![]() Gird up the loins of your mind: Preparation While I won’t use modern translations for that very reason, and because many modern translations tend to be rather loose with their translating, it may be helpful to sparingly refer to one of the better modern translations, such as the New International Version or the New American Standard, but use a version which remains much truer to the original, such as the King James. Sometimes, there simply is no cultural equivalent to a particular concept. Anyone who has lived among different cultures would understand how there is something lost when trying to translate from culture to culture. In other words, it tries to translate from what the passage would have meant then to what it would mean for us today by providing our cultural equivalent. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:13-16 NIV) As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. ![]() Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. Rather than merely translating the words and making the necessary adjustments for grammatical correctness, the New International Version attempts to translate the meanings. The New International Version, in particular, uses a translation method called dynamic equivalence. Modern English translations may be helpful in giving us an understanding of what this passage may mean to us today, but they tend to do it at the expense of what the passage would have meant to those to whom it was first written. Gird up the loins of your mind: Translations “The loins of your mind” really makes no sense in English without having available the context of first century Greco-Roman culture, and a knowledge of the language in which the phrase was originally written. And, as I also said earlier, we have to look at how someone in the first century would have understood what Brother Peter was writing here. We would have no understanding of what a Roman soldier’s armor looks like without the availability of historical accounts and descriptions of armor in the New Testament (see Ephesians 6:10-18 KJV).īut, because we do have such information available, we can get an idea of what Brother Peter is saying in this portion of his first epistle. This, itself, requires at least some understanding of the cultures and practices in the time during which Peter wrote. As I said earlier, it is the image of a Roman soldier putting on a piece of his armor which is fastened with belts, such as the piece that covered his groin. That image comes from the concept of girding up. We start with an image in our minds that closely approximates what Brother Peter is telling us. So, we have to forget our modern understanding and the limits that occur when translating from one language to another. After all, the mind is not something around which you would put a belt. Now, in English, this doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. What Brother Peter is telling us to do here is to gird up, or bind, as with a belt, our full mental capacity or strength. Gird up the loins of your mind, as with a belt So, what we have here in “gird up the loins of your mind” is a phrase that means the mind in its full capacity, strength or power. The Greek root used here for “mind” is one which means deep thought. The phrase “the loins of your mind” is much more difficult to understand.įor the meaning of that phrase, we must know how first century folks understood both “loins” and “mind.” The loins were the center of procreative power - which is the literal translation of the Greek root used here. The picture here is one of a Roman soldier putting on the part of his armor that covered the groin or loins. ![]() To gird up means to bind about, especially with a belt. What does he mean by “gird up” and what are “the loins of your mind”? Unless you know something about Greco-Roman culture back in the First Century when Brother Peter wrote these words, it’s hard to know just what he is telling us. Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy. ‘Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind’
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