It is evidently in verb tenses that we learn how to "think" temporally. When God told Moses that "I am who Am" we take it to mean that God is 'presence' and 'eternal presence'----hence no matter what 'time' it may be and however much time might elapse God is yet present. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Wow!
When we were yet children before we learned how to "keep time", we spoke in present tense and then learned how to refer to things and activities no longer present in the 'past' tense.
Verb tense is an extremely important aspect of Bible interpretation and reveals a great deal about the meaning of a particular text. Study of verb tense casts greater meaning on certain passages and helps us to deepen our understanding of faith and the goods that faith delivers.
For example, in Jesus' farewell discourse, John chapter 14, the Lord says: "I am going to my Father's house, in His house are many mansions...[and] I am going in order to prepare a place for you so that where I am you may be..." Here we find a complex time order: Jesus speaks to His disciples prior to His crucifixion in the year 33 AD. He speaks about an event in the future tense...i.e., the going to His Father's house, and then He speaks of being there and preparing a place so that where I am, you may be... It is what a I call a 'fourth dimensional' discourse. The Father's mansion is a mystical place and not accessible to empirical sense at the time of Jesus' discourse. Jesus apparently has not gone there yet and hence refers to a future event "where I am going..." Then he indicates that once there, he will prepare a place.
Now the mystical nature is revealed in this passage in that the Mansion is in the Kingdom of Heaven and not sensible to physical mind and body. The temporality and spatiality of this event (going to prepare a place) are interwoven, in fact one must refer to a place in order to convey the time component. and Yet the spatial dimension is mystical. By this I mean to say that the question "how far is it you are going Jesus in order to get to your Father's mansion? " is inappropriate. Jesus knowledge of this reveals that it is hence already in some sense completed.
But in order for the disciples to get a mental picture or concept Jesus speaks in a mystical manner which is interpreted in a mystical and not literal manner.
This passage indicates the kind of depth of analysis in interpretation available to those who take the temporal and spatial architecture of Jesus' speech as a crucial component of their interpretation and translation of verb tense.
When we were yet children before we learned how to "keep time", we spoke in present tense and then learned how to refer to things and activities no longer present in the 'past' tense.
Verb tense is an extremely important aspect of Bible interpretation and reveals a great deal about the meaning of a particular text. Study of verb tense casts greater meaning on certain passages and helps us to deepen our understanding of faith and the goods that faith delivers.
For example, in Jesus' farewell discourse, John chapter 14, the Lord says: "I am going to my Father's house, in His house are many mansions...[and] I am going in order to prepare a place for you so that where I am you may be..." Here we find a complex time order: Jesus speaks to His disciples prior to His crucifixion in the year 33 AD. He speaks about an event in the future tense...i.e., the going to His Father's house, and then He speaks of being there and preparing a place so that where I am, you may be... It is what a I call a 'fourth dimensional' discourse. The Father's mansion is a mystical place and not accessible to empirical sense at the time of Jesus' discourse. Jesus apparently has not gone there yet and hence refers to a future event "where I am going..." Then he indicates that once there, he will prepare a place.
Now the mystical nature is revealed in this passage in that the Mansion is in the Kingdom of Heaven and not sensible to physical mind and body. The temporality and spatiality of this event (going to prepare a place) are interwoven, in fact one must refer to a place in order to convey the time component. and Yet the spatial dimension is mystical. By this I mean to say that the question "how far is it you are going Jesus in order to get to your Father's mansion? " is inappropriate. Jesus knowledge of this reveals that it is hence already in some sense completed.
But in order for the disciples to get a mental picture or concept Jesus speaks in a mystical manner which is interpreted in a mystical and not literal manner.
This passage indicates the kind of depth of analysis in interpretation available to those who take the temporal and spatial architecture of Jesus' speech as a crucial component of their interpretation and translation of verb tense.
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