Sunday, March 10, 2024

Epaphroditus and Depression (Philippians 2:26)

If you compare Philippians 2:26, where it says Epaphroditus "is depressed because you heard he had fallen sick" with Matthew 26:37; Mark 14:33, you'll see that it's the same Greek verb in all three verses, translated as "was full of heaviness" or "very heavy" in the KJV.

Matthew and Mark use the infinitival form of the word, but Philippians 2:26 has the participial morphology with the point being that Epaphroditus and Jesus both had moments where they felt distressed or depressed.

The Greek grammarian Bill Mounce defines ἀδημονέω as "to be depressed, or dejected, full of anguish or sorrow." On the other hand, we equally learn that Paul and others were there for Epaphroditus, and Jehovah's angel comforted Jesus in his time of need. The same thing can happen for us when we feel depressed.

2 comments:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sET4vkkDL0M

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  2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10706777/

    ReplyDelete