth, because ⁷  you have hidden these things from the wise ⁸  and intelligent, and revealed them to little children.

Mark 10:15

10:15 I tell you the truth, ⁹  whoever does not receive ¹⁰  the kingdom of God like a child ¹¹  will never ¹²  enter it.”

Romans 2:20

2:20 an educator of the senseless, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the essential features of knowledge and of the truth –

Romans 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ¹³ Therefore ¹⁴  you are without excuse, ¹⁵  whoever you are, ¹⁶  when you judge someone else. ¹⁷  For on whatever grounds ¹⁸  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

Colossians 1:11

1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of ¹⁹  all patience and steadfastness, joyfully

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ²⁰  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Ephesians 4:14

4:14 So ²¹  we are no longer to be children, tossed back and forth by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching by the trickery of people who craftily carry out their deceitful schemes. ²² 

Ephesians 4:1

Live in Unity

4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, ²³  urge you to live ²⁴  worthily of the calling with which you have been called, ²⁵ 

Ephesians 2:2

2:2 in which ²⁶  you formerly lived ²⁷  according to this world’s present path, ²⁸  according to the ruler of the kingdom ²⁹  of the air, the ruler of ³⁰  the spirit ³¹  that is now energizing ³²  the sons of disobedience, ³³ 

[28:9]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[28:9]  ² tn Heb “Who is he teaching knowledge? For whom is he explaining a message?” The translation assumes that the Lord is the subject of the verbs “teaching” and “explaining,” and that the prophet is asking the questions. See v. 12. According to some vv. 9-10 record the people’s sarcastic response to the Lord’s message through Isaiah.

[28:9]  ³ tn Heb “from the breasts.” The words “their mother’s” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The translation assumes that this is the prophet’s answer to the questions asked in the first half of the verse. The Lord is trying to instruct people who are “infants” morally and ethically.

[11:25]  ⁴ tn Grk “At that time, answering, Jesus said.” This construction is somewhat redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation.

[11:25]  ⁵ tn Or “thank.”

[11:25]  ⁶ sn The title Lord is an important name for God, showing his sovereignty, but it is interesting that it comes next to a reference to the Father, a term indicative of God’s care. The two concepts are often related in the NT; see Eph 1:3-6.

[11:25]  ⁷ tn Or “that.”

[11:25]  ⁸ sn See 1 Cor 1:26-31.

[10:15]  ⁹ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[10:15]  ¹⁰ sn On receive see John 1:12.

[10:15]  ¹¹ sn The point of the comparison receive the kingdom of God like a child has more to do with a child’s trusting spirit and willingness to be dependent and receive from others than any inherent humility the child might possess.

[10:15]  ¹² tn The negation in Greek (οὐ μή, ou mh) is very strong here.

[2:1]  ¹³ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ¹⁴ tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ¹⁵ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[1:11]  ¹⁹ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.

[1:20]  ²⁰ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

[4:14]  ²¹ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[4:14]  ²² tn While the sense of the passage is clear enough, translation in English is somewhat difficult. The Greek says: “by the trickery of men, by craftiness with the scheme of deceit.” The point is that the author is concerned about Christians growing into maturity. He is fearful that certain kinds of very cunning people, who are skilled at deceitful scheming, should come in and teach false doctrines which would in turn stunt the growth of the believers.

[4:1]  ²³ tn Grk “prisoner in the Lord.”

[4:1]  ²⁴ tn Grk “walk.” The verb “walk” in the NT letters refers to the conduct of one’s life, not to physical walking.

[4:1]  ²⁵ sn With which you have been called. The calling refers to the Holy Spirit’s prompting that caused them to believe. The author is thus urging his readers to live a life that conforms to their saved status before God.

[2:2]  ²⁶ sn The relative pronoun which is feminine as is sins, indicating that sins is the antecedent.

[2:2]  ²⁷ tn Grk “walked.”

[2:2]  ²⁸ tn Or possibly “Aeon.”

[2:2]  ²⁹ tn Grk “domain, [place of] authority.”

[2:2]  ³⁰ tn Grk “of” (but see the note on the word “spirit” later in this verse).

[2:2]  ³¹ 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]  ³² tn Grk “working in.”

[2:2]  ³³ 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.