“Concerning all ‘of which’ ‘I am being called in for accusation’ by Jewish-men, O’ King Agrippa, “‘I am already being led (by an outlook)’ (that is) ‘primed for increase’ ‘by making contact with’ you, ‘as a man being about’ ‘to explain my underlying logic-logos’1 today,
Above is my Crucified Life Translation (XLT) of Acts 26:2. I’m getting close to finishing both it and the paraphrase, the Crucified Life Paraphrase (XLP). Both are devotional in nature. I’m close to completing the New Testament. After the book of Acts, the only two remaining books for me to translate are the two Corinthian letters. I’ve been saving the best for last, I suppose, since if you have ever read what I write or heard me speak, I frequently bring up the importance of 1 Corinthians 2:2 as being a finished and on-going and operative reality in and among us all.
I do not pretend to tell anyone that this is the official translation for everyone. I’m just one person, and I’m sure I make mistakes. Peer-review is especially important when making such a claim. No, the XLT and XLP are devotional, and the footnotes of the XLT are my reflections on the crucified life reality of 1 Corinthians 2:2 that is clearly missed in modern translations and so-called exegesis from both podium and pulpit. I try to do the paraphrase more like reading a modern novel by incorporating all the crucified life insights that the Holy Spirit has brought to my attention while wresting with the Greek text. I only make them available for others to look over my shoulder and see what I am seeing. And what I am seeing is category-shifting, for instead of writing about a topic – what and how – I see Him Who is my life.
The world is always “going to hell in a handbasket” as they idiom goes. Before any of us have come to be born on this planet, there has been a plan with Mordor-like intent to blanket the world with its type of “freeing” darkness. It is imprisonment without having the onus of the sun calling for seeds to die, so that increase can occur. Jesus has always been the target of this obfuscation, because if any of us would settle long enough at His feet like Mary at the end of Luke 10, then the Reality coming out of His heart through His mouth could potentially find places in our own heart’s soil. To this point I leave you here to ponder the “devotional” footnote at the word I translate as to explain my underlying logic-logos. Oh, yes, keep in mind that TJPs is the abbreviation for The Jesus Pictures or TaNaK Jesus Pictures. On the other page you can find print and Kindle books that will explain that.
[1] By repeating the word, there is clearly an emphasis here on the underlying logic and matrix from which Paul will speak to the situation he is in. Notice how I am purposefully avoiding the words defense and apologetic. I do not find these words helpful, but rather less precise and subject to a general misunderstanding of the logos-family of Greek words employed by Luke and Paul, even John and James. Obviously, defense is a fine translation – gold star for precision. However, when Jesus is the Logos / the Word, and knowing Him this way is key to transformation, then let us not haphazardly settle for the gold star of excellence in scholarship. Reality is knowing Jesus through Spirit-to-spirit Presencing, everything else is a side-show at best, a slide into death at worst. The underlying matrix of Jesus’ Eternal Spirit provides the only Living Definition of Reality to which we must be conformed to or suffer loss at best, or at worst, remain in a state ontological friction. Humans were never designed to undergo that experiential heat of having a contrary state of being. The entire anatomical design of humans, reflects the spiritual design of face-to-face intimacy and care for others through the corporate life-bearing of God’s Image and Likeness. Therefore, the Logos as the spoken assemblage of all underlying factors of reality coming to bear and account is paramount not to miss. Yet, we do in Genesis 1:1 all the time. For, “what is unseen is eternal” has its corresponding letters in Genesis 1:1 with a word that is unspoken and untranslatable. I mean this literally. Open an interlinear of Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew and stop at the first word with no translation. It is the fourth word, the 15th and 16th letters, in the entire Bible. Identify the letters. What are they? Aleph and Tav. As you probably know in Hebrew, this is the first and last letters of the alphabet. As you also likely know, each letter in Hebrew has meaning associated with it. For instance, the word “east” is spelled picturing that direction: Qoph (sun at horizon), Dalet (through door), Mem (to sea). Moreover, by 10 sayings, God creates the universe. Therefore, Logos / Word in Greek, written and spoken in its various forms by Hebrew Messianic believers, is filled with a universe of meaning reflective of the Creator’s original intent and eternal design for His creation and creatures. It could not be otherwise. Rather than dispassionately ignore such things, as cultural tourists, we need to stop making these scholarly faux pas, so that we can get into the right spirit of communication of first century Messianic Judaism to the Greco-Romans world. The Logos is The Higher Way and Thought of Isaiah 55:8-11. Php 2:5-11 and 3:8-14 are designed to get the Greco-Roman hearers into the proverbial “swing of things” – conformed to the ontological trajectories of Jesus as the Dying Seed on His Way through us for increase to bless others with His Life. We learn these best by the Spirit vivifying TJPs, illuminating His Spirit moving through the very lives that were designed to be expressive of That Image and Likeness.
Seeing Jesus as The Life of The Bible Stories 