Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition - Mentor's Guide

M E N T O R N O T E S / 8 5

It may help you in your conversation with the students to understand better the nature of promise in the biblical record. For instance, the word angelia is the word for “promise” in the NT. In the vast majority of the cases it is translated simply as “promise,” both as a noun and when used in its verbal form. Interestingly, the word angelia means “something that is announced.” One of its cognate words angelos (from which we get our word “angel”, is the one who announces or brings the message. The NT term for Gospel euangelia refers to a message or announcement of good news and good tidings. In a few instances it is used regarding promises made between people (cf. Acts 23.21). Even a quick scan of the OT biblical materials reveals from the earliest texts the significance of promise in them, especially in regard to God’s promise to provide an heir to Abraham (see Rom. 4.13-16, 20; 9.8-9; 15.8; Gal. 3.16-22; 4.23; Heb. 6.13-17; 7.6; 11.9, 11, 17). These promises provide the structure and shape of the entire history and experience of Abraham, his heirs (i.e., his descendants Isaac and Jacob), and the people which would spring from them and carry the hope of the seed of Abraham who would come bringing redemption and restoration to the people and the Land. W. M. Smith highlights the importance of the concept of promise in a discussion of God’s prophetic prediction that he would send an heir in promise to Abraham and a seed to sit on the throne of David, a “Savior according to promise” (Acts 13.23): Stephen speaks of the time of the advent as that in which “the time of the promise drew nigh” (Acts 7.17). This promise to David of a Savior has been confirmed in Christ (Acts 13.32). It is to this group that we must assign Paul’s allusion to “the promise by faith in Jesus Christ” (Gal. 3.22). It is probable that this dual grouping of promises, those to Abraham concerning a seed and those to David concerning a king to reign, are united in Paul’s references to this subject as “the promises made unto the fathers” (Rom. 15.8); in the familiar discussion of Israel’s future, he refers to the Israelites as “the children of the promise” (Rom. 9.8-9) and reminds them that they are the ones who possess the promises of God (Rom. 9.4). Closely associated with this is the gift of God promised to us in Christ, that is, the promise of life in Christ (2 Tim. 1.1), or, as elsewhere

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