Word nerd alert….
Well, today is going to be fun.
As I sat down to look at Chapter 15 of the gospel of John, I had in mind that I was going to be chatting about vines and branches and pruning and such.
However; on an earlier read through some while back, I apparently was taken by the number of times I read the word or word form of remain in these passage.
I had circled each one and so this morning I have done a word search.
It was wonderful and made me miss preparing for classes to teach.
To do the search I grabbed my old Webster’s Dictionary and Strong’s Concordance, which I still fondly hear one of our three calling it my concordiance, which stuck and I still call it that in my heart.
I was not disappointed, so please grab your muck boots and join the rabbit trail:
In Strong’s, I found remain is #3306: verb, to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy)
I love that.
It fits with all Jesus would be telling his disciples – stay where you are (til the Holy Spirit comes), stay in the mindset of the Kingdom, stay in relationship with Me, stay in expectancy for My return.
The concordiance (insert a smile since now you will be saying it wrong too), adds these synonyms:
Abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry
Again, this all fits beautifully with how they disciples had walked with Jesus, literally and now would walk with Him spiritually. It calls to mind so many passages from both the gospels and later Paul.
There was a small snag in this first step of research as Strong’s uses the KJV and I was using the CSB.
I had circled eleven times the word “remain” or a form of it were used. The concordiance only showed two verses for “remain” in verses 1 – 17.
These were John 15: 11 and 16.
I looked at the KJV of the passage and discovered that in all the other places where CSB uses remain, except verse 11, the word is “abide” or a form of that. And lo and behold, in verse 16 the CSB uses “continue”…so there are 12 …the perfect number…times Jesus uses a form of the word “remain.”
From this point, I looked up remain in the dictionary to see what I might find.
Again, not disappointed.
The word remain has a root word from old French – re + manere. I can’t do accents on my keyboard, but there is a slash over the first “e” in case my French teacher is reading this. The notes that accompany this say, see more at mansion.
MANSION….
If you aren’t singing “It’s a big, big house, with lots and lots of rooms” from Monday’s post, I AM disappointed in you.
I absolutely love how words work and smile to think that He is, after all, the WORD.
So spoiler alert, we will be looking at what I found when I visited the definition for mansion at the end of this: but for now, we will complete the definitions for remain.
- To be a part not destroyed, taken or used up. (How precious is that?)
- To be something yet to be shown, yet to be seen (ditto on the precious)
- To stay in the same place, or with the same person or group
- To stay behind
- To continue unchanged
Now for my findings on mansion – While we typically think of a mansion as a large, expensive house, that definition fell close to the bottom in my good old Websters.
Mansion – remain, dwell. Obsolete – the act of remaining or dwelling. Archaic – dwelling, abode.
So this theme of making our home in Him and Him in us continues.
And now to put the cherry on the top of this word sundae:
I last looked up the word abide since that is what the KJV used:
Abide – to wait for, to endure without yielding, withstand, to bear patiently, tolerate, remain stable; to continue in a place, to sojourn.
I call this space of the internet “Journey Onward” because we are moving, but we are sojourners.
We remain and yet we move.
I loved this today.
I hope it blesses you as you ponder and let God speak to you.
We are on a journey home.
For now we continue on while standing fast.
It is a beautiful mystery.
Abide and remain are not just standing still, but staying in a solid place while always moving forward. They are active words of anticipating what is yet to come without abandoning who we have become in Him.
I am thankful we are taking the road together for this season and for the ways we can encourage each other as we remain, stay, abide, sojourn and … journey onward <3