Paratithemi: On Deposit

  Word of the Week

July 13, 2024

 

Paratithēmi: On Deposit

 

When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Acts 14:23

 

What would you do with a box of $100 bills?

People who lost their life savings in the bank closures of the Great Depression would stash the cash under the mattress or bury the box in the back yard.

Today you would be more likely to deposit it in a high yield investment at the bank of your choice.  If you’re the adventurous type, you might convert it into cryptocurrency.

Either way, you would be very careful how to handle that much cash.  You would put it in good hands, in a place where you knew it would be safe.

The New Testament describes several high-stakes transactions that involve things far more valuable than a box of money.  We can locate these accounts by tracing the Greek word for “entrust.”

The word is paratithēmi (pah-rah-TI-thay-mee).  It occurs 19 times in the New Testament and comes from two Greek words that mean “to place something beside” or “to set something before” a person.  In older, secular Greek sources, it sometimes had the technical, legal meaning:  to leave an object in the keeping of someone else.  There were strict penalties for embezzling, so you could be confident that your investment was secure.

In the New Testament, paratithēmi was often used describe serving food at the dinner table.  When the server at Olive Garden places a plate of lasagna before you, you are watching paratithēmi in action.

Notice these examples:

When Jesus fed the 5000, he instructed his disciples to serve the loaves and fishes to the people (Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16).  The same thing happened when he fed the 4000.  The task of the disciples was to act as the serving staff, passing out the food to the crowd (Mark 8:6, 7).

You can see the same idea in the Lord’s instructions to the disciples as He sent them out to represent Him in the villages of Galilee.  “Eat whatever is set before you,” He told them (Luke 10:8).  The same phrase pops up in Christ’s parable about the man who was banging on his neighbor’s door at midnight, trying to borrow some bread:  “Help me out!  I have nothing to set before my unexpected guest!” (Luke 11:6)

And when Paul and Silas were released from prison by an earthquake, a repentant jailer brought them into his own house and set a meal before them (Acts 16:34).

In a related set of verses, we read of the way Jesus presented His parables.  In Matthew 13, we read that He presented the parables of the tares and the mustard seed, setting the truth before his hearers as a host might put down a plate of food for a guest (Matthew 13: 24, 31).

A second set of passages use this word to describe important spiritual realities.  These verses describe incidents where a person hands over something of immense value, trusting the recipient to keep it safe.  It draws on the older imagery of a bank deposit, ratcheting it up to something on a far higher level.

1. Paul entrusted young churches to the Lord. He and Barnabas wrapped up their first missionary journey by choosing local leaders for each church they had started.  Then they headed home, leaving these baby congregations in the capable hands of their Master (Acts 14:23).
2. Paul entrusted the leaders in Ephesus to God. As far as he knew, he would never see them again.  He had poured over two years of his life into these dear people, but now they would have to thrive without him.  However, he had learned that you could leave them in God’s good hands.  (Acts 20:32).
3. Paul entrusted Timothy with leadership. The younger associate who accompanied Paul, took on the assignment of leading the church at Ephesus for a while.  In his letter to Timothy, the old apostle said, “This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son” (1 Timothy 1:18).  He had commissioned his assistant to step into leadership on his own, and he knew that he could entrust him with that responsibility.
4. Leaders entrust the gospel to the next generation. Paul instructed Timothy to take the things he had been taught and to “entrust these to faithful people who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).
5. Jesus entrusted His spirit to the Father. His final words on the cross were, “Into your hands I entrust my spirit” (Luke 23:46).  At the hinge point of human history, the Son surrendered His physical life, knowing that you could totally trust the Father.
6. We can entrust our lives to God. Peter wrote to believers who were suffering persecution and climaxed with this exhortation:

Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God are to entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right (1 Peter 4:19).

The bottom line:  God is utterly trustworthy, so you can entrust everything to him, no matter what is in your box.

 

Study Hint:

In English, verbs are usually either active or passive.  It’s either “John hit Jimmy” (active) or “Jimmy was punched by John” (passive).  The two sentences are simply different ways to express the same idea.

In Greek, there is a third option:  the middle voice.  When a Greek word appears in the middle voice, there is a special emphasis on the subject.  There are various shades of meaning involved, but it often describes something that you do to yourself – or for yourself.

You can look at the spelling of a Greek verb to find out which one of these is being used in a verse.

In all the verses we listed in the second part of this article, the verb is in the middle voice.  So instead of serving a plate of food to someone else, you’re entrusting something valuable to another person for yourself.  It’s valuable to you, so you care what happens to it.  And if I am the receiver of the treasure, it’s my solemn responsibility to take good care of it – especially if it God handed it to me.

 

Coming Up

 

We always appreciate the gentle touch.  And God uses it for His people too.  Next week we will examine the Greek word that shows what true gentleness really looks like.

©Ezra Project 2024