Matthew 18:15

"And if thy same-uterus un-mark against thee, under-lead, expose his fault between thee and him alone: if he hear thee, thou hast gained they same-uterus."

On the back cover of the Etymological New Testament we read this sentence, "The ENT can feel both didactic and literary; stilted and lovely."  In the verse above, the language definitely tends toward the stilted and didactic!  But the purpose of the ENT is provide information while encouraging us to slow down as we read the text.

In this case, the etymology of the word "brother" is from two words.  The ENT hyphenates to show that they are one word in Greek.  Our brother or sister is ultra-literally from the "same-uterus."  While this feels very strange to the ears of an English reader, the information can be helpful. 

Rather than the common word "sin", the ENT uses the very literal "un-mark."  When our family member misses the mark in their relationship with us, we are then to "under-lead" (go) and "expose" their fault.  The literal sense of the word typically translated "rebuke" is simply to make clear, or expose, in what way there has been a missing of the mark.  Human relationships can easily malfunction.  And it is good to make the nature of that "miss" very clear.  The word rebuke can be a good translation, but in this context, may be a little too emphatic.

If we under-lead and expose the un-mark AND if our same-uterus truly hears us, we have gained back our family member.  If they do not hear, then there is a further step to take, which will be covered in the next post.