I would like to interrupt here to provide certain technical background
information and also some analysis of the whole controversy, in order
to clean away several disputes which, as I see them, are mere misunder-
standings. Please forgive me for my rash reading of the articles, and
also my possible errors due to my own misunderstandings and my poor
knowledge.
First of all, we may look at certain key words here. "Deny himself
(Matt 16:24)" indeed differs from "give himself for me"; this is a good
observation poijkl has provided for us. The meaning of "aparneomai
(deny)" is, according to Middle Liddell, "to deny utterly, deny, refuse,
reject." But this does not suggest any further conclusion.
Interesting enough, the parallel text at Luke 9:23 uses another verbs
which has exactly the same meaning--but is a little bit weaker than this,
since it lacks the preposition "apo," which can certainly strengthen it--
that is, "arneomai (deny)." So it seems to me that, what Luke differs from
Matt is only verbally, not substantially at all. And the phrase "kath'
hereme (daily)," which is absent at Matt 16, by the same reason cannot mean
too much as to change the meaning of the whole verse.
Actually, there is one more difference between the two parallel texts,
namely, "come after me (KJV, ASV: follow)." The main verbs differ only
verbally and even are interchangeable (erchomai v.s. elthon). All these
strongly suggest me that it may be no use at all to conclude anything
from the "daily" in Luke to gain new meaning.
Now, back to the semantic of "deny." Perhaps it is helpful to look up
a dictionary, and as I found it in Merriam-Webster, deny can mean "to
restrain (oneself) from gratification of wishes or desires : restrain
(oneself) from self-indulgence," which seems to fit the meaning here.
Second, "take up" here is much weaker in meaning than what its Chinese
translation suggests. Recognition of this may hopefully reduce certain
misreading due to the Chinese translation and also due to the symbolic
meaning of the controversal "cross," which is now much richer than the
first century. What I intended to point out is that, it is often suggested
that the cross here is symbolic for suffer, for sin, for glory, or for
anything like that, but we must note that what Bible says is not to bear
the cross, to overcome the cross, or to uphold the cross; it is quite
simply--take up.
That is to say, when we want to interpret (note the difference between
the interpretation of a sentence and the semantic meaning of it) these
phrases, we should carefully distinguish, as maysue suggests, the two
levels of interpretation. What Jesus said literally is just to "take
up his cross"; but what does it mean for us today? Actually I agree
with chaoyu that cross cannot be a symbol for sin. But personally I
would hesitate to take it as a symbol for glory here, for then it would
mean too much to those disciples.
But now here comes the point. I beleve, if I understand the discussion
correctly, poijkl and maysue do not take it as a symbol for sin. What they
suggest and emphasize, as it seems to me, is rather that "deny oneself" has
the meaning of "to overcome one's own sins," or "to put off one's old
man." Perhaps the article of poijkl is a little bit vague, and may
lead us to think that she has been suggesting cross as the symbol for sin;
but I do not believe she means this, not to say that "take up one's own
cross" as a doctrine to carry his own sins.
The controversy is only a certain misunderstanding, as is often seen on
every sort of discussion. But certainly it would not diminish the good
insight in such a series of articles at all. As to the interpretation
and the spiritual application, I could not find any better point than
what chaoyu, poijkl, and maysue. So I stop here only with certain
technical information.
--
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※ 編輯: MathTurtle 來自: 220.136.240.83 (09/16 00:29)