A Word about Language

3. I choose to remain with Jesus, even through trials, temptations, and sufferings. I don’t stop praying, reading Scripture, or receiving the sacraments, even when I encounter doubt, discouragement, or persecutions from others. If I fall into mortal sin, I go immediately to Reconciliation. I grow closer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sometimes in ways I can perceive and sometimes in ways that I can’ t perceive in the moment. 4. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, my believing and remaining bear fruit in practical love that builds up the Church and witnesses to other potential believers. I use the gifts that God has given me to help my fellow disciples live in closer and closer relationship with Jesus, and I share my faith with those who are not disciples. I help the poor. I tell others who Jesus is and how a relationship with Him makes a practical difference in my own life.

All four of these movements are essential to discipleship but believing and remaining are the two hinge actions that make the rest possible. In fact, we will come to learn that remaining is the natural consequence and perfection of a person’ s progress in faith/believing.

The Gospel according to John (and the entire New Testament) was handed down to us in Greek. The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew, with some Greek and a little Aramaic. Reading our Bibles in English (a language that didn’ t even exist at the time of the New Testament) two thousand years after the biblical texts were written means that some things are literally lost in translation. As we discover what the Holy Spirit inspired St. John to write concerning discipleship, it is important for us to pay attention to the actual words St. John selected. Specific words aren ’ t the only way an author

communicates meaning—he also uses actions and context—but the words themselves are an important indication of the author’ s intention.

The Greek verb for “believe ” is pisteúō. However, pisteúō can also mean “ trust ” in the sense of “ to entrust oneself to an entity in complete confidence” or “ entrust ” as in “I entrust this precious family heirloom to you so that you might keep it safe.” It can also mean “be confident about” or “think/consider possible.” The nominal (noun) form of this word is pístis, commonly translated into English as “faith” or “belief, ” but sometimes meaning “ trust, confidence, a pledge, or a commitment.”9 As we read our English Bibles, it is easy to miss some of the nuance of the Bible’ s meaning because using different English words unintentionally hides the fact that these concepts are expressed by the same word in Greek and are therefore very closely connected.

For

“ remain,” we have a similar problem. The Greek verb ménō can be translated “ remain, stay, abide, live, persist,” and the like. The noun form is mónē, which in John means “ a state of remaining in an area, staying, tarrying” or “ a place where one stays, dwelling(-place), room, abode.”10 With these variations in language, even the most attentive reader of the Gospel in English will miss the connection between John 1:38, where Andrew and the other disciple ask Jesus, “Where do you live [ménō]?” and John 14:2, where Jesus tells us, “In my Father’ s house are many rooms [mónē]; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

The fact is that these are different forms of the same word. At the

beginning of the Gospel, Jesus ’ first disciples express their sprouting desire to live/remain with Jesus and, near the end of the Gospel, Jesus

9. See F. W. Danker, ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 816–20, henceforth cited as BDAG. 10. See BDAG, 630–31, 658.