While translating Ephesians chapter 1:11 I ran across the words for the will of God and for the purpose or plan of God which triggered me to do a word study on these terms to make sure they were used consistently and reflected their main meanings in the Greek.
The Greek word ‘thelematos’ was used for ‘will’ which is often used in the term ‘the will of God’. This term means to purpose, plan or intend. While ‘will’ might not be the clearest of these terms, I thought it important to retain it as it is still a good fit and has had many centuries of usage in this format. It is also possible to gain an idea of what the will of God really means by doing a word study as this Greek word is translated as ‘will’ consistently.
The Greek word ‘prothesin’ is translated as the English word ‘purpose’ and the Greek means to ‘plan in advance’. I did consider changing the English to plan but it doesn’t always seem to flow well in the passages where the Greek term is used. For this reason I have stuck with ‘purpose’ as when used in the singular, it does give the impression that it relates to a plan in advance.
The only problem I found with this is that ‘prothesin’ is also used in the King James English for ‘shewbread’. Other translations have translated this Greek as the ‘bread of presence’ which they pick up from the Hebrew for this same bread in the Old Testament which can be interpreted this way. I have gone the other way and used the Greek which when translated better says the ‘bread of purpose’ which represents Christ who is also called the ‘bread of life’ and of course Jesus was God’s plan in advance for the redemption of man so my translation fits the whole council of God better, in my opinion at least.
For these reasons I have used the term ‘bread of purpose’ to replace ‘shewbread’ in the Old Testament as well. It makes more sense to use the more accurate Greek to reveal what is hidden in the Hebrew, rather than the other way around in my opinion. The Hebrew literally means ‘Face Bread’ but can be widely interpreted because the Hebrew language is very lose and relies heavily on context. These updated translations can be found at:
Exodus 25:30
Exodus 35:13
Exodus 39:36
Numbers 4:7
1 Samuel 21:6
1 Kings 7:48
1 Chronicles 9:32
1 Chronicles 23:29
1 Chronicles 28:16
2 Chronicles 2:4
2 Chronicles 4:19
2 Chronicles 13:11
2 Chronicles 29:18
Nehemiah 10:33
Matthew 12:4
Mark 2:26
Luke 6:4