Galatians 2:19-20
For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God [or by the faith of the Son of God], who loved me and gave himself for me.
When I was in junior high my English teacher assigned us a list of 40 prepositions to memorize. Such is the power of rote memorization that I can still list the first half without thinking about it, and a few of the last ones on the list. The most common ones are words like in, on, above, below, beside, across. They’re linking words that often describe an object’s location in space or time. The dog is in his house. The dog is on his house. The dog is under his house. They’re little words, but they change the meaning of a sentence significantly. Things like this make me happy, but I’m geeky like that.
Footnotes in books also make me happy. I read them, then I frequently read the books the author cites in her work. I especially like reading the footnotes in the Bible, because they give other possible words in the sentence, relate the word to Greek or back to Hebrew, or, my favorite: meaning uncertain.
This chapter didn’t provide much fodder for me until I read the footnote (which I enclosed in square brackets above), repeated here:
And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God [or by the faith of the Son of God], who loved me and gave himself for me.
Prepositions matter. Do you live by faith in Jesus, or by the faith of Jesus? How are the two ways of living meaningful for you?
