Philippians 1:1-2

Word study notes:

δοῦλος - the debate about whether this should be translated servant or slave. For Ayta Abellen there isn't an exact equivalent of slave because no one can really own another person in Ayta culture. We went with "servant" in the test edition but I wish there was something stronger. The text seems to really mean that Paul was totally subservient to Jesus Christ, not just that he served Christ.

ἁγίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (saints in Christ Jesus) - am not sure this is really understood properly in contemporary English. A saint is often thought of as someone who is dead and lived an incredibly righteous life. But here it seems to be primarily talking about a status or condition of living people as a result of Jesus. We translated this as "ones specially prepared by Jesus".

Background note:

When Paul left Philippi at the end of Acts 16, there were only reported to be 2 families of believers (Lydia, jailer) but now the church had grown and become more organized (overseers and deacons).

Verse 2:

Word study notes:

χάρις (grace) - In studying the meaning of grace in Greek, I started to wonder if native English speakers really understand this term in all the different ways it is used in Scripture. Sometimes it means "help", sometimes "kindness", sometimes "thanksgiving", sometimes "gift", sometimes a "spiritual gift", sometimes a "blessing", etc. Do we really understand the English word grace to cover all those different meanings? In Ayta Abellen we have to translate it based on the context and the meaning in that context. There is no one word that covers all the range of meaning of χάρις. For these blessing formulas in Paul's letters we are using "wholehearted goodness of God".

Discourse note:

The Ayta Abellen team has debated many times how best to say these blessing formulas of Paul. Three main options have been proposed:

"May you receive grace and peace ..."

"I pray to God saying, 'Give them grace and peace ...'"

"May you come to have grace and peace ..."