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πρόθυμος (Prothymos): The Spirit Is Willing · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reform Thinking. Good to be here.
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  This is the show where we we take a stack of lexical and
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  theological sources and we really try to get to the bottom
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  of one specific biblical concept.
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  That's right, we want to know what the words actually meant.
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  Yeah, we're not looking for a superficial reading.
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  We want the meat. We want to know what the authors
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  intended in you know, how that original audience would have
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  heard it. And for us, coming from the
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  Reform tradition, it's always through the lens of Scripture as
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  a whole. We believe every word is God
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  breathed, so every word carries theological weight.
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  So we look at the text through the framework of, say, the
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  Westminster Confession, and we look at how these Greek words
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  inform our doctrine, our doctrine of man, of sin, of
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  sanctification. We really can't afford to be
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  lazy with the text. And for this deep dive, we are
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  focusing on one specific Greek word.
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  It's a word you've probably read, I don't know, 100 times in
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  your English Bible, and it's usually translated as willing.
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  You know the phrase the Spirit is willing.
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  But as we've been digging into the sources, it seems like
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  willing is, well, it's a pretty weak translation.
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  It just misses the punch of the original.
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  It really does. The word is prophymos, and when
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  you start to look at how it was used outside the Bible, you
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  know, in secular Greek, and then how it's used in the Greek Old
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  Testament, the Septuagint, you realize pretty quickly we're
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  dealing with something much more intense.
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  Willing just sounds so passive to me.
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  It sounds like. Sure, I guess I'm willing to
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  help you move if you really need it.
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  Yeah, it implies consent, but maybe not much more.
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  Exactly. But the sources we're looking at
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  today, we've got the BDAG Lexicon, Kittle's Theological
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  Dictionary, a few commentaries on Romans and the Gospels.
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  They all paint a picture of something really active.
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  We've been throwing around phrases like aggressive
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  readiness. Or a forward leaning spirit.
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  Yeah, that's a good one. A forward leaning spirit.
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  And that's the core distinction we have to get right from the
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  start in our world. Willing is about consent.
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  I'm willing to sign the paper. I'm willing to go along with the
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  plan. But Perthmos is not about
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  consent, it's about desire. It's about an internal drive
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  that's already charging forward. OK.
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  And that has to have massive implications for how we
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  understand that whole struggle between the spirit and the
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  flesh. It changes it from a polite
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  disagreement to an all out war. So that's our mission for this
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  deep dive. We want to move beyond that.
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  You know that Sunday School understanding of the Spirit is
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  willing and really see the intense, almost soldier like
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  passion that's packed into this one word.
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  We want to see what's actually going on in that conflict
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  between the regenerate spirit and our fallen flesh.
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  Right. It's a vital theological point.
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  We're going to see how prothemos connects to Old Testament ideas,
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  how Greek generals used it. It's really fascinating stuff.
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  It is. So let's just, you know, break
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  this down. Let's start with the word
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  itself. Section one of our outline is
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  the etymology in the secular Greek context.
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  So the word is prothmos. It's a compound word.
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  Yeah, it is. Yeah.
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  It's pretty straightforward in its structure.
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  You have the preposition pro, which means forward or in front
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  of. OK, simple enough.
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  And then you have the noun thymos.
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  And thymos is one of those Greek words that is just notoriously
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  difficult to nail down with a single English word.
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  It covers a huge range of meaning I.
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  Remember running into this in like a college philosophy class?
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  Reading Plato thymos was a really big deal.
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  It wasn't the intellect, the mind.
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  That's exactly the distinction. The Greeks would almost always
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  contrast the naus, which is the mind, the intellect, your
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  rational faculty, with the thymos.
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  Thymos is the seed of passion. It's the source of anger, yes,
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  but also courage. It's your guts, it's your
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  spiritedness. So.
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  It's more of an emotional center.
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  Emotional but also volitional. It's your drive.
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  Homer uses it to describe the driving force inside a hero,
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  what makes him risk his life in battle.
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  It's associated with heat, with breathing hard, with intense gut
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  level emotion. It's the part of you that rears
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  up and says let's go. So if you stick pro in front of
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  that forward passion, that's pretty potent.
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  It really is forward in spirit, forward in passion.
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  It means you are already predisposed to action.
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  You're leaning into it. The lexicons will define it as
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  ready, but we have to be so careful with that word.
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  It's not ready in the sense of OK, I'm prepared if you need me.
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  It's ready in the sense of I am straining at the leash to get
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  started. And the sources you mentioned,
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  the secular Greek writers, they really bear this out.
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  We've got notes here from Besides and Herodotus.
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  These are the great historians writing about war and politics.
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  And they use profemos constantly in a military context.
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  That's one of its primary homes. It's what we're calling the
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  soldiers Virtue, the. Soldiers virtue.
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  I like that. When Thucydides describes
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  soldiers as profemos, he's not just saying they showed up for
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  the battle. He's describing a men who are
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  eager to fight. They're not conscripts who are
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  drafted and are being dragged to the frontline against their
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  will. They're.
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  The ones who volunteered, they're.
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  The ones who want to to engage the enemy, they see the fight as
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  a good thing. There's a desire there.
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  And that's so significant because there's another Greek
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  word, right? Hekuicios, yes.
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  Hekuicios Which? Means something more like
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  voluntary or willing. It does, and the distinction is
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  crucial. Our lexicon sources argue pretty
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  strongly that prothomos implies far more desire and intensity.
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  So what's the difference? Well, Hakusios might describe
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  the soldier who enlisted because it was his duty, or the citizen
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  who pays his taxes because it's the law.
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  He does it voluntarily. Nobody is holding a sword to his
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  throat, but he might not love it.
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  He consents he. Consents.
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  The Profimos man, on the other hand, loves the fight.
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  He pays his taxes because he's a patriot and he wants to see the
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  city flourish. It's a whole different internal
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  posture. It's.
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  Not just external compliance. Not at all.
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  And this had a civic dimension too.
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  In the Greek city states, you know, a public spirited person
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  was called Profimos. OK.
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  This was the citizen who didn't just show up to the Assembly to
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  vote. He was the one proposing new
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  initiatives, the one volunteering for public works,
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  the one who is eager to serve the state.
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  It implies initiative. You're the first one to raise
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  your hand when a need arises. You're the.
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  First one, that's a great way to put it.
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  We also have some notes here on Philo.
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  He's a Jewish philosopher, right?
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  But he wrote in Greek. Yes, Philo is a fantastic bridge
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  for us because he's thinking Jewish thoughts but using Greek
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  vocabulary. He's trying to explain the Old
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  Testament to a Greek speaking world.
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  And he connects prothemos to the word a goon he.
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  Does a goon means a struggle? A contest?
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  An athletic event for Philo Prothamia is the spirit of a
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  competitor. It's courage.
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  It's zeal. And he uses it to describe
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  Abraham He. Does there's this great passage
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  where he describes Abraham seeing the three visitors at his
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  tent. The text says Abraham ran to
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  meet them. Philo comments on this and says
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  Abraham was Procimotoi, which is the superlative, the most eager
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  to serve his guests. He didn't just do his duty of
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  hospitality. He attacked the duty with joy.
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  He ran to the herd to get the calf.
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  He hurried. That, for Philo, is is the
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  picture of prothemia. It's not a reluctant sense of
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  obligation, it's an aggressive, joyful service.
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  So even. Before we get to a single verse
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  in the New Testament, just in the secular and Jewish Greek
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  world, this word is a virtue of high action.
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  It's high energy, high heat. It is.
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  It's a word for heroes, for soldiers, for patriots.
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  And that really sets the stage for why the biblical writers
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  would have reached for this specific word.
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  They needed a term that conveyed that powerful internal drive
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  which. Is a perfect transition.
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  Yeah, that brings us to Section 2, the Old Testament background.
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  Now, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but it's
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  translated into Greek a couple 100 years before Christ.
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  We call that the Septuagint or the LXX.
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  And the Septuagint is just invaluable for this kind of word
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  study. The choices those translators
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  made, which Greek words they picked to translate which Hebrew
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  words, it gives us a window into their understanding.
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  It's like a 2. 1000 year old commentary.
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  In a way, yes. So when we look at where
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  prothemos and its related forms show up in the Greek Old
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  Testament, we find it's almost always translating one specific
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  Hebrew root, nadav. Nadav.
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  OK, so what's the concept behind madav in Hebrew?
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  Nadav of means to incite, to impel, or most commonly to offer
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  freely. It's the root word for the free
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  will offering. The free will offering.
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  Yes, and it's also related to the word nadiv, which means a
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  nobleman, a Prince or a generous person.
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  So. There's a connection between
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  nobility and free, generous giving.
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  Exactly. The idea is that a truly noble
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  person acts out of a generous spirit, not out of compulsion or
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  for personal gain. Their actions are free.
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  They are incited from within. We have some key examples here
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  from First and Second Chronicles.
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  This is all centered around the building of the temple, first
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  with David gathering materials and then Solomon actually
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  building it. Right.
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  Look at First Chronicles 28 verse 21.
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  David is talking to Solomon and he says the priests and Levites
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  will be with you for all the service of the House of God and
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  also every willing man who has skill.
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  Every willing man the. Greek for that phrase is POS
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  prothemos, every prothemos man. The context is craftsmanship,
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  artistry, service for the sanctuary.
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  And it's not just there. The people's giving is described
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  this way too, right? Yes, in the next chapter, First
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  Chronicles 29, the leaders of Israel offer their gold and
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  silver for the temple. And verse 9 says, then the
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  people rejoiced, for they had offered willingly because with a
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  loyal heart they had offered freely to the Lord.
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  Offered willingly? Yeah, Offered freely.
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  Both of those are translating this nadav idea, and the
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  Septuagint picks up on this with pythymia, but don't miss that
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  other word in the verse. Rejoice.
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  Rejoice, I. Love that it's not a grudging
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  duty. You know, sometimes in church,
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  the offering play comes by and you feel this social pressure.
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  You feel like you have to put something in, right?
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  That's. Compulsion.
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  That's the opposite of Nadav, that is not profemos.
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  This. Is a joyful, eager giving.
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  It has to be the entire essence of the Nadav offering.
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  The free will offering was that it was totally optional.
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  The law required certain sacrifices, sin offerings, guilt
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  offerings. But the free will offering was
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  extra. It was over and above.
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  It came purely from the overflow of a grateful heart.
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  So when the Septuagint translators use profemos here,
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  they're not just saying voluntary, they're capturing
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  that internal want to that joyful impulse.
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  They are capturing the heart behind the action.
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  And that brings up an interesting point from the
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  source material about, well, about anthropology, the study of
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  man in the Hebrew text, the subject of this willingness is
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  usually the heart, the Lev. His heart stirred him up, or his
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  heart made him willing. The heart is the source of the
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  action. Right.
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  And in Hebrew psychology, the heart, the Lev, is the center of
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  everything. Your intellects, your will, your
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  emotions. It's the command center, but the
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  Greek translators, knowing their audience thinks in slightly
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  different categories, often use prothymia to describe that
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  initiative of the heart. So they're translating a Hebrew
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  concept into a Greek framework. Precisely.
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  There's a fantastic example of this in the Book of Sirach,
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  which is one of the apocryphal books.
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  It refers back to the story of Phineas.
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  Phineas, the priest, the guy with the spear, the.
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  Very same. You remember the story in
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  Numbers 25? Israel is engaged in idolatry
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  and gross sexual immorality with the Moabite, and a plague breaks
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  out from God. It's a national crisis.
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  A huge crisis, and in the midst of it, an Israelite man brazenly
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  brings a Midianite woman into his tent in full view of Moses.
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  And Phineas sees it. And he doesn't wait for
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  committee meeting. He does not.
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  He grabs A spear, goes into the tent, and executes God's
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  judgement on them both. It's a violent, shocking scene,
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  but the text says it stops the plague.
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  His action atones for the people's sin.
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  So how does serac describe this? Serac 45, verse 23 is reflecting
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  on Phineas's zeal, and it says he acted in the goodness of the
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  eagerness of his soul. That word eagerness is our word.
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  Perthemius the. Eagerness of his soul.
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  Think about what that means. Phineas wasn't ordered by Moses
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  in that specific moment. Go and do this.
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  He saw the holiness of God being violated.
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  He saw the covenant being trampled and his internal
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  perthemia, his zeal for God's honor, propelled him into acts
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  it. Was an immediate gut level
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  response. Yes, and from a Reformed
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  perspective, this is so important.
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  This kind of willingness is an internal grace.
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  It's not just external compliance to a rule book.
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  It's a heart that has been so transformed that it loves God's
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  law and instinctively defends it.
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  That connects really well to the final piece.
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  Is this Old Testament puzzle the Dead Sea Scrolls?
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  The sources mentioned a link between Prothomos and the War
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  Scroll found a Qumran. Yeah, this is a fascinating
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  link. The Qumran community, the
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  Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, saw themselves as the
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  true remnant of Israel, the Sons of Light and.
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  Then they were waiting for a final apocalyptic battle with
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  the Sons of Darkness. Exactly, and in their war
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  scroll, which is basically their military manual for this final
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  battle, they describe their soldiers and the name they give
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  them is volunteers. Volunteers and that's from the
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  Hebrew rooting it off it. Is they are the net of him, they
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  are the free will offering people.
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  So they are. The free will offering soldiers
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  That's a. Perfect way to put it.
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  Think of the implications. They fight not because they are
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  conscripted mercenaries who have to be there, but because they
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  want to be there. They are wholly volunteers for
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  God's army. Their.
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  Service is an act of worship. It is an act of worship.
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  This establishes a whole theology of obedience that runs
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  from the Old Testament right into the new true covenant
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  obedience, True service to God is voluntary and eager.
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  It is not forced labor. God doesn't want conscripts, He
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  wants volunteers. And that just sets up the crisis
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  we see in the New Testament so perfectly.
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  Because if Profimos is this aggressive soldier, like
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  voluntary zeal, what happens when it runs into a brick wall?
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  And that brings us to Section 3, the crisis in Gethsemane.
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  This is the locust classicist, as they say, the classic
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  location for this word Matthew 26.41 and the parallel in Mark
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  14.38 so. Let's set the scene.
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  Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane.
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  He knows he's about to be arrested and crucified, the text
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  says. He's in agony, sweating, drops
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  of blood. The.
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  Human pressure on him is immense and he takes Peter, James and
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  John a little further into the garden with him and he asks them
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  for one thing. Wash and pray with me.
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  Just one hour and they can't do it.
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  They fall asleep. Three times and.
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  When Jesus finds them sleeping, he says this incredibly famous
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  line. The Spirit indeed is willing,
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  but the flesh is weak. And here is where our English
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  translation, I think, really leads us astray.
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  The Spirit is willing. Sounds like an excuse.
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  It does. It sounds like Jesus is patting
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  them on the head and saying, oh it's OK guys, I know you meant
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  well. Your spirit was willing to stay
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  awake, but your body was just a little too tired it.
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  Almost sounds like a compliment. You get an A for effort.
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  But based on everything we have just discussed, the soldiers
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  virtue, the passion of Simos, the joyful offering of Nadav,
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  that just cannot be what Jesus means it.
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  Can't be. The sources we're looking at
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  argue that a much better rendering would be something
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  like the spirit presses eagerly or The spirit is full of ardor.
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  Presses eagerly. Yes.
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  There's a sharp contrast in the Greek here.
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  It's a grammatical structure called Men Day.
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  Day It sets up two things in opposition.
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  On the one hand, men, the spirit is Porthymon.
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  On the other hand, day the flesh is Ashthenes.
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  Ashthenes, what does that mean? It means weak, but in the sense
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  of being powerless, sick without strength.
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  So it's not a gentle contrast, it's a clash.
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  It's not. The spirit is kind of OK with
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  this, but the flesh is a little sleepy.
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  No, it's the spirit is charging forward, ready for battle, full
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  of aggressive readiness. But the flesh is utterly
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  powerless. It has collapsed.
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  It has no strength to carry out the spirits desire.
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  That is completely different. Meaning it's not an excuse, it's
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  a diagnosis of a critical failure.
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  It. Is now we need to be very
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  careful with our theology here, because when Jesus says spirit
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  and flesh, he is not not teaching some kind of Gnostic
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  dualism. Right, let's clarify that
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  Gnosticism was that heresy that taught the physical body in the
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  material world are evil and the non physical spirit is good.
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  Correct. And that is not what Jesus or
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  any of the biblical writers are teaching biblical anthropology.
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  Our view of humanity does not see the body as evil.
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  God created our physical bodies and called them good.
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  So when the New Testament talks about the flesh in this negative
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  way, what does it mean? It means our fallen human
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  nature. It's humanity as it exists in
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  Adam apart from God's grace. It's our frailty, our mortality,
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  and our deep inherent susceptibility to sin.
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  Paul develops this idea extensively in Romans and
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  Galatians. OK, so that's the flesh.
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  What about the Spirit? Is Jesus talking about the Holy
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  Spirit or our human spirit? That's a.
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  Classic exegetical debate and good people land on both sides,
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  but the sources we're looking at, and I think the context
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  supports this, lean toward the idea that it's the human spirit,
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  but specifically the human spirit as it is renewed and
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  influenced by God. So the regenerate nature of a
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  believer. Exactly.
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  It's that part of the believer that has been made alive in
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  Christ, the part that is oriented toward God and desires
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  to do the right way, as one commentary puts it.
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  OK, so let's put this all together for the disciples in
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  the garden. They are believers.
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  They love Jesus, so they have this regenerate spirit.
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  They have prothemos. They absolutely do when Peter
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  declared just a few hours earlier.
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  Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.
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  That wasn't a lie. That was his prothemos speaking.
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  That was his eager, forward leaning spirit, genuinely ready
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  to go to a martyr's death for his Lord.
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  He meant it with every fiber of his regenerate being.
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  But he completely underestimated the flesh.
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  He underestimated his own weakness, his own frailty, his
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  own sinful capacity for self preservation and fear.
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  His spirit was ready for battle, but his flesh, when the pressure
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  was actually on, collapsed in failure.
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  And the source material has this fantastic insight on why they
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  failed. They failed because they relied
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  on their inner prothomo. Their feeling of readiness.
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  Without obeying the command that came with it.
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  Watch and pray. That is the Reformed insight
• 18:18
  right there. That's the key to the whole
• 18:20
  passage. Even our regenerate will.
• 18:22
  Even that God-given eager, zealous spirit is utterly
• 18:26
  insufficient on its own. It cannot sustain us through
• 18:29
  trial and temptation without constant act of reliance on the
• 18:32
  grace of God. You can't just white knuckle it.
• 18:34
  You can't just rely on your own zeal to get you through you.
• 18:37
  Can't. Peter felt ready.
• 18:38
  He felt profemos, so he didn't feel the need to pray.
• 18:41
  He felt strong, so he slept and that was his downfall.
• 18:45
  I used this analogy earlier, but it seems to fit so well here.
• 18:48
  It's like a car with a massive, powerful engine.
• 18:51
  That's the prothom of spirit. It's revving.
• 18:53
  It's loud and wants to go 150 miles an hour.
• 18:55
  But the transmission is broken, the drive shaft is cracked, the
• 18:58
  tires are flat. That's the flesh.
• 19:01
  You can Rev that powerful engine all you want, but the vehicle is
• 19:04
  powerless. It's not going anywhere.
• 19:06
  That captures it perfectly. The desire to do the will of God
• 19:09
  is present, as Paul will later say in Romans 7.
• 19:12
  For I have the desire to do what is right and not the ability to
• 19:15
  carry it out. That desire is this prophymos
• 19:18
  impulse. The failure is in the execution
• 19:21
  because of the weakness of the flesh so.
• 19:23
  What's the solution? Prayer.
• 19:25
  That was Jesus's command. Watch and pray that you may not
• 19:28
  enter into temptation. Prayer is the mechanism that
• 19:31
  takes the power from the engine and by God's grace repairs the
• 19:35
  transmission and connects it to the wheels.
• 19:37
  It brings divine power to bear on our human weakness.
• 19:40
  Wow, that is a massive take away for the Christian life.
• 19:44
  Feeling eager is not enough. It's a good start.
• 19:46
  It's a sign of life. But it's not the whole equation.
• 19:49
  You can come out of a great church service or a conference
• 19:52
  feeling so prothimos you feel ready to take on the world,
• 19:55
  ready to kill sin, ready to be a better husband or wife.
• 19:58
  And. That's a gift of grace, that
• 20:00
  feeling. But if you don't, then actively
• 20:03
  watch and pray. If you don't depend on God, that
• 20:07
  meals is just going to evaporate the second you hit the reality
• 20:11
  of your own flesh on a Monday morning.
• 20:12
  It will. Your eagerness does not replace
• 20:15
  your need for dependence. That's the lesson of Gethsemane.
• 20:18
  OK, let's shift gears a little bit.
• 20:19
  Let's move to Section 4. We see this word again in the
• 20:22
  Apostle Paul Romans chapter one, verse 15 A.
• 20:26
  Very different context, but the same powerful word.
• 20:28
  Paul is writing to the church in Roman Church.
• 20:30
  He's never visited and he says so for my part, I am eager to
• 20:34
  preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome.
• 20:38
  Some translations say I am ready, right?
• 20:40
  I am ready, and again, in English it sounds a bit casual.
• 20:42
  I'm ready when you are, but the Greek is so much more emphatic.
• 20:45
  It's Tecat's MA pro themon OK you.
• 20:48
  Got to break that down for us well.
• 20:49
  Literally, it's something like the, according to me, eagerness.
• 20:53
  He's not just using an adjective, he's using the noun
• 20:55
  form, the concept of eagerness itself.
• 20:57
  He's basically saying, As for me, the state of my being is
• 21:00
  eagerness. My resolve is set.
• 21:02
  This is who I am. It's.
• 21:03
  His defining characteristic in that moment.
• 21:05
  It is. It's an emphatic declaration of
• 21:08
  his internal state. But.
• 21:09
  There's a fascinating tension here, isn't there?
• 21:11
  Because right before this, in the previous verse Romans 1.14,
• 21:15
  Paul says I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both
• 21:19
  to the wise and to the foolish. Yes, I am a debtor.
• 21:23
  He uses a language of obligation of debt.
• 21:25
  He owes the gospel to them. It's not optional for him.
• 21:28
  So how does that work? How can you be a debtor, which
• 21:31
  implies you have to do something and also have this intense,
• 21:35
  joyful prophemos, this eagerness to do it.
• 21:38
  Usually when I'm paying off a debt, like a student loan, I'm
• 21:41
  not eager about it. I do it because I have to.
• 21:43
  That is the beautiful paradox of Christian vocation, and the
• 21:46
  Reformed view of this is that the call of God creates A
• 21:49
  compulsion, Paul says elsewhere. Woe is me if I do not preach the
• 21:52
  gospel, but the grace of the Holy Spirit transforms that
• 21:55
  compulsion into a joyful desire. Duty becomes delight.
• 21:58
  It does. We are slaves of Christ, which
• 22:01
  is a language of total obligation.
• 22:02
  And yet, in that slavery we find perfect freedom and a joyful
• 22:06
  eagerness. Our will is aligned with God's
• 22:09
  will, So what we have to do becomes what we most want to do.
• 22:12
  So Paul didn't just see Rome as, you know, a nice strategic
• 22:14
  opportunity for speaking to her. Absolutely not.
• 22:17
  He felt a deep theological obligation.
• 22:20
  He was called by Christ to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
• 22:24
  Rome was the capital of the Gentile world.
• 22:26
  He had to go. It was his debt to pay.
• 22:29
  But he wasn't dragging his feet to the payment office.
• 22:31
  He. Was running there his porthymos,
• 22:33
  his aggressive readiness was fuelled by that sense of
• 22:36
  obligation he was charging toward Rome, eager to deliver
• 22:39
  the message he owed them. Like that soldier again, he's
• 22:42
  under orders from his commander. He's a debtor to his duty.
• 22:46
  But if he's a profamized soldier, he's also running
• 22:48
  toward the sound of the guns, because that's where he wants to
• 22:50
  be. That's it.
• 22:51
  Duty and delight are not enemies in the Christian life in a
• 22:54
  mature believer they are fused together in this word profmos
• 22:57
  that's a. Powerful thought, and it applies
• 22:59
  to so much more than just a puzzle ship.
• 23:02
  Parenting work. Church service.
• 23:04
  Any calling? The goal is for that sense of I
• 23:07
  have to to be transformed into. I get to.
• 23:10
  That's the work of sanctification, OK?
• 23:13
  That brings us neatly to Section 5, the economics of eagerness.
• 23:18
  We're looking at SU Corinthians chapters 8 and 9.
• 23:21
  This is where Paul is taking up a collection for the poor and
• 23:24
  suffering Saints back in Jerusalem.
• 23:25
  And he uses our word, or rather the noun form prothemia 3 times
• 23:30
  in this section. It's a key theological term for
• 23:32
  him when he talks about giving. And the context is so important.
• 23:36
  He's asking for money, but he is incredibly careful about how he
• 23:40
  frames the request. He is.
• 23:42
  He's very delicate. He doesn't want to command them.
• 23:44
  He wants to stir up their own grace, he says in 2nd
• 23:48
  Corinthians 8 verse 11. So now finish doing it as well
• 23:51
  so that your readiness and desiring it may be matched by
• 23:54
  your completing it out of what you have.
• 23:56
  Your readiness and desiring it. That's prothemia.
• 23:59
  That's it. And notice the distinction he
• 24:01
  makes. He separates the readiness, the
• 24:03
  prothemia from the doing or the completing right.
• 24:06
  It seems the Corinthians had a problem here.
• 24:08
  It seems so. Apparently a year earlier they
• 24:11
  have been very ready to give. They had the emotion, they had
• 24:13
  the zeal, they made a pledge, they had the prothemia.
• 24:16
  But they hadn't actually actually written the check.
• 24:18
  They hadn't followed through. So Paul is gently prodding them,
• 24:21
  saying, hey, that eagerness you showed a year ago was wonderful.
• 24:25
  It was a real work of grace. Now let's see that eagerness
• 24:28
  match by performance. But what's fascinating is how
• 24:31
  much value he places on the eagerness itself.
• 24:35
  Oh, he places immense value on it.
• 24:37
  Verse 12 is the theological key to the whole section, he says.
• 24:41
  For if the readiness prithymia is there, it is acceptable
• 24:45
  according to what a person has, not according to what he does
• 24:49
  not have. If the readiness is there first.
• 24:51
  The Greek is even stronger if there be first a willing mind.
• 24:55
  The King James says God looks at the prithymia first.
• 24:58
  That's his primary concern. One of our sources defines the
• 25:01
  word here as cheerful resolution or free surrender.
• 25:05
  This has to connect back to the Old Testament Nadav offering,
• 25:08
  the free will offering. It's a Direct Line.
• 25:10
  Paul is essentially applying the theology of the temple's free
• 25:13
  will offering to the weekly church collection.
• 25:15
  It must not be of necessity. As he says later in Chapter 9,
• 25:19
  it can't be given under compulsion.
• 25:21
  God loves a cheerful giver. And that cheerfulness is
• 25:23
  prothemia. So let's make this practical.
• 25:26
  If a billionaire gives $1,000,000 to the church, but he
• 25:30
  does it grudgingly, maybe for a tax write off or for public
• 25:34
  praise, without any real prothymia in his heart and.
• 25:37
  Then, from God's perspective, it is of less value than the widow
• 25:41
  who joyfully and eagerly gives her last two mites.
• 25:45
  God values the forward leaning spirit of the giver far more
• 25:49
  than the economic total of the gift.
• 25:51
  The Prothomo spirit is what sanctifies the offering in his
• 25:53
  eyes. That is incredibly freeing
• 25:57
  because sometimes we can feel guilty that we can't give more
• 25:59
  or we can't serve more or do more.
• 26:01
  But this is saying God looks at the engine first.
• 26:04
  He looks at the aggressive readiness of the heart.
• 26:06
  He does, but we have to hold this intention with Paul's other
• 26:09
  point. If the engine is revving,
• 26:11
  eventually the car needs to move right?
• 26:13
  The readiness needs to lead to doing if.
• 26:15
  You have prothamaya for a full year but never actually give.
• 26:18
  Then you have to ask if the readiness was real in the 1st
• 26:20
  place. The internal grace of eagerness
• 26:22
  must eventually birth the external fruit of performance.
• 26:26
  That's a good balance. OK, let's move on to our final
• 26:29
  example, Section 6. The word is used for church
• 26:32
  leadership in First Peter Chapter 5.
• 26:35
  Yes, a very important passage. Peter is writing to the elders,
• 26:39
  the shepherds of the church. He's giving them instructions on
• 26:42
  how to pastor the flock of God. And he starts with a few
• 26:45
  negatives. He says, shepherd the flock of
• 26:48
  God that is among you, not under compulsion, but willingly.
• 26:53
  Some translations say not by constraint, right?
• 26:55
  Don't do it because you're forced to.
• 26:57
  Don't be an elder because no one else would volunteer.
• 26:59
  And you finally got guilted into it and.
• 27:01
  Then the next negative not for shameful gain or not for filthy
• 27:06
  lucre. Don't do it for the money or the
• 27:08
  power or the prestige and. Then he gives the positive
• 27:11
  command, but eagerly, and our word is there prathamus.
• 27:15
  Yes, the verbial form shepherd the flock eagerly.
• 27:18
  So what does this imply for being an elder or a pastor or
• 27:21
  any church leader? It implies that leadership
• 27:24
  cannot just be a duty you perform.
• 27:26
  It can't just be a role you fill or a warm body in a slot on a
• 27:29
  committee. There must be an internal drive,
• 27:32
  a zeal and eagerness to actually care for the flock.
• 27:35
  If we loop back to those secular definitions, we started with the
• 27:38
  soldier eager for battle, the public spirited citizen.
• 27:41
  The elder is supposed to be the ultimate volunteer in God's
• 27:44
  army. That's a great connection.
• 27:46
  The elder is the one who steps forward first, the one who is
• 27:49
  aggressive in his care. Not aggressive in the sense of
• 27:53
  being a bully, Of course, Peter warns against that, but
• 27:56
  aggressive in protecting the sheep from wolves, aggressive in
• 27:59
  feeding them with the word. He does it because he wants to.
• 28:04
  I can't help but think of that war scroll image again.
• 28:06
  The Sons of Light fighting his volunteers, the leaders of the
• 28:10
  Church of all people, must embody this.
• 28:12
  You can't have a reluctant general leading the charge.
• 28:15
  You can't. A reluctant general leads to a
• 28:17
  demoralized army. The Pythemia of the leaders is
• 28:20
  contagious. If the elders are serving
• 28:22
  joyfully with forward leaning spirits, then the people in the
• 28:26
  congregation are much more likely to give and serve with
• 28:29
  that same spirit. That's a high bar for leadership
• 28:31
  it. Is, but it's a grace filled bar.
• 28:34
  God doesn't call the equipped, He equips the called.
• 28:36
  And part of that equipment is a new heart filled with prothymia.
• 28:39
  OK, so we've looked at this word through several different
• 28:42
  lenses. We have the soldier, the
• 28:43
  worshipper, the apostle, and the shepherd.
• 28:45
  Let's try to pull all these threads together.
• 28:47
  This is Section 7 Synthesis and Theological Application.
• 28:51
  When you lay it all out, you really do get a unified picture.
• 28:54
  Prophemos is never a passive state.
• 28:57
  It's high energy. It's the soldiers aggression,
• 29:00
  the worshippers joyful generosity, the apostles
• 29:03
  relentless Dr. and the shepherd's heartfelt care.
• 29:06
  So from a Reformed perspective, how do we play this?
• 29:10
  This is the So what question? We believe in the doctrine of
• 29:13
  total inability. We believe that by nature we are
• 29:15
  dead in trespasses and sins. And, well, dead people are not
• 29:20
  usually described as being aggressively eager for God.
• 29:23
  And that is the crucial theological point.
• 29:25
  The natural man, the unregenerate person, may have
• 29:27
  Pythemia for all sorts of things.
• 29:29
  He might be very forward leaning when it comes to making money or
• 29:32
  gaining fame or pursuing sin, right?
• 29:35
  He's not passive. But he has zero, absolutely 0
• 29:38
  Pythemia for the things of God. Romans 3 is clear.
• 29:42
  There is none who seeks after God.
• 29:44
  The natural man's will is in bondage to sin.
• 29:46
  He cannot and will not eagerly move toward God.
• 29:50
  So prothemia for God, for holiness, for worship, that is
• 29:54
  an undeniable mark of grace. It is the evidence of
• 29:56
  regeneration. When the Holy Spirit breathes
• 29:59
  new life into a dead heart, He replaces that spiritual deadness
• 30:03
  and hostility with a new principle of life.
• 30:05
  He gives us a new heart with new desires, and that new heart is
• 30:09
  fundamentally characterized by we suddenly want to obey, we
• 30:13
  want to worship, we want to fight sin.
• 30:14
  That explains why that free will offering concept is so powerful.
• 30:18
  A person eagerly giving to God proves that their nature has
• 30:21
  been changed. Yeah, You're not just following
• 30:23
  rules anymore to avoid punishment.
• 30:24
  You're running toward God because you love Him.
• 30:26
  That's it. However, and this is a huge
• 30:28
  however, we must always heed the warning of Gethsemane.
• 30:31
  OK, we are regenerate. Yes, we have the per thymos
• 30:34
  spirit, but we still live in the flesh.
• 30:37
  We're not yet glorified. We are what Luther called
• 30:39
  simulus, used to set pick up or at the same time justified and a
• 30:42
  Sinner. We have the new engine, but the
• 30:45
  old transmission is still faulty and prone to breaking down.
• 30:48
  Exactly. So the Reformed doctrine of
• 30:50
  sanctification is not about just trying harder.
• 30:52
  It's the lifelong process of learning to live out of our new
• 30:55
  nature. It's learning to watch and pray
• 30:58
  so that our God-given prophymia actually results in holiness and
• 31:02
  doesn't get short circuited by the weakness of our flesh.
• 31:04
  We. Can never trust our own zeal to
• 31:06
  carry us through. Never.
• 31:07
  We have to depend moment by moment on the Spirit of God to
• 31:11
  empower our spirit. Our eagerness must be sustained
• 31:14
  by His grace. That brings up a practical,
• 31:17
  maybe provocative thought. The sources all indicate that
• 31:20
  prothemos is an attitude. It's about passion, heat, zeal.
• 31:24
  It's a feeling. But we all know that our
• 31:26
  feelings for God can ebb and flow.
• 31:28
  So is it a sin to obey God without prothemos?
• 31:32
  For example, if I really do not want to forgive someone who hurt
• 31:35
  me, I feel 0 eagerness to do it. But I do it anyway through
• 31:38
  gritted teeth, because I know Gang's command is that a sinful
• 31:41
  obedience. That is a very nuanced and
• 31:44
  important pastoral question, and the answer, I think, is twofold.
• 31:48
  First, obedience is always required.
• 31:51
  God's command to forgive is not contingent on whether we feel
• 31:54
  like it, right? If you wait until you feel like
• 31:56
  obeying, you'll often end up in sin.
• 31:58
  Often you will. So yes, forgive your neighbor,
• 32:02
  even if you have to grit your teeth to do it.
• 32:04
  That act of obedience is right and good.
• 32:06
  However, we should not be content with gritted teeth
• 32:09
  obedience. The goal isn't just external
• 32:11
  compliance. No, the goal of sanctification
• 32:14
  is to bring our thymos, our passions and desires into
• 32:17
  alignment with our duty. God loves a cheerful giver.
• 32:20
  He desires us to be prothemos in our obedience.
• 32:23
  So if I find myself obeying grudgingly, I should certainly
• 32:26
  obey, but I should also repent of the grudgingness.
• 32:29
  So. You pray about the attitude.
• 32:30
  You pray. Lord, thank you for the grace to
• 32:32
  obey even when I didn't want to. But now please change my heart.
• 32:36
  Make me eager to forgive. Make me a volunteer in this, not
• 32:39
  a conscript. That's a great distinction.
• 32:41
  Obedience is the floor, the non negotiable minimum, but
• 32:44
  prothemos is the ceiling we're always aiming for by grace.
• 32:47
  And God is so gracious in this. He accepts our faltering
• 32:51
  obedience, but He is also constantly at work in us to
• 32:55
  produce the willingness. Philippians 2.13 is the promise,
• 32:59
  for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His
• 33:03
  good pleasure both. To will and to work.
• 33:05
  He gives us the prothemia, the will, and then He gives us the
• 33:09
  grace to work it out. The.
• 33:11
  Readiness and the performance, the spirit and the flesh brought
• 33:14
  into alignment by His power. That's the Christian life in a
• 33:17
  nutshell. This.
• 33:18
  Has been a really, really insightful look at a single
• 33:21
  word. It honestly changes how I'm
• 33:24
  going to read the New Testament. Every time I see the word
• 33:27
  willing from now on, I'm going to mentally swap it out for
• 33:29
  aggressively ready or eagerly pressing forward.
• 33:32
  It has a whole new layer of vibrant color to the text,
• 33:35
  doesn't it? It reminds us that Christianity
• 33:37
  isn't a passive religion of near consent.
• 33:39
  It's an active, passionate call to arms.
• 33:42
  Which? Brings us to our final
• 33:43
  provocative thought for you, the listener.
• 33:45
  We talked about the Dead Sea Scrolls and their War scroll.
• 33:48
  The Sons of Light were defined by their status as volunteers.
• 33:52
  They fought because they wanted to.
• 33:54
  So the question to leave you with is this are you living your
• 33:57
  spiritual life as a volunteer or as a conscript?
• 34:01
  When you think about worship, about fighting sin, about
• 34:03
  serving your family or your church, do you do it because you
• 34:06
  feel you have to, or because you have that deep internal prothem
• 34:10
  of spirit? Are you dragging your feet to
• 34:12
  the throne of grace, or are you leaning forward into it?
• 34:15
  Take some time this week to examine your own readiness,
• 34:18
  check your spiritual engine, and if you find that the prothemia
• 34:21
  is running low, don't despair. No, remember that it's a gift of
• 34:25
  grace. You can ask for it.
• 34:27
  The Psalmist prayer Restore to Me the Joy of Your Salvation is
• 34:31
  a prayer for renewed Pythemia. Amen to that.
• 34:34
  Thank you for listening to this deep dive.
• 34:35
  This has been reformed thinking. We'll see you next time.