Proclaimer Blog
Stop and wait a while
One of the benefits of my “Month in Philemon” is being able to really get to grips with the detail of the book. I’m really enjoying this: perhaps too much, I have to keep disciplining myself to read the whole letter again and again so as not to get over-immersed in the detail. Nevertheless, detail counts. Paragraphs are made of sentences, sentences are made of phrases, phrases are made of words and words count.
Take verse 6 of Philemon, phrase 1: “I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for….” (ESV) and “I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in…” (NIV). Two quite different understandings of a simple phrase. Or not so simple. This is, says Moo, “universally recognised as the most difficult verse in Philemon” – and it turns on how you translate koinonia and pistis.
In this case, both ESV and NIV have gone for the same understanding of pistis – faith as something you believe in. OK (though by no means 100% certain). But they diverge on how to translate koinonia. The ESV picks up the AV “communication of thy faith” – i.e sharing OF. This is also the RSV (which carried through the AV translation). The NIV takes it to mean partnership with Paul – i.e. sharing WITH.
Not a minor point – for it would lead you to two different applications. Obviously the work of the exegete is to ponder and think and pray to work out which is best. For my money, for what it’s worth, the NIV is better here. The ESV takes a translation of koinonia unknown in Paul and relatively unusual in the NT (only Heb 13.16, perhaps?). It is,says Moo, supported by few interpreters (though this in itself would not make it wrong). But you yourself have to work it out and decide.
And for that, you have to go slow, stop and wait a while.