{"id":4790,"date":"2025-08-01T09:26:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T13:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4790"},"modified":"2025-08-01T09:26:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T13:26:43","slug":"eis-believing-into","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/01\/eis-believing-into\/","title":{"rendered":"EIS: Believing “Into”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0<\/em>

Small things can make a big difference.

Take, for instance, a common household item that has made your life easier \u2013 even though its precise origin is unknown, and you probably don\u2019t even know how many are currently under your roof.

We\u2019re talking about the humble paper clip.

Even though there are a number of claimants to the honor of being the first person to bend a piece of wire into one and a half loops, historians of invention have never agreed as to who, exactly, that person was. He or she was apparently employed by the Gem Manufacturing Company of Britain in the 1870s \u2013 an organization that never bothered to patent the design. \u00a0

But everyone agrees on this point: Paper clips, while generally taken for granted, are wonderfully effective at holding things together. Loose papers need never be loose again.

Prepositions are the \u201cpaper clips\u201d of human language. They hold things together, even though we rarely given them the credit they are due.

From a classical grammatical standpoint, prepositions are small words that most often provide information about three things: location (\u201cthe ball is under<\/strong> the couch\u201d), time (\u201che arrived before<\/strong> dinner\u201d) and direction (\u201cmy hopes for lower gas prices this summer are going down<\/strong> the drain\u201d).

Nouns and verbs are crucial for communication. But without prepositions, we would be seriously puzzled as to how they relate to each other.

Biblical texts are no exception. Consider what the apostle Paul says in Ephesians 4:6. Here\u2019s what we have if we take away its four prepositions: \u201cOne God and Father all, who is all and all and all.\u201d That doesn\u2019t make much sense.

But now let\u2019s add those four words back in: \u201cOne God and Father of<\/strong> all, who is over <\/strong>all and through<\/strong> all and in<\/strong> all.\u201d Now we have something to talk about. Theologians, in fact, have spent 2,000 years wrestling with what it might mean that God is over, though<\/em>, and in<\/em> his people. Each of those ideas is loaded with significance, and we still haven\u2019t plumbed the depths of their meaning.

Throughout the month of August, we\u2019re going in search of \u201cprepositional truth\u201d \u2013 what we can learn from some of the humblest words in the Bible.

That\u2019s actually a play on words. Theologians, philosophers, and pop psychologists are currently engaged in a furious debate over the validity of \u201cpropositional truth\u201d \u2013 whether any proposition, or statement about reality, can actually be said to be True with a capital T, or whether the best we can do is settle for highly individualized \u201ctruths\u201d with a lower case \u201ct.\u201d

A majority of Americans (and all too many church members) are currently sold out to the latter perspective. \u201cYou have your truth, and I have mine, and neither viewpoint is more valid than the other.\u201d

Bible students, however, quickly discover that both Old and New Testaments are thoroughly and unapologetically propositional. Truth exists. Truth with a capital T. Truth that can be known. Which means we can also discern what is not<\/em> true \u2013 even as we follow the One who claims to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).

Our task this August will be to seek such truth by spotlighting, each day, a single preposition in a single verse.

Our hope is to uncover some of the overlooked treasures that are so often associated with some of the Bible\u2019s smallest words.

Let\u2019s begin with a verse that most of us can recite by heart: \u201cFor God so loved\u00a0the world that he gave\u00a0his one and only Son,\u00a0that whoever believes\u00a0in<\/u><\/strong><\/em> him shall not perish but have eternal life\u201d (John 3:16). \u00a0

There\u2019s a perfectly good word in the Greek language for \u201cin,\u201d as in \u201cbelieve in.\u201d It\u2019s en<\/u><\/em>, which just happens to be the most common preposition in the New Testament. En<\/u><\/em> often denotes position or location, as in, \u201cDuring a sweltering week like this, you can usually find me in<\/u><\/strong> the house.\u201d

But that\u2019s not the word we find in John 3:16. Instead, our text says, \u201cwhoever believes eis<\/u><\/em> him\u2026\u201d Eis<\/u><\/em> connotes more of a sense of direction, such as \u201cinto.\u201d

John, in fact, frequently calls his readers to \u201cbelieve into Jesus\u201d instead of just \u201cbelieve in\u201d him.

What\u2019s going on here?

John is doing much more than inviting us to \u201cbelieve a set of facts about Jesus,\u201d or \u201cpass a theological quiz,\u201d or \u201cfeel good about Jesus the way you believe in your favorite NFL team.\u201d Believing eis<\/u><\/em> Jesus means to entrust ourselves to him \u2013 to be locked in or bound together with Jesus as a person.

Bible scholar Dale Bruner summarizes this brilliantly:

\u00a0\u201cThe Greek \u2018into\u2019 does us the great service of conveying trust\u2019s direction, goal, and resting place: trust is directed \u2018into\u2019 Jesus, into his person, and rests there \u2018in\u201d him \u2018into\u2019 whom one has placed one\u2019s life.\u201d

Eis<\/u><\/em> appears in another oft-cited text, Matthew 18:20: \u201cWhenever two or three persons are gathered eis<\/u><\/em> (\u201cinto\u201d) my name, there I am, right in the midst of them.\u201d If we are locked into Jesus, in other words, he\u2019s locked into us.

We happen to live in a time when being \u201cinto\u201d something has become a colloquial expression. The 2009 feature film He\u2019s Just Not That Into You<\/em> tells the story of nine characters who are having major relational issues. Gigi, in particular, doesn\u2019t know how to \u201cread\u201d the moments when her dates are trying to tell her they are no longer interested.

Jesus makes it clear that we don\u2019t have to have special skills or abilities to \u201cread\u201d whether or not he\u2019s interested in us.

\u201cCome unto me,\u201d he says in Matthew 11:28, \u201call you<\/u><\/strong><\/em> who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.\u201d

That means God\u2019s own Son and the Savior of the world is \u201cinto\u201d you. And he\u2019s \u201cinto\u201d me. We cannot possibly hear better news this weekend.

One question remains: Are you \u201cinto\u201d Jesus? Are you willing to entrust yourself, as best you can right now, to his grip?

His grip, it turns out, is the safest place in the universe.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Each weekday in the month of August, we will pursue \u201cprepositional truth\u201d by zeroing in on a single Greek preposition in a single verse, noting the theological richness so often embedded in the humble words we so often overlook.\u00a0 Small things can make a big difference. Take, for instance, a common… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4791,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[971,970,141],"class_list":["post-4790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-believing","tag-preositions","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4792,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4790\/revisions\/4792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}