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55
February, 1946
Kobert W.
A T ONE PERIOD in the life of Dwight L. Moody, he / \ took up the study pf the word “love” in the Scrip- ■ J L J l tures. The subject gripped him. For weeks, he read passage after passage in which the word occurred, and he became so full of the subject that ever after it filled all of his ministry with a mighty love for God and man. He said, “At last I could not help loving people. I had been feeding on love so long that I was anxious to do good to everybody with whom I came into contact. I got full of it. It ran out of my fingers. A few years ago, in a period of unusual danger., and physical distress, the verse, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7), proved of greatest significance to me. I pleaded this promise when I faced almost certain death in an airplane accident and during the period following the crash before I was rescued, and it was most effective. After this experience, I resolved to devote myself to a study of the word “ abide,” for I was convinced that it held meanings of which I knew little. Of course, I had listened to many sermons on the subject, but they failed to satisfy me. For weeks, I searched my “English man’s Greek Concordance,” and I shall always be grate ful for the wealth of material which I secured. However, I am aware of the limitations of my understanding of the full meaning of “ abide” as it applies to the Chris tian’s relationship to God the Father and to God the Son. The Greek word for abide is meno. It occurs 119 times in the New Testament, but is translated “abide” only in sixty-one places in the English text out of the total number of references in which it appears. It is rendered “ remain” sixteen times, “ dwell” fifteen times, “continue” eleven times, “tarry” ten times, “endure” three times and “present” and “stand” one time each. It is significant that,-while this word is found only three times in Matthew, twice in Mark, and seven times in Luke,'it is used forty-one times in the Gospel of John. We discover it fourteen times in Acts, once in Romans, eleven times in First and Second Corinthians, once in Philippians, four times in First and Second Timothy, six times in Hebrews, twice in First Peter, once in Revela tion, not at all in Galatians, ’Ephesians, Colossians, First or Second Thessalonians, Titus, Philemon, James, Second Peter or Jude, but in the Epistles of John twenty-six times! We therefore conclude that “ abide” is definitely an expression- of John’s, being employed by him sixty-seven times out of a total of the 119 times it is used in the New Testament. In one chapter, the fifteenth, John men tions this word twelve times. "Abide” occurs three times
in verse 4, once in 5, once in 6, twice in 7, once in 9, twice in 10, once in 11, and once in 16. The advantage in consulting the Greek text can be readily seen in verse 11. The Authorized Version trans lates this same word “might remain,” while the English Revised Version uses “may be” to give the rheàning of the expression. Again in the sixteenth vèrse, the Author ized Version uses the word “remain,” while the English Revised translates the word “abide.” In the Gospel of John, the word twelve times signifies abiding, remaining, dwelling, tarrying, or staying in a location, but in the Epistles of John, this is not at all the sense attached to it. Out of the sixty-seven instances in which John makes use of “ abide,” fifty-five references are to other than physical status. Why should John in his old age have used this word so frequently when writing about his Lord and the work of God? John was the youngest of the disciples of Jesus and outlived all the others. In his early days, he had enjoyed the comfortable home of his father, who was a master fisherman with his own hired servants. He appears at one time to have had a home of his own in Jerusalem; nevertheless, his was not an easy life. Later in life, John lost his home; Mary, whom Jesus qn the cross had assigned to his care, died; and the apostle himself was looking to his eternal home for an abiding place. , Fully conscious of the transitory nature of the things of this earth, John saw that permanency lay only in eternal plans of God for His own. The word “ abide” naturally fitted the future home of the children of God.
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