The Adulterous Woman From Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Thanks for joining me today for your coffee break at Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power. I truly enjoy spending this time with you and I pray that you will be glad that you took this little break and turned everything else down or off in your life for just these few moments. I’m so sorry I didn’t show up yesterday. I just had too much on my plate, but I’m glad to be back so grab your coffee and come on in. We are going back to that first detour in the meeting with the officers, the Chief Priests and the Pharisees.

So this detour has everything to do with the word “deceived,” an accusation that the Pharisees tossed at the men who dared to speak out their wonder and curiosity. Bear with me for a moment as I check this out. I’m looking in my Hebrew and Greek concordance and there are at least nine different uses for the word! This detour may take a while. We’ll go one at a time so we can digest what may help us understand this reality of so many “believers” being deceived, as well as gain insight into the reality of why our Pharisees didn’t believe that Jesus was/is “The Christ.”

Amazing! Between the Old and New Testament, there are over 30 times that “deceived” is used, and you should see how many variations of the root word “deceive” there are! Ironically enough, the first time “deceived shows up is in Genesis – hmm, in the beginning! Just for kicks and giggles, I’m going to look up the Hebrew translation for the first time this word “deceived” shows up, and then we can compare it to the Greek translation and the verse that we are actually getting it from. This way we’ll be sure and get the right context.

Here goes: “To deride, by implication to cheat.” So that’s the first time it comes up, which is in Genesis. I just saw three lines down in the concordance the third use of this word and it’s in Deuteronomy, “that your heart would not be deceived.” I have to look it up, because this seems to be right on point. It wasn’t the officers whose hearts were deceived but the Pharisees!

Oh, this is interesting: “To open, to make roomy; usually figuratively in a mental or moral sense to be or cause to make simple or in a sinister way, delude, entice.” This is getting interesting: “to persuade, flatter, allure.” Ooh, something tells me that last one has a lot to do with our definition and a lot to do with The Adulterous Woman that we are soon to meet; I promise!

Join me tomorrow for more of this major detour!

Digging for understanding,

Evinda