Basic HTML Version
(
$
, 3511), Acts 19:35,
RV
, and
KJV
marg., “temple keeper” (
KJV
,
“worshiper”), is used in profane Greek of “one who has charge of a temple.” Coin
inscriptions show that it was an honorary title given to certain cities, especially in Asia
Minor, where the cult of some god or of a deified human potentate had been established,
here to Ephesus in respect of the goddess Artemis. Apparently the imperial cult also
existed at Ephesus. Josephus applies the word to Jews as worshipers, but this is not the
meaning in Acts 1:9.¶
TEMPORAL
(
$
$
, 4340), “for a season” (
, “for,”
, “a season”), is
rendered “temporal” in 2 Cor. 4:18. See
SEASON
,
WHILE
.
TEMPT
A. Verbs.
1.
(
$1
, 3985) signifies (1) “to try, attempt, assay” (see
TRY
); (2) “to test,
try, prove,” in a good sense, said of Christ and of believers, Heb. 2:18, where the context
shows that the temptation was the cause of suffering to Him, and only suffering, not a
drawing away to sin, so that believers have the sympathy of Christ as their High Priest in
the suffering which sin occasions to those who are in the enjoyment of communion with
God; so in the similar passage in 4:15; in all the temptations which Christ endured, there
was nothing within Him that answered to sin. There was no sinful infirmity in Him.
While He was truly man, and His divine nature was not in any way inconsistent with His
Manhood, there was nothing in Him such as is produced in us by the sinful nature which
belongs to us; in Heb. 11:37, of the testing of OT saints; in 1 Cor. 10:13, where the
meaning has a wide scope, the verb is used of “testing” as permitted by God, and of the
believer as one who should be in the realization of his own helplessness and his
dependence upon God (see
PROVE
,
TRY
); in a bad sense, “to tempt” (a) of attempts to
ensnare Christ in His speech, e.g., Matt. 16:1; 19:3; 22:18, 35, and parallel passages; John
8:6; (b) of temptations to sin, e.g., Gal. 6:1, where one who would restore an erring
brother is not to act as his judge, but as being one with him in liability to sin, with the
possibility of finding himself in similar circumstances, Jas. 1:13, 14 (see note below); of
temptations mentioned as coming from the Devil, Matt. 4:1; and parallel passages; 1 Cor.
7:5; 1 Thess. 3:5 (see
TEMPTER
); (c) of trying or challenging God, Acts 15:10; 1 Cor. 10:9
(2nd part); Heb. 3:9; the Holy Spirit, Acts 5:9: cf. No. 2.
Note:
* "James 1:13-15 seems to contradict other statements of Scripture in two
respects, saying (a) that ‘God cannot be tempted with evil,’ and (b) that ‘He Himself
tempteth no man.’ But God tempted, or tried, Abraham, Heb. 11:17, and the Israelites
tempted, or tried, God, 1 Cor. 10:9. V. 14, however, makes it plain that, whereas in these
cases the temptation or trial, came from without, James refers to temptation, or trial,
arising within, from uncontrolled appetites and from evil passions, cf. Mark 7:20-23. But
though such temptation does not proceed from God, yet does God regard His people
while they endure it, and by it tests and approves them.”
2.
(
#
$1
, 1598), an intensive form of the foregoing, is used in much
the same way as No. 1 (2) (c), in Christ’s quotation from Deut. 6:16, in reply to the Devil,
* From
Notes on Thessalonians,
by Hogg and Vine p. 97.