A couple of times, I’ve seen discussion about whether or not we should translate Ephesians 4:1 as “ live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Or “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” The debate is about how we translate the word peripateo. The argument for “walk” is that whilst the word is meant to point to how we live, it does so through figurative or metaphorical language and so we do not want to lose the metaphor.
For example, Kenneth Berding he argues that Paul structures his epistle around the themes of sitting, walking and standing. If we don’t use the word “walk”, then we might lose the metaphor. Now, I think it plausible that Paul saw something in the imagery of walking in peripateo that lended himself to that structure but I wonder if we are putting too much weight on the image.
The word peripateo can mean either to walk around or it can be a reference to conduct, how you live your life. It’s worth noting that in that, what we would call “more literal” meaning, that it is not just about waking (pateo), the compound with peri gives us the full sense of walking around and it is interesting that people don’t seem to push for the full meaning in translation or render it as 2go for a stroll.” I wonder if there is a bit of an assumption there that the word walk is meant to make us think of something more purposeful, a journey with an end point and therefore a need to follow. Yet, the word does not necessarily or immediately convey that kind of meaning. Nor, do I think we are meant to understand it in the sense of exercise and training as we might do today.
Hence, the meaning we are intended to see in the text is the figurative one, how do we spend our time, how do we conduct ourselves, how do we live our lives. Yes, of course the word “live” has a semantic range, just as many words do but the meaning is made clear by the context. However, I don;’t get Berding’s concern about understanding the word. People reading the text or hearing it preached on will be able to grasp the sense of life here referring to how you conduct yourself, what your behaviour is about.
There may be occasion cultural echoes of the metaphorical connection between walking and living. Berding suggests the film “A walk to remember” as an example. However, I would suggest that in wider culture such links are becoming rarer and it is a specifically Christian way of talking to describe your life as your “walk”. This means that increasingly, the language of walking to describe conduct is going to be alien to congregations creating a barrier to understanding, something else for the preacher to explain before they can apply. Translating peripateo with life, lifestyle or conduct language lands us immediately where we need to be to make good application.
But also, I think that going straight to “live” runs closer to how language works. Whilst a word may start off having a figurative meaning (I’ve discussed this in terms of the word kephale and “head of the river”), this does not mean that it always remains as a metaphor. It develops as a meaning in its own right. I want to suggest that just as if we talk about the head of the river, we are not meant to work through the image of head and body and then arrive at the meaning of the term. In the same way, readers would have read peripateo and immediately understood that in that context it was about lifestyle and conduct.
What do we lose if we translate peripateo as live instead of walk? I would suggest that part from some of our favourite sermon illustrations, we probably would not lose a lot. What we do gain is clarity.
Faithroots 