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Sermon on Mount, law and fulfillment, visible and hidden, trust and doubt, requesting and getting
Matthew 7:7 Αἰτεῖτε, καὶ δοθήσεται ὑμῖν: ζητεῖτε, καὶ εὑρήσετε: κρούετε, καὶ ἀνοιγήσεται ὑμῖν.
KJV Verse:Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Ask, and it will given to you; search and you will discover; examine, and it is going to be disclosed to you:
Hidden Meaning:This is a simple verse with a lot of hidden meanings.
This verse primarily consists of six verbs. Three of them are in the form of commands. The other three verbs are in the form of future predictions, perhaps promises. The first three of these word, "ask," "give," and "seek," have been used several times before in the Sermon, but next three are used by Jesus for the first time here, "find," "knock," and "open." The last two are uncommon for Jesus.
The two words translated as "ask," and "seek," have secondary meanings of "desire" or "crave". Since they are both commands, there is a strong sense that we are must desire a specific goal in order to take the actions to get them.
Wordplay:All the key verbs in this verse have double meanings that relate to experimentation, testing, and discovery. Two of them also have double meanings relating to craving and desiring.
The Spoken Version:“What we must do to earn the Divine’s gifts?” asked Abbiah, the wealthy lady who gave to charity.
“Ask!” the Teacher answered him gently. “And it will be given to you.”
He pointed a finger upwards.
“This realm of the skies!” we answered.
“This higher realm may be near, but it is hidden. How do we find it?” asked the Mouse in his shy way.
“Search!” the Teacher replied enthusiastically to us all. “And you will discover!”
“But won’t those Distinguished,” the Mule, who had complained about the Distinguished several times, complained again, “try to bar its gates to us common people?”
“Knock!” the Teacher responded happily to us all, pretending to knock on a door and then opening it. “And it will be opened for you all!”
To learn, we must first act.
Christ's Words Articles
- Gospel of Matthew: Offers good, detailed information on each verse of Greek.
- Gospel of Mark: Offers the best, detailed information on each verse of Greek.
- Gospel of Luke: Offers detailed information on the Greek of each verse.
- Gospel of John: Offers generally the weakest information on each verse.
- Acts of the Apostles: Detailed information on four verses.
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About this Site
I started this project over a decade ago. The initial goal was to satisfy my own curiosity about how the original Greek of Jesus's words was translated into English comparing it to my work in translating ancient Chinese.
This site does not promote any religious point of view about Christianity. I purposely use nonreligious sources for Greek translation. My goal is simply to identify how Jesus used words. His use of Greek words somewhat unique since his words were spoken, not written.
The range of quality of the articles on this site reflects that it is a personal site, not a commercial one. No one proofreads my work. Some articles are over a decade old when I knew much less ancient Greek. Matthew articles are best since I have updated them all at least once. The ones in Mark are the oldest and poorest. Luke is not yet complete.
