What's a Philologon?
Philologon is not a what; it’s a who. There was a fellow living in Rome in the
first century by the name of Philologus.
He was a follower of Christ. We
know this because the apostle Paul sends greetings to Philologus at the end of
his letter to the Christians in Rome (Romans 16:15).
But in the original language (Greek), the text of Romans
16:15 does not actually say "Greet Philologus." It says "Greet Philologon." This is because first century Greek would
change the ending of a noun if the noun was a direct object. (It is called the "accusative
case.") So, technically, his name
is not Philologon. It is
Philologus. But in English it is cooler
to call him Philologon – he is the only computer geek in the Bible because he
loves to log on. (You may laugh now.)
So Paul, why did you choose to name you blog
Philologon? Well, first of all, it is
not just my blog name. It is also one of
my screen names for various places on the internet which ask for a screen name
(such a Twitter). Why, you ask? It fits me in several ways:
> Like Philologus, I also love to log on.
> Also like Philologus, I love Jesus.
One of the names for Jesus in the Bible is "the
Word of God". You will find it in
John 1:1 and John 1:14. When John calls
Jesus the Word, he is not calling him the word in the sense of a short sound
with one or more syllables which carries a distinct unit of meaning. He is
calling him the Word in the sense of the Message or the Report. (As in, "any word from the doctor's
office?") When God wanted to send a
message to mankind, He sent the Message. John 1:18 says that Jesus explained
God. (He exegeted God.)
The next key to understanding this point is that the
Greek word for this kind of word is the logos. In the Direct Object position of a sentence,
the Greek word would be logon. And one of the Greek words for Love is philo.
(Think Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, or Philosophy,
literally the love of wisdom.) So both I
and Philologus love Jesus, who is the Message of God which became flesh and
explained God to us with his life and his actions.
> Like Philologus, I love the Bible.
The Greek word logos
is also used in the Bible to refer to the Bible as the word of God. (See Hebrews 4:12 for an example.) Even though human language is limited and
often ambiguous, still God choses human language as His conduit through which to
communicate divine things. Because God
is the author of the Bible (co-authored with humans), it is the one book most
worthy of study. It is living, and it
gives life. Also because God is the
author, the Bible is dense with meaning.
A quick, cursory reading gives good information, but a close, in-depth,
saturated, marinated wallow in it gives more information. This is where the meat is, and I likes meat.
That's pretty much all we know about Philologus, but
there are more reasons the name Philologon appeals to me as a screen name.
> I love languages.
It fascinates me all the different ways humans have come
up with to communicate, and I love studying that. This field of study is called Linguistics,
and although I am not a linguist, I love the subject, similar to how a guy with
a telescope in his back yard is not a professional astronomer, but he still
loves to get out there and see the rings of Saturn or the Horsehead nebula and
stuff.
> I love English.
English is my first language, and if you ever ask a French person, he
would quickly agree that English is my only language. I love understanding English from a technical
aspect, and this includes teaching English as a second language. But I also love using English to express
myself. I like taking feelings,
thoughts, and notions which are hard to put into words and finding a way to put
them into words. In an episode of Star
Trek (TOS, Is There In Truth No Beauty),
the character of Spock/Kollos asks the penetrating question, "This thing
you call language, though... most remarkable. You depend on it for so very
much, but is any one of you really its master?" If this question is rhetorical, it is a
brilliant observation – only Jesus is really the master of language. If it is an information-seeking question
(that is, non-rhetorical), then I want to make mastering English an objective
of my intellectual life.
Believe it or not, some of my posts will be longer than
this self-introductory one. I hope you
find them interesting enough that you want to spend the time it takes to read
them. Then again, maybe only one or two
people will ever have enough interest to read down this far. That's okay.
To those of you who are still with me here at the bottom of this long
post, I say thank you. I hope you found
it worthwhile. (Oh and, Hi mom.)
