Tag Archives: John 17:3

Atonement, Part 2

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The next occurrence of כפר (kâphar), translated atonement, I want to consider on this pilgrimage is found in yehôvâh’s (יהוה) instruction to Moses (Exodus 29:33 NET):

[Aaron and his sons[1]] are to eat those things by which atonement was made to consecrate and to set them apart, but no one else may eat them, for they are holy.

In the Septuagint כפר (kâphar) was translated ἡγιάσθησαν (a form of ἁγιάζω).  Though ἡγιάσθησαν doesn’t occur in the New Testament, other forms of ἁγιάζω do.  I’ll try to be mindful of similarities between old covenant and new covenant atonement as well as differences.  So many concepts appear in this verse—to consecrate and to set them apart…they are holy—I want to back up and take a run at it.

The Hebrew word translated to set them apart was לקדש (qâdash). It was translated ἁγιάσαι (another form of ἁγιάζω) in the Septuagint.  “Now this is what you are to do for them to consecrate them,” yehôvâh instructed Moses, “so that they may minister as my priests.”[2]  The Hebrew word translated to consecrate was also לקדש, the very same form of qâdash as to set them apart above.  And in the Septuagint it was also translated ἁγιάσαι.  The new covenant is quite similar.

1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24 (NET)

1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24 (KJV)
Now may the God of peace himself make you completely holy (ἁγιάσαι, another form of ἁγιάζω) and may your spirit and soul and body be kept entirely blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the very God of peace sanctify (ἁγιάσαι, another form of ἁγιάζω) you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this (ποιήσει, a form of ποιέω). Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

Both ἁγιάσαι and τηρηθείη (a form of τηρέω; translated may…be kept [NET] and I pray God…be preserved [KJV]) are in the optative mood, the “mood of possibility.”  Both verbs recognize that one’s actual state may be far removed from holiness, sanctification and blamelessness at a given moment.  But ποιήσει (translated he will in fact do [NET] and who also will do [KJV]) is in the indicative mood, “a statement of fact” based on the trustworthiness or faithfulness of God in Christ.  Even more precious to me, ποιήσει is future tense in the active voice.

I was one who misunderstood the “finished work of Christ” as an invitation to a do-it-yourself works religion.  Since Christ was finished working, I reasoned, the rest of the distance between my current condition and his holiness and blamelessness was up to me, a race for me to run.  I don’t think my pastor intended to enroll me in a works religion, except…I wonder if I, sitting idly “trusting” Jesus, could ever have understood the word of God.  Or was it the desire to do his will combined with my failure to do his will that opened my mind to it?  Jesus said, If anyone wants to do God’s will, he will know about my teaching, whether it is from God or whether I speak from my own authority.[3]

This epistemological aspect intrigues the philosophical bent of my mind.  I earn a living on the fringes of a conference industry that, viewed economically or technologically, shouldn’t exist.  Gathering in one location wastes human resources, both time and money, now that the technology exists to meet virtually.  But viewed epistemologically conferences are extremely valuable.  A group of people pressed together, smelling one another, espousing the same or similar opinions can more easily convince themselves that their opinions are true.  The larger the group the “truer” their opinions are until that critical moment when the group fractures into disparate opinions.

I was born into evangelicalism as an established group, revealed truth.  But it grew to prominence in the U.S. from many streams:

According to religion scholar, social activist, and politician Randall Balmer, Evangelicalism resulted “from the confluence of Pietism, Presbyterianism, and the vestiges of Puritanism.  Evangelicalism picked up the peculiar characteristics from each strain – warmhearted spirituality from the Pietists (for instance), doctrinal precisionism from the Presbyterians, and individualistic introspection from the Puritans”.[40]  Historian Mark Noll adds to this list High Church Anglicanism, which contributed to Evangelicalism a legacy of “rigorous spirituality and innovative organization”.[41]

In the 1730s, Evangelicalism emerged as a distinct phenomenon out of religious revivals that began in Britain and New England.  While religious revivals had occurred within Protestant churches in the past, the evangelical revivals that marked the 18th century were more intense and radical.[48]  Evangelical revivalism imbued ordinary men and women with a confidence and enthusiasm for sharing the gospel and converting others outside of the control of established churches, a key discontinuity with the Protestantism of the previous era.[49]

It was developments in the doctrine of assurance that differentiated Evangelicalism from what went before.

Before his conversion to evangelicalism, which we evangelicals assume to be synonymous with a conversion to Christ, John Wesley wrote, “I hope he has died to save me.”[60]  “About a quarter before nine,” Wesley recalled his conversion, “while [the speaker] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.  I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone[4] for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”[61]

Evangelical preachers emphasized personal salvation and piety more than ritual and tradition.  Pamphlets and printed sermons crisscrossed the Atlantic, encouraging the revivalists.[64]  The Awakening resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of deep personal revelation of their need of salvation by Jesus Christ.  Pulling away from ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made Christianity intensely personal to the average person by fostering a deep sense of spiritual conviction and redemption, and by encouraging introspection and a commitment to a new standard of personal morality.  It reached people who were already church members.  It changed their rituals, their piety and their self-awareness.

By the time I arrived on the scene those new rituals, piety and self-awareness were nothing more than the ritual and tradition of a bygone era.  And the critical epistemological moment had passed: evangelicalism had already fractured into many disparate opinions.  Though Berger and Luckmann denied[5] it for adults, the teachings of any given religious sect are as much a part of the paramount reality[6] for children who grew up in it as anything an adult does at work.[7]

Though the relatively mindless taken-for-granted-ness[8] of the reality of everyday life shares some of the same blindness (Isaiah 42:18-25) to alternatives as religious faith, it was not faith in Christ in my case.  And apparently, part of my attempt to reinsert myself into the church I had abandoned and the mindless-taken-for-granted-ness of my youth, what I have called “fighting my way back from atheism,”[9] was like Cypher’s (Joe Pantoliano) attempt to be reinserted into The Matrix.  When my pastor lamented that most people came to Christ as children rather than as adults I nodded my “Amen” despite my anomalous personal history.

Now it seems obvious that there is no intrinsic reason that God would be merciful to children but not to adults.  An eternal life knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent,[10] living his own love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,[11] should be more appealing to those who have been around awhile and have had their fill of sin than to those for whom everything is still new and interesting.  I don’t doubt the accuracy of my pastor’s reflections on his experience.  But the truth behind that actuality seems to be that nearly three centuries of dumbing eternal life down to gaining heaven (or its corollary, escaping hell) has blunted the effectiveness of the gospel presented by evangelicalism.

“Evangelical revivalism” may have “imbued ordinary men and women with a confidence and enthusiasm for sharing the gospel” in its early days.  But by the time I was born into it “sharing the gospel” had become a necessary condition for belonging to the group.  As such, there were many aids, tips, tricks and techniques to make it easier for any Peter, Paul and Mary to “share the gospel.”  So we drowned the voices of God-gifted apostles and evangelists (Ephesians 4:11-16) in a sea of gospel peddlers promoting Jesus as a means to an end.  Even that end is now largely imaginary.  What is heaven, after all, but knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent, face to face, living his own love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,  forever?

In an opinion piece on Fox News Chris Sonksen cited Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s concept of a “wish dream” from his book Life Together:

Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive.  He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

Bonhoeffer’s wish dream intrigues me because of my own running feud with “the pursuit of happiness.”  Pegging my happiness to a fantasy of my own mind—I will be happy if…—was at best nonsensical and at worst a diabolical prescription for unhappiness.  Even when I have achieved my goals happiness was no longer-lived than that which one should expect from such achievement.  It has proven far better to pursue Christ (Philippians 3:8-11) and his righteousness, and let happiness float freely with the ups and downs of life.  Now I’m mostly happy.

Pastor Sonksen’s point was:

God did not wire us to be alone.  We are truly better together.  It’s in community that we grow, are challenged, stretched, and inspired to truly live for Jesus.  It’s messy, difficult, and at times frustrating…but it’s so worth it.

All true, though I would tend to credit the Holy Spirit, filling me with God’s own love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control toward others, over the mere fact of being in community with them.  Pastor Sonksen wasn’t referring to the communities most of us actually live and work in, however.  (Admittedly, my community is more transient and geographically dispersed than most.)  His plea was to the once a week, twice a week, thrice a week meetings (ἐπισυναγωγὴν, a form of ἐπισυναγωγή) of a contemporary church for the purpose of encouraging (παρακαλοῦντες, a form of παρακαλέω), inciting (παροξυσμὸν) one another on to love and [beautiful] (καλῶν, a form of καλός) works.[12]

One hopes that a pastor lives in that eternal life of knowing the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent, buoyed up in God’s own love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control by the Holy Spirit and his own immersion in scripture.  As such, he may be the last to recognize that the church he pastors enforces—by its rituals and traditions, by the way things are done, by the relatively mindless taken-for-granted-ness of the reality of everyday life within its walls—a lesser form of spirituality than being led by the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know Pastor Sonksen or South Hills Church.  I can’t say this is the case there.  I’m recognizing the possibility from my own past.  But it is the wish dream of every pastor that God will make his congregation completely holy and keep their spirit and soul and body entirely blameless through the well-ordered operation of the church he pastors.

The similarity between the atonement of Aaron and his sons to consecrate and to set them apart and our atonement is that it required no work on Aaron’s part or of his sons, only submission to God’s word (Exodus 29) and Moses’ ministry of that word (Leviticus 8).  The difference is clearly stated in the text (Exodus 29:1b-3 NET):

Take a young bull and two rams without blemish; and bread made without yeast, and perforated cakes without yeast mixed with oil, and wafers without yeast spread with oil – you are to make them using fine wheat flour.  You are to put them in one basket and present them in the basket, along with the bull and the two rams.

We are no longer made holy, consecrated or set apart by bulls or rams or bread or cakes or wafers without yeast, mixed with oil or spread with oil (Hebrews 10:1-10 NET).

For the law possesses a shadow of the good things to come but not the reality (εἰκόνα, a form of εἰκών) itself, and is therefore completely unable, by the same sacrifices offered continually, year after year, to perfect (τελειῶσαι, a form of τελειόω) those who come to worship.  For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have no further consciousness (συνείδησιν, a form of συνείδησις) of sin?  But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year.  For the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away (ἀφαιρεῖν, a form of ἀφαιρέω) sins.  So when he came into the world, he said, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me.

“Whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you took no delight in.

“Then I said, ‘Here I am: I have come – it is written of me in the scroll of the book – to do your will, O God.’”

When he says above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you did not desire nor did you take delight in them” (which are offered according to the law), then he says, “Here I am: I have come to do your will.”  He does away (ἀναιρεῖ, a form of ἀναιρέω) with the first to establish (στήσῃ, a form of ἵστημι) the second.  By his will we have been made holy (ἡγιασμένοι, another form of ἁγιάζω) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

So the finished work of Christ is that we have been made holy through the offering of [his] body…once for all.  The ongoing work the God of peace…will in fact do because He is trustworthy seems to be the breaking down of my resistance (Hebrews 12:5-13) to Him and his will and the truth of his word, filling me instead with faith in Him and his word, so that the holiness I have been made through the offering of his body once for all is manifest to me, and to others, here and now.  That God will do (ποιήσει, a form of ποιέω) this is quite evocative of the doer (ποιηταὶ, a form of ποιητής) of the law and of the one who practices the truth [who] comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done (εἰργασμένα, a form of ἐργάζομαι) in God.[13]

A table comparing Hebrews 10:1-10 in the NET and KJV follows.  If the parallel Greek of the NET differs from the Stephanus Textus Receptus or the Byzantine Majority Text I broke the table to highlight that difference.

Hebrews 10:1-9 (NET)

Hebrews 10:1-9 (KJV)
For the law possesses a shadow of the good things to come but not the reality itself, and is therefore completely unable, by the same sacrifices offered continually, year after year, to perfect those who come to worship. For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have no further consciousness of sin? For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
For the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
So when he came into the world, he said, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:
“Whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you took no delight in. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
“Then I said, ‘Here I am: I have come – it is written of me in the scroll of the book – to do your will, O God.’” Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
When he says above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you did not desire nor did you take delight in them” (which are offered according to the law), Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

Net Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
ἀνώτερον λέγων ὅτι θυσίας[14] καὶ προσφορὰς[15] καὶ ὁλοκαυτώματα καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας οὐκ ἠθέλησας οὐδὲ εὐδόκησας (αἵτινες κατὰ νόμον προσφέρονται) ανωτερον λεγων οτι θυσιαν[16] και προσφοραν[17] και ολοκαυτωματα και περι αμαρτιας ουκ ηθελησας ουδε ευδοκησας αιτινες κατα τον νομον προσφερονται ανωτερον λεγων οτι θυσιαν και προσφοραν και ολοκαυτωματα και περι αμαρτιας ουκ ηθελησας ουδε ευδοκησας αιτινες κατα τον νομον προσφερονται
then he says, “Here I am: I have come to do your will.”  He does away with the first to establish the second. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

Net Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
τότε εἴρηκεν· ἰδοὺ ἥκω τοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ θέλημα σου. ἀναιρεῖ τὸ πρῶτον ἵνα τὸ δεύτερον στήσῃ τοτε ειρηκεν ιδου ηκω του ποιησαι ο θεος το θελημα σου αναιρει το πρωτον ινα το δευτερον στηση τοτε ειρηκεν ιδου ηκω του ποιησαι ο θεος το θελημα σου αναιρει το πρωτον ινα το δευτερον στηση
Hebrews 10:10 (NET)

Hebrews 10:10 (KJV)
By his will we have been made holy (ἡγιασμένοι,[18] another form of ἁγιάζω) through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Net Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
ἐν ᾧ θελήματι ἡγιασμένοι ἐσμὲν διὰ τῆς προσφορᾶς τοῦ σώματος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐφάπαξ εν ω θεληματι ηγιασμενοι εσμεν οι[19] δια της προσφορας του σωματος του[20] ιησου χριστου εφαπαξ εν ω θεληματι ηγιασμενοι εσμεν οι δια της προσφορας του σωματος ιησου χριστου εφαπαξ

[1] Exodus 28:43 (NET)

[2] Exodus 29:1a (NET)

[3] John 7:17 (NET)

[4] “Christ alone” is so much better an expression than “faith alone” with its scriptural association to dead faith: But would you like evidence, you empty fellow, that faith without works is useless?  Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?  You see that his faith was working together with his works and his faith was perfected (ἐτελειώθη, a form of τελειόω) by works.  And the scripture was fulfilled (ἐπληρώθη, a form of πληρόω) that says, “Now Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.  You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.  And similarly, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another way?  For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead [Table] (James 2:20-26 NET).

[5] “All finite provinces of meaning are characterized by a turning away of attention from the reality of everyday life. While there are, of course, shifts in attention within everyday life, the shift to a finite province of meaning is of a much more radical kind. A radical change takes place in the tension of consciousness. In the context of religious experience this has been aptly called ‘leaping’. It is important to stress, however, that the reality of everyday life retains its paramount status even as such ‘leaps’ take place.”

Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, “The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge,” 1966, p. 39

[6] “Compared to the reality of everyday life, other realities appear as finite provinces of meaning, enclaves within the paramount reality marked by circumscribed meanings and modes of experience. The paramount reality envelops them on all sides, as it were, and consciousness always returns to the paramount reality as from an excursion.”

Ibid., p. 39

[7] “Closest to me is the zone of everyday life that is directly accessible to my bodily manipulation. This zone contains the world within my reach, the world in which I act so as to modify its reality, or the world in which I work. In this world of working my consciousness is dominated by the pragmatic motive, that is, my attention to this world is mainly determined by what I am doing, have done or plan to do in it. In this way it is my world par excellence.”

Ibid., p. 36

[8] “The reality of everyday life is taken for granted as reality. It does not require additional verification over and beyond its simple presence. It is simply there, as self-evident and compelling facticity. I know that it is real. While I am capable of engaging in doubt about its reality, I am obliged to suspend such doubt as I routinely exist in everyday life. This suspension of doubt is so firm that to abandon it, as I might want to do, say, in theoretical or religious contemplation, I have to make an extreme transition. The world of everyday life proclaims itself and, when I want to challenge the proclamation, I must engage in a deliberate, by no means easy effort.”

Ibid., p. 37

[9] Solomon’s Wealth, Part 4; A Monotonous Cycle, Part 2; A Monotonous Cycle, Part 3; A Monotonous Cycle, Part 5; Who Am I? Part 1; Torture, Part 4

[10] John 17:3 (NET)

[11] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

[12] Hebrews 10:24, 25 (NET)

[13] John 3:21 (NET)

[14] Accusative plural feminine  form of θυσία

[15] Accusative plural feminine form of προσφορά

[16] Accusative singular feminine form of θυσία

[17] Accusative singular feminine form of προσφορά

[18] Perfect passive participle nominative plural masculine form of ἁγιάζω

[19] https://greekdoc.github.io/lexicon/oi.html

[20] https://greekdoc.github.io/lexicon/to.html#tou

Believers

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I tend to use the word believers for ἐκκλησία primarily because the word church had become a not-for-profit corporation managed and operated by believers.  It helps me study the Bible as if it pertains to me, rather than as a search for bylaws and provisions for the charter of a local not-for-profit corporation.  But suddenly the line I wrote in another essay jumped out at me—“I kneel before the Father, he wrote believers in Ephesus”—and caused me to wonder.

Was I fooling myself?  Did Paul really mean that individual believers may be filled up to all the fullness of God?  Or did he mean the ἐκκλησία corporately?  If so, was that the ἐκκλησία universally or locally?

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians[1] was addressed to the saints (ἁγίοις, a form of ἅγιος).[2]  These were individuals designated by two plural adjectives, holy and faithful (πιστοῖς, a form of πιστός) in Jesus Christ.  But it was through the singular church (ἐκκλησίας,[3] a form of ἐκκλησία) that the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms.[4]

Ephesians 3:10-12 (NET)

Ephesians 3:10-12 (KJV)
The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms. To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God…
This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord… According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:
…in whom we have boldness and confident access to God because of Christ’s faithfulness. In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

NET Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
ἐν ᾧ ἔχομεν τὴν παρρησίαν καὶ προσαγωγὴν ἐν πεποιθήσει διὰ τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ. εν ω εχομεν την παρρησιαν και την προσαγωγην εν πεποιθησει δια της πιστεως αυτου εν ω εχομεν την παρρησιαν και την προσαγωγην εν πεποιθησει δια της πιστεως αυτου

The Greek word πίστεως (a form of πίστις), translated faithfulness (NET) and faith (KJV), is a genitive singular feminine noun according to the Koine Greek Lexicon online.  The Greek word αὐτοῦ (a form of αὐτός), translated of Christ’s (NET) and of him (KJV), is a genitive singular masculine / neuter personal pronoun according to the same lexicon.  I assume the NET translators assumed that his faith (or, faithfulness) meant Christ’s faith or faithfulness because Christ Jesus our Lord (τῷ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν) is the nearest antecedent.  But the fruit of the Spirit is… πίστις,[5] translated faithfulness (NET) and faith (KJV), a nominative singular feminine noun according to the Koine Greek Lexicon.

This faith or faithfulness is not my doing but neither is it so alien to me that I can ignore it to pursue my fleshly desires as if it weren’t given to me.  It is an aspect of the fruit of the Holy Spirit given to those who are led by the Spirit, the children of God, the holy and faithful (πιστοῖς, a form of πιστός) in Jesus Christ.  For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.  For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.[6]

Ephesians 3:13 (NET)

Ephesians 3:13 (KJV)
For this reason I ask you not to lose heart because of what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

NET Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
διὸ αἰτοῦμαι μὴ ἐγκακεῖν ἐν ταῖς θλίψεσιν μου ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν, ἥτις ἐστὶν δόξα ὑμῶν. διο αιτουμαι μη εκκακειν εν ταις θλιψεσιν μου υπερ υμων ητις εστιν δοξα υμων διο αιτουμαι μη εκκακειν εν ταις θλιψεσιν μου υπερ υμων ητις εστιν δοξα υμων

So was Paul addressing a singular church or plural individuals?  The first you (NET) and ye (KJV) were implied by the verbs ἐγκακεῖν (a form of ἐκκακέω) or εκκακειν (another form of ἐκκακέω) both of which are infinitives according to the Koine Greek Lexicon, not clearly singular or plural.  But Paul was suffering for individuals: ὑμῶν (a form of ὑμείς), translated you and your (NET, KJV), is plural.

Ephesians 3:14 (NET)

Ephesians 3:14 (KJV)
For this reason I kneel before the Father… For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…
NET Parallel Greek Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
Τούτου χάριν κάμπτω τὰ γόνατα μου πρὸς τὸν πατέρα τουτου χαριν καμπτω τα γονατα μου προς τον πατερα του κυριου ημων ιησου χριστου τουτου χαριν καμπτω τα γονατα μου προς τον πατερα του κυριου ημων ιησου χριστου

Ephesians 3:15, 16 (NET)

Ephesians 3:15, 16 (KJV)
…from whom every family in heaven and on the earth is named. Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named…
I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person… That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man…

NET Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
ἵνα δῷ ὑμῖν κατὰ τὸ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ δυνάμει κραταιωθῆναι διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν ἔσω ἄνθρωπον ινα δωη υμιν κατα τον πλουτον της δοξης αυτου δυναμει κραταιωθηναι δια του πνευματος αυτου εις τον εσω ανθρωπον ινα δωη υμιν κατα τον πλουτον της δοξης αυτου δυναμει κραταιωθηναι δια του πνευματος αυτου εις τον εσω ανθρωπον

Paul prayed for individuals: ὑμῖν is also plural.  The Greek word δῷ (a form of δίδωμι) is a verb in the subjunctive mood according to the lexicon, hence the translation he may grant (NET).  But since it was a result[7] of Paul’s prayer and the wealth of God’s glory I wonder if the may might be dropped.  The word translated he would grant (KJV) δωη (another form of δίδωμι), however, could be in the optative or subjunctive moods depending on diacritical marks that are absent from the texts of the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text I’m using.

Ephesians 3:17 (NET)

Ephesians 3:17 (KJV)
…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love… That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love…

The verb translated may dwell, κατοικῆσαι (a form of κατοικέω), is an aorist active infinitive verb so I assume the word may is stylistic.  The words your hearts are clear and accurate in English translation.  The verb ἐρριζωμένοι (a form of ῥιζόω), translated you have been rooted (NET) or being rooted (KJV), is plural as is τεθεμελιωμένοι (a form of θεμελιόω), translated grounded.

Ephesians 3:18 (NET)

Ephesians 3:18 (KJV)
…you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth… May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height…

The verb translated you may be able (NET) or May be able (KJV) is ἐξισχύσητε the second person plural form of ἐξισχύω.  It is subjunctive but as a result clause preceded by ἵνα the word may is more stylistic than accurate.  The verb καταλαβέσθαι (a form of καταλαμβάνω), translated to comprehend, is an infinitive.  This ability to comprehend is the birthright of all the saints (πᾶσιν τοῖς ἁγίοις).

Ephesians 3:19 (NET)

Ephesians 3:19 (KJV)
…and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. …to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

The verb translated to know is γνῶναι the infinitive form of γινώσκω.  But πληρωθῆτε (a form of πληρόω), translated you may be filled (NET) or ye might be filled (KJV), is definitely plural.  It is also subjunctive but again preceded by ἵνα.  It is a result clause.  One could argue that this entire passage should be translated with more conviction.  As one of the believers who has found it difficult to “understand or experience…the fullness of the Holy Spirit in their lives,”[8] I suppose I can understand why it was not.

Even now, knowing that Paul addressed individual believers and that all the fullness of God (πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ) was limited here to knowledge and love, I still have some incredulity.  It’s time to drown out that incredulity in the praise of Him who is able to do far beyond all that we ask or think.

Ephesians 3:20, 21 (NET)

Ephesians 3:20, 21 (KJV)
Now to him who by the power that is working within us is able to do far beyond all that we ask or think… Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us…
…to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.  Amen.

When Paul wrote of the ἀγάπην τοῦ Χριστοῦ (love of Christ) I think the Holy Spirit meant the fruit of the Spirit since the definition of God’s love entails every aspect of the fruit of the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (NET)

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (KJV)
Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious.  Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never ends. Charity never faileth:

NET Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
Ἡ ἀγάπη οὐδέποτε πίπτει η αγαπη ουδεποτε εκπιπτει η αγαπη ουδεποτε εκπιπτει

The iffy part of Paul’s prayer is not the wealth of God’s glory, the power of the Holy Spirit or the love of Christ.  The iffy part is my faith.  But then I don’t want to rely on my faith.  I want the faith that comes from the fruit of the Spirit, the faith of Jesus Christ, because He “had the faith to stand on the water and hold Peter (Matthew 14:25-33) up as well.”  And Peter wrote:

2 Peter 1:2, 3 (NET)

2 Peter 1:2, 3 (KJV)
May grace and peace be lavished on you as you grow in the rich knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord! Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
I can pray this because his divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and godliness through the rich knowledge of the one who called us by his own glory and excellence. According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

NET Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
Ὡς πάντα ἡμῖν τῆς θείας δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ τὰ πρὸς ζωὴν καὶ εὐσέβειαν δεδωρημένης διὰ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως τοῦ καλέσαντος ἡμᾶς |ἰδίᾳ δόξῃ | καὶ |ἀρετῇ| ως παντα ημιν της θειας δυναμεως αυτου τα προς ζωην και ευσεβειαν δεδωρημενης δια της επιγνωσεως του καλεσαντος ημας δια δοξης και αρετης ως παντα ημιν της θειας δυναμεως αυτου τα προς ζωην και ευσεβειαν δεδωρημενης δια της επιγνωσεως του καλεσαντος ημας δια δοξης και αρετης

2 Peter 1:4 (NET)

2 Peter 1:4 (KJV)
Through these things he has bestowed on us his precious and most magnificent promises, so that by means of what was promised you may become partakers of the divine nature, after escaping the worldly corruption that is produced by evil desire. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

NET Parallel Greek

 Stephanus Textus Receptus

Byzantine Majority Text
δι᾿ ὧν τὰ τίμια καὶ μέγιστα ἡμῖν ἐπαγγέλματα δεδώρηται, ἵνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως ἀποφυγόντες τῆς ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐν ἐπιθυμίᾳ φθορᾶς. δι ων τα μεγιστα ημιν και τιμια επαγγελματα δεδωρηται ινα δια τουτων γενησθε θειας κοινωνοι φυσεως αποφυγοντες της εν κοσμω εν επιθυμια φθορας δι ων τα τιμια ημιν και μεγιστα επαγγελματα δεδωρηται ινα δια τουτων γενησθε θειας κοινωνοι φυσεως αποφυγοντες της εν κοσμω εν επιθυμια φθορας

To know (γινώσκωσιν, another form of γινώσκω) the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent[9] is eternal life.  To know his love to be filled up to all the fullness of God may require some patience as well.  Fortunately, love is patient (μακροθυμεῖ, a form of μακροθυμέω) and the fruit of the Spirit is…patience (μακροθυμία).

[1] According to a note (2) in the NET this “was an encyclical letter, intended for more than one audience.”  In other words there was a blank space to be filled in by the receiving church: “this letter would first come to Ephesus, the port of entry, then to Laodicea, then Colossae.”

[2] Ephesians 1:1 (NET)

[3] Here ἐκκλησίας would be genitive and singular rather than accusative and plural.

[4] Ephesians 3:10 (NET)

[5] Galatians 5:22 (NET)

[6] Ephesians 2:8-10 (NET)  John Piper probably explained these verses the best I have heard in his essay, “A Whole World Hangs on a Word,” on Desiring God online.

[7] “However if the subjunctive mood is used in a purpose or result clause, then the action should not be thought of as a possible result, but should be viewed as a definite outcome that will happen as a result of another stated action.” From Resources for Learning New Testament Greek

[8] Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 3

[9] John 17:3 (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 8

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Considering walking in the light led me back here to try to bring this series of essays to some sort of conclusion.  Much as I might like something more definitive, this—like the rest of my life—will be more in-process.  But it highlights the advantage of taking notes by writing essays.

While it was probably good for me to type out Scripture verses and passages (copy and paste came later) and salutary to suspend my own judgments until a sufficient quantity of God’s own thoughts had washed over and through me, the notes that resulted from this exercise were simply typed lists of Scripture passages bound together only by the Greek or Hebrew word they shared.  Though it shaped my understanding of the Greek or Hebrew word in question, once the meaning of the exercise dimmed in memory my notes didn’t help me recall it.  Writing essays forces me to translate the gestalt that forms from word studies into a linear pattern of words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs that I can return to again and again as new patterns emerge.

This essay begins for all practical purposes with my divorce from my second wife (third wife if you’re willing to count my high school girlfriend).  One of the reasons she divorced me was stated: “I don’t like your sexuality.  And when I do, I don’t like myself.”

I’m persuaded a decade or so later—knowing we get along just fine now that sex and living together are off the table—that it wasn’t female emotional-speak, when a man should hear the emotion conveyed by the words rather than their literal content.  She was a poet, speaking content and feeling in a few precise words.  When I heard them I became the submissive sadist who had goaded her into a discomforting situation.

I was under the most extreme emotional duress, rejected again by another wife after having been accepted (including my masochistic sexuality).  I had believed she was God’s gift to me, that He had given me the desire of my heart and He was about to take that gift away, albeit through my inability to please a wife.  I don’t expect that He will ever taunt Satan with words like, Have you considered my servant Dan?  There is no one like him on the earth, a pure and upright man, one who fears God and turns away from evil.[1]  I was in no shape to say blessed be the name of the Lord.[2]  That was accomplished entirely by the Holy Spirit.  He flooded Paul’s definition of love back into my mind (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a NET):

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious.  Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.  It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful.  It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.   

That’s not to say that it had ever left entirely.  To Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind[3] and to Love your neighbor as yourself,[4] it’s nice to know what love is.  But under extreme emotional duress Paul’s definition became my mantra.

The obvious advantage of this is that Paul’s definition of love coincides absolutely with the fruit of the Holy Spirit: the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control[5] He is ever-producing in the believer, like a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.[6]  Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.  Just as the scripture says, ‘From within him will flow rivers of living water.’”[7]  And whatever the flow rate in ordinary times I’m convinced He increases it in times of duress, emotional or otherwise.

Though I was completely wrong the first time I was divorced to think that I could love like God and fulfill the law by turning Paul’s definition of love into rules I would obey in my own strength, the Holy Spirit was not wrong to make that definition my mantra.  It reminds me of another mantra from the movie The Patriot.

It comes at the turning point for widower and war veteran Benjamin Martin (Mel Gibson).  He has avoided being dragged back into war until now.  He and his two younger sons Nathan (Trevor Morgan) and Samuel (Bryan Chafin) prepare an ambush for the Redcoats who have captured his eldest son Gabriel (Heath Ledger).  “What did I tell you fellas about shooting,” Benjamin asks his obviously frightened young sons.  “Aim small, miss small,” they respond in unison.  Benjamin prays, “Lord make me fast and accurate.”  Nathan repeats “aim small, miss small” as a mantra to steady his breathing.

When I consider sin as a missing of the mark,[8] “aim small, miss small” has a lot to do with how Paul’s definition of love worked as a mantra of righteousness.  A bit of impatience with God or my wife was a long way from atheism or murder.  Aiming at kindness kept the worst of my bitter diatribes at bay.  A little envy did not lead to adultery.  None of these small misses were quite as devastating as missing the absolutes of God’s law.  Paul’s definition of love may well be the God-ordained hedge about the law working in consonance with the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Still, here I am with a desire for that combination of humiliation, pain and pleasure called masochism.  Now, admittedly, I have no desire for missionary-position sex with somebody’s grandmother.  Maybe this is the way sexual desire dies, most kinky last.  I don’t honestly know.  But it leads me aside here to another consideration.

Paul wrote believers in Rome (Romans 8:12-14 NET):

So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh (for if you live according to the flesh, you will die), but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.

The Greek word translated you put to death was θανατοῦτε (a form of θανατόω).  I’ve been frustrated at times not knowing how to behead, stab, shoot or poison the practices of the body (πράξεις τοῦ σώματος), as distinguished from the works of the flesh (ἔργα τῆς σαρκός).  In the past believers tried asceticism.  Today psychology is all the rage.  But I think that θανατοῦτε is a bit more passive than its English translation may seem.

Brother will hand over (Παραδώσει, a form of παραδίδωμι) brother to death, Jesus prophesied, and a father his child.  Children will rise against parents and have them put to death (θανατώσουσιν, another form of θανατόω).[9]  Here θανατώσουσιν was associated with Παραδώσει, “to give into the hands (of another).”  The brother, the father and the children would not kill directly but surrender their victims to another authority.  And I think that pattern holds.

The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were trying to find false testimony against Jesus so that they could put him to death (θανατώσωσιν, another form of θανατόω).[10]  When it was early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to execute (θανατῶσαι, another form of θανατόω) him.[11]  But when it got right down to it the chief priests and elders handed him over (παρέδωκαν, another form of παραδίδωμι) to Pilate the governor.[12]  Even Pilate handed him over (παρέδωκεν, another form of παραδίδωμι) [to others] to be crucified.[13]  I am to put to death the [practices[14]] of the body by the Spirit (πνεύματι, a form of πνεῦμα, dative case).

If I leave the killing to God, suddenly his beyond intimate knowledge of me as an individual is comforting rather than a threat.  Let the Creator and Lover of my soul perform the spiritual equivalent of neurosurgery in his own time with his own steady hand.  My part is to hand the practices of the body over to Him.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.

I do, however, recognize another desire of my heart, a desire to do word studies in the Bible to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He has] sent.[15]  When I spent countless hours typing Scripture passages, or even copying and pasting them, though I wanted and needed to do it, I felt guilty about all the time I “wasted.”  I should have been making money or music or doing something “good.”  What I’ve learned from all that I’ve suffered is that studying God’s word is doing something good.

Now I have more time off from work than I can actually afford.  Bible study is not only good for me and the thing I look most forward to being off work to do, it is the most economical way to spend idle time.  Also, it is time spent when every inclination of the thoughts of [my mind] is not only evil (raʽ, רע) all the time.[16]  Yes, I have learned a more circumspect view of who and what I am now, as well as my own capacity for doing good (apart from being led by the Holy Spirit).  Why do you call me good? Jesus asked the ἄρχων.  No one is good except God alone.[17]

Of course He chooses which of the desires (mishʼâlâh, משאלת; Septuagint: αἰτήματα, a form of αἴτημα) of my heart (lêb, לבך; Septuagint: καρδίας, a form of καρδία) to grant and which to kill.  The heart (lêb, הלב; Septuagint: καρδία) is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  I the LORD (yehôvâh, יהוה) search the heart (lêb, לב; Septuagint: καρδίας, a form of καρδία), I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.[18]

If I’m honest about it, almost the last thing I would desire now is a wife to disrupt my Bible study routine.  So, unless I plan to attempt a biblical justification for hiring a dominatrix, my masochism will just have to wither away.  Though I failed to find a definitive “masochism is sin”[19] in Scripture I think my life has demonstrated that for me at least masochism is not beneficial (συμφέρει, a form of συμφέρω).  And I’ve spent the better part of a lifetime coming even to that tentative conclusion.  I can certainly afford to be a little patient with the sexual obsessions of others.

I’ve written about Chad Allen before and won’t repeat it here.  The love and grace he demonstrated toward his accusers as producer and actor of Save Me deeply affected me and I loved him, though we had never met.  “The final thing the movie did for me was introduce me to the Gay Christian Network,” I wrote.

While not untrue it was perhaps misleading since the Gay Christian Network was nothing more than the Scriptural musings of Justin Lee to me.  I didn’t always agree with Mr. Lee’s conclusions but his process gave me confidence that the Holy Spirit would work in anyone pursuing God through his word that way.  Now that he has moved on to other endeavors the Gay Christian Network became the writings of Isaac Archuleta to me.  I admit to being somewhat less sanguine about his more psychological approach.

So, can I live in a world where my heart’s desire to do word studies in the Bible is granted while my heart’s desire to enjoy hot, kinky sex with a loving wife is strangled?  The simple answer is no—not on my own, not apart from the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  This brings me back to Habakkuk.  He didn’t describe the fruit of the spirit as a river or a fountain of living water but as the feet of a deer (Habakkuk 3:17-19 NIV):

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights (NASB: And makes me walk on my high places).

As a coda to this essay: My eighty-six-year-old mother fell again and broke her arm.  My ex-wife is staying with her until I can get there.

[1] Job 1:8 (NET)

[2] Job 1:21b (KJV)

[3] Matthew 22:37 (NET) Table

[4] Matthew 22:39 (NET)

[5] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

[6] John 4:14b (NET)

[7] John 7:37b, 38 (NET)

[8] Greek: ἁμαρτάνω; Hebrew: châṭâʼ (חָטָא)

[9] Matthew 10:21 (NET)

[10] Matthew 26:59 (NET)

[11] Matthew 27:1 (NET)

[12] Matthew 27:2b (NET)

[13] Matthew 27:26b (NET)

[14] πράξεις (a form of πρᾶξις) is from the verb πράσσω, “to ‘practise’, that is, perform repeatedly or habitually.”  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done (ἔπραξεν, a form of πράσσω) while in the body, whether good or evil (2 Corinthians 5:10 NET).

[15] John 17:3b (NET)

[16] Genesis 6:5b (NET)

[17] Luke 18:19 (NET)

[18] Jeremiah 17:9, 10 (Tanakh)

[19] I might try again at another time with a word study of ἀσέλγεια.

Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 3

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Though I’m eager to dive into the word study, I’m compelled to spend some time keeping my promise to reveal my own position and velocity.  It will make this essay considerably, but necessarily, longer than I like.

The Greek words translated sexual immorality in the NET were translated fornication in the KJV.  I thought fornication meant premarital sex.  I didn’t know anything about the ritual sex of pagan worship until about thirty-five years ago (though I felt the sensual pull of Egyptian art since childhood).  But I didn’t immediately question the meaning of sexual immorality or fornication.  I remember wondering if the prostitutes in Jerusalem that Solomon feared so for his sons had been imported along with his wives’ religions (1 Kings 11:1-8).

Now I’m thinking that “the sin of premarital sex” is a way we have nullified the word of God by our traditions.  Upwardly-mobile young men can “repent” of their “sins of premarital sex” and head off to college or a new career unencumbered by any of their responsibilities as husbands.  “If a man is shacking up with a woman,” Denny wrote in his blog post THE PROGRESSIVE SANCTIFICATION HERESY, “simply saying, ‘I’m sorry God,’ just won’t do.  It requires that you get out of that sinful situation.”

He might have meant “give the woman a ring and social status as a legal wife,” hearkening back to an older time when church folk believed, What therefore God hath joined together [Deuteronomy 22:28, 29; Exodus 22:16, 17][1], let not man [except for the young woman’s father] put asunder.[2]  It would demonstrate a humility reminiscent of the proverb of the wisest king of Israel (or perhaps, the wisest man ever): There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Solomon wrote, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship in the sea, and the way of a man with a woman[3] (Septuagint: “and the ways of a man in his youth”).

But I imagine Denny as a contemporary co-religionist, hailing from a prouder more macho tradition where “holiness” is measured by how harshly it savages human emotions.  The two “shacking up” together, no matter how desperately they love one another (the more the better), must part, separate, send away, divorce, put asunder because they have committed the “unpardonable sin” of enjoying sex before a church official pronounced them lawful to do so.  To paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche’s Antichrist: What is good?  All that heightens the feeling of church power.

Any man of Israel who refused to attend Ezra’s assembly and divorce his foreign wife would forfeit all his property.  The list of men who had taken foreign wives at the end of the book (Ezra 10:18-44) persuades me that Ezra believed the proceedings to send foreign wives and their children away had transpired according to the Lord’s will.  And so did I, until I heard yehôvâh’s response through the prophet Malachi (2:13-16 NET):

You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you [Table]. Yet you ask, “Why?”  The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law [Table].  No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this.  What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God [e.g., Genesis 15:6]?  Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth [Table].  “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the Lord who rules over all.  “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful” [Table].

The intimate absolute rejection of divorce was yehôvâh’s will for no one.  But I’ve stacked the deck here as if I believe that staying together and formalizing the relationship is necessarily the “right” decision.  In my case it was not so.

My contract with God had broken down.  I had heard enough religion to know that some believed Christ put an “end” to the law and all things were “lawful” for me.  So I did what I wanted.  I shacked up with my girlfriend du jour.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, with my sexual desires more or less satisfied for the first time in a long time, I began to walk in the grace of Christ’s salvation as I began to set the words of the Gospel to music.

Too many years of hallucinogenic drugs had made me functionally illiterate.  At least I thought that term described me accurately the first time I heard it.  (As it turned out functionally illiterate is just a redundancy for illiterate.)  If I had read aloud one would have assumed I understood what I read.  I read easily, fluently and coherently with an actor’s flair for inflection.  My problem was a lack of faith.  I had no confidence that strings of words meant anything beyond the beauty of their sounds, except in the most mundane cases: I’m hungry, I’m horny, I have to pee.  And so with a young man’s needs met, a job and a woman, I set out to make art.

The one who hated the Bible as a child knew he wasn’t smart enough to choose which Gospel was the “right” one for his libretto, so he spent countless hours creating a harmony of the four Gospel narratives, and untold hours more with those words rolling over and over in his mind to set them to music.  It was a long and laborious task because he was not a very good composer, at least he wasn’t quick about it.

When he played and sang John 17:1-11 for another composer friend, his friend commended his work: “You know, the first time you played this for me I thought it was just a throw-away.  Now I think it may be the best piece you’ve ever written.”  He, being a highly literate fellow, also commented on the meaning of the text: “And that’s the most interesting definition of eternal life I’ve ever heard.”

The functionally illiterate composer of the best piece he had ever written nodded appreciatively but hadn’t realized that the words—This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent[4]—constituted a definition of eternal life.  But he planned to take the words—This is and whatever words followed—a bit more seriously in the future.  When he decided to formally marry his roommate the functionally illiterate composer had fallen away from grace, though he would not have understood that if someone had told him.

In fact, I wonder if I was capable of understanding it apart from actively becoming one who was trying to be declared righteous by the law.  I began to study the Bible in earnest.  Though I had been warned that the meaning of eternal life was to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He had sent I didn’t study to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He had sent to live that eternal life.  I searched the Bible for rules to obey—or disobey as it turned out.

So what do I currently think is the “right” decision when one is conscience-stricken over “shacking up” together?  I return to Ezra (Ezra 9:15 NET):

O Lord God of Israel, you are righteous, for we are left as a remnant this day.  Indeed, we stand before you in our guilt.  However, because of this guilt no one can really stand before you.

And then wait—acknowledging that you are caught in a tender trap (Hosea 11:4) and that there is no way for you to cleanse yourself of sin by your deeds.  And while you’re waiting, study the Bible to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent to live his eternal life.  This essay will become a tale of three women (four women, though one was actually a symbol for a city), more importantly it will focus on Jesus’ response to those women.

Go call your husband and come back here,[5] Jesus said to a Samaritan woman at a well.  The woman replied, “I have no husband.”[6]  Jesus already knew her past: you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband.[7]  He did not command her to leave the man she had now (νῦν ὃν ἔχεις), nor did He command her to go to a priest and get married; the man was apparently already married to another woman.  Jesus commended her for her truthfulness: καλῶς εἶπας ὅτι ἄνδρα οὐκ ἔχω is literally “beautifully you poured forth that husband you have not.”  And he told her that in her truthfulness she was exactly the kind of person his Father was seeking for his kingdom (John 4:23, 24 NET):

But a time is coming – and now is here – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers.  God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The second woman was from Thyatira: But I have this against you, Jesus addressed the singular angel of the church in Thyatira, You tolerate that woman Jezebel…[8]  The Greek word translated You tolerate was ἀφεῖς (a form of ἀφίημι).  Here is a table of all the occurrences of ἀφεῖς and its translation.

Form of ἀφίημι Reference KJV

NET
ἀφεὶς Matthew 13:36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away… Then he left the crowds…
Matthew 26:44 And he left them… So leaving them again…
Mark 8:13 And he left them… Then he left them…
Mark 13:34 …who left his house… He left his house…
Mark 15:37 And Jesus cried with a loud voice… But Jesus cried out with a loud voice…[9]
ἀφεῖς Revelation 2:20 …thou sufferest that woman Jezebel… You tolerate that woman Jezebel…

Mark’s word picture, that Jesus left his body and its loud voice echoed on afterward, is stunning.  In Revelation, You [left] that woman Jezebel hints that the angel of the church of Thyatira was a kind of ἐπίσκοπος on a visitation circuit inspecting (ἐπισκέπτομαι) churches.  He saw what Jezebel was doing but did nothing.  It doesn’t answer the question whether the angel was a human being or not but serves as prima facie evidence that he was not a local pastor.

Jesus described Jezebel as one who calls herself a prophetess, and by her teaching deceives my servants…[10]  The Greek word translated by her teaching was διδάσκει (a form of διδάσκω).  Here is a table of all the occurrences of διδάσκει and its translation.

Form of διδάσκω Reference KJV

NET
διδάσκει 1 Corinthians 11:14 Doth not even nature itself teach you… Does not nature itself teach you…
1 John 2:27 …the same anointing teacheth you of all… …his anointing teaches you about all things…
Revelation 2:20 …to teach and to seduce my servants… …and by her teaching deceives my servants…

Though I have assumed that the fact that Jezebel taught indicated that she held a formal teaching position, neither nature nor Christ’s (or, God’s) anointing hold official teaching positions in the church.  The Greek word translated deceives was πλανᾷ (a form of πλανάω).  A table of the occurrences and translations of πλανᾷ follows.

Form of πλανᾷ

 Reference KJV

NET
πλανᾷ John 7:12 …but he deceiveth the people… He deceives the common people.
Revelation 2:20 …to teach and to seduce my servants… …and by her teaching deceives my servants…
Revelation 13:14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth… …he deceived those who live on the earth.

Then I saw another beast coming up from the earth, John reported (Revelation 13:11-14a NET):

He had two horns like a lamb, but was speaking like a dragon.  He exercised all the ruling authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and those who inhabit it worship the first beast, the one whose lethal wound had been healed.  He performed momentous signs, even making fire come down from heaven in front of people and, by the signs he was permitted to perform on behalf of the beast, he deceived those who live on the earth.

This prophecy of an ostensibly Christian leader (He had two horns like a lamb) preaching Satan (speaking like a dragon) and deceiving people by momentous signs might explain to some extent why folks from my religious background fear the leading of the Holy Spirit.  For false messiahs and false prophets will appear, Jesus warned, and perform great signs and wonders to deceive (πλανῆσαι, another form of πλανάω), if possible, even the elect.[11]  But to turn the fruit of the Spirit into one’s own works or qualities turns the salvation of Jesus Christ into just another works religion.

One of the momentous signs this beast will perform is to make fire come down from heaven in front of people.  This is what James and John—before they received the Holy Spirit—wanted to do to Samaritans who refused to welcome Jesus (Luke 9:51-56).  On the other hand some of the Ἰουδαῖοι (a form of Ἰουδαῖος) accused Jesus, He deceives (πλανᾷ, a form of πλανάω) the common people, because their leaders had recognized that He was performing many miraculous signs and they feared that everyone would believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our sanctuary and our nation (John 11:45-53).  Knowing Jesus intimately through his Spirit is essential to faith.

Jezebel by her teaching deceived Jesus’ servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.[12]  The Greek word translated to commit sexual immorality was πορνεῦσαι (a form of πορνεύω).  A table of the occurrences and translations of πορνεῦσαι follows.

Form of πορνεύω Reference KJV

NET
πορνεῦσαι Revelation 2:14 …to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. …eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.
Revelation 2:20 …to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. …to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

These two occurrences seem to be obvious references to sexualized pagan worship.  Though I had no conscious alliance with any pagan deities I’m willing to consider my desire for group sex πορνεῦσαι for two reasons: 1) I thought group sex was the way of peace, distinct from, more real and effective than, any aspect of the fruit of the Spirit.  My naiveté was deliberate.  I was forbidden from reading or viewing stories about the treachery and violence of adultery.  And I had discounted my parents’ example, assuming they were so hung up about the morality of sexuality they didn’t do it right.

The one story I had seen about adultery, on the sly as it were once I could drive and date, seemed like a subtle promo.  I watched Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) talk Lt. Dish (Jo Ann Pflug) into mercy sex with Painless (John Schuck) the night before she was scheduled to return home to her husband.  I was desperate to find some meaning after the main character Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), the only character with anything like a storyline, had been written out of the movie MASH.  I could see the guilt of Dish’s adultery on her face, particularly in her eyes—until she smiled.  It’s been forty-seven years and I still remember her smile.

2) God stopped me from following through on my desire for group sex—twice.  The second time was considerably more embarrassing and I may or may not reveal it.  Jesus went on to describe πορνεῦσαι as πορνείας (a form of πορνεία), translated sexual immorality: I have given her time to repent, but she is not willing to repent of her sexual immorality.[13]  Here is a table of the occurrences and translations of πορνείας.  I’ll consider each in turn.

Form of πορνεία Reference KJV

NET
πορνείας Matthew 5:32 … whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication… …everyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality…
John 8:41 We be not born of fornication[14]… We were not born as a result of immorality!
Acts 15:20 …abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication… …to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality…
Acts 15:29 …and from things strangled, and from fornication… …from what has been strangled and from sexual immorality.
1 Corinthians 7:2 …to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife… …because of immoralities, each man should have relations with his own wife…
1 Thessalonians 4:3 …that ye should abstain from fornication… …that you keep away from sexual immorality…
Revelation 2:21 …to repent of her fornication… …to repent of her sexual immorality.
Revelation 9:21 …nor of their fornication… …of their sexual immorality…
Revelation 14:8 …she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. She made all the nations drink of the wine of her immoral passion.
Revelation 17:2 …of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. …the earth’s inhabitants got drunk with the wine of her immorality.
Revelation 17:4 …and filthiness of her fornication… …unclean things from her sexual immorality.
Revelation 18:3 …wine of the wrath of her fornication… …from the wine of her immoral passion…

It was said, Jesus taught, “Whoever divorces his wife must give her a legal document.”  But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for immorality, makes her commit adultery (μοιχευθῆναι, a form of μοιχεύω), and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery (μοιχᾶται, a form of μοιχάω).[15]  Limiting πορνείας (translated, immorality) to the ritual sex of pagan worship here would correspond better to yehôvâh’s word through Malachi—I hate divorce—and Jesus’ negative answer (Matthew 19:4-6) to the Pharisees’ question: Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any cause?[16]

I’m not entirely sure what the Ἰουδαίους (another form of Ἰουδαῖος) meant when they said: We were not born as a result of immorality!  We have only one Father, God himself.[17]  But I take it as mostly irrelevant to understanding what Jesus meant when He used πορνείας.  Assuming that James used πορνείας to mean the ritual sex of pagan worship when he suggested writing a letter to Gentiles, telling them to abstain from things defiled by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood,[18] is the most charitable understanding of his abbreviation of the law.

If Paul had the lure of ritual sex in view it would account for his prescription of marriage though he considered it a distraction from devotion to Christ (1 Corinthians 7:32-35) and it would account for his description of Corinthian marriage as mutual sexual slavery[19] (1 Corinthians 7:3-5).  But as I’ve written before I find it very difficult to believe that Paul had ritual sex in mind in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8.

Still, in Revelation ritual sex seems to be the meaning of πορνείας as its resurgence with pagan worship is a portent of the end times:  The rest of humanity, those who survived the onslaught of an army numbering two hundred million, who had not been killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they did not stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk about.  Furthermore, they did not repent of their murders, of their magic spells, of their sexual immorality, or of their stealing.[20]

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, John continued his vision, and he had an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth – to every nation, tribe, language, and people.  He declared in a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has arrived, and worship the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water!”

A second angel followed the first, declaring: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great city!  She made all the nations drink of the wine of her immoral passion.”[21]

The Greek word translated passion was θυμοῦ (a form of θυμός).  Here is a table of the occurrences and translations of θυμοῦ.

Form of θυμός Reference KJV

NET
θυμοῦ Luke 4:28 …these things, were filled with wrath… …in the synagogue were filled with rage.
Acts 19:28 …these sayings, they were full of wrath… When they heard this they became enraged…
Revelation 14:8 …wine of the wrath of her fornication… …drink of the wine of her immoral passion.
Revelation 14:10 …shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God… …also drink of the wine of God’s anger…
Revelation 14:19 …the great winepress of the wrath of God. …the great winepress of the wrath of God.
Revelation 15:7 …golden vials full of the wrath of God… …golden bowls filled with the wrath of God…
Revelation 16:1 …the vials of the wrath of God… …the seven bowls containing God’s wrath.
Revelation 16:19 …the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. …the wine made of God’s furious wrath.
Revelation 18:3 …the wine of the wrath of her fornication… …the wine of her immoral passion…
Revelation 19:15 …he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. …he stomps the winepress of the furious wrath of God…

In the NET translation Babylon made all the nations (or, all the Gentiles: πάντα τὰ ἔθνη) drink of her immoral passion, which I understand as idolatrous worship including ritual sex.  In the KJV translation Babylon made all the nations (or, all the Gentiles) drink of the wrath directed at her fornication, whether all the individual nations or all of the individual Gentiles engaged directly in idolatrous worship including ritual sex or not.  Though I prefer the NET translation as a matter of justice I can’t verify it independently.  Here are the footnotes which attempt to explain it.

24 Grk “of the wine of the passion of the sexual immorality of her.” Here τῆς πορνείας…has been translated as an attributive genitive. In an ironic twist of fate, God will make Babylon drink her own mixture, but it will become the wine of his wrath in retribution for her immoral deeds (see the note on the word “wrath” in 16:19).

65 Following BDAG 461 s.v. θυμός 2, the combination of the genitives of θυμός…and ὀργή…in Rev 16:19 and 19:15 are taken to be a strengthening of the thought as in the OT and Qumran literature (Exod 32:12; Jer 32:37; Lam 2:3; CD 10:9). Thus in Rev 14:8 (to which the present passage alludes) and 18:3 there is irony: The wine of immoral behavior with which Babylon makes the nations drunk becomes the wine of God’s wrath for her. 

In a later passage however it is clear that the earth’s inhabitants got drunk with the wine of her immorality (Revelation 17:1, 2 NET):

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke to me.  “Come,” he said, “I will show you the condemnation and punishment of the great prostitute (πόρνης, a form of πόρνη) who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality (ἐπόρνευσαν, another form of πορνεύω) and the earth’s inhabitants got drunk with the wine of her immorality.”

Now the woman was dressed in purple and scarlet clothing, John’s vision continued, and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls.  She held in her hand a golden cup filled with detestable things and unclean things from her sexual immorality.  On her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the Great, the Mother of prostitutes (πορνῶν, another form of πόρνη) and of the detestable things of the earth.”[22]  As for the woman you saw, the angel explained, she is the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth.[23]  I’m not sure if the angel meant a city at the time John saw the vision or at the time of the prophecy’s fulfillment.  If pressed I would assume the latter since no single city has had sovereignty over the kings of the earth since the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).

After these things I saw another angel, John continued (Revelation 18:1-3 NET):

…who possessed great authority, coming down out of heaven, and the earth was lit up by his radiance.  He shouted with a powerful voice: “Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great!  She has become a lair for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detested beast.  For all the nations have fallen from the wine of her immoral passion, and the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality (ἐπόρνευσαν, another form of πορνεύω) with her, and the merchants of the earth have gotten rich from the power of her sensual behavior (στρήνους, a form of στρῆνος).”

Here, after the other verses I’ve quoted I’m much more comfortable with the NET translation (her immoral passion) of τοῦ θυμοῦ τῆς πορνείας αὐτῆς than the KJV translation (the wrath of her fornication).

Jesus described Jezebel’s followers with the Greek word μοιχεύοντας (another form of μοιχεύω), translated those who commit adultery.  Though μοιχεύοντας only occurred this once in the New Testament it is fairly clear that in Jesus’ mind the verb πορνεῦσαι and the noun πορνείας described a special form of adultery.  Consider his words to the third woman.

She had been caught (κατειλημμένην, a form of καταλαμβάνω) committing adultery (μοιχείᾳ, a form of μοιχεία).[24]  Teacher, this woman was caught (κατείληπται, another form of καταλαμβάνω) in the very act (αὐτοφώρῳ, a form of ἐπαυτοφώρῳ) of adultery (μοιχευομένη, another form of μοιχεύω),[25] her accusers said to Jesus.  When none of her accusers considered himself guiltless (ἀναμάρτητος) they left Jesus alone with the woman.  He asked her, “Woman, where are they?  Did no one condemn you?”  She replied, “No one, Lord.”  And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”[26]

But of the woman who was guilty of that special form of μοιχεία designated by the verb πορνεῦσαι and the noun πορνείας, He said: I am throwing her onto a bed of violent illness, and those who commit adultery with her into terrible suffering, unless they repent of her deeds.[27]  This was not written in the past age under the law, but in the present after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension into heaven.  Since I don’t believe that human bishops or circuit riders are enjoined or authorized by this Scripture to infect church members guilty of idolatrous worship and ritual sex with disease, Jesus’ condemnation indicates to me that the angel of the church of Thyatira, criticized for having left Jezebel unattended, was not human.

[1] Does Deuteronomy 22:28-29 command a rape victim to marry her rapist?

[2] Mark 10:9 (KJV)

[3] Proverbs 30:18, 19 (NET)

[4] John 17:3 (NASB)

[5] John 4:16b (NET)

[6] John 4:17a (NET)

[7] John 4:18a (NET)

[8] Revelation 2:20a (NET)

[9] See: Mark 15:34 The Greek word translated cried out was ἐβόησεν (a form of βοάω).

[10] Revelation 2:20b (NET)

[11] Matthew 24:24 (NET)

[12] Revelation 2:20c (NET)

[13] Revelation 2:21 (NET)

[14] Peter J. Leithart, “Born in Fornication,” First Things

[15] Matthew 5:31, 32 (NET) Table

[16] Matthew 19:3b (NET) Table

[17] John 8:41b (NET)

[18] Acts 15:20b (NET) Table

[19] Romans, Part 30 ; Paul’s Religious Mind Revisited, Part 4

[20] Revelation 9:20, 21 (NET)

[21] Revelation 14:6-8 (NET)

[22] Revelation 17:4, 5 (NET)

[23] Revelation 17:18 (NET)

[24] John 8:3a (NET)

[25] John 8:4 (NET)

[26] John 8:10b, 11 (NET)

[27] Revelation 2:22 (NET)

Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 7

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In this essay I’ll consider three occurrences of yârêʼ (תירא), the first two very briefly.  They simply mean fear, the fear of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do.[1]

Numbers 21:33-35 (NET)

Deuteronomy 3:1-4 (NET)
Then they turned and went up by the road to Bashan.  And King Og of Bashan and all his forces marched out against them to do battle at Edrei.  And the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear (yârêʼ, תירא) him, for I have delivered him and all his people and his land into your hand.  You will do to him what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon. Next we set out on the route to Bashan, but King Og of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.  The Lord, however, said to me, “Don’t be afraid (yârêʼ, תירא) of him because I have already given him, his whole army, and his land to you.  You will do to him exactly what you did to King Sihon of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon.”
So they defeated Og, his sons, and all his people, until there were no survivors, and they possessed his land. So the Lord our God did indeed give over to us King Og of Bashan and his whole army and we struck them down until not a single survivor was left.  We captured all his cities at that time – there was not a town we did not take from them – sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the dominion of Og in Bashan.


I also commanded Joshua at the same time, Moses continued, “You have seen everything the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) your God did to these two kings; he (yehôvâh, יהוה) will do the same to all the kingdoms where you are going.  Do not be afraid (yârêʼ, תיראום) of them, for the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) your God will personally fight for you.”[2]

The third occurrence of yârêʼ requires more consideration (Deuteronomy 4:10 NET):

You stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he said to me, “Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands.  Then they will learn to revere (yârêʼ, ליראה) me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children.”

The Hebrew word was yârêʼ.  The Tanakh reads: ‘Assemble Me the people, and I will make them hear My words that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.’[3]  The Septuagint reads: “Assemble the people to me, and let them hear (ἀκουσάτωσαν, a form of ἀκούω; See Luke 16:29) my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days as long as they live on the earth and may teach their sons…”[4]  Yet the NET translators chose revere and I don’t have any quarrel with it.  Doing this study has helped me realize that something is happening to the fear of yehôvâh.

I’ve already heard Moses associate this fear with faith.  Here, too, it is associated with something like faith.  Moses said (Deuteronomy 4:1-4 NET):

Now, Israel, pay attention to the statutes and ordinances I am about to teach you, so that you might live and go on to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.  Do not add a thing to what I command you nor subtract from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I am delivering to you.  You have witnessed what the Lord did at Baal Peor, how he eradicated from your midst everyone who followed Baal Peor.  But you who remained faithful to the Lord your God are still alive to this very day, every one of you.

The Hebrew word translated remained faithful was dâbêq (הדבקים), clinging, adhering to in the NET dictionary.  But ye that did cleave unto HaShem your G-d are alive every one of you this day.[5]  I picture a child clinging to her parent’s leg for comfort and security.  It reminded me of President Obama’s gaffe on the campaign trail:[6]

For a second day, Mr. Obama sought to explain his remarks at a recent San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations.

A believer looking back might easily perceive the clinging of those who did not join themselves to Baal Peor as a kind of faith.  In the Septuagint it was προσκειμενοι (a form of προσκαρτέρησις; translated held fast in English): “strong perseverance which prevails by interacting with God.”

I’ve been thinking lately about the ubiquity of the hero’s journey as a function of the religious mind, the pride (ἀλαζονεία, a form of ἀλαζονεία) of life.  Looking back—after the judgment and condemnation (Numbers 25:4, 5) that distinguished those who engaged in πορνεία with the Moabite women and their gods (Numbers 25:1-3) from those who did not—the latter group may seem the more heroic whether through a “strong perseverance which prevails by interacting with God” or having remained faithful.  But Moses’ choice of dâbêq (הדבקים) may reflect the actual situation when the next step on the hero’s journey seemed to be a love and peace initiative with the descendants of Abraham’s nephew Lot through his eldest daughter (Genesis 19:37), while the less heroic in Israel clung to yehôvâh’s commands regarding idolatry and adultery.

The only other occurrence of dâbêq (הדבקים) in the Old Testament was in Solomon’s proverb: there is a friend who sticks closer (dâbêq, דבק) than a brother.[7]  I have no idea what that meant to Solomon.  To someone who knows the Holy Spirit it is difficult not to think of Him as that friend.  Moses continued, a significantly different attitude toward the law than Luther/Graebner indicated  (Deuteronomy 4:5-8 NET):

Look!  I have taught you statutes and ordinances just as the Lord my God told me to do, so that you might carry them out in the land you are about to enter and possess.  So be sure to do them, because this will testify of your wise understanding to the people who will learn of all these statutes and say, “Indeed, this great nation is a very wise people.”  In fact, what other great nation has a god so near to them like the Lord our God whenever we call on him?  And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this whole law that I am about to share with you today?

Then Moses recalled the giving of the law:

Exodus 20:18-20 (NET)

Deuteronomy 4:9, 10 (NET)
All the people were seeing the thundering and the lightning, and heard the sound of the horn, and saw the mountain smoking – and when the people saw it they trembled with fear and kept their distance.  They said to Moses, “You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die.”  Moses said to the people, “Do not fear (yârêʼ, תיראו), for God has come to test you, that the fear (yirʼâh, יראתו) of him may be before you so that you do not sin.” Again, however, pay very careful attention, lest you forget the things you have seen and disregard them for the rest of your life; instead teach them to your children and grandchildren.  You stood before the Lord your God at Horeb and he said to me, “Assemble the people before me so that I can tell them my commands.  Then they will learn to revere (yârêʼ, ליראה) me all the days they live in the land, and they will instruct their children.”

Here Moses chose yârêʼ for the fear that was yirʼâh in Exodus.  The translation revere seems cognizant at least of a meaning other than simple fear.  “We want it understood that we do not reject the Law as our opponents claim,” Luther/Graebner asserted in their “Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians” under the heading The Twofold Purpose of the Law. “On the contrary, we uphold the Law.”

Their twofold purpose was “to check civil transgression, and to magnify spiritual transgressions.”  Paul added another purpose: through the law comes the knowledge of sin.[8]  Luther/Graebner allowed:

The Law is also a light like the Gospel. But instead of revealing the grace of God, righteousness, and life, the Law brings sin, death, and the wrath of God to light. This is the business of the Law, and here the business of the Law ends, and should go no further.

I would add under this rubric of light that the law like all Scripture is a way to know…the only true God, and Jesus Christ.[9]

Luther/Graebner recognized “three ways in which the Law may be abused”[10] (actually, four ways):

First, by the self- righteous hypocrites who fancy that they can be justified by the Law. Secondly, by those who claim that Christian liberty exempts a Christian from the observance of the Law…Thirdly, the Law is abused by those who do not understand that the Law is meant to drive us to Christ. When the Law is properly used its value cannot be too highly appraised. It will take me to Christ every time.

The fourth way the law may be abused is to be ignorant of it.  Luther/Graebner cited this as the introduction to the other three ways: “The doctrine of the Law must therefore be studied carefully lest we either reject the Law altogether, or are tempted to attribute to the Law a capacity to save.”  I was ignorant of Leviticus 5:4-6 (though I had certainly read it) while Numbers 30:1-2 stuck with me.

Numbers 30:1, 2 (NET)

Leviticus 5:4-6 (NET)
Moses told the leaders of the tribes concerning the Israelites, “This is what the Lord has commanded [Table]: If a man makes a vow to the Lord or takes an oath of binding obligation on himself, he must not break his word, but must do whatever he has promised [Table].” …when a person swears an oath, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips, whether to do evil or to do good, with regard to anything which the individual might speak thoughtlessly in an oath, even if he did not realize it, but he himself has later come to know it and is guilty with regard to one of these oaths [Table]– when an individual becomes guilty with regard to one of these things he must confess how he has sinned [Table], and he must bring his penalty for guilt to the Lord for his sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, whether a female sheep or a female goat, for a sin offering. So the priest will make atonement on his behalf for his sin [Table].

I hope Jephthah (Judges 11:34-40) was ignorant of Leviticus 5:4-6 (though I just stumbled across an essay that claims Jephthah didn’t sacrifice his daughter but merely consigned her to a life of celibacy [according to her own will]).[11]  I had thought that Jephthah’s sacrifice was necessary and in some sense “good,” given my understanding of the law.  Now I consider Jephthah’s attempt to justify himself by law a failure, whether he sacrificed his daughter or consigned her to celibacy, for he did not confess his thoughtless oath.  As James wrote (James 2:10, 11 NET Table):

For the one who obeys the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.  For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.”  Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a violator of the law.

This time however I see the hero’s journey as an aspect of the religious mind as well.  It seems so much more “heroic” (in the sense that I pay the price of obedience to God’s law) to sacrifice one’s daughter, whether to death or celibacy, than to confess one’s sin.  To confess sin is a weakness and a disgrace by comparison to a hero’s journey.

In the book of Esther, Letters were sent by the runners to all the king’s provinces stating that they should destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, from youth to elderly, both women and children, on a particular day, namely the thirteenth day of the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar), and to loot and plunder their possessions.[12]  Esther interceded with the king on behalf of her people: let an edict be written rescinding those recorded intentions of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, which he wrote in order to destroy the Jews who are throughout all the king’s provinces.[13]

But the king’s decree could not be rescinded: Any decree that is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring cannot be rescinded.[14]  The only solution was to write another decree authorizing a day of civil war in the kingdom: The king thereby allowed the Jews who were in every city to assemble and to stand up for themselves – to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any army of whatever people or province that should become their adversaries, including their women and children, and to confiscate their property.[15]

When Moses interceded with yehôvâh, pleading for the lives of the descendants of Israel (Exodus 32:9-14), the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה), unlike the king of Persia, repented (nâcham, וינחם; Septuagint: ἱλάσθη, a form of ἱλάσκομαι) of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.[16]  Follow me, Jesus said.  John wrote (1 John 1:8-2:2 NET):

If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.  But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.  (My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.)  But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One, and he himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the whole world.

The fear of yehôvâh might compel one to sacrifice his daughter, whether to death or celibacy.  To confess one’s sin and bring the appropriate sacrifice, So the priest will make atonement on his behalf for his sin is something else altogether.  To revere yehôvâh is not an altogether unworthy attempt to encapsulate that difference in a word.

[1] Luke 12:4 (NET)

[2] Deuteronomy 3:21, 22 (NET)

[3] Deuteronomy 4:10b (Tanakh)

[4] Deuteronomy 4:10b (Septuagint)

[5] Deuteronomy 4:4 (Tanakh)

[6] New York Times, April 13, 2008, On the Defensive, Obama Calls His Words Ill-Chosen, by KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JEFF ZELENY

[7] Proverbs 18:24b (NET)

[8] Romans 3:20b (NET)

[9] John 17:3b (NET)

[10] Commentary on Galatians 3:23

[11] The opposing view is defended adequately in “Jephthah’s Vow”

[12] Esther 3:13 (NET)

[13] Esther 8:5b (NET)

[14] Esther 8:8b (NET)

[15] Esther 8:11 (NET)

[16] Exodus 32:14 (KJV)

Romans, Part 83

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But we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not just please ourselves.[1]  I assume that the weak (ἀδυνάτων, a form of ἀδύνατος) referred back to the one who is weak in the faith (ἀσθενοῦντα [a form of ἀσθενέω] τῇ πίστει).  The weak person (ἀσθενῶν, another form of ἀσθενέω) eats only vegetables[2] and has a tendency to judge[3] those who do not do likewise.  And I assume this weakness is an infirmity of the flesh, since even the law…was weakened (ἠσθένει, another form of ἀσθενέω) through the flesh.[4]  Though Paul considered himself one of we who are strong, after the affliction that happened to [him] in the province of Asia[5] he identified wholeheartedly with the weak (2 Corinthians 11:29, 30 NET):

Who is weak (ἀσθενεῖ, another form of ἀσθενέω), and I am not weak (ἀσθενῶ, another form of ἀσθενέω)?  Who is led into sin, and I do not burn with indignation?  If I must boast, I will boast about the things that show my weakness (ἀσθενείας, a form of ἀσθένεια).

Let each of us [who are strong] please his neighbor for his good to build him up.[6]  I’ve already written how I feel about the strong (δυνατοὶ, a form of δυνατός).  But the time I’ve spent knowing the only true God (e.g., Jesus’ Father), and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent,[7] has made me less faith-weak now than when I began.  Perhaps it is time to begin to please (ἀρεσκέτω, a form of ἀρέσκω) [my] neighbor for his good to build him up, or at least to appreciate the scope of such an undertaking.

When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased (ἤρεσεν, another form of ἀρέσκω) Herod and his dinner guests.[8]  This pleasure may or may not have been sexual desire.  Herodius’ daughter Herodius is portrayed as completely clueless in the Gospel narratives: 1) No king would offer half his kingdom to a woman with any grasp of power.  Herod didn’t offer it to his wife Herodias, for instance.  2) The offer seems to have perplexed the girl and sent her to her mother for advice.  And, 3) she followed her mother’s grisly advice without argument or any hint of rebellion.  She seems to have been mentally incompetent or very young or both.

If Herodias’ daughter Herodias was also Salome mentioned by Josephus (Antiquities 18.5.4) she was possibly as young as 12, little more than 16.  If not, she was Salome’s little sister.  Still, pleasing my neighbor with some fancy footwork probably doesn’t qualify as for his good to build him up.  When a complaint arose on the part of the Greek-speaking Jews against the native Hebraic Jews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food,[9] the Apostles proposed a solution that may have been closer to what Paul had in mind (Acts 6:2b-4 NET):

It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to wait on tables.  But carefully select from among you, brothers, seven men who are well-attested, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this necessary task.  But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

The proposal pleased (ἤρεσεν, another form of ἀρέσκω) the entire group…[10]

Do not give offense to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God, Paul wrote the Corinthians, just as I also try to please (ἀρέσκω) everyone in all things.[11]  Here, he equated pleasing everyone in all things to not giving offense to very disparate groups of people.  The Greek word translated offense is ἀπρόσκοποι (a form of ἀπρόσκοπος), defined quite beautifully in Thayer’s Greek Lexicon as “having nothing for one to strike against.”  I do not seek my own benefit, Paul continued, but the benefit of many, so that they may be saved.[12]

There are some caveats and warnings:

An unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord, how to please (ἀρέσῃ, another form of ἀρέσκω) the Lord.  But a married man is concerned about the things of the world, how to please (ἀρέσῃ, another form of ἀρέσκω) his wife, and he is divided.  An unmarried woman or a virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, to be holy both in body and spirit.  But a married woman is concerned about the things of the world, how to please (ἀρέσῃ, another form of ἀρέσκω) her husband.[13]

I assume that Paul thought a divided man might succeed at pleasing his wife, but I have not, not enough that she would stick it out with me.  It makes me doubly aware that if any good is to come from me Jesus must please Himself through me by his Holy Spirit rather than rely on me to do it for Him.  I will fail; He will not.  No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, Paul wrote Timothy, so that he may please (ἀρέσῃ, another form of ἀρέσκω) the one who enlisted him as a soldier.[14]  Those who are in the flesh cannot please (ἀρέσαι, another form of ἀρέσκω) God.[15]

Am I now trying to gain the approval of people, or of God? Paul asked rhetorically in reference to the Galatians heeding a doctrine other than the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  Or am I trying to please (ἀρέσκειν, another form of ἀρέσκω) people?  If I were still trying to please (ἤρεσκον, another form of ἀρέσκω) people, I would not be a slave of Christ![16]

Finally then, brothers and sisters, we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received instruction from us about how you must live and please (ἀρέσκειν, another form of ἀρέσκω) God (as you are in fact living) that you do so more and more.[17]

For the appeal we make does not come from error or impurity or with deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we declare it, not to please (ἀρέσκοντες, another form of ἀρέσκω) people but God, who examines our hearts.  For we never appeared with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed – God is our witness – nor to seek glory from people, either from you or from others…[18]

For you became imitators, brothers and sisters, of God’s churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, because you too suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they in fact did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us severely.  They are displeasing (μὴ ἀρεσκόντων, another form of ἀρέσκω) to God and are opposed to all people, because they hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.[19]

These are not simple rules I might obey in my own strength or wisdom.  “Having nothing for one to strike against” among disparate people to please [my] neighbor for his good to build him up while pleasing God rather than people seems to describe a space, a terrain, where I need to be guided moment by moment by the Holy Spirit, with his love, his joy, his peace, his patience, his kindness, his goodness, his faithfulness, his gentleness and his control.  But this introduction to the scope of the terrain has prepared me to hear Romans 15:1-4 (NET):

But we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not just please (ἀρέσκειν, another form of ἀρέσκω) ourselves.  Let each of us please (ἀρεσκέτω, a form of ἀρέσκω) his neighbor for his good to build him up.  For even Christ did not please (ἤρεσεν, another form of ἀρέσκω) himself, but just as it is written, “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”  For everything that was written in former times was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and through encouragement of the scriptures we may have hope.

The Greek words translated for his good are εἰς τὸ ἀγαθὸν (literally, “for this good”), though εἰς might have been translated “into, unto, to” or “towards.”  Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they? Jesus asked rhetorically.  In the same way, every good (ἀγαθὸν, a form of ἀγαθός) tree bears good (καλοὺς, a form of καλός) fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good (ἀγαθὸν, a form of ἀγαθός) tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good (καλοὺς, a form of καλός) fruit.[20]  And, Why do you call me good (ἀγαθόν, a form of ἀγαθός)?  No one is good (ἀγαθὸς) except God alone.[21]

The good for my neighbor is not for him to try to do good.  Though that may please me (especially if he does that good for or to me) it is hypocrisy, the work of an actor imitating the good.  “I’m not good but I play good on TV.”  My neighbor’s good is to be good, every good tree bears good fruit, a good tree is not able to bear bad fruit.  My neighbor’s good is to be born from above, to be led by the Holy Spirit.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.[22]  And, No one is good except God alone.

The Greek words translated to build him up are πρὸς οἰκοδομήν (a form of οἰκοδομή).  I can glean a lot of Paul’s attitude concerning οἰκοδομή and pleasing one’s neighbor for his good from 1 Corinthians 14:1-5 (NET):

Pursue love and be eager for the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.  For the one speaking in a tongue does not speak to people but to God, for no one understands; he is speaking mysteries by the Spirit.  But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening (οἰκοδομὴν, a form of οἰκοδομή), encouragement, and consolation.  The one who speaks in a tongue builds (οἰκοδομεῖ, a form of οἰκοδομέω) himself up, but the one who prophesies builds up (οἰκοδομεῖ, a form of οἰκοδομέω) the church.  I wish you all spoke in tongues, but even more that you would prophesy.  The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be strengthened (οἰκοδομὴν, a form of οἰκοδομή).

Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, seek to abound in order to strengthen (οἰκοδομὴν, a form of οἰκοδομή) the church.[23]  When you come together, each one has a song, has a lesson, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation.  Let all these things be done for the strengthening (οἰκοδομὴν, a form of οἰκοδομή) of the church.[24]  Paul wrote on this theme to believers in Ephesus as well (Ephesians 4:11-16 NIV):

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up (οἰκοδομὴν, a form of οἰκοδομή) until we all reach unity (ἑνότητα, a form of ἑνότης) in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds (οἰκοδομὴν, a form of οἰκοδομή) itself up in love, as each part does its work.

You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up (οἰκοδομὴν, a form of οἰκοδομή) of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear.  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.  You must put away every kind of bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and evil, slanderous talk.  Instead, be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.[25]

Now may the God of endurance and comfort give you unity (φρονεῖν, a form of φρονέω; literally, “thought” or “thinking”) with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Receive one another, then, just as Christ also received you, to God’s glory.[26]

[1] Romans 15:1 (NET)

[2] Romans 14:2b (NET)

[3] Romans 14:3 κρινέτω (a form of κρίνω); Romans 14:10 κρίνεις (another form of κρίνω)

[4] Romans 8:3b (NET)

[5] 2 Corinthians 1:8 (NET)

[6] Romans 15:2 (NET)

[7] John 17:3b (NET)

[8] Mark 6:22a (NET)  Also: Matthew 14:6

[9] Acts 6:1b (NET)

[10] Acts 6:5a (NET)

[11] 1 Corinthians 10:32-33a (NET)

[12] 1 Corinthians 10:33b (NET)

[13] 1 Corinthians 7:32b-34 (NET)

[14] 2 Timothy 2:4 (NASB)

[15] Romans 8:8 (NET)

[16] Galatians 1:10 (NET)

[17] 1 Thessalonians 4:1 (NET) Table

[18] 1 Thessalonians 2:3-6 (NET)

[19] 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16a (NET)

[20] Matthew 7:16b-18 (NET)

[21] Mark 10:18 (NET)

[22] Romans 8:14 (NET)

[23] 1 Corinthians 14:12b (NET)

[24] 1 Corinthians 14:26b (NET)

[25] Ephesians 4:29-32 (NET)

[26] Romans 15:5-7 (NET)

Paul’s Religious Mind Revisited, Part 1

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I want to compare and contrast Paul’s teaching in his letter to the Corinthians to Jesus’ letter To the angel of the church in Thyatira[1] under the rubrics: “Paul’s Regime” and “Jesus’ Regime.”

Paul’s Regime

Jesus’ Regime
It is actually reported that sexual immorality (πορνεία) exists among you (ὑμῖν; plural), the kind of immorality (πορνεία) that is not permitted even among the Gentiles, so that someone is cohabiting with (ἔχειν, a form of ἔχω) his father’s wife.

1 Corinthians 5:1 (NET)

 But I have (ἔχω) this against you (σοῦ, a form of σύ; singular): You tolerate (ἀφεῖς, a form of ἀφίημι) that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and by her teaching deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality (πορνεῦσαι, a form of πορνεύω) and to eat food sacrificed to idols (εἰδωλόθυτα, a form of εἰδωλόθυτον).

Revelation 2:20 (NET)
I have given her time to repent, but she is not willing to repent of her sexual immorality (πορνείας, a form of πορνεία).

Revelation 2:21 (NET)

Experiencing these as two distinct regimes is new for me.  As long as I assumed that Jesus’ spoke to the second person plural the two passages seemed virtually identical.  And without doubt I love and respect Paul.  He led me to Jesus, helped me to see Him in a different light.  Apart from Paul’s writing in the New Testament I may never have learned to trust Jesus.  I’ve tried to imagine that the man Paul wrote about had kidnapped his father’s wife, kept her against her will, raped her repeatedly and refused to release her.  But that’s as much, or more, to ask of ἔχειν than the idea that he was pimping her for cultic purposes.

The man who had his father’s wife compares to Jezebel, who by her teaching deceives [Jesus’] servants to commit sexual immorality, as a man who walks into a congregation with a loaded gun compares to an active shooter.  Jesus gave Jezebel time to repent.  Paul didn’t say anything about time to repent, though I’m hard-pressed to determine what form the man’s repentance might have taken.

When I believed that πορνεία meant pre-marital sex[2] repentance seemed fairly straightforward: The man should dump the woman, go to college, get a high-paying job, return home, settle down and marry a nice girl—one who wouldn’t cohabit with her husband’s son.  That changed as I began to take the law (Exodus 22:16, 17, Deuteronomy 22:28-30) more seriously,[3] as a way to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom [He] sent.[4]  Of course, the woman in this case was or had been married to the man’s father.  By law both should have been condemned to death (Leviticus 20:10, 11).

Paul’s Regime

Jesus’ Regime
And you (ὑμεῖς, a form of ὑμείς) are proud (πεφυσιωμένοι, a form of φυσιόω)!  Shouldn’t you have been deeply sorrowful instead and removed (ἀρθῇ, a form of αἴρω) the one who did this from among you (ὑμῶν)?

1 Corinthians 5:2 (NET) Table

 Look!  I am throwing her onto a bed of violent illness, and those who commit adultery (μοιχεύοντας, a form of μοιχεύω) with her into terrible suffering, unless they repent of her deeds.

Revelation 2:22 (NET)

Paul addressed everyone (ὑμεῖς is second person plural) in the church at Corinth except the man who had his father’s wife, accusing them of being proud.  Of the seven occurrences of forms of φυσιόω in the New Testament, six are found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  (It is at least his second letter.)  Pride or arrogance was a consistent theme in his mind as he wrote.

Paul claimed I became your father (ἐγέννησα, a form of γεννάω) in Christ Jesus through the gospel.[5]  Actually he wrote, For though you may have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers (πατέρας, a form of πατήρ) ἐν γὰρ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς ἐγέννησα (literally, “for in Christ Jesus through the Gospel I gave birth to [KJV: have begotten] you”).  The NET translators shaded the arrogance of that statement a bit.  But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher and you are all brothers, Jesus taught his disciples.  And call no one your ‘father’ (πατέρα, another form of πατήρ) on earth, for you have one Father (πατὴρ, another form of πατήρ), who is in heaven.  Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one teacher, the Christ.[6]

The grandiose claim that the Corinthian believers were born of Paul (John 1:13 NIV ἐγεννήθησαν is another form of γεννάω) was out of character with Paul’s own teaching earlier in the same letter (1 Corinthians 3:6, 7 NET):

I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow.  So neither the one who plants counts for anything, nor the one who waters, but God who causes the growth.

I have applied these things to myself and Apollos, Paul wrote, because of you, brothers and sisters, so that through us you may learn “not to go beyond what is written,” so that none of you will be puffed up (φυσιοῦσθε, another form of φυσιόω) in favor of the one against the other.  For who concedes you any superiority?  What do you have that you did not receive?  And if you received it, why do you boast (καυχᾶσαι, a form of καυχάομαι) as though you did not?[7]  Of course, then he wrote (1 Corinthians 4:18-20 NET):

Some have become arrogant (ἐφυσιώθησαν, another form of φυσιόω), as if I were not coming to you.  But I will come to you soon, if the Lord is willing, and I will find out not only the talk of these arrogant (πεφυσιωμένων, another form of φυσιόω) people, but also their power.  For the kingdom of God is demonstrated not in idle talk but with power.

Though God’s power (δυνάμει, a form of δύναμις) would clearly be the truth of his final declaration, in context it doesn’t seem to be the power Paul had in mind.  What do you want? he continued as if the following choice would be made by the Corinthians rather than by Paul himself.  Shall I come to you with a rod of discipline (ράβδῳ, a form of ῥάβδος) or with love (ἀγάπῃ) and a spirit of gentleness (πραΰτητος, a form of πραΰτης)?[8]  (While I assume that Paul’s threat to return to Corinth to beat the arrogant with a stick was bluster, it is heartwarming to find such punishment distinguished from love in the New Testament.)  In the very same letter Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 8:1b-3 NET):

Knowledge puffs up (φυσιοῖ, another form of φυσιόω), but love (ἀγάπη) builds up.  If someone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know to the degree that he needs to know.  But if someone loves (ἀγαπᾷ, a form of ἀγαπάω) God, he is known (ἔγνωσται, a form of γινώσκω) by God.

And (1 Corinthians 13:4-13 NET):

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious.  Love does not brag, it is not puffed up (φυσιοῦται, another form of φυσιόω).  It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful.  It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.  But if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be set aside.  For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when what is perfect comes, the partial will be set aside.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

Paul formed his conclusion that the Corinthians were proud (πεφυσιωμένοι, a form of φυσιόω), not by direct observation and interaction with them but, by hearsay[9] and by the fact that they had not removed the one who did this from among [them].  Paul had asked rhetorically, Shouldn’t you have been deeply sorrowful instead and removed the one who did this from among you?  The Greek word translated deeply sorrowful is ἐπενθήσατε (a form of πενθέω).

I am afraid, Paul wrote, that when I come again, my God may humiliate me before you, and I will grieve (πενθήσω, another form of πενθέω) for many of those who previously sinned and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality (πορνείᾳ), and licentiousness that they have practiced.[10]  Truly, love is not glad about injustice;[11] it does not rejoice in iniquity.[12]  Grieve, mourn (πενθήσατε, another form of πενθέω), and weep, James wrote.  Turn your laughter into mourning (πένθος) and your joy into despair.  Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.[13]  But I can’t help wondering if this mourning wasn’t more cultural than divinely inspired.

Granted, Jesus said: Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn (πενθήσετε, another form of πενθέω) and weep;[14] and, The wedding guests cannot mourn (πενθεῖν, another form of πενθέω) while the bridegroom is with them, can they?[15]  He also said, Blessed are those who mourn (πενθοῦντες, another form of πενθέω), for they will be comforted.[16]  But I still remember the contrast between Ezra and Malachi:

Ezra

Malachi
While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself to the ground before the temple of God, a very large crowd of Israelites – men, women, and children alike – gathered around him.  The people wept loudly [Table].  Then Shecaniah son of Jehiel, from the descendants of Elam, addressed Ezra: “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the local peoples.  Nonetheless, there is still hope for Israel in this regard [Table].  Therefore let us enact a covenant with our God to send away all these women and their offspring, in keeping with your counsel, my lord, and that of those who respect the commandments of our God.  And let it be done according to the law [Table].”

Ezra 10:1-3 (NET)

 You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you [Table].  Yet you ask, “Why?”  The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law [Table].  No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this.  What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God?  Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth [Table].  “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the Lord who rules over all.  “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful” [Table].

Malachi 2:13-16 (NET)

As Jesus’ disciples mourned his death (or perhaps their own loss) they didn’t believe his comfort when it came to them in the form of a woman: Early on the first day of the week, after he arose, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had driven out seven demons.  She went out and told those who were with him, while they were mourning (πενθοῦσι, another form of πενθέω) and weeping.  And when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe.[17]  So to the first part of Paul’s rhetorical question I can only give a qualified yes.

The Greek word translated removed in the second part of Paul’s rhetorical question was ἀρθῇ (a form of αἴρω).  “Take this man away (αἶρε, another form of αἴρω)!  Release Barabbas for us!”[18] an angry mob before Pilate rejected Jesus.  “Away (αἶρε, another form of αἴρω) with him!”[19] a mob in Jerusalem rejected Paul.  A crowd listening patiently to Paul’s defense turned ugly when he said that the Lord said to him, Go, because I will send you far away to the Gentiles.[20]  Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Away (αἶρε, another form of αἴρω) with this man from the earth!  For he should not be allowed to live!”[21]

Here again I can’t help wondering if Paul’s reaction wasn’t more cultural than divinely inspired.  But calling it cultural isn’t entirely accurate.  Paul’s reaction was precisely correct for a time under law when yehôvâh was present among his people in a way unknown since the garden of Eden, before He gave his life as an atonement for sin.  Consider Achan (Joshua 7) as a case in point.

Exile for the man who had his father’s wife (and the woman along with him, presumably) would be considered more merciful than death, but Jesus’ parable persuades me to reject the second part of Paul’s rhetorical question—Shouldn’t you have…removed the one who did this from among you?  When Jesus’ slaves asked if they should uproot the weeds planted by the enemy He said, No, since in gathering the weeds you may uproot the wheat with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest.[22]  This is not to say that I know whether the man who had his father’s wife was a weed planted by the enemy or a sinning saint.  It is to say, if this is Jesus’ attitude toward uprooting weeds planted by the enemy I dare not risk uprooting a sinning saint.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that I’m reading too much into Jesus’ parable.  Let’s say that I’m wrong about the angel of the church in Thyatira, that he was a human being rather than a higher order being.  Let’s grant, for the sake of argument, that Paul as an apostle had the authority and God-given wisdom to recognize a weed and uproot it.  Did he have the authority to turn the church of Jesus Christ in Corinth (and any who hear him today) from the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control of the Holy Spirit, and transform them into a paranoid police force?  Rather than knowing no law against loving our neighbor as well as our enemies, does every infraction of any law call us to dam up the fruit of the Holy Spirit?  Must we judge one another constantly lest we be proud for loving one another excessively?  I admit I sat silently through a sermon declaring that, Do not judge so that you will not be judged,[23] meant that we should judge and be judged.[24]

Hear Jesus’ regime by contrast: Look!  I am throwing her onto a bed of violent illness.  That is Jezebel, the one who by her teaching deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.[25]  Secondly, He is throwing those who commit adultery with her into terrible suffering, unless they repent of her deeds.  But there is not one word to the rest of the church in Thyatira about being proud because they had not removed Jezebel and her followers from their midst.  The criticism—But I have this against you—was laid directly on the angel of the church in Thyatira, whether human or a higher order being. Yes, the letter to the angel of the church in Thyatira was to be read by all the churches, but its content was directed with surgical precision.

To be fair the only reason I have the audacity to make this kind of critique of Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 5 is Paul’s extended treatise on love in his later writing to believers in Rome.  Therefore we must not pass judgment (κρίνωμεν, a form of κρίνω) on one another, but rather determine (κρίνατε, another form of κρίνω) never to place an obstacle or a trap before a brother or sister.[26]  Actually, Paul described love this way: Μηκέτι οὖν ἀλλήλους κρίνωμεν[27] (literally, “no longer then one another judge”).

[1] Revelation 2:18a (NET)

[2] An article by Bromleigh McCleneghan, “Sex and the single Christian: Why celibacy isn’t the only option,” was interesting bait for an unsuspecting moralist.  Obviously single people can have sex.  That’s how they become married people in God’s sight.  The rest is ceremony, celebration and government paperwork.  If anyone actually believed that religious leaders knew magical rites that could transmogrify illicit sex into holy matrimony those religious leaders would be compelled by law to perform those rites equally for all in a pluralistic society.  The only thing single people cannot do is fool God into thinking they are not guilty of adultery if they have sex with somebody different tomorrow night, simply because they have not signed government paperwork or had a ceremony or celebrated.

[3] Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 12, Ezra and Divorce

[4] John 17:3b (NET)

[5] 1 Corinthians 4:15b (NET)

[6] Matthew 23:8-10 (NET)

[7] 1 Corinthians 4:6, 7 (NET)

[8] 1 Corinthians 4:21 (NET)

[9] My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. (1 Corinthians 1:11 NIV)

[10] 2 Corinthians 12:21 (NET)

[11] 1 Corinthians 13:6a (NET)

[12] 1 Corinthians 13:6a (NKJV)

[13] James 4:9, 10 (NET)

[14] Luke 6:25b (NET)

[15] Mathew 9:15a (NET)

[16] Matthew 5:4 (NET)

[17] Mark 16:9-11 (NET)

[18] Luke 23:18b (NET)

[19] Acts 21:36b (NET)

[20] Acts 22:21b (NET)

[21] Acts 22:22b (NET)

[22] Matthew 13:29, 30a (NET)

[23] Matthew 7:1 (NET)

[24] This point of view is surprisingly common.   I found the following paraphrase online: “If you don’t want your life to be scrutinized, then don’t judge others.  If you can stand the scrutiny then go ahead.”  I will freely admit to needing as much grace as possible.  There are other voices online.

[25] Revelation 2:20b (NET)

[26] Romans 14:13 (NET)

[27] Romans 14:13a

Romans, Part 73

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I’ll continue to consider the dark side of Contribute (κοινωνοῦντες, a form of κοινωνέω) to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality;[1] namely (2 John 1:9-11 NET):

Everyone who goes on ahead and does not remain in the teaching of Christ does not have God.  The one who remains in this teaching has both the Father and the Son.  If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house and do not give him any greeting, because the person who gives him a greeting shares (κοινωνεῖ, another form of κοινωνέω) in his evil deeds.

I turn here to Love the Lord your God…with all your mind (διανοίας, a form of διάνοια).[2]  Jesus didn’t say anything negative about the Pharisees’ or the law experts’ διανοίας.  He opened his disciples’ νοῦν, implying that they were closed formerly: Then he opened their minds (νοῦν, a form of νοῦς) so they could understand (συνιέναι, a form of συνίημι) the scriptures…[3]  If I had known this when I began this study would I have called it something other than the religious mind?  Probably not.  I’m a Gentile with a philosophical bent to my mind.  Paul had something to say about that even if Jesus did not.

Though Pharisees and law experts might not have considered a Gentile mind religious, I’m using the term to mean all human efforts to satisfy (or, replace) a god or God (yehôvâh).  Even atheists can have religious minds as I use the term.  In fact my religious mind eventually undermined my atheism.  When I wanted to consider myself good again I invented “more realistic” rules than yehôvâh’s to obey.  I failed to obey them.  So I made “even more realistic” rules.  Eventually my standards were so low even I realized they were unworkable.  And I still wasn’t keeping them!

So I say this, and insist in the Lord, Paul wrote the church at Ephesus, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking (νοὸς, another form of νοῦς).  They are darkened in their understanding (διανοίᾳ, another form of διάνοια), being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance (ἄγνοιαν, a form of ἄγνοια) that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.[4]  So, loving yehôvâh with all your mind is equivalent to loving Him with all of one’s understanding.

The solution, by the way, to futile thinking was: You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old (παλαιὸν, a form of παλαιός) man (ἄνθρωπον, a form of ἄνθρωπος) who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind (νοὸς, another form of νοῦς), and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image – in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.[5]  The old man we are to lay aside is our old (παλαιὸς) man (ἄνθρωπος) [that] was crucified with [Christ] so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.[6]  Again, sharing in his death and resurrection through faith in Jesus proves to be an important aspect of the Gospel (Romans 6:3, 4 NET).

Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.

And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your minds (διανοίᾳ, another form of διάνοια) as expressed through your evil deeds,[7] Paul wrote Gentiles in Colossae.  The Greek words translated evil deeds here are τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς (a form of πονηρός).  In reference to Gentiles I have no doubt that Paul had sins in view, but even as an atheist my works were “full of labours, annoyances, and hardships.”  And although you were dead in your transgressions and sins, Paul wrote Gentiles in Ephesus, in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path, according to the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience (ἀπειθείας, a form of ἀπείθεια), among whom all of us [even a former Pharisee] also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind (διανοιῶν, another form of διάνοια), and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest…[8]

But God, Paul continued as he introduced the solution to this problem.  But first I want to consider yehôvâh’s promise of a new covenant.  For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.  I will put my laws in their minds (διάνοιαν, another form of διάνοια) and I will inscribe them on their hearts (καρδίας, a form of καρδία).  And I will be their God and they will be my people.[9]  And again, This is the covenant that I will establish with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws on their hearts (καρδίας, a form of καρδία) and I will inscribe them on their minds (διάνοιαν, another form of διάνοια)…[10]

This is a quotation from Jeremiah 31:33.  The Greek texts are compared below.

NET

 Parallel Greek NETS

Septuagint
For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.  I will put my laws in their minds and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people.

Hebrews 8:10

 ὅτι αὕτη ἡ διαθήκη, ἣν διαθήσομαι τῷ οἴκῳ Ἰσραὴλ μετὰ τὰς ἡμέρας ἐκείνας, λέγει κύριος· διδοὺς νόμους μου εἰς τὴν διάνοιαν αὐτῶν καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίας αὐτῶν ἐπιγράψω αὐτούς, καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτοῖς εἰς θεόν, καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔσονται μοι εἰς λαόν

Hebrews 8:10

 …because this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, quoth the Lord.  Giving I will give my laws in their mind, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will become a god to them, and they shall become a people to me.

Ieremias 38:33 (31:33)

 ὅτι αὕτη ἡ διαθήκη ἣν διαθήσομαι τῷ οἴκῳ Ισραηλ μετὰ τὰς ἡμέρας ἐκείνας φησὶν κύριος διδοὺς δώσω νόμους μου εἰς τὴν διάνοιαν αὐτῶν καὶ ἐπὶ καρδίας αὐτῶν γράψω αὐτούς καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτοῖς εἰς θεόν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἔσονταί μοι εἰς λαόν

Jeremiah 31:33

And there will be no need at all for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know (γνῶθι, a form of γινώσκω) the Lord,’ since they will all know (εἰδήσουσιν, a form of εἴδω; e.g., to know by seeing) me, from the least to the greatest,[11] the first passage continued.  The Greek texts are compared below:

NET

 Parallel Greek NETS

Septuagint
And there will be no need at all for each one to teach his countryman or each one to teach his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ since they will all know me, from the least to the greatest.

Hebrews 8:11

 καὶ οὐ μὴ διδάξωσιν ἕκαστος τὸν πολίτην αὐτοῦ καὶ ἕκαστος τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ λέγων· γνῶθι τὸν κύριον, ὅτι πάντες εἰδήσουσιν με ἀπὸ μικροῦ ἕως μεγάλου αὐτῶν

Hebrews 8:11

 And they shall not teach, each his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,” because they shall all know me, from their small even to their great…

Ieremias 38:34a (31:34a)

 καὶ οὐ μὴ διδάξωσιν ἕκαστος τὸν πολίτην αὐτοῦ καὶ ἕκαστος τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ λέγων γνῶθι τὸν κύριον ὅτι πάντες εἰδήσουσίν με ἀπὸ μικροῦ αὐτῶν καὶ ἕως μεγάλου αὐτῶν

Jeremiah 31:34a

And this knowing is eternal life according to Jesus: Now this is eternal life – that they know (γινώσκωσιν, another form of γινώσκω) you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.[12]  And we know (οἴδαμεν, another form of εἴδω) that the Son of God has come and has given us insight (διάνοιαν, another form of διάνοια) to know him who is true, John wrote, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ.  This one is the true God and eternal life.[13]  The gift the Son of God has given here is διάνοιαν, the mind, understanding or insight with which we love yehôvâh.  Diminishing the scope of this gift to a place in heaven while turning back to the futility of [our former] thinking to work our own works of righteousness in our own strength demeans both Jesus and eternal life.

But God, being rich in mercy, Paul continued writing Gentiles in Ephesus, because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved! –and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.  For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.[14]

Love the Lord your God…with all your strength (ἰσχύος, a form of ἰσχύς).[15]  I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul wrote Gentiles at Ephesus, the Father of glory, may give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge (ἐπιγνώσει, a form of ἐπίγνωσις) of him, – since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened – so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense (ἰσχύος, a form of ἰσχύς) strength.[16]  Finally, he added, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength (ἰσχύος, a form of ἰσχύς) of his power.[17]

To attempt to function on our own away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength (ἰσχύος, a form of ἰσχύς) was Paul’s description of eternal destruction: They will undergo the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength…[18]  Whoever speaks, Peter wrote, let it be with God’s words.  Whoever serves, do so with the strength (ἰσχύος, a form of ἰσχύς) that God supplies, so that in everything God will be glorified through Jesus Christ.  To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever.  Amen.[19]  If we believe Him his ἰσχύος is our ἰσχύος, the ἰσχύος with which we love yehôvâh.

This[20] is the teaching of Christ as presented in the New Testament as opposed to the teaching of the religious mind.  Is it the teaching your teachers bring to you?  If not the person who gives him a greeting shares in his evil deeds, according to John.  I would be very wary of supporting that teacher financially.  This gives us a context for Paul’s admonition (Galatians 6:6-10 NET)

Now the one who receives instruction in the word must share (Κοινωνείτω, another form of κοινωνέω) all good things (ἀγαθοῖς, a form of ἀγαθός) with the one who teaches it.  Do not be deceived.  God will not be made a fool.  For a person will reap what he sows, because the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.  So we must not grow weary in doing good, for in due time we will reap, if we do not give up.  So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us do good (ἀγαθὸν, another form of ἀγαθός) to all people, and especially to those who belong to the family of faith.

The teaching of Christ sows to the Spirit.  The teaching of the religious mind sows to [our] own flesh.  Money is not the only, or even the primary, good thing to share with the teacher of the word, the one who remains in the teaching of Christ.  “No servant can serve two masters,” Jesus said, “for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and money.”  The Pharisees [e.g., the New Testament epitome of those with religious minds] (who loved money) heard all this and ridiculed him.[21]

And need is the key to help make a determination what to contribute or share in.  The primary needs of all believers are: 1) the need to be baptized by Jesus in the Holy Spirit; 2) to believe that his Father knows our needs before we ask Him, and that He is willing to supply our needs; and 3) to accept that our most pressing need is to sit at Jesus’ feet, to listen and to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

But whoever has the world’s possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need (χρείαν, a form of χρεία), John wrote, and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the love of God reside in such a person?[22]  Make every effort to help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way, Paul wrote Titus, make sure they have what they need (ἵνα μηδὲν αὐτοῖς λείπῃ; so that nothing or no one of theirs is left behind).  Here is another way that our people can learn to engage in good works to meet pressing needs (χρείας, another form of χρεία) and so not be unfruitful.[23]

My purpose was not to minimize these more obvious aspects of contributing to the needs of the saints, but to highlight how much broader this contributing, or sharing in, actually is in the New Testament.  I’ll conclude this with Peter’s contribution to the needs of the saints as something which we all share with one another (1 Peter 4:12-14 NET):

Dear friends, do not be astonished that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice (χαίρετε, a form of χαίρω) in the degree that you have shared (κοινωνεῖτε, another form of κοινωνέω) in the sufferings (παθήμασιν, a form of πάθημα) of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice (ἀγαλλιώμενοι, a form of ἀγαλλιάω) and be glad (χαρῆτε, another form of χαίρω).  If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory, who is the Spirit of God, rests on you.

Do not neglect hospitality (φιλοξενίας , a form of φιλονεξία), because through it some have entertained angels without knowing it.[24]  This is the only other occurrence of a form of φιλονεξία in the New Testament.  But I hope I have been persuasive that when Paul wrote pursue hospitality (φιλοξενίαν, another form of φιλονεξία) he did not intend to pen a “law of Paul,” a rule to be obeyed, something to pursue (διώκοντες, a form of διώκω) in one’s own strength.  His intent was that this “love to strangers” would flow naturally (e.g., supernaturally) from the Spirit of God through the believer and out into the world, one of the good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.[25]

[1] Romans 12:13 (NET)

[2] Mark 12:30a (NET)

[3] Luke 24:45 (NET)

[4] Ephesians 4:17, 18 (NET) Table

[5] Ephesians 4:22-24 (NET)

[6] Romans 6:6 (NET)

[7] Colossians 1:21 (NET)

[8] Ephesians 2:1-3 (NET) Table

[9] Hebrews 8:10 (NET)

[10] Hebrews 10:16 (NET)

[11] Hebrews 8:11 (NET)

[12] John 17:3 (NET)

[13] 1 John 5:20 (NET)

[14] Ephesians 2:4-10 (NET)

[15] Mark 12:30a (NET)

[16] Ephesians 1:17-19 (NET)

[17] Ephesians 6:10 (NET)

[18] 2 Thessalonians 1:9 (NET)

[19] 1 Peter 4:11 (NET)

[20] I am considering Romans, Part 71 and Romans, Part 72 here as well, not as an exhaustive study but as a fairly thorough study of the teaching of Christ on the issue of contributing.

[21] Luke 16:13, 14 (NET)

[22] 1 John 3:17 (NET)

[23] Titus 3:13, 14 (NET)

[24] Hebrews 13:2 (NET)

[25] Ephesians 2:10b (NET)

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 12

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I am considering a pastor’s advice offered in another blog as an example of confusing directions and as a case in point: If wicked (râshâʽ, לרשע) sinners (raʽ, רע) are those who refuse to stop trusting in human beings, whether others or themselves, we all qualify.  And this journey to discover just who these sinners are was prompted by my bias that—He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked[1] (râshâʽ, רשע)—prophesies Jesus’ return to earth to preach the Gospel effectively (as opposed to executing people for a thousand years).

The pastor’s advice was essentially a to-do list: refuse, consider the consequences, focus on God and ignore the lies of the enemy, avoid/run, and accountability.  I considered the first two in the previous essay and will pick up again here.

Focus on God and ignore the lies of the enemy
Find fulfillment in your first love and ignore the enemy’s temptation towards the satisfaction of the flesh.

I have no quarrel with this if it is by the Holy Spirit.  This should be item number one on the list.  I, however, found a way to attempt this in the flesh.  My Dad could calculate how much I cost him to the penny, even a scuff mark on the floor.  I had already cost Jesus his life.  I didn’t want to cost Him anything more.  I thought my emotions in response to his sacrifice should motivate me to live a sinless life.  (I don’t think I even considered righteousness at the time or anything beyond not sinning.)  So, I didn’t believe Paul’s words in the sixth chapter of Romans were true, but merely hyperbole to affect my emotions, to motivate ME to action, not something I should believe to be saved (Romans 6:3, 4 NET):

Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.

That new life (ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς περιπατήσωμεν; walk in newness of life [ESV]) is here and now: Now this is eternal life – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.[2]  For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death,[3] Paul continued; that is if we believe that we have been buried with him through baptism into death, then and only then we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.[4]

We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.[5]  Should I deny this because of my behavior?  No, I believe until it changes my behavior.  Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.[6]  Paul continued (Romans 6:11-14 NET):

So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.  For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

But if I attempt to find fulfillment in laws or rules or procedures, even the pastor’s to-do list, I have fallen away from grace and committed a superπορνεία.  And that is essentially the context of the concept first [e.g., foremost as opposed to first in temporal order] love: But I have this against you, Jesus said to the church at Ephesus, You have departed from your first love![7]

[Addendum 8/16/16: The words translated you and your are singular.  Though the letters were intended to be read by the churches the content is addressed primarily to the angel of each individual church.  I found a pdf online with color codes highlighting when the pronouns and verbs are singular and plural.  The commentary to the right of this pdf assumes that angel meant human pastor, which I also assumed until very recently.  I haven’t thought through the implications yet of angel as a higher order being in this particular context.  I don’t know whether a plural church might be addressed with singular pronouns and verbs.  My understanding of the message to/about the church in Ephesus which follows was predicated on a false assumption that the pronouns and verbs were plural.]

I know your works as well as your labor and steadfast endurance, He had said previously, and that you cannot tolerate evil.  You have even put to the test those who refer to themselves as apostles (but are not), and have discovered that they are false.  I am also aware that you have persisted steadfastly, endured much for the sake of my name, and have not grown weary.[8]

The Ephesian church was a successful church.  Am I wrong to imagine that they had developed offices and procedures, filled with officers operating under strict protocols?  That they had constructed this self-sustaining church with their own hands?  But what happens when the love which is the fulfillment (πλήρωμα) of the law[9] becomes an office, a ministry, a subdivision of the Church rather than the fruit of the Spirit empowering every individual believer?  Therefore, remember from what high state you have fallen and repent, Jesus continued.  Do the deeds you did at the first [e.g., first in temporal order since knowing Christ]; if not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place – that is, if you do not repent.[10]  In other words, their first (πρῶτα, a form of πρῶτος) deeds when they were more faithful and less successfully sophisticated were their foremost (πρώτην, another form of πρῶτος) in Jesus’ eyes.

What was that high state?  I take Paul’s prayer as my starting point (Ephesians 3:14-19 NET):

I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on the earth is named.  I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit (πνεύματος, a form of πνεῦμα) in the inner person, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up (πληρωθῆτε, another form of πληρόω) to all the fullness (πλήρωμα) of God.

I don’t have much to say about ignoring “the enemy’s temptation toward the satisfaction of the flesh.”  Satan is finite.  I doubt that many of us merit his personal attention.  I was confronted by what I assume was a demon once.  I don’t recall what it said.  I said something like, “Jesus wouldn’t like it if I did that.”  It growled and left.  No, I wasn’t frightened in the moment, but the memory of it bothered me for weeks.  That’s probably why I don’t remember what it said.

So submit to God, James wrote.  But resist the devil and he will flee from you.[11]  I’ve never found resisting the devil particularly helpful since temptation usually comes from my own desires: But each one is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires.[12]  Though I didn’t always think so, I now assume that the sin in my flesh (Romans 7:15-20) and the evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander that come out of my heart function apart from the inspiration or activation of demons, evil spirits or devils.  Believing the Gospel is far more fruitful as it pertains to sin and righteousness.  Perhaps I am being very slow and dense.  Believing the Gospel is probably the best way to submit to God which is in turn the most powerful way to resist the devil relative to any frontal assault I might mount on my own.

Nathan’s response to David, however, has been particularly helpful with sexual temptation (2 Samuel 12:1-4 NET):

So the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) sent Nathan to David.  When he came to David, Nathan said, “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor (Table).  The rich man had a great many flocks and herds (Table).  But the poor man had nothing except for a little lamb he had acquired.  He raised it, and it grew up alongside him and his children.  It used to eat his food, drink from his cup, and sleep in his arms.  It was just like a daughter to him (Table).

“When a traveler arrived at the rich man’s home, he did not want to use one of his own sheep or cattle to feed the traveler who had come to visit him.  Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and cooked it for the man who had come to visit him (Table).”

Here there is no mention of resisting the devil or the “lies of the enemy.”  After David committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Nathan as yehôvâh’s prophet pictured sexual desire as a hungry traveler who should be shown hospitality with that which is one’s own as opposed to that belonging to another.

Avoid/Run
Keep yourself out of a situation that may cause you to fall. If tempted, run while it’s still light.

Flee sexual immorality (πορνείαν, a form of πορνεία),[13] Paul wrote the Corinthians.  I’ve written elsewhere what I think about πορνεία, that it can mean adultery.  I think the “sin of premarital sex,” however, has more to do with middle-class values than yehôvâh’s law.  It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the meaning of πορνεία was stretched to free young men primarily (when they repent of their “sins of premarital sex”) from their marital obligations to pursue their educations and higher earning potentials.

I expect Jesus to speak to us as He spoke to other religious people (Mark 7:6-9 NET):

“Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites [e.g., actors], as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.  They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men.’  Having no regard for the command of God, you hold fast to human tradition.”  He also said to them, “You neatly reject the commandment of God in order to set up your tradition.”

Be that as it may if temptation is external to the one being tempted, leaving is good advice.  If you find that you only lust in your heart during or after your visit to a strip club, stop going to strip clubs.  I think that coincides well with flee πορνείαν if Paul meant sexualized pagan worship: Don’t go to church there.

I won’t eat at Hooter’s, not because I lust after the young waitresses.  I stared a nude woman dead in the eyes when I needed to talk to her on set.  But put a clothed woman in front of me with great cleavage and my eyes wander away from hers, even away from her lips (and I do a lot more lip reading as I age).  Well, they don’t mind, a friend told me.  I do.  An old man like me staring at young women’s cleavage is embarrassing and not worth the effort it takes not to do it.  I get my chicken wings to go (and, yes, I tip my waitress).

Music was the big thing for me.  I consider myself a recovering musician.  For years I played nothing but hymns and tried to compose a non-sensual music.  I didn’t know how to do that so I wrote music to accompany Scripture.  The only thing that changed was the calendar-age of the women I gave goose bumps when I played.  Eventually I gave it up and have been relieved not to have music in my head all the time.  This is not to say that playing or composing music is inherently evil.  I am considering only my hyper-sensual relationship to music.  Frank Zappa described it best.  Who knows, maybe it was his relationship, too.

I would like to highlight two rather obvious limits to fleeing and to the meaning of πορνεία.  If anyone thinks he is acting inappropriately toward his virgin, if she is past the bloom of youth and it seems necessary, he should do what he wishes; he does not sin.  Let them marry.[14]  The Greek word translated thinks he is acting inappropriately is ἀσχημονεῖν (a form of ἀσχημονέω).  To what manner of inappropriateness does ἀσχημονεῖν refer?  It comes from ἀσχήμων, which Paul used obliquely for the penis or vagina a little later in this letter: and those members we consider less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our unpresentable members (ἀσχήμονα, a form of ἀσχήμων) are clothed with dignity…[15]

Love, by the way, does not act inappropriately: It is not rude (ἀσχημονεῖ, another form of ἀσχημονέω).[16]  So we have behavior between a man and his woman that is not sin: Let them marry.  And it is not love either.  Again, I will make my appeal for fuck and fucking.  They are very evocative words in the English language, distinguished and distinguishable from love, if we abandon our religious pretensions in favor of accurate verbal communication.

Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp.[17]  I remember vividly the moment I stared at this verse and realized it wasn’t describing some otherworldly event.  Jesus hiked up his skirt, hoofed it and outran the old men who wanted to stone Him.  And I imagine young John was huffing it out right beside Him.  As they lost their pursuers around a corner, leaned against a wall to catch their breath and laughed together, the Son of God became human to me.

Perhaps Simon the Pharisee expected Jesus to hike up his skirt and hoof it, if He were a prophet.  Had Jesus fled from Mary we would have a very different story to consider.  Maybe it would be more to our liking; that’s difficult to say.

I’ll conclude this in another essay.

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 13

Back to The Angels Will Gather

Back to Paul’s Religious Mind Revisited – Part 1

[1] Isaiah 11:4b (NIV)

[2] John 17:3 (NET)

[3] Romans 6:5a (NET)

[4] Romans 6:5b (NET)

[5] Romans 6:6 (NET)

[6] Romans 6:8 (NET)

[7] Revelation 2:4 (NET)

[8] Revelation 2:2, 3 (NET)

[9] Romans 13:10b (NET)

[10] Revelation 2:5 (NET)

[11] James 4:7 (NET)

[12] James 1:14 (NET)

[13] 1 Corinthians 6:18a (NET)

[14] 1 Corinthians 7:36 (NET)

[15] 1 Corinthians 12:23 (NET)

[16] 1 Corinthians 13:5a (NET)

[17] John 10:39 (NASB)

Romans, Part 62

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As I continue to consider Rejoice in hope, endure in suffering, persist in prayer,[1] as a description of love rather than as rules to obey, I want to look at some more truth that love rejoices in along with some more ἀδικία that it does not.  What Luke called a parable (παραβολὴν, a form of παραβολή) Matthew presented as a rhetorical question in a discourse about child-rearing: If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray?[2]

Matthew

Luke
See that you do not disdain one of these little ones.  For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

Matthew 18:10 (NET)

 So Jesus told them this parable:

Luke 15:3 (NET)
What do you think?  If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray?  And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice (χαίρει, a form of χαίρω) more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.

Matthew 18:12, 13 (NET)

 “Which one of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go look for the one that is lost until he finds it?  Then when he has found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing (χαίρων, another form of χαίρω).  Returning home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, telling them, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost.’

Luke 15:4-6 (NET)
In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost.

Matthew 18:14 (NET)

 I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy (χαρὰ) in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.

Luke 15:7 (NET)

I should back up a bit and look at more of the context of Matthew’s Gospel narrative.  Jesus’ disciples had asked him, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?[3]

He called a child, had him stand among them, and said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven!  Whoever then humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.”[4]

Then He began what I am calling a discourse about child-rearing: But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea.[5]  The Greek word translated causes…to sin is σκανδαλίσῃ (a form of σκανδαλίζω).  The definition in the NET reads as follows:

1) to put a stumbling block or impediment in the way, upon which another may trip and fall, metaph. to offend 1a) to entice to sin 1b) to cause a person to begin to distrust and desert one whom he ought to trust and obey 1b1) to cause to fall away 1b2) to be offended in one, i.e. to see in another what I disapprove of and what hinders me from acknowledging his authority 1b3) to cause one to judge unfavourably or unjustly of another 1c) since one who stumbles or whose foot gets entangled feels annoyed 1c1) to cause one displeasure at a thing 1c2) to make indignant 1c3) to be displeased, indignant

It comes from σκάνδαλον a snare or trap, translated stumbling blocks in the next verse: Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks (σκανδάλων, a form of σκάνδαλον)!  It is necessary that stumbling blocks (σκάνδαλα, another form of σκάνδαλον) come, but woe to the person through whom they (σκάνδαλον) come.”[6]  The necessity (ἀνάγκη, a form of ἀναγκή) of stumbling blocks is part of the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God,[7] how God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.[8]  As I write this my daughter is essentially a witch, a neo-pagan.  My part in her defection from Christ was a decision made during my divorce from her mother.

My children wanted to stay with me rather than their mother.  I went along with it, hoping their mother would see reason.  She called my bluff and asked for money (to which she was entitled) to leave.  My biggest concern at that moment was the family’s financial survival.  I traveled for a living and would need to hire someone to care for them while I was away.  I had no legal rights to my children.  (I married into them and hadn’t adopted them because their biological father was still living.)  And there were a few more things.

Her care for those children had saved their mother from many (though not all) misguided mistakes.  To take that from her seemed dangerous and cruel.  Add to that, I was crushed in my own soul to be rejected again by yet another woman.  I had serious doubts that I could be a single parent of two teenage children.  Did I even want to be a single parent of two teenage children?  I wanted to make movies.

I decided that I could walk away with nothing but a paycheck, start over again and still help the family financially, and my wife could not.  And so I rejected and abandoned my daughter.

I’m grateful to Stephenie Meyer, Melissa Rosenberg, Catherine Hardwicke and Kristen Stewart for giving me two hours to be a teenage girl in love.  Randy Brown, Robert Lorenz, Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams have also helped me immensely in a more didactic way.  But both “Twilight” and “Trouble with the Curve” came too late to save me from making potentially the worst decision of a lifetime of bad decisions (Matthew 18:8, 9 NET).

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell.

If what I do with my hands, if where I go with my feet, if what I see with my eyes causes me to sin?

Causes you to sin has proven to be the worst of all possible translations of σκανδαλίζει (another form of σκανδαλίζω) for me.  It turns my thoughts inward to my sins.  My sins are forgiven!  Young’s Literal Translation—cause thee to stumble—allows me to see that Jesus was still talking about my real bumbling and stumbling, causing my daughter—one of those little ones who believed in Him—to sin, becoming a stumbling block to her, causing her to desert one whom she ought to trust.

Having watched her struggle through two drug-related psychotic breaks and a stroke, I agree with Jesus that it would have been better for me to kill myself.[9]  It is better for her, however, that I believe that I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.  So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God…[10]  And I continue to pray that his love, his joy, his peace, his patience, his kindness, his goodness, his faithfulness, his gentleness, and his firm control[11] are all she sees from me from now on, because if I cannot be forgiven…

And by forgiven I mean:  though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.[12]  An eternity in a fiery hell seems like overkill to me for masturbation or premarital sex or even stealing a gazillion dollars.  But if my daughter cannot be found again by the Lord Jesus, if I have condemned her to an eternity in hell, I’m not entirely convinced one eternity in one fiery hell will be sufficient for me.

And though I write like this I still have hope.  “I’ll always be here as your daughter,” she texted me as I thought and wrote about these things.  She has forgiven me, but not Jesus—not yet.  “Your sacrifice has made my education possible and I can never repay you but with love,” she texted.  Since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word (ρήματος, a form of ῥῆμα) of God,[13] I pray that He will speak that word, “hear,” to her heart, so she will know Jesus and his Father who has given her so much more than a few dollars.  Now this is eternal life, Jesus prayed to his Father, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent.[14]

I didn’t intend this essay to be so confessional.  I intended to write about an incident in the history of Israel, when a Levite…acquired a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.[15]  Actually, I wanted to write about what happened on their journey home, after she got angry at him and went home to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah,[16] after he retrieved her from there.  But in the KJV she didn’t get angry, she played the whore against him.  The note in the NET reads: “Or ‘was unfaithful to him.’ Many have understood the Hebrew verb וַתִּזְנֶה (vattizneh) as being from זָנָה (zanah, “to be a prostitute”), but it may be derived from a root meaning “to be angry; to hate” attested in Akkadian (see HALOT 275 s.v. II זנה).”

Ken Stone wrote in the Jewish Women’s Archive online:

The Hebrew text states that the woman “prostituted herself against” the Levite (19:2). Thus, it has often been assumed that she was sexually unfaithful to him. Certain Greek translations, however, state that she “became angry” with him. The latter interpretation is accepted by a number of commentators and modern English translations, including the NRSV, since the woman goes to her father’s house rather than the house of a male lover. It is also possible that the woman’s “prostitution” does not refer to literal sexual infidelity but is a sort of metaphor for the fact that she leaves her husband. The act of leaving one’s husband is quite unusual in the Hebrew Bible, and the harsh language used to describe it could result from the fact that it was viewed in a very negative light.

And though Mr. Stone mentioned “Certain Greek translations,” the Septuagint reads simply καὶ ἐπορεύθη ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἡ παλλακὴ αὐτοῦ (literally: “and went from him the concubine of his”).

I won’t comment about a Levite with a concubine, except to say that the Hebrew word pı̂ylegesh (פילגש), translated concubine, does not occur in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy.  It occurs in Genesis before God’s law was given and again after in Judges, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Esther, Song of Solomon and Ezekiel.  But the concubine is a foreign custom to God’s law.

The Levite and his concubine spent the night in Gibeah, in the land of the Benjamites, with an old man from the Ephraimite hill country, the place to which the Levite and his concubine were returning.  I made the following table to compare and contrast what happened next to the incident in Sodom the night before it was destroyed.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
They were having a good time, when suddenly some men of the city, some good-for-nothings, surrounded the house and kept beating on the door.

Judges 19:22a (NET)

 Before they could lie down to sleep, all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house.

Genesis 19:4 (NET)

The note on good-for-nothings in the NET reads: “‘the men of the city, men, the sons of wickedness.’ The phrases are in apposition; the last phrase specifies what type of men they were. It is not certain if all the men of the city are in view, or just a group of troublemakers. In 20:5 the town leaders are implicated in the crime, suggesting that all the men of the city were involved. If so, the implication is that the entire male population of the town were good-for-nothings.”  The text is clearer regarding Sodom: Now the people of Sodom were extremely wicked rebels against the Lord (yehôvâh).[17]

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
They said to the old man who owned the house, “Send out the man who came to visit you so we can have sex with him.”

Judges 19:22b (NET)

 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight?  Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

Genesis 19:5 (NET)
The man who owned the house went outside and said to them, “No, my brothers!  Don’t do this wicked thing!  After all, this man is a guest in my house.  Don’t do such a disgraceful thing!

Judges 19:23 (NET)

 Lot went outside to them, shutting the door behind him.  He said, “No, my brothers!  Don’t act so wickedly!

Genesis 19:6, 7 (NET)
Here are my virgin daughter and my guest’s concubine.  I will send them out and you can abuse them and do to them whatever you like.  But don’t do such a disgraceful thing to this man!”

Judges 19:24 (NET)

 Look, I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man.  Let me bring them out to you, and you can do to them whatever you please.  Only don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

Genesis 19:8 (NET)

Chivalry as a moral code was invented much later.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
The men refused to listen to him…

Judges 19:25a (NET)

 

 “Out of our way!” they cried, and “This man came to live here as a foreigner, and now he dares to judge (Septuagint: κρίσιν κρίνειν) us!  We’ll do more harm to you than to them!”  They kept pressing in on Lot until they were close enough to break down the door.

Genesis 19:9 (NET)
…so the Levite grabbed his concubine and made her go outside.

Judges 19:25b (NET)

 So the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house as they shut the door.  Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, from the youngest to the oldest, with blindness.

Genesis 19:10, 11a (NET)
They raped her and abused her all night long until morning.  They let her go at dawn.

Judges 19:25c (NET)

 The men outside wore themselves out trying to find the door.

Genesis 19:11b (NET)

The Benjamites who did this were not “godless Sodomites,” extremely wicked rebels against the Lord (yehôvâh, ליהוה), but sons of Israel living in the promised land.

Judges, the Levite and his concubine

Genesis, Lot and the visitors
The woman arrived back at daybreak and was sprawled out on the doorstep of the house where her master was staying until it became light.  When her master got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and went outside to start on his journey, there was the woman, his concubine, sprawled out on the doorstep of the house with her hands on the threshold.

Judges 19:26, 27 (NET)

 Then the two visitors said to Lot, “Who else do you have here?  Do you have any sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or other relatives in the city?  Get them out of this place because we are about to destroy it.  The outcry against this place is so great before the Lord (yehôvâh, יהוה) that he (yehôvâh, יהוה) has sent us to destroy it.”

Genesis 19:12, 13 (NET)

The woman was dead.  Dear God, I hope she was dead (Judges 19:29, 30 NET):

When he got home, [the Levite] took a knife, grabbed his concubine, and carved her up into twelve pieces.  Then he sent the pieces throughout Israel.  Everyone who saw the sight said, “Nothing like this has happened or been witnessed during the entire time since the Israelites left the land of Egypt!  Take careful note of it!  Discuss it and speak!”

Romans, Part 63

Back to Romans, Part 64

[1] Romans 12:12 (NET)

[2] Matthew 18:12 (NET)

[3] Matthew 18:1b (NET)

[4] Matthew 18:2-5 (NET)

[5] Matthew 18:6 (NET)

[6] Matthew 18:7 (NET)

[7] Romans 11:33a (NET)

[8] Romans 11:32 (NET)

[9] Matthew 18:6b (NET)

[10] Galatians 2:20a (NET)

[11] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

[12] Isaiah 1:18b (NKJV) Table

[13] Romans 10:17 (NKJV)

[14] John 17:3 (NET)

[15] Judges 19:1b (NET)

[16] Judges 19:2a (NET)

[17] Genesis 13:13 (NET)