From: Kevin Paszalek (email@example.com)
Date: Thu May 02 1996 - 11:24:23 EDT
"Philip L. Graber" <firstname.lastname@example.org> wrote:
>I've been puzzled for quite some time by how the participle in Eph 5:21 is
>treated. I'm not real big on the label "imperatival participle," and, as
>I recall, Brooks and Winbery express discomfort with it, saying that any
>participle that can be explained otherwise should be. (I suspect that
>they all can be, but that's another issue.) If a participle is dependent
>on an imperative verb, that does not make it a special kind of participle,
>does it? I've never heard anyone call a circumstantial participle a
>"participle with indicative force." It seems clear to me that there are a
>string of participles in Eph 5:19-21 that all follow from the imperative
>in 5:18: PLHROUSQE EN PNEUMATI, LALOUNTES... AiDONTES KAI YALLONTES...
>EUXARISTOUNTES... hUPOTASSOMENOI.... The implication of the grammar seems
>to me to be that an appropriate response to the imperative to be filled
>with the Spirit (in spirit?) would include such things as speaking to one
>another in psalms, etc., singing and making melody.., giving thanks
>always..., and being subject to one another.... Why then do the
>commentators and translators so consistently make a decisive structural
>break here, as though the "submission" bit has nothing to do with being
>careful how you walk and redeeming the time and understanding what the
>Lord's will is and being filled with the Spirit?
>The NRSV goes even further by putting 5:21 in a paragraph all by itself!
>This seems especially difficult, considering that 5:22 is an elliptical
>clause in which the verb (the process, I mean, not necessarily the form of
>the verb) must be supplied from 5:21.
I see this passage as you have described it. Would it be too strong to call
the actions or attitudes denoted by the participles "results" or
Mt. 28:19-20 is another example of a string of participles "hanging on an
imperative" but these seem to be methods for accomplishing the discipling
required by the imperative.
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