Walking the path

(4-minute Read)

God so loved the world that he gave humanity free will. Humanity used that freedom to choose the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the desire to independently decide right from wrong. In response, God gave scripture: first, the Old Testament in Hebrew; then, at the appointed time, the New Testament in Greek. These two testaments are as different from each other as the two trees in the Garden.

That difference is bigger than vocabulary. Hebrew and Greek don’t merely use different words. They operate on entirely different ways of thinking about reality. When the New Testament writers expressed Torah ideas in Greek, they weren’t simply translating. From a Jewish legal standpoint, they were fundamentally redirecting those ideas. And that was intentional.

God gave Alexander the Great a dream: to conquer the world and civilize it. Alexander understood that to mean first establishing schools and spreading the Greek language across every nation he subdued. According to the historian Josephus, when Alexander reached Jerusalem, he encountered the Jewish high priest. He recognized him as the man he had seen in his dream. Alexander dismounted, bowed, and worshipped. When his generals tried to stop him, he explained that God told him that his name was on the priest’s miter. Alexander had reached the location of revelation about the purpose of his life. The Jews showed him scripture in which he believed that God spoke about him and what he would do. Alexander went on to conquer the known world and plant Greek-speaking schools in his wake.

By the time Jesus walked the earth, many Jews could read and write Greek before they could read and write Hebrew. This was no accident. The New Testament was never meant for one people or one nation. It was written for the entire world.

Four  Example Words

1. Worship — proskuneō

The Greek word the New Testament uses to describe how people responded to Jesus was the same word Greeks and Romans used for bowing before a god or submitting to Caesar. Hebrew has no equivalent. The Torah strictly forbids that kind of prostrate worship directed at anyone other than God. So, from a strict Jewish legal perspective, the New Testament described people doing to Jesus precisely what was owed only to God. Jewish leaders who rejected Jesus as God’s Son called this idolatry, but that was the point.

2. Sabbath — melakhah

The Hebrew word for what is prohibited on Shabbat, melakhah, is a precise legal term. It doesn’t mean “work” in the ordinary sense. It refers to specific categories of creative activity, organized around distinctions of public and private space and exact time (sundown to sundown). Greek has no equivalent word or concept. The Old Testament prescribed the Sabbath, both the weekly day and the seven annual High Shabbats, as the individual’s primary designated time to deal with the Lord. Any action to do something to get something was forbidden. The instruction was simply to rest.

3. Peace — shalom vs. eirēnē

Shalom is not the absence of conflict. It is rooted in bitachon, trust, security, and confidence within a relationship. When a Jewish host says Shabbat Shalom and welcomes guests into his home, that is shalom: the safety of being received under someone’s protection, within a covenantal bond.

The Greek word eirēnē and the Roman concept of pax behind it meant something closer to: ‘the war is over, submit to the stronger power.’ After World War II, Britain and the United States proclaimed peace, but at first, Germany only felt defeat. Unlike armies, Jesus offers peace to all of mankind.

4. Love — ahavah vs. agape

In Hebrew, love (ahavah) is rooted in action and commitment, not feeling. Its root, hav (הָב), means “to give.” The word used in the Shema, the prayer recited twice daily, is v’ahavta, a term grounded in legal obligation. The rabbis taught that to love God is to keep his commandments. Love, in Hebrew, is something you do.

The Greek word agape describes something different: selfless, unconditional devotion, giving oneself entirely without expecting anything in return. The difference is like that between marriage (a legal covenant) and love (a devotion or feeling). One defines responsibilities. The other describes the heart behind them. God wants agape from us and calls us to offer it to one another.

The Big Picture

The Old Testament, written in Hebrew, reads like a contract, packed with rules, promises, and defined responsibilities. It is the legal agreement between God and those who chose to live by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: knowing good and evil independently, and being held accountable accordingly.

The New Testament, written in Greek, takes that same relationship and reframes it. The New Testament writers heard from Jesus, the apostles, and the first followers of Jesus. Understanding the heart of what Jesus said, wrote it in Greek. In Greek, the legal weight gives way to something warmer: a Father who loves his children not because they earned it, but simply because love is who he is. The shift from Hebrew to Greek is the shift from law to grace, not because the law was wrong, but because God, not man, now handles all legal matters himself. There is the beginning of the shift from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to the Tree of Life.

Those who dismiss the Jews or ignore the Old Testament will struggle to understand either the Father or the New Testament. Both trees were placed in the Garden by God. Both testaments reflect God’s single, unfolding plan. The New Testament writers stopped living as men of the world and began imitating the Son of God, the one sent to bring them, and us, back to the Father, who is the author of our love story.