{"id":4111,"date":"2010-03-24T15:26:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-24T19:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/?p=4111"},"modified":"2010-03-24T15:27:03","modified_gmt":"2010-03-24T19:27:03","slug":"encouragement-a-lost-teaching-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/2010\/03\/24\/encouragement-a-lost-teaching-part-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Encouragement, a lost teaching (part 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking at the words the Bible uses for encourage\u00a0 — paramuthia <\/em>and parakaleo \u2013 <\/em>we saw that they really have no exact English translations. <\/em>They both mean encourage and comfort and exhort, all the time. In English those are three different concepts \u2013 but in the original Greek they are one concept.<\/p>\n

From that we developed a working definition of the biblical concept of encouragement \u2013 of what God is asking of us when His Word says, \u201cencourage one another\u201d: To help someone move forward on the path God has for them.<\/p>\n

Even just the word \u201chelp\u201d is not a bad translation of this concept either. You have to be with the person, helping, to be an encouragement. This is not, \u201cGet back up on that horse.\u201d This is, \u201cLet me tell you how to stay on the horse, and help you back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

And maybe one of those Greek words, parakaleo, <\/em>sounded familiar to you. There\u2019s a passage in the Bible where the noun form of that word is often translated as helper, and that\u2019s what we want to talk about next.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever\u201d (John 14:16)<\/p>\n

Yes, in John 14-16, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the paraklete. <\/strong><\/em>That\u2019s the noun form of parakaleo. <\/em>So the Holy Spirit is <\/em>the Helper, the Encourager, Comforter, the Counselor.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look briefly at what this passage says about the Holy Spirit and see what that can tell us about how we are to encourage one another. Obviously, He helps us move forward in the direction God intends for us. Specifically:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Holy Spirit teaches us \u2013 and reminds us what we\u2019ve been taught. While we don\u2019t all have the gift of teaching, we are all responsible to teach. Perhaps a better way to say that is, we are all responsible to give others insight and direction from God\u2019s Word. And I think we\u2019re also responsible to remind people what they already know.<\/p>\n

You might call that exhortation instead of teaching, and I think that\u2019s a good way to describe the work of the Holy Spirit that is being described here. And it\u2019s part of what is meant by the biblical term for encouragement.<\/p>\n

Of course, the words the Bible uses for \u201cencourage\u201d are also very \u201cwith-y\u201d, and you can\u2019t get more \u201cwith-y\u201d than the Holy Spirit, who is always with each believer. So we\u2019ll look at that next time.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, how are you doing with exhorting others? The Bible tells us to do it \u2013 twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking at the words the Bible uses for encourage\u00a0 — paramuthia and parakaleo \u2013 we saw that they really have no exact English translations. They both mean encourage and comfort and exhort, all the time. In English those are three different concepts \u2013 but in the original Greek they are one concept. From that we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-4111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-ministry","tag-encouragement","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/ian-fallis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}