...can make one huge difference. As a student of Biblical Greek, more and more I find little exegetical things interesting. Looking at the original Greek text of the New Testament, it's very easy to see how little things can change the meaning of something significantly, such as putting a comma in a different place, or how the case of a word can change the meaning of what it modifies, and how this can lead to a major theological difference.

In Church History, we are discussing the Nicene Creed, which is the most widely confessed creed around the world. It was written because of several controversies in the early church regarding the understanding of Christ as fully divine and fully human. There is one line in the creed that states that Jesus Christ is "begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father." The Greek word that is used for "being of one substance" is homoousion, which literally means “same stuff”. During the debates that arose during these early church councils, some suggested that, to be more accommodating to the fact that we cannot understand how Christ can be fully God and fully man at the same time, we ought to use the word homoiousion. Notice the added letter. It is a iota. Adding this little letter changes the meaning of the word to “like/similar stuff”. This was proposed to make a compromise to the situation.

But we must be thankful that Athansius was at this council, for he stood strong and firm to the necessity of the word being homoousion. If the word added the iota, then the church would fall into the heresy that Arius proclaimed—they were denying that Christ was fully God. There are serious implications here, for to do that is to render Christ unable to bring salvation to us. For salvation to be effective, Jesus Christ had to be both fully God and fully man. There is simply no argument about it. See how adding one little letter can cause such a big problem?