Will

Greek word - (thelema G2307)

Quiz - Choose the answer that is closest to what you think WILL is.
A - a future tense verb
B - want
C - a document declaring a person's wishes after he dies
D - what God determines

Problem - Outdated, Misleading

KJV Example - "For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." (Mark 3:35)

Explanation

What does the will of God refer to? What God wants or what God wills?

This lesson is not about the auxiliary verb, will. The auxiliary verb is added to a verb to make it future tense. For example, "He will eat dinner." Will in this sentence is the auxiliary verb. Eat is the verb. Will makes eat future.

Will also can stand alone as a verb. For example, "If he wills success, he can find it." It is this will and its noun form that this lesson is about.

The above example, "If he wills success..." sounds awkward because it is outdated. We do not talk that way today.

Will as a noun (the will of God) has a similar meaning. It is also outdated. Christians speak of God's will so often that they do not consider it to be outdated, but it is. They do not also talk about Sam's will or Joe's will (unless they are talking about a last will and testament).

One hundred years ago, will was not outdated. Back then, a person was defined as something that had intellect, emotion, and will. Will is that part of a person that determines or decides what will happen. It is also called volition.

Most people think of God's will as this, what God wills, what He determines or says will be.

The Greek word for will (the noun) is thelema. As I did a word study on thelema and plugged this meaning into the places where it appears in the New Testament, I found that it does not fit. Thelema is not volition.

An earlier definition of will is that of desire or want, what a person wants. Will has changed over the centuries from want to volition. A hundred years ago, will was misleading (this is why many Bible dictionaries and lexicons define thelema as persistence, they did not realize that will had earlier meant want).

When I plugged the earlier meaning into the New Testament usages, it fit. Thelema is want.

So God's will is not what God determines will be, but what God wants.

Want does not lend itself well to being used as a noun. We do not say, "I will do Sam's want." Instead we change it to a verb, "I will do what Sam wants."

10 out of 51 Bible versions today also use want instead of will. These translators have come to this same conclusion. Will is what someone wants.

Doing God's will is not about doing what God determines or says to do, but about doing what God wants. We need to find out what God wants and do it.

In the Bible, will is want.

Modern Synonym - want

Bible Version Tally (how other versions translate this word) - will (39 of 51), want (10 of 51), obey (2 of 51)

Breakthrough Version - "You see, whoever does what God wants, this person is My brother, sister, and mother." (Mark 3:35)