In two recent posts, we explored the meaning of sarx (“flesh” in ESV, NRSV, and “sinful nature” in T/NIV and NLT) as used by Paul.  We even had Wayne Leman, a professional linguist and translator of Better Bibles, going back and forth with Kyle Phillilps here.

Well, I decided to consult a Paulinist on the matter at Romans 8:5-11:

But what do “fleshly”…mean?  ….[“Flesh”] is so problematic that it would be nice (as I have tried to do with some other technical language) to avoid it altogether, but I have found that doing so produces even worse tangles.  Better to learn, once and for all, that when Paul uses the word “flesh” and other similar words he does not intend us simply to think of the “physical” world, in our normal sense, as opposed to the “non-physical.”  He has other language for that.  The word we translate, here and elsewhere…