58 - Laodicea (ft. Victoria Murgante)

Jesus didn’t swear, or use coarse language. Neither did Paul. But they did use very forceful injunctions to express strong emotions, and the word they used was ophelon. It can be translated as “Oh, How I wish!”

…But that’s probably a little too formal for the actual sense of this word, which is just an expression of sheer frustration. In our vulgar age, this role is usually filled by four letter obscene words. Ophelon isn’t that… It’s not obscene, but it is a placeholder for extreme emotion getting spat out at the listener.

The exact terms vary from culture to culture and generation to generation but actually Xennial guys like myself tend to use the interjection “Dude, uncool!”

That’s a more faithful sense of what Ophelon means here.

Paul also used this word in his immense frustration with the Galatian church getting so caught up in circumcision as being salvific that he darkly jokes that maybe they’d be super saved if they went the full nine yards and chopped more off.

Paul’s immensely frustrated, and we know he is because he says ophelon!!!

This episode digs deeper into “ophelon” (ὄφελον meaning ‘Oh, How I Wish!’) in Revelation 3:15.

Revelation 3:15 - “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. Oh, How I Wish you were either one or the other!” (NIV)

Victoria Murgante is a storyteller, a poet and a songwriter. In university, she played in a Klezmer and a Balkan ensemble, and was part of a large gospel choir. To this day, she still composes simple, mild-mannered tunes but you won't hear any of them on the radio. Victoria has worked in a flower shop and a music store; as a primary school teacher, an overnight baker, and manager of the night shift at a bookshop. She began her first job with the public library a few short months after meeting her future husband, Michael. The two now share three children, a fondness for forest rambles, and a home near Lake Simcoe in Central Canada.

Her first book is The Traveling Piano Man of Fort Whettershire.

www.victoriamurgante.com

Mentioned:

• Laodicea

• Colossae

• Victoria Murgante

• Roman Historian Tacitus Describing Laodicea Rejecting Roman Help

• Marshall McLuhan

• “Stop trying to make fetch happen!”

• Song of Solomon 5:2 - “I slept but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking: “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.” (NIV)

What is a Bammerhab?

Ps. 31:8 - “You have not given me into the hands of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.” (NIV)

The phrase “in a spacious place” is the Hebrew word: Bammerhab.

Thanks to:

• Aaron Woodard for Graphic Design

• Dave Allam of Allam House for podcasting techniques

• Bible Hub for Greek / Hebrew resources