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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 2 Peter 1:7 - 1:7
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7. φιλαδελφία. It is interesting to see how this word has been transformed in meaning under Christian (and Jewish) influences. To the Greek proper it meant only the affection of a brother for his own actual brother. In a Jewish book (2Ma 15:14) we find the prophet Jeremiah called φιλάδελφος, because he “prays much for the people.” Thus to the Jew, all the nation were beginning to be thought of as brethren. In the N.T. no expression is more familiar to us than “the brethren” applied to those who are united in a common belief. We are reminded of φιλαδελφία and ἀγάπη by the passage 1Jn 4:20 ἐάν τις εἴπῃ Ἀγαπῶ τὸν θεόν, καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῇ, ψεύστης ἐστίν.
With this list of virtues may be compared (besides 1 Tim. already quoted) Gal 5:22. In the Shepherd of Hermas, written early in the second century, is a genealogical tree of virtues which somewhat resembles ours: Πίστις, Ἐγκράτεια, Ἁπλότης, Ἀκακία, Σεμνότης, Ἐπιστήμη, Ἀγάπη.