The reflecting theologian

Something for us to think, did the Samaritan woman in John 4 really believe what Jesus said? Our usual answer is a "yes," drawing our conclusion based on two facts: that the woman went back to her town and told her fellow villagers about it and that the other Samaritans believed in Jesus because of her testimony.  However, if one studies the Greek text a bit closer, one may find that the answer needs not necessarily be the case. This is due to the way that Koine Greek phrased their rhetorical question. Without getting into the technical details, there are two ways of framing rhetorical questions in Greek. Method A frames the questions in such a way that the answer required will always be "yes". For example, in 1 Corinthians 9:1, when Paul asked if "am I not an apostle?", the way the Greek was phrased almost always demand a "yes" answer. And we see that in the English translation as well.  Method B, on the other hand, frames the question in

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(This reflection was posted on my class learning portal regarding my previous mission trip) Well, I was asked to share about my trip just now in class and I thought that I should have done a better job in sharing what happened. Consider this as part of my reflection on the Greek class as well. So, as most of you know, I went  to teach in an underground training center which was run by a Singaporean pastor. It's the same place we went to for our mission trip in 2013. And this time, I was there to teach a class of 18 students from churches from other parts of the country on the book of Ephesians. I must say that knowing Greek first and foremost really helped me in my preparation, primarily because I was using some rather very technical commentary that sprouts Greek all over the place. So being able to read Greek helped me to understand most of the contents that the author was writing about. Also, during the class, as I was teaching the book, some students asked me about other simi