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ADIALEIPTWS



Kevin,

Your problem with ADIALEIPTWS seems to depend on a very strict 
interpretation of "unceasingly." You seem to want ADIALEIPTWS to mean 
*either* "absolutely without interruption" *or* (your choice) "without 
leaving anything out." 

Do you have any evidence of usage that undermines the testimony from 
previous posts that the sense of the word is clearly (to quote LSJ) 
"unintermitting[ly], incessant[ly]"?

If you have no other evidence, you might want to relax the rigor with which 
you imagine the Thessalonians doing nothing but pray. Can you imagine Paul, 
for instance, saying, "Don't stop praying," meaning "Don't fall away from 
your practice of regular prayer"? Very few people use words like 
"unceasingly" as literally as you stipulate.

While we're on the subject, however, I add my favorite anecdote (whose 
source I have forgotten). Evidently an inquirer once wrote to the Vatican to 
settle a subject of concern. "Is it appropriate," he wrote, "to smoke while 
praying?" The response came back, "By no means ought the pious supplicant to 
distract himself by smoking cigarettes while making confession or 
intercession to Almighty God!" Several years later, the frustrated inquirer 
wrote back in hope of a more favorable response: "Is it appropriate to pray 
while smoking?" This time he received the response, "By all means! Prayer is 
appropriate at all times and in all circumstances." (The Magisterium here 
might have added, "Pray without ceasing.")

Grace and peace,
A K M Adam
f49adam@ptsmail.ptsem.edu
Princeton Theological Seminary

"A theory of truth is one theory too many"