Thanks everyone for your welcome to the blog world.

I love languages.

So, as a linguaphile and as one who has studied biblical and other languages, I would like to respond to Summer's comment about Peter and the word "idiotes" in Acts 4.13. The Greek word "idiotes" is shown in the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament as "layman, amateur in contrast to an expert or specialist of any kind" and specifically as "an untrained man" as it is used in Acts 4.13. While it is true that our English word idiot comes from the Greek word (and you can see the connection, can't you?), we should be very careful about reading *back* into Peter's use our own understanding of the word. Do you see what I'm saying? We think of an idiot as someone who is a sandwich short of a picnic, or a twit, or a nitwit. At the very least we use it in a pejorative way. Whereas Peter was not ascribing to the word any values, but simply saying that he didn't have the training of the scribes (or whoever).

Here's another example: we have the word dynamite, which comes from the Greek "dunamos" meaning "power, might, strength, force." So you can see how our dynamite got its name. But to say that the Greeks were thinking of something explosive when they used the word would be wrong indeed.

In short, to bring in the thought of "idiot" when talking about Peter in that situation is misleading. (And if you're wondering about being a fool for the gospel, there is no connection whatsoever, lexically at least.)

Gosh, I didn't mean this to be a lecture...