There are a lot of falsehoods being passed off as truth in the Church about the Greek language. The following is a collection of some of the BIGGEST erroneous teachings out there, but even more important is why these false taching exist. Often they start because someone wants to prove a theological point that they cannot prove, so they re-invent the meaning to Greek words in order to "prove" their point, and we end up with crazy errors like the ones in the following....
1. Rhema = The "Living Word"
I can remember someone who used to preach at a congregation I attended a long time ago who would frequently stop and say, "the Greek word here for "word" is "rhema" - that's the living word" and the crowd would just "oooh" and "aah" at this, although I could never quite figure out what that was suppose to mean. Of course, one thing that told me that this could not possibly be right is that John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word (Logos)....". The Rhema is suppose to be "the Living word" , and Logos is not, then how could the Son of God be called something that is NOT the "living Word"? Wasn't He the "Word made flesh"? How can you get any more "Living Word" than that?
In reality ,the difference between rhema and logos is not that one is living and one is dead. Rhema refers more to the sound of the word, while logos refers more to the content. It is like the difference between speak and say in English. Just as speak put emphasis on the utterance of the word, and say emphasizes what is said, so too doesrhema refer to a word spoken, while logos refers to the content of what is said. That's all the difference between these two words. No great spiritually deep stuff here.
Where did this mis-teaching come from? Who knows? But perhaps someone was trying to prove a point about a particular verse he was trying to promote an particular interpretation of, and came up with a re-invention of the Greek language because it was the only way someone would buy his point, and it just stuck from there on.
2. Zoe = Spiritual Life, while Bios = Biological life.
Zoe means "life" as we understand it in English. It does not necessarily connotate something spiritual, and it is even applied to animals. Here's something Aristotle once said,
o gar tiV anqropoV kai anqropoV esti kai zwon
For man is both 'man' and 'animal'
(Categories, Aristotle)The word here comes from the same root for "zoe" ("zoon" in this grammatical derivation) and simply means a living being -something that is alive. This Greek word is where we get the word "zoo" from, which is not anything that is necessarily spiritual at all.
3. Agape means "altruistic love" and Phileo means "brotherly love".
While Agape and Phileo are not completely synonomous, this is not what differentiates these two words. One verse that proves that this theory is dead wrong is
"For if ye love (agape) them which love (agape) you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love (agape) those that love (agape) them." (Luke 6:32)
This sure does kill the "Agape = Godly love" theory. Nope - it just aint true. Agape is a form of love that people without God CAN experience. It CAN be recipricol (despite many false Church teachings to the contrary) and is not based on altruism at all. This verse proves it. In reality, what differentiates agape and phileo is not whether either is altruistic versus reciprocal, but whether it is felt or thought. Phileo is an emotion, while agape is a mental thing - something you think in your mind. Phileo is emotional, and agape is mental. That is the difference.
There's other verses that prove that agape cannot possibly refer to the type of love that comes only from God. Another one is "Balaam [the son] of Bosor, who loved (agape) the wages of unrighteousness" (2 Peter/Kefah 2:15). Are we really to believe that the correct choice of words here for "love" is the kind of love that coems only from God? Hardly!
Some Christians have even taught that the word "agape" was never used outside the New Testament before it's creation. This is not true either. Here's a quote that makes this claim from EW Bullinger....
"agape', love. [A word not found in the profane writers, nor in Philo and Josephus, nor in Acts, Mark and James. It is unknown to the writers outside of the N.T." (EW Bullinger, Critical Lexicon)
Yet Perseus lists the following "profane writers" that use this word...
- Oxyrphynchus Papyri, 2AD, calls Isis the "agape Theon"
- Plato's Republic, book 6. Plato lived (427-348 BC), well before the New Testament.
- Isocrates (436-338 BC) also used this word.
There's more. This is just a short list of both pagan and secular writers who used the word. So yes, this word was used by many "profrane writers" before the Messiah's birth. After looking into this, it appears that several SECULAR Greek dictionaries give the differentiation of agape and phileo as being this... 1. Agape refers to something mental - how you regard or esteem someone or something. 2. Phileo is an emotion. Here's what Liddel & Scott say about the two in commenting on "agapao"...
"dist. fr. phileô (q. v.) implying regard rather than affection, but the two are interchanged, cf. X.Mem.2.7.9 and 12; phileisthai defined as agapasthai auton di' hautonArist.Rh.1371a21 :--"
The sad truth here is that agape and phileo just don't mean to Greek speaking people what the seminaries have told us it means to Greek speaking people.
WHY?
Where do these kind of mis-teachigns come from? Every now and then someone with a radio show will get a "Revelation" and start teaching something because he just "knows" it is right and it spreads. And if people don't research it and don't cross examine what they hear, they will pass on error. Sometimes these false teachings come about because someone wants to "prove" a verse means something and the only way to do it is to re-invent the meaning of a Greek word. Because of that, errors like this are born.
Shalom,
Joe