1 John 3:5

Since February, I've been going through 1 John in the archives of the Daily Dose of Greek.  A few weeks ago, I copied out 1 John 3:5 and then read it in a few different translations.  The ESV made me cringe.  The Greek text is καὶ οἴδατε ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ἐφανερώθη ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἄρῃ, καὶ ἁμαρτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν. but the ESV renders this as "You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin."  In the intended reading, "appeared" has the sense of "showed up," and "to take" is an infinitive of purpose, but this translation could be misread so that "appeared" has the sense of "seemed" and (if my parsing is right) "to take" is an epexegetical infinitive.  Understood this way, the clause is saying that this "tak[ing] away [of] sins" was merely an illusion ("he seemed to take away sins"), but this is obviously not the meaning of the Greek text.  Simply adding "in order to" clears up this ambiguity:  "You know that he appeared in order to take away sins...."

The NIV has a much better translation:  "But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins.  And in him is no sin."

Matthew 20:24, Mark 10:41

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from 23 March 2015:

The reading was Mark 10:35-45.  I'm pretty sure that Dr. Feiertag reads the NIV, where verse 41 is translated as "When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John."  I was following along in my French New Testament, where this verse is rendered as "Les dix, ayant entendu cela, commencèrent à s'indigner contre Jacques et Jean."  Where the NIV has "indignant with" and the ESV has "indignant at," the French translation has "s'indigner contre."  (In Greek, the preposition here is περὶ.)  In French, contre also means against.  This carries a greater weight than de (the other preposition, meaning with or at, used with this verb), so in this particular translation, there's a greater sense of opposition between the ten disciples and the two brothers.

Matthew 20:24 is comparable.

My French translation has:  "Les dix, ayant entendu cela, furent indignés contre les deux frères."

The ESV has:  "And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers."

And the NIV has:  "When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers."

Genesis 3:15

When I went to church a couple weeks ago, the pastor referenced Genesis 3:15 in his sermon.  I noticed that the second half of the verse has a chiastic structure:  "He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."  The study notes in my Bible explain that "This points to Christ and His defeat of Satan on the cross."  It may be coincidental, but even the structure here (the cross form of the chiasm) seems to point to Christ's crucifixion.  I lookt up this verse in the STEP Bible, and while the possessive adjectives for "head" and "heel" are implied, this structure is present in the Hebrew too.

Luke 15:11-32 (The Prodigal Son)

The Gospel reading last week was Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, the parable of the prodigal son.  While watching Worship Anew, I realized that the father acts the same way toward both of his sons.  There's a sort of parallelism between "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him" (verse 20) and "His father came out and entreated him" (verse 28).  Clearly, the father cares for both of his sons, and while the situations are different, he goes out to each of them and shows his compassion.