Ibrani 3:2-3

3:2 who is faithful to the one who appointed him, as Moses was also in God’s ¹  house. ²  3:3 For he has come to deserve greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house deserves greater honor than the house itself!

Matius 16:18

16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades ³  will not overpower it.

Matius 16:1

The Demand for a Sign

16:1 Now when the Pharisees ⁴  and Sadducees ⁵  came to test Jesus, ⁶  they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. ⁷ 

Kolose 3:16

3:16 Let the word of Christ ⁸  dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace ⁹  in your hearts to God.

Kolose 1:19

1:19 For God ¹⁰  was pleased to have all his ¹¹  fullness dwell ¹²  in the Son ¹³ 

Kolose 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ¹⁴  brothers and sisters ¹⁵  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁶  from God our Father! ¹⁷ 

Kolose 1:16

1:16 for all things in heaven and on earth were created by him – all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, ¹⁸  whether principalities or powers – all things were created through him and for him.

Efesus 2:21-22

2:21 In him ¹⁹  the whole building, ²⁰  being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 2:22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Efesus 2:1

New Life Individually

2:1 And although you were ²¹  dead ²²  in your transgressions and sins,

Titus 3:15

3:15 Everyone with me greets you. Greet those who love us in the faith. ²³  Grace be with you all. ²⁴ 

Titus 3:1

Conduct Toward Those Outside the Church

3:1 Remind them to be subject to rulers and ²⁵  authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work.

Pengkhotbah 2:5

2:5 I designed ²⁶  royal gardens ²⁷  and parks ²⁸  for myself,

and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.

[3:2]  ¹ tn Grk “his”; in the translation the referent (God) has been specified for clarity.

[3:2]  ² tc ‡ The reading adopted by the translation follows a few early mss and some versions (Ì^13,46vid B vg^ms co Ambr). The majority of mss (א A C D Ψ 0243 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy) insert “all” (“in all his house”), apparently in anticipation of Heb 3:5 which quotes directly from Num 12:7. On balance, the omission better explains the rise of ὅλῳ ({olw, “all”) than vice versa. NA²⁷ puts ὅλῳ in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[16:18]  ³ tn Or “and the power of death” (taking the reference to the gates of Hades as a metonymy).

[16:18]  sn In the OT, Hades was known as Sheol. It is the place where the unrighteous will reside (Matt 11:23; Luke 16:23; Rev 20:13-14). Some translations render this by its modern equivalent, “hell”; others see it as a reference to the power of death.

[16:1]  ⁴ sn See the note on Pharisees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ⁵ sn See the note on Sadducees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ⁶ tn The object of the participle πειράζοντες (peirazontes) is not given in the Greek text but has been supplied here for clarity.

[16:1]  ⁷ sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.

[3:16]  ⁸ tc Since “the word of Christ” occurs nowhere else in the NT, two predictable variants arose: “word of God” and “word of the Lord.” Even though some of the witnesses for these variants are impressive (κυρίου [kuriou, “of the Lord”] in א* I 1175 pc bo; θεοῦ [qeou, “of God”] in A C* 33 104 323 945 al), the reading Χριστοῦ (Cristou, “of Christ”) is read by an excellent cross-section of witnesses (Ì⁴⁶ א² B C² D F G Ψ 075 1739 1881 Ï lat sa). On both internal and external grounds, Χριστοῦ is strongly preferred.

[3:16]  ⁹ tn Grk “with grace”; “all” is supplied as it is implicitly related to all the previous instructions in the verse.

[1:19]  ¹⁰ tn The noun “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but since God is the one who reconciles the world to himself (cf. 2 Cor 5:19), he is clearly the subject of εὐδόκησεν (eudokhsen).

[1:19]  ¹¹ tn The Greek article τό (to), insofar as it relates to God, may be translated as a possessive pronoun, i.e., “his.” BDAG 404 s.v. εὐδοκέω 1 translates the phrase as “all the fullness willed to dwell in him” thus leaving the referent as impersonal. Insofar as Paul is alluding to the so-called emanations from God this is acceptable. But the fact that “the fullness” dwells in a person (i.e., “in him”) seems to argue for the translation “his fullness” where “his” refers to God.

[1:19]  ¹² tn The aorist verb κατοικῆσαι (katoikhsai) could be taken as an ingressive, in which case it refers to the incarnation and may be translated as “begin to dwell, to take up residence.” It is perhaps better, though, to take it as a constative aorist and simply a reference to the fact that the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ. This is a permanent dwelling, though, not a temporary one, as the present tense in 2:9 makes clear.

[1:19]  ¹³ tn Grk “him”; the referent (the Son; see v. 13) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:2]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ¹⁶ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ¹⁷ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[1:16]  ¹⁸ tn BDAG 579 s.v. κυριότης 3 suggests “bearers of the ruling powers, dominions” here.

[2:21]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “in whom” (v. 21 is a relative clause, subordinate to v. 20).

[2:21]  ²⁰ tc Although several important witnesses (א¹ A C P 6 81 326 1739^c 1881) have πᾶσα ἡ οἰκοδομή (pasa Jh oikodomh), instead of πᾶσα οἰκοδομή (the reading of א* B D F G Ψ 33 1739* Ï), the article is almost surely a scribal addition intended to clarify the meaning of the text, for with the article the meaning is unambiguously “the whole building.”

[2:21]  tn Or “every building.” Although “every building” is a more natural translation of the Greek, it does not fit as naturally into the context, which (with its emphasis on corporate unity) seems to stress the idea of one building.

[2:1]  ²¹ tn The adverbial participle “being” (ὄντας, ontas) is taken concessively.

[2:1]  ²² sn Chapter 2 starts off with a participle, although you were dead, that is left dangling. The syntax in Greek for vv. 1-3 constitutes one incomplete sentence, though it seems to have been done intentionally. The dangling participle leaves the readers in suspense while they wait for the solution (in v. 4) to their spiritual dilemma.

[3:15]  ²³ tn Or “faithfully.”

[3:15]  ²⁴ tc Most witnesses (א² D¹ F G H Ψ 0278 Ï lat sy bo) conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, early and excellent witnesses (א* A C D* 048 33 81 1739 1881 sa) lack the particle, rendering the omission the preferred reading.

[3:1]  ²⁵ tc Most later witnesses (D² 0278 Ï lat sy) have καί (kai, “and”) after ἀρχαῖς (arcai", “rulers”), though the earliest and best witnesses (א A C D* F G Ψ 33 104 1739 1881) lack the conjunction. Although the καί is most likely not authentic, it has been added in translation due to the requirements of English style. For more discussion, see TCGNT 586.

[2:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “made.”

[2:5]  ²⁷ tn The term does not refer here to vegetable gardens, but to orchards (cf. the next line). In the same way the so-called “garden” of Eden was actually an orchard filled with fruit trees. See Gen 2:8-9.

[2:5]  ²⁸ tn The noun פַּרְדֵּס (pardes, “garden, parkland, forest”) is a foreign loanword that occurs only 3 times in biblical Hebrew (Song 4:13; Eccl 2:5; Neh 2:8). The original Old Persian term pairidaeza designated the enclosed parks and pleasure-grounds that were the exclusive domain of the Persian kings and nobility (HALOT 963 s.v. פַּרְדֵּס; LSJ 1308 s.v παράδεισος). The related Babylonian term pardesu “marvelous garden” referred to the enclosed parks of the kings (AHw 2:833 and 3:1582). The term passed into Greek as παράδεισος (paradeisos, “enclosed park, pleasure-ground”), referring to the enclosed parks and gardens of the Persian kings (LSJ 1308). The Greek term has been transliterated into English as “paradise.”