An engagement ring, a mouse-catcher in ancient Greece, a schoolmaster who is the son of a schoolmaster, a Scottish university professor, and a wonderful gift from God.... This miscellany arose from a look in my bookshelves.

The schoolmaster was born in 1873 at Blandford, Dorset. He was baptised at the age of 14, and studied the Classics. He moved on from teaching to the analytical study of the New Testament, encouraged in due course by such evangelical figures as F F Bruce and Graham Scroggie. Probably the best known of his studies to be published was his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, which came out in 1940. He was William Edwy Vine.

Looking along my shelves I noticed another book of New Testament Words. This was published in 1964 and came from the pen of Professor William Barclay, at that time the Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow. (He was famous for his Daily Study Bible, a series of easy to read commentaries.) His book is a slimmer one than Vine's (which covers every word in the New Testament from the Authorised Version in alphabetical order.) Barclay's book covers only 61 words or so, in rather more detail, with reference to their daily use in the ancient world, and arranged in alphabetical order in the Greek. It contains a series of short articles which he wrote for the British Weekly, for the benefit of students of the Bible who are not proficient in Greek. Not, be it said, to enable them to pretend they are Greek scholars when actually they are quoting his work!

The two books have a similar aim, and are based on the researches of similar groups of reputable scholars. As a quick way of comparing them I chose at random the Greek word 'arrabon', to see what they would make of it.

Vine cites the three occasions where arrabon appears in the New Testament: 2 Corinthians 1.22, 2 Corinthians 5.5, and Ephesians 1.14. He says it came to mean a pledge, or earnest (we today might call it a first instalment, or down payment, the balance to be paid later). It is used to describe the Holy Spirit, 'given to us as a divine pledge of future blessings'. In passing, Vine notes that the word arrabona in modern Greek means an engagement ring - the significance is similar, a pledge and promise of blessing to come in due course.

Barclay quotes the use of the word in daily life (the pieces of papyrus on which business dealings were recorded survived the centuries remarkably well and were discovered). He notes its use for a deposit paid in buying a cow; or a deposit on the services of a dancing troupe; and as an advance payment to a mouse catcher called Lampon, to ensure that he made a prompt start before the baby mice left the nest and were scattered everywhere.

The Holy Spirit as arrabon is a foretaste in advance. "It is God who established us with you in Christ, has anointed us by putting his seal on us, and giving his Spirit in our hearts as a first instalment." 2 Cor.1) We have a building from God eternal in the heavens (unlike our human bodies which die). We wait for the mortal to be swallowed up in life. God has prepared us for this "and given his Spirit as a guarantee." (2 Cor.5) The Holy Spirit is a "pledge of our inheritance, redemption as God's own people." (Eph.1)

The Holy Spirit may speak to us from outside, as it were, as in the case of Simeon (Luke 2.25) It is also in our heart enabling us to recognise and respond to the truth about Christ. This results in only partial knowledge (1 Corinthians 13), but this is a foretaste of the perfect state to come. As of now all our knowledge, our joy, our love, is only a foretaste. But then, face to face.

My appreciation of these expositors, no longer with us. The books are

Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words W E Vine Oliphants 1953

New Testament Words William Barclay SCM 1964

GC