An interesting note for a “roof nail,” from an old email to a friend who was also at the time reading Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction that year:
I told you in Liberia that I’ve never been a big fan of The Message version of the Bible, or at least that it’s never done anything for me. That’s still true, mostly, but every once in a while I find something in The Message that’s very helpful. In this case, I really liked his translation of Philippians 4:5. The NKJV says, “Let your gentleness be known to all men.” The NASB uses “gentle spirit.” The ESV, for some unknown purpose, uses reasonableness. However, for The Message, Peterson paraphrases it like this: “Make it clear to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them.” Naturally, since I’m often (and for unknown reasons) an ESV guy, I wondered how he got from “reasonableness” to, well, all that. Turns out, most of the verse spins on one word: epieikés. Here’s the definition I found: “properly, equitable, gentle in the sense of truly fair by relaxing overly strict standards in order to keep the spirit of the law.” Long story short, I like Peterson’s translation better.
The moral of the story is: practice epieikés.
But also: Sometimes, just use more words.