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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1987 | May 1
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Let us, though, focus on still another sense in which the Bible uses koʹsmos. This is to signify the framework, order, or sphere of human life.a We encounter such a use in Jesus’ comment: “What benefit will it be to a man if he gains the whole world [koʹsmos] but forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) Clearly, Christ was not referring to a person’s ‘gaining the whole world of mankind,’ nor to ‘the whole world of people alienated from God.’ It was not humanity that a materialistic person might gain, but it was what people have, do, or arrange. This was true also of the apostle Paul’s observations about a married person’s ‘being anxious for the things of the world.’ Likewise, a Christian should not be ‘using the world to the full.’—1 Corinthians 7:31-33.
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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1987 | May 1
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a The above-quoted dictionary points out that even in ancient, non-Biblical Greek “kosmos is the basic term for the world-order, the world-system.”
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