Gegraptai

Τί οὖν; προεχόμεθα¹; οὐ πάντως, προῃτιασάμεθα γὰρ Ἰουδαίους τε καὶ Ελληνας πάντας ὑφ’ ἁμαρτίαν εἶναι, καθὼς γέγραπται ὅτι Οὐκ ἔστιν δίκαιος οὐδὲ εἷς, οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ συνίων, οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ ἐκζητῶν τὸν θεόν. πάντες ἐξέκλιναν, ἅμα ἠχρεώθησαν: οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ ποιῶν χρηστότητα, [οὐκ ἔστιν] ἕως ἑνός. τάφος ἀνεῳγμένος ὁ λάρυγξ αὐτῶν, ταῖς γλώσσαις αὐτῶν ἐδολιοῦσαν, ἰὸς ἀσπίδων ὑπὸ τὰ χείλη αὐτῶν, ὧν τὸ στόμα ἀρᾶς καὶ πικρίας γέμει: ὀξεῖς οἱ πόδες αὐτῶν ἐκχέαι αἷμα, σύντριμμα καὶ ταλαιπωρία ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτῶν, καὶ ὁδὸν εἰρήνης οὐκ ἔγνωσαν. οὐκ ἔστιν φόβος θεοῦ ἀπέναντι τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αὐτῶν. Οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι ὅσα ὁ νόμος λέγει τοῖς ἐν τῷ νόμῳ λαλεῖ, ἵνα πᾶν στόμα φραγῇ καὶ ὑπόδικος γένηται πᾶς ὁ κόσμος τῷ θεῷ: διότι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου οὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σὰρξ ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ, διὰ γὰρ νόμου ἐπίγνωσις ἁμαρτίας.

What then? Are we at a disadvantage? Not at all, for we already accused all—both Jews and Greeks—to be under sin, just as it is written:

“A righteous person does not exist, not even one; one who understands does not exist; one who seeks after God does not exist. All turned aside; together they were corrupted. One who practices integrity does not exist; there is not even as many as one. Their throat is an opened grave; they were deceiving with their tongues; the poison of asps is upon their lips, of which the mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are quick to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and they did not know the path of peace. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

But we have known that whatever the law says, it is speaks to those in the law, so that every mouth might be silenced and the entire world might become accountable to God. Therefore all flesh will not be made righteous in his presence by works of the law; for knowledge of sin is through the law.

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Vocab:

προεχόμεθα - pres. mid./pass. ind. 1 pl. from προέχω: to have before or in advance of another, hence to have an advantage; to excel, surpass; (see note)

προῃτιασάμεθα - aor. mid. (dep.) ind. 1 pl. from προαιτιάομαι: to reach a charge of guilt prior to an implied time, accuse beforehand

συνίων - pres. act. part. nom. sg. masc. from συνίημι: to understand, comprehend

ἐξέκλιναν - aor. act. ind. 3 pl. from ἐκκλίνω: steer clear of, stray away from, avoid; turn aside, deviate from

ἠχρεώθησαν - aor. pass. ind. 3 pl. from ἀκρειόω: make useless; become depraved, corrupt, worthless

χρηστότητα - acc. sg. fem.; moral goodness, integrity; kindness

τάφος - nom. sg. masc.; burial; grave

ἀνεῳγμένος - perf. pass. part. nom. sg. masc. from ἀνοίγω: to open

λάρυγξ (think “larynx”) - nom. sg. masc.; throat

ἰὸς - nom. sg. masc.; poison

ἀσπίδων - gen. pl. fem.; asp

ὀξεῖς - nom. pl. masc.; quick

ἐκχέαι - aor. act. inf. from ἐκχέω: to pour out, shed

ἀπέναντι - adv.; opposite, against, before

φραγῇ - aor. pass. subj. 3 sg. from φράσσω: to block, stop, close up; put to silence

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Notes:

¹ This one’s a bit tricky. The textual variants here betray the confusion of the early copyists on Paul’s meaning here, also. Some (e.g. NIV, NASB, and Witherington’s commentary) interpret this as having an active meaning (i.e. “we have an advantage”). I don’t think so. It is in the middle/passive, and it ought to be translated as such. BDAG has a helpful extended discussion on this instance of προέχω, in which it is mentioned that if indeed the middle is taken to have the same meaning as the active here, the active meaning for the middle is not found elsewhere. That is helpful, but ultimately I’m not keen on the interpretive options BDAG provides. LSJ gives the passive definition “to be excelled,” and for this particular instance, “to be in worst case.” This makes the most sense to me in context, so I’ve gone with “to be at a disadvantage.” Jewett also translates it this way in his commentary, and the NRSV lists this as a possible translation in a footnote as well.

It’s about time I started these back up. Even though I won’t be blogging for the next couple of weeks, I can at least try to do these every couple of days. I’m going to try out adding vocab lists and probably some notes from time to time for convenience. This way, no one who is familiar with Greek should have an excuse not to read the Greek text, expert or not! If it takes too long, I may have to cut back on those things, though. We’ll see how it goes.

So, without further ado, here is today’s reading from Matthew 15:21-28:

Καὶ ἐξελθὼν ἐκεῖθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς τὰ μέρη Τύρου καὶ Σιδῶνος. καὶ ἰδοὺ γυνὴ Χαναναία ἀπὸ τῶν ὁρίων ἐκείνων ἐξελθοῦσα ἔκραζεν λέγουσα, Ἐλέησόν με, κύριε υἱὸς Δαυίδ˙ ἡ θυγάτηρ μου κακῶς δαιμονίζεται. ὁ δὲ οὐκ ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῇ λόγον. καὶ προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἠρώτουν αὐτὸν λέγοντες, Ἀπόλυσον αὐτήν, ὅτι κράζει ὄπισθεν ἡμῶν. ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν, Οὐκ ἀπεστάλην εἰ μὴ εἰς τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἀπολωλότα οἴκου Ἰσραήλ. ἡ δὲ ἐλθοῦσα προσεκύνει αὐτῷ λέγουσα, Κύριε, βοήθει μοι. ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν, Οὐκ ἔστιν καλὸν λαβεῖν τὸν ἄρτον τῶν τέκνων καὶ βαλεῖν τοῖς κυναρίοις. ἡ δὲ εἶπεν, Ναὶ κύριε, καὶ γὰρ τὰ κυνάρια ἐσθίει ἀπὸ τῶν ψιχίων τῶν πιπτόντων ἀπὸ τῆς τραπέζης τῶν κυρίων αὐτῶν. τότε ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτῇ, Ὦ γύναι, μεγάλη σου ἡ πίστις˙ γενηθήτω σοι ὡς θέλεις. καὶ ἰάθη ἡ θυγάτηρ αὐτῆς ἀπὸ τῆς ὥρας ἐκείνης.

And Jesus went out from there and withdrew into the districts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold a Canaanite woman came out from those regions and began calling out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is badly demon-possessed.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came to [him] and began asking him, saying, “Send her away, because she is crying out after us.” But he answered and said, “I was sent only unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she went and began kneeling before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” But he answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat from the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, your faith is great; let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that time.

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Vocab:

ἐκεῖθεν - adv., there, that place

Τύρου - from Τύρος, Tyre

Σιδῶνος - from Σιδῶν, Sidon

Χαναναία - Canaanite

ἔκραζεν - imperf. act. ind. 3 sing., from κράζω; to croak (as of a raven), hence to cry out, call out

ἀπολωλότα - perf. act. part. acc. pl. neut., from ἀπόλλυμι; to perish, to be lost, ruined, destroyed

προσεκύνει - imperf. act. ind. 3 sing., from προσκυνέω; to kneel as an expression of supplication or reverence

κυναρίοις - dat. pl., from κυνάριον; a dog

ψιχίων - gen. pl., from ψιχίον; crumb

τραπέζης - gen. sing., from τραπέζα; table

ἰάθη - aor. pass. ind. 3 sing., from ἰάομαι; to cure, heal, make whole

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Notes:

This passage is pretty straightforward (or maybe it just seems that way to me after working through Thucydides last semester!), so there’s not much to note here. Here are a few basic things:

• Lots of attendant circumstance participles. Matthew uses these relatively frequently.
• Several occurrences of what may be the ingressive imperfect (if indeed there is such a thing).
• The final γάρ (”yet even the dogs…”) coordinates rather than subordinates here. Rather than the usual “for” or “because,” it should be translated something like “yet” in such cases.

While I was in Greenville, NC earlier this week for Bill Dever’s lecture at ECU (which was quite good, by the way), I went by Barnes & Noble to kill some time and picked up N. T. Wright’s latest book, Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. I read Part I yesterday and hope to finish reading it and blog my reactions before Reading Week is over. Unfortunately, I have just been reminded that I have two mid-terms to complete by next week, and I have yet to translate from Thucydides (which takes forever!) for my meeting on Tuesday, so don’t be too surprised if I don’t get around to finishing before the week ends.

One thing that I like about Wright’s work is that it is accessible—he writes in such a way that is understandable and engaging to most lay people, yet without sacrificing depth of scholarship. His books are thus more leisurely to read (if that is the right word) than many more technical yet not more important books. Surprised By Hope is no different; and as I begin, I am quickly coming to understand why some are calling it Wright’s best and most important book yet.

Chapter 1: “All Dressed Up and No Place to Go?”

Death, ironically, is a part of life. It will happen to us all sooner or later. But what, exactly, happens to human beings after we die? Is there any hope beyond this life? If one was to survey even a handful of people on this matter, I imagine one would find that confusion abounds—not only among Christians, but also among those of other religions and even those of no religion at all. Three views dominate, none of which corresponds to orthodox Christianity: (1) Annihilation, that is, the complete denial of any future life; (2) Reincarnation, which Wright rightly points out permeates more of our world than we may realize via New Age thought and the like; and (3) Spiritualism, that is, the belief in ghosts and the possibility of communication with the dead.

So, Wright offers two questions which will shape the book and, he hopes, clear up the “muddle” (which, I’m learning, is a key word in this book) concerned with the orthodox Christian belief of the future hope: First, What is the ultimate Christian hope? And second, What hope is there for change, rescue, transformation, new possibilities within the world in the present? Wright knows that many answer the first in terms of “going to heaven,” and thus consider the second question irrelevant and unrelated to the first. But, Wright responds,

if the Christian hope is for God’s new creation, for “new heavens and new earth,” and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together. And if that is so, we find that answering the one is answering the other. (5)

Chapter 2: “Puzzled About Paradise?”

Next time you go to a funeral, pay attention and you will likely see just how “muddled” people’s understandings about death often are. Most likely, you will hear people saying things such as, “He’s in a better place now,” as though death is a good thing, an occasion that ought to be celebrated because the deceased has left this dreadful world and his decrepit body and has moved on to a disembodied spiritual bliss. “One could put it like this: if someone came to these funeral services with no idea of the classic Jewish and Christian teaching on the subject, the funeral services would do little to enlighten them and plenty to mislead them or confirm them in their existing muddle” (25).

Somehow, Christian thought has oscillated between seeing death as a vile enemy and a welcome friend. But this is not what the New Testament teaches. Death, in fact, is an enemy—but it is a defeated enemy. The central New Testament belief about death, according to Wright, is

that at the last, death will be not simply redefined but defeated. God’s intention is not to let death have its way with us. If the promised final future is simply that immortal souls leave behind their mortal bodies [and "go to heaven"], then death still rules—since that is a description not of the defeat of death but simply of  death itself, seen from one angle. (15)

Wright shows how the effects of this muddled understanding plays out in the hymns we sing, the Christian year, and funerals. I won’t provide examples for the sake of time and space, but the examples Wright gives of hymns are especially enlightening, though in a few examples I fail to see any explicitly bad theology, and I wonder if Wright might be drawing things out of some of these hymns that are in fact not there. But that is not terrifically important or relevant.

Wright argues that Evangelicals gave up believing in the urgent imperative to improve society about the same time they gave up believing strongly in the resurrection and instead settled for a disembodied heaven.

Frankly, what we have at the moment isn’t, as the old liturgies used to say, “the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead” but the vague and fuzzy optimism that somehow things may work out in the end.” … If we are not careful, we will offer merely a “hope” that is no longer a surprise, no longer able to transform lives and communities in the present, no longer generated by the resurrection of Jesus himself and looking forward to the promised new heavens and new earth. (25)

He’s right, I think.

Chapter 3: Early Christian Hope in Its Historical Setting

This is the best chapter in Part I, in which Wright elegantly and eloquently summarizes his famous and massive study The Resurrection of the Son of God. He begins with a tale about the two great philosophers Wittgenstein and Popper, whose debate one evening at Cambridge fell apart when things got heated and Wittgenstein pulled out the fire poker, waved it around, and then left the room. Rumors quickly went around the world, and no one knows precisely what happened that night, though everyone agrees that the meeting took place and that Wittgenstein waved the poker around and then left abruptly.  Wright’s point, of course, is that the same is true of the resurrection accounts. They may not agree on all the details, but they do agree on this: something happened, and the Christians called it resurrection.

As far as the ancient pagan world was concerned, there was no such thing as the resurrection of the dead. For the Jews, resurrection was something that would happen collectively in the last day, and no one had done so or would do so until then. Within either of these contexts in the ancient world, though, the word “resurrection” was never used to speak of life after death; it was used to denote new bodily life after life after death. (The key word here is “bodily.” Always.) So,

when the early Christians said that Jesus had risen from the dead, they knew they were saying that something had happened to him that had happened to nobody else and that nobody had expected to happen. They were not talking about Jesus’s soul going into heavenly bliss. Nor were they saying, confusedly, that Jesus had now become divine. That is simply not what the words meant. (37)

And here is Wright’s understanding of the early Christian future hope: “the early Christians hold firmly to a two-step belief about the future: first, death and whatever lies immediately beyond; second, a new bodily existence in a newly remade world” (41). And while this belief is, relative to paganism, as Jewish as you can get, it is quite new in seven ways:

1.  There is no spectrum of belief about life after death among Christians. Apart from a few minor debates, Christians were overwhelmingly unanimous on the nature of resurrection until the late second century.
2. In second-temple Judaism, resurrection is important, but not that important; but in early Christianity, resurrection moved from the circumference to the center.
3. In Judaism, it was always left somewhat vague as to what sort of body the resurrected will possess; but in early Christianity it is clear that the body will be a transformed body.
4. The resurrection has split into two: first Jesus, and then God’s people at the end of history.
5. God has called his people to anticipate the final resurrection in personal and political life, in mission and holiness.
6. Metaphorically, resurrection no longer indicated the renewal of Israel, but the renewal of human beings in general.
7. Resurrection became associated with messiahship.

Chapter 4: “The Strange Story of Easter”

Wright presents four features of the accounts of Easter in the canonical gospels which, he suggests, compel us to take them seriously as very early accounts and not as later inventions:

1. All four accounts are strangely silent with respect to biblical quotations. Since all four evangelists have drawn heavily upon biblical quotation and allusion up to the point of Jesus’ death and burial, their silence in the Easter stories must indicate that these stories go back to very early oral tradition which was set firmly in the memories of storytellers before there was any time for biblical reflection.
2. Women, who were not regarded as credible witnesses in the ancient world, are presented as the principal witnesses to the Resurrection. This is an apologetically embarrassing element that would certainly not be present if the Easter stories had been invented.
3. The portrait of the risen Jesus painted by the evangelists is quite unlike the kind of resurrected body predicted by the biblical texts. “No speculative theology had laid this trail for the evangelists to follow” (55).
4. None of the four accounts mention the future Christian hope. Here I will let Wright speak for himself, because his words are too potent to paraphrase:

Despite a thousand Easter hymns and a million Easter sermons, the resurrection narratives in the gospels never, ever say anything like, “Jesus is raised, therefore there is life after death,” let alone, “Jesus is raised, therefore we shall go to heaven when we die.” Nor even, in a more authentic first-century Christian way, do they say, “Jesus is raised, therefore we shall be raised from the dead after the sleep of death.” No. Insofar as the event is interpreted, Easter has a very this-worldly, present-age meaning: Jesus is raised, so he is the Messiah, and therefore he is the world’s true Lord; Jesus is raised, so God’s new creation has begun—and we, his followers, have a job to do! (56)

Had the Easter accounts of the gospels been later inventions, we would surely expect for them to mention the final resurrection of all God’s people. “They don’t,” Wright says, “because they weren’t” (57).

Luke 24:1-9:

τῇ δὲ μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων ὄρθρου βαθέως ἐπὶ τὸ μνῆμα ἦλθον φέρουσαι ἃ ἡτοίμασαν ἀρώματα. εὗρον δὲ τὸν λίθον ἀποκεκυλισμένον ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου, εἰσελθοῦσαι δὲ οὐχ εὗρον τὸ σῶμα τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ. 4καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ ἀπορεῖσθαι αὐτὰς περὶ τούτου καὶ ἰδοὺ ἄνδρες δύο ἐπέστησαν αὐταῖς ἐν ἐσθῆτι ἀστραπτούσῃ. ἐμφόβων δὲ γενομένων αὐτῶν καὶ κλινουσῶν τὰ πρόσωπα εἰς τὴν γῆν εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτάς, Τί ζητεῖτε τὸν ζῶντα μετὰ τῶν νεκρῶν; οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε, ἀλλὰ ἠγέρθη. μνήσθητε ὡς ἐλάλησεν ὑμῖν ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ, λέγων τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὅτι δεῖ παραδοθῆναι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ σταυρωθῆναι καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστῆναι. καὶ ἐμνήσθησαν τῶν ῥημάτων αὐτοῦ, καὶ ὑποστρέψασαι ἀπὸ τοῦ μνημείου ἀπήγγειλαν ταῦτα πάντα τοῖς ἕνδεκα καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς λοιποῖς.

Καὶ ἔλεγεν, Οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ὡς ἄνθρωπος βάλῃ τὸν σπόρον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς καὶ καθεύδῃ καὶ ἐγείρηται νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν, καὶ ὁ σπόρος βλαστᾷ καὶ μηκύνηται ὡς οὐκ οἶδεν αὐτός. αὐτομάτη ἡ γῆ καρποφορεῖ, πρῶτον χόρτον, εἶτα στάχυν, εἶτα πλήρη[ς] σῖτον ἐν τῷ στάχυϊ. ὅταν δὲ παραδοῖ ὁ καρπός, εὐθὺς ἀποστέλλει τὸ δρέπανον, ὅτι παρέστηκεν ὁ θερισμός.

And he was saying, “Thus is the kingdom of God: as if a person scatters seed upon the ground and sleeps and wakes night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know. The ground produces on its own: first grass, then the ear, then full grain in the ear. But whenever the crop permits, he immediately sends out the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Today’s reading is from 1 Corinthians 1:10-17:

Παρακαλῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, διὰ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἵνα τὸ αὐτὸ λέγητε πάντες, καὶ μὴ ᾖ ἐν ὑμῖν σχίσματα, ἦτε δὲ κατηρτισμένοι ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ νοῒ καὶ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ γνώμῃ. ἐδηλώθη γάρ μοι περὶ ὑμῶν, ἀδελφοί μου, ὑπὸ τῶν Χλόης ὅτι ἔριδες ἐν ὑμῖν εἰσιν. λέγω δὲ τοῦτο, ὅτι ἕκαστος ὑμῶν λέγει, Ἐγὼ μέν εἰμι Παύλου, Ἐγὼ δὲ Ἀπολλῶ, Ἐγὼ δὲ Κηφᾶ, Ἐγὼ δὲ Χριστοῦ. μεμέρισται ὁ Χριστός; μὴ Παῦλος ἐσταυρώθη ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, ἢ εἰς τὸ ὄνομα Παύλου ἐβαπτίσθητε; εὐχαριστῶ [τῷ θεῷ] ὅτι οὐδένα ὑμῶν ἐβάπτισα εἰ μὴ Κρίσπον καὶ Γάϊον, ἵνα μή τις εἴπῃ ὅτι εἰς τὸ ἐμὸν ὄνομα ἐβαπτίσθητε. ἐβάπτισα δὲ καὶ τὸν Στεφανᾶ οἶκον: λοιπὸν οὐκ οἶδα εἴ τινα ἄλλον ἐβάπτισα. οὐ γὰρ ἀπέστειλέν με Χριστὸς βαπτίζειν ἀλλὰ εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, οὐκ ἐν σοφίᾳ λόγου, ἵνα μὴ κενωθῇ ὁ σταυρὸς τοῦ Χριστοῦ.

I encourage you, brothers and sisters, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you might all be in agreement and no division be among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been made known to me by Chloe’s people concerning you, my brothers and sisters, that there are contentions among you. I mean this: that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you. Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I give thanks that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. But I also baptized the house of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know if I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, not with cleverness in speaking, lest the cross of Christ be rendered vain.

From Matthew 10:39:

ὁ εὑρὼν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἀπολέσει αὐτήν, καὶ ὁ ἀπολέσας τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ εὑρήσει αὐτήν.

The one who finds one’s life will lose it, and the one who loses one’s life for my sake will find it.

Today’s reading is from Luke 18:9-14, the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector:

Εἶπεν δὲ καὶ πρός τινας τοὺς πεποιθότας ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῖς ὅτι εἰσὶν δίκαιοι καὶ ἐξουθενοῦντας τοὺς λοιποὺς τὴν παραβολὴν ταύτην: Ἄνθρωποι δύο ἀνέβησαν εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν προσεύξασθαι, ὁ εἷς Φαρισαῖος καὶ ὁ ἕτερος τελώνης. ὁ Φαρισαῖος σταθεὶς πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ταῦτα προσηύχετο, Ὁ θεός, εὐχαριστῶ σοι ὅτι οὐκ εἰμὶ ὥσπερ οἱ λοιποὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἅρπαγες, ἄδικοι, μοιχοί, ἢ καὶ ὡς οὗτος ὁ τελώνης: νηστεύω δὶς τοῦ σαββάτου, ἀποδεκατῶ πάντα ὅσα κτῶμαι. ὁ δὲ τελώνης μακρόθεν ἑστὼς οὐκ ἤθελεν οὐδὲ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἐπᾶραι εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, ἀλλ’ ἔτυπτεν τὸ στῆθος αὐτοῦ λέγων, Ὁ θεός, ἱλάσθητί μοι τῷ ἁμαρτωλῷ. λέγω ὑμῖν, κατέβη οὗτος δεδικαιωμένος εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ παρ’ ἐκεῖνον: ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὑψῶν ἑαυτὸν ταπεινωθήσεται, ὁ δὲ ταπεινῶν ἑαυτὸν ὑψωθήσεται.

And he also told this parable to some who persuaded themselves that they were righteous and held others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying these things to himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—thieves, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I tithe everything I acquire.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, was not even willing to lift up his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner.’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified instead of the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Today’s reading, from Matthew 6:1-2:

Προσέχετε [δὲ] τὴν δικαιοσύνην ὑμῶν μὴ ποιεῖν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι αὐτοῖς: εἰ δὲ μή γε, μισθὸν οὐκ ἔχετε παρὰ τῷ πατρὶ ὑμῶν τῷ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. Οταν οὖν ποιῇς ἐλεημοσύνην, μὴ σαλπίσῃς ἔμπροσθέν σου, ὥσπερ οἱ ὑποκριταὶ ποιοῦσιν ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς καὶ ἐν ταῖς ῥύμαις, ὅπως δοξασθῶσιν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων: ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀπέχουσιν τὸν μισθὸν αὐτῶν.

Pay close attention not to practice your righteousness in front of people to be seen by them; otherwise, you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, whenever you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet in front of you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they might be praised by people. Truly I say to you, they have their full reward.

From Philippians 2:1-4:

Εἴ τις οὖν παράκλησις ἐν Χριστῷ, εἴ τι παραμύθιον ἀγάπης, εἴ τις κοινωνία πνεύματος, εἴ τις σπλάγχνα καὶ οἰκτιρμοί, πληρώσατέ μου τὴν χαρὰν ἵνα τὸ αὐτὸ φρονῆτε, τὴν αὐτὴν ἀγάπην ἔχοντες, σύμψυχοι, τὸ ἓν φρονοῦντες, μηδὲν κατ’ ἐριθείαν μηδὲ κατὰ κενοδοξίαν, ἀλλὰ τῇ ταπεινοφροσύνῃ ἀλλήλους ἡγούμενοι ὑπερέχοντας ἑαυτῶν, μὴ τὰ ἑαυτῶν ἕκαστος σκοποῦντες, ἀλλὰ [καὶ] τὰ ἑτέρων ἕκαστοι.

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any comfort from love, if there is any fellowship in the Spirit, if there is any affection and compassion, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, united, minding one thing. Do nothing out of hostility or empty conceit, but in humility, regard one another as better than yourselves, each looking not only to one’s own interests, but also to [those of] others.