The Day of the Lord, Part 1

Posted on March 31, 2023 by admin

In another essay I quoted Paul: For [the day of the Lord] will not arrive until the rebellion comes and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction (ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας).¹ It rattled my cage more than I realized at first. I didn’t even recognize that cage until it rattled. But now I have to consider whether my assumption that Jesus called Judas Iscariot ὁ υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας (NET: the one destined for destruction) is like Jesus’ disciples’ discussion about having² no bread³ after He said: “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod!”⁴

To begin I’ll consider the day of the Lord (ἡ ἡμέρα τοῦ κυρίου). Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 1:4-9 NET):

I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus. For you were made rich in every way in him, in all your speech and in every kind of knowledge—just as the testimony about Christ has been confirmed among you so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord (τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν) Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

It seems important to me to simply repeat Paul’s words and let them really sink in: you were called into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord by God [who] is faithful. [Y]ou will be blameless on the day of our Lord because He will also strengthen you to the end. [Y]ou do not lack any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ because the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus…made [you] rich in every way in him, in all your speech and in every kind of knowledge—just as the testimony about Christ has been confirmed among you.

Again he wrote (2 Corinthians 1:13, 14 NET):

For we do not write you anything other than what you can read and also understand. But I hope that⁵ you will understand completely just as also you have partly understood us, that we are your source of pride just as you also are ours in the day of the Lord (τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ κυρίου) Jesus.

While taking nothing away from the fact that God is faithful, by whom you were called (ἐκλήθητε, a form of καλέω) into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord,⁶ Paul, through his letters preserved in the New Testament, led me to Christ. I am a recipient of his ministry as much as anyone in Corinth.

Paul is my καύχημα: “a boast, object of boasting, exultation; glory, honour; pride, object of pride; rejoicing.” But I’ve assumed he wouldn’t care much for me. I am too slow, too hesitant to believe.

Even if that were so, if we were suddenly thrust together as I am now, it will not be so on the day of the Lord, when we both can smile and nod to one another, both made blameless by the same God and Father through the same Lord Jesus Christ. For I am sure of this very thing, Paul wrote, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until⁷ the day of Christ Jesus.⁸

Paul wrote (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 NET):

Now on the topic of times and seasons, brothers and sisters, you have no need for anything to be written to you. For you know quite well that the⁹ day of the Lord (ἡμέρα κυρίου) will come in the same way as a thief in the night. Now¹⁰ when they are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction comes on them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will surely not escape (or, “emerge [like a baby out of the womb];” ἐκφύγωσιν, a form of ἐκφεύγω). But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would. For¹¹ you all are sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness. So then we must not sleep as¹² the rest, but must stay alert and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we are of the day, we must stay sober by putting on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet our hope for salvation. For God did not destine (ἔθετο, a form of τίθημι) us for wrath but for gaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ [Table]. He died for us so that whether we are alert or asleep, we will come to life together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, just as you are in fact doing.

In this context it’s fairly obvious that you, brothers and sisters, are not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would¹³ doesn’t mean that you will know when the day of the Lord is any more than they or them. It is simply that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord¹⁴ because He will also strengthen you to the end.¹⁵

It seems important to pin down who exactly you and they are here. Paul wrote (1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 NET):

Now on the topic of brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed you are practicing it toward all the brothers and sisters in all of Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, to aspire to lead a quiet life, to attend to your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. In this way you will live a decent life before outsiders and not be in need.

So, you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed you are practicing it toward all the brothers and sisters.¹⁶ The outsiders (τοὺς ἔξω), presumably, are [not] taught by God to love one another and are [not] practicing it toward all the brothers and sisters.

Paul also wrote (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5, 7, 8 NET):

For this is God’s will: that you become holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own body in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God.

For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. Consequently the one who rejects this is not rejecting human authority but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you [Table].

They, called the Gentiles who do not know God (τὰ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ εἰδότα τὸν θεόν) here, live in lustful passion. You will become holy; you will keep away from sexual immorality; you will know how to possess [your] own body in holiness and honor because you, presumably, know God and this is God’s will for you. God gives his Holy Spirit to you.

Again, Paul wrote (1 Thessalonians 2:11-16a NET);

As you know, we treated each one of you as a father treats his own children, exhorting and encouraging you¹⁷ and insisting that you live¹⁸ in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory. And¹⁹ so we too constantly thank God that when you received God’s message that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God’s message, which is at work among you who believe. For you became imitators, brothers and sisters, of God’s churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, because you too suffered the same things²⁰ from your own countrymen as they in fact did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets²¹ and persecuted us severely. They are displeasing to God and are opposed to all people because they hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.

[Y]ou live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.²² They, called Jews (τῶν Ἰουδαίων) here, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us severely, are displeasing to God and are opposed to all people because they hinder us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.²³ But here it becomes quite clear that they are neither Jews nor Gentiles per se: For you became imitators, brothers and sisters, of God’s churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea (e.g., in large part Jews), because you too suffered the same things from your own countrymen (e.g., in large part Gentiles) as they in fact did from the Jews.²⁴

So, what is the salient difference between you and they? [Y]ou received God’s message that you heard from us; you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God’s message, which is at work among you who believe.²⁵ And you became imitators of us and of the Lord when you received the message with joy that comes from the Holy Spirit, despite great affliction.²⁶ They, presumably, had not received God’s message and had not become imitators (μιμηταὶ, a form of μιμητής) of us and of the Lord.

Paul continued (1 Thessalonians 1:9. 10 NET):

For people everywhere report how you welcomed us²⁷ and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the²⁸ dead, Jesus our deliverer from²⁹ the coming wrath.

How is Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath? The Greek word translated deliverer was ρυόμενον, a participle of the verb ῥύομαι: “properly, draw (pull) to oneself,” according to the HELPS Word-studies on Bible Hub. [Y]ou turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. They, presumably, did not. So this is an indication of how they become you. An example of the inverse, you becoming they, follows:

Masoretic Text		Septuagint
Isaiah 2:6 (Tanakh/KJV)	Isaiah 2:6 (NET)	Isaiah 2:6 (NETS)	Isaiah 2:6 (English Elpenor)
Therefore thou hast forsaken (נָטַ֗שְׁתָּה) thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.	Indeed, O Lord, you have abandoned (nāṭaš, נטשתה) your people, the descendants of Jacob. For diviners from the east are everywhere; they consult omen readers like the Philistines do. Plenty of foreigners are around.	For he has abandoned (ἀνῆκεν) his people, the house of Israel, because their country, like that of the allophyles, was filled with divinations as it had been at the beginning, and many allophyle children were born to them.	For he has forsaken (ἀνῆκε) his people the house of Israel, because their land is filled as at the beginning with divinations, as the [land] of the Philistines,* and many strange children were born to them.

I want to pause here to consider forsaken (Tanakh, KJV, English Elpenor) and abandoned (NET, NETS). The Hebrew word was נָטַ֗שְׁתָּה (nāṭaš). The Greek word was ἀνῆκε(ν). I’m having a difficult time recalling or articulating what I thought forsaken or abandoned meant.

I’m reasonably convinced it was not “to let loose; to run wild; to let (someone/something) run free without restraint,” the first entry for ἀνῆκε(ν) (a form of ἀνίημι) in the Koine Greek Lexicon online. Staring at that definition, I have to admit it was my experience when I became an atheist. And it is what Paul described as the wrath (ὀργὴ) of God…revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness.³⁰

Ungodliness and Unrighteousness of People	The Wrath of God Revealed from Heaven
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.³¹	Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.³²
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.³³	For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error [Table].³⁴
And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God,³⁵	God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips [Table], slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless [Table]. Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.³⁶

So, the opposite of this wrath, of being forsaken or abandoned is the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus. For you were made rich in every way in him, in all your speech and in every kind of knowledge—just as the testimony about Christ has been confirmed among you so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.³⁷

The Lord continued to describe through Isaiah how you became they:

Masoretic Text		Septuagint
Isaiah 2:7-9 (Tanakh/KJV)	Isaiah 2:7-9 (NET)	Isaiah 2:7-9 (NETS)	Isaiah 2:7-9 (English Elpenor)
Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:	Their land is full of gold and silver; there is no end to their wealth. Their land is full of horses; there is no end to their chariots.	For their country was filled with silver and gold, and there was no number to their treasures, and the land was filled with horses, and there was no number to their chariots.	For their land is filled with silver and gold, and there was no number of their treasures; their land also is filled with horses, and there was no number of chariots.
“Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:	Their land is full of worthless idols; they worship the product of their own hands, what their own fingers have fashioned.	And the land is filled with abominations, the works of their hands, and they did obeisance to the things their own fingers had made.	And the land is filled with abominations, [even] the works of their hands; and they have worshipped [the works] which their fingers made.
And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive (תִּשָּׂ֖א) them not.	Men bow down to them in homage, they lie flat on the ground in worship. Don’t spare (nāśā’, תשׁא) them!	And so a person bowed down, and a man was humbled—and I will not forgive (ἀνήσω) them!	And the mean man bowed down, and the great man was humbled: and I will not pardon (ἀνήσω) them.

Though the English versions of the Septuagint were translated to match the Masoretic text, the actual Greek word ἀνήσω (another form of ἀνίημι) sounds more like the Lord’s promise not to allow his people “to run wild” in the future, not “to let go,” not “to leave [them] uncared for” or “unattended.” In other words, they will not be forsaken or abandoned forever, nor will God’s wrath remain upon them forever. They will not be they forever, but will be restored to you.

Moses’ promises to Israel and Joshua respectively were translated in the Septuagint with two more forms of ἀνίημι: ἀνῇ and ἀνήσει.

Masoretic Text		Septuagint
Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 (NET)	Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 31:6, 8 (English Elpenor)
Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be affrighted at them; for HaShem thy G-d, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail (יַרְפְּךָ֖) thee, nor forsake thee.’	Be strong and courageous! Do not fear or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He will not fail (rāp̄â, ירפך) you or abandon you!”	Be manly and strong; have no fear, nor be frightened, nor be terrified from before them, because the Lord your God, he who goes with you among you, will not forsake (ἀνῇ) you or abandon you.”	Be courageous and strong, fear not, neither be cowardly neither be afraid before them; for [it is] the Lord your God that advances with you in the midst of you, neither will he by any means forsake (ἀνῇ) thee, nor desert thee.
And HaShem, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail (יַרְפְּךָ֖) thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.’	The Lord is indeed going before you—he will be with you; he will not fail (rāp̄â, ירפך) you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged!”	And the Lord, the one who goes with you, will not forsake (ἀνήσει) you or abandon you. Do not fear, nor be frightened.	And the Lord that goes with thee shall not forsake (ἀνήσει) thee nor abandon thee; fear not, neither be afraid.

According to a note (9) in the NET 1 Thessalonians 5:8 contained an allusion to Isaiah 59:17. A comparison of the Greek of 1 Thessalonians 5:8 to Isaiah 59:17 in the Septuagint follows.

1 Thessalonians 5:8b (NET Parallel Greek)	Isaiah 59:17a (Septuagint BLB)	Isaiah 59:17a (Septuagint Elpenor)
ἐνδυσάμενοι θώρακα πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης	ἐνεδύσατο δικαιοσύνην ὡς θώρακα	ἐνεδύσατο δικαιοσύνην ὡς θώρακα
1 Thessalonians 5:8b (NET)	Isaiah 59:17a (NETS)	Isaiah 59:17a (English Elpenor)
putting on the breastplate of faith and love	he put on righteousness like a breastplate	he put on righteousness as a breast-plate

In this passage about the Lord bringing salvation, the Lord’s δικαιοσύνην (righteousness) becomes πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης (faith and love) when applied to human beings. The allusion continued:

1 Thessalonians 5:8c (NET Parallel Greek)	Isaiah 59:17b (Septuagint BLB)	Isaiah 59:17b (Septuagint Elpenor)
περικεφαλαίαν ἐλπίδα σωτηρίας	περιέθετο περικεφαλαίαν σωτηρίου ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς	περιέθετο περικεφαλαίαν σωτηρίου ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς
1 Thessalonians 5:8c (NET)	Isaiah 59:17b (NETS)	Isaiah 59:17b (English Elpenor)
as a helmet our hope for salvation	places a helmet of salvation on his head	placed the helmet of salvation on his head

The Lord wears the helmet of salvation on his head (σωτηρίου ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς). Our helmet is our hope (ἐλπίδα), or “confident expectation,” for salvation (σωτηρίας), the very salvation He has acquired for us. What is absent from this allusion, as applied to human beings, is any mention of he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.³⁸

Tables comparing Isaiah 59:17; 2:6; 2:7; 2:8; 2:9; Deuteronomy 31:6 and 31:8 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and tables comparing the Greek of Isaiah 59:17; 2:6; 2:7; 2:8; 2:9; Deuteronomy 31:6 and 31:8 in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor), and tables comparing Mark 8:16; 2 Corinthians 1:13; Philippians 1:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3; 5:5, 6; 2:12-15 and 1:9, 10 in the NET and KJV follow.

Isaiah 59:17 (Tanakh)	Isaiah 59:17 (KJV)	Isaiah 59:17 (NET)
For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.	For he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.	He wears his desire for justice like body armor, and his desire to deliver is like a helmet on his head. He puts on the garments of vengeance and wears zeal like a robe.

Isaiah 59:17 (Septuagint BLB)	Isaiah 59:17 (Septuagint Elpenor)
καὶ ἐνεδύσατο δικαιοσύνην ὡς θώρακα καὶ περιέθετο περικεφαλαίαν σωτηρίου ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς καὶ περιεβάλετο ἱμάτιον ἐκδικήσεως καὶ τὸ περιβόλαιον	καὶ ἐνεδύσατο δικαιοσύνην ὡς θώρακα καὶ περιέθετο περικεφαλαίαν σωτηρίου ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς καὶ περιεβάλετο ἱμάτιον ἐκδικήσεως καὶ τὸ περιβόλαιον
Isaiah 59:17 (NETS)	Isaiah 59:17 (English Elpenor)
And he put on righteousness like a breastplate and places a helmet of salvation on his head, and he clothed himself with a garment of vengeance and with his cloak,	And he put on righteousness as a breast-plate, and placed the helmet of salvation on his head; and he clothed himself with the garment of vengeance, and with his cloak,

Isaiah 2:6 (Tanakh)	Isaiah 2:6 (KJV)	Isaiah 2:6 (NET)
Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.	Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.	Indeed, O Lord, you have abandoned your people, the descendants of Jacob. For diviners from the east are everywhere; they consult omen readers like the Philistines do. Plenty of foreigners are around.

Isaiah 2:6 (Septuagint BLB)	Isaiah 2:6 (Septuagint Elpenor)
ἀνῆκεν γὰρ τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν οἶκον τοῦ Ισραηλ ὅτι ἐνεπλήσθη ὡς τὸ ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ἡ χώρα αὐτῶν κληδονισμῶν ὡς ἡ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων καὶ τέκνα πολλὰ ἀλλόφυλα ἐγενήθη αὐτοῖς	ἀνῆκε γὰρ τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν οἶκον τοῦ ᾿Ισραήλ, ὅτι ἐνεπλήσθη ὡς τὸ ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς ἡ χώρα αὐτῶν κληδονισμῶν, ὡς ἡ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων, καὶ τέκνα πολλὰ ἀλλόφυλα ἐγενήθη αὐτοῖς
Isaiah 2:6 (NETS)	Isaiah 2:6 (English Elpenor)
For he has abandoned his people, the house of Israel, because their country, like that of the allophyles, was filled with divinations as it had been at the beginning, and many allophyle children were born to them.	For he has forsaken his people the house of Israel, because their land is filled as at the beginning with divinations, as the [land] of the Philistines,* and many strange children were born to them.

Isaiah 2:7 (Tanakh)	Isaiah 2:7 (KJV)	Isaiah 2:7 (NET)
Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:	Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:	Their land is full of gold and silver; there is no end to their wealth. Their land is full of horses; there is no end to their chariots.

Isaiah 2:7 (Septuagint BLB)	Isaiah 2:7 (Septuagint Elpenor)
ἐνεπλήσθη γὰρ ἡ χώρα αὐτῶν ἀργυρίου καὶ χρυσίου καὶ οὐκ ἦν ἀριθμὸς τῶν θησαυρῶν αὐτῶν καὶ ἐνεπλήσθη ἡ γῆ ἵππων καὶ οὐκ ἦν ἀριθμὸς τῶν ἁρμάτων αὐτῶν	ἐνεπλήσθη γὰρ ἡ χώρα αὐτῶν ἀργυρίου καὶ χρυσίου, καὶ οὐκ ἦν ἀριθμὸς τῶν θησαυρῶν αὐτῶν· καὶ ἐνεπλήσθη ἡ γῆ ἵππων, καὶ οὐκ ἦν ἀριθμὸς τῶν ἁρμάτων αὐτῶν
Isaiah 2:7 (NETS)	Isaiah 2:7 (English Elpenor)
For their country was filled with silver and gold, and there was no number to their treasures, and the land was filled with horses, and there was no number to their chariots.	For their land is filled with silver and gold, and there was no number of their treasures; their land also is filled with horses, and there was no number of chariots.

Isaiah 2:8 (Tanakh)	Isaiah 2:8 (KJV)	Isaiah 2:8 (NET)
Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:	Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:	Their land is full of worthless idols; they worship the product of their own hands, what their own fingers have fashioned.

Isaiah 2:8 (Septuagint BLB)	Isaiah 2:8 (Septuagint Elpenor)
καὶ ἐνεπλήσθη ἡ γῆ βδελυγμάτων τῶν ἔργων τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν καὶ προσεκύνησαν οἷς ἐποίησαν οἱ δάκτυλοι αὐτῶν	καὶ ἐνεπλήσθη ἡ γῆ βδελυγμάτων τῶν ἔργων τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῶν, καὶ προσεκύνησαν, οἷς ἐποίησαν οἱ δάκτυλοι αὐτῶν
Isaiah 2:8 (NETS)	Isaiah 2:8 (English Elpenor)
And the land is filled with abominations, the works of their hands, and they did obeisance to the things their own fingers had made.	And the land is filled with abominations, [even] the works of their hands; and they have worshipped [the works] which their fingers made.

Isaiah 2:9 (Tanakh)	Isaiah 2:9 (KJV)	Isaiah 2:9 (NET)
And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.	And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.	Men bow down to them in homage, they lie flat on the ground in worship. Don’t spare them!

Isaiah 2:9 (Septuagint BLB)	Isaiah 2:9 (Septuagint Elpenor)
καὶ ἔκυψεν ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἐταπεινώθη ἀνήρ καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀνήσω αὐτούς	καὶ ἔκυψεν ἄνθρωπος, καὶ ἐταπεινώθη ἀνήρ, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀνήσω αὐτούς
Isaiah 2:9 (NETS)	Isaiah 2:9 (English Elpenor)
And so a person bowed down, and a man was humbled—and I will not forgive them!	And the mean man bowed down, and the great man was humbled: and I will not pardon them.

Deuteronomy 31:6 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 31:6 (KJV)	Deuteronomy 31:6 (NET)
Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be affrighted at them; for HaShem thy G-d, He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.’	Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.	Be strong and courageous! Do not fear or tremble before them, for the Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He will not fail you or abandon you!”

Deuteronomy 31:6 (Septuagint BLB)	Deuteronomy 31:6 (Septuagint Elpenor)
ἀνδρίζου καὶ ἴσχυε μὴ φοβοῦ μηδὲ δειλία μηδὲ πτοηθῇς ἀπὸ προσώπου αὐτῶν ὅτι κύριος ὁ θεός σου ὁ προπορευόμενος μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν ἐν ὑμῖν οὐ μή σε ἀνῇ οὔτε μή σε ἐγκαταλίπῃ	ἀνδρίζου καὶ ἴσχυε, μὴ φοβοῦ μηδὲ δειλιάσης μηδὲ πτοηθῇς ἀπὸ προσώπου αὐτῶν, ὅτι Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου ὁ προπορευόμενος μεθ᾿ ὑμῶν ἐν ὑμῖν, οὔτε μή σε ἀνῇ, οὔτε μή σε ἐγκαταλίπῃ
Deuteronomy 31:6 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 31:6 (English Elpenor)
Be manly and strong; have no fear, nor be frightened, nor be terrified from before them, because the Lord your God, he who goes with you among you, will not forsake you or abandon you.”	Be courageous and strong, fear not, neither be cowardly neither be afraid before them; for [it is] the Lord your God that advances with you in the midst of you, neither will he by any means forsake thee, nor desert thee.

Deuteronomy 31:8 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 31:8 (KJV)	Deuteronomy 31:8 (NET)
And HaShem, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.’	And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.	The Lord is indeed going before you—he will be with you; he will not fail you or abandon you. Do not be afraid or discouraged!”

Deuteronomy 31:8 (Septuagint BLB)	Deuteronomy 31:8 (Septuagint Elpenor)
καὶ κύριος ὁ συμπορευόμενος μετὰ σοῦ οὐκ ἀνήσει σε οὐδὲ μὴ ἐγκαταλίπῃ σε μὴ φοβοῦ μηδὲ δειλία	καὶ Κύριος ὁ συμπορευόμενος μετὰ σοῦ οὐκ ἀνήσει σε, οὐδὲ μή σε ἐγκαταλίπῃ· μὴ φοβοῦ μηδὲ δειλία
Deuteronomy 31:8 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 31:8 (English Elpenor)
And the Lord, the one who goes with you, will not forsake you or abandon you. Do not fear, nor be frightened.	And the Lord that goes with thee shall not forsake thee nor abandon thee; fear not, neither be afraid.

Mark 8:16 (NET)	Mark 8:16 (KJV)
So they began to discuss with one another about having no bread.	And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread.

Mark 8:16 (NET Parallel Greek)	Mark 8:16 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	Mark 8:16 (Byzantine Majority Text)
καὶ διελογίζοντο πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχουσιν	και διελογιζοντο προς αλληλους λεγοντες οτι αρτους ουκ εχομεν	και διελογιζοντο προς αλληλους λεγοντες οτι αρτους ουκ εχομεν

2 Corinthians 1:13 (NET)	2 Corinthians 1:13 (KJV)
For we do not write you anything other than what you can read and also understand. But I hope that you will understand completely	For we write none other things unto you, than what ye read or acknowledge; and I trust ye shall acknowledge even to the end;

2 Corinthians 1:13 (NET Parallel Greek)	2 Corinthians 1:13 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	2 Corinthians 1:13 (Byzantine Majority Text)
οὐ γὰρ ἄλλα γράφομεν ὑμῖν ἀλλ᾿ ἢ ἃ ἀναγινώσκετε ἢ καὶ ἐπιγινώσκετε· ἐλπίζω δὲ ὅτι ἕως τέλους ἐπιγνώσεσθε	ου γαρ αλλα γραφομεν υμιν αλλ η α αναγινωσκετε η και επιγινωσκετε ελπιζω δε οτι και εως τελους επιγνωσεσθε	ου γαρ αλλα γραφομεν υμιν αλλ η α αναγινωσκετε η και επιγινωσκετε ελπιζω δε οτι και εως τελους επιγνωσεσθε

Philippians 1:6 (NET)	Philippians 1:6 (KJV)
For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.	Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Philippians 1:6 (NET Parallel Greek)	Philippians 1:6 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	Philippians 1:6 (Byzantine Majority Text)
πεποιθὼς αὐτὸ τοῦτο, ὅτι ὁ ἐναρξάμενος ἐν ὑμῖν ἔργον ἀγαθὸν ἐπιτελέσει ἄχρι ἡμέρας Χριστοῦ \|Ἰησοῦ\|	πεποιθως αυτο τουτο οτι ο εναρξαμενος εν υμιν εργον αγαθον επιτελεσει αχρις ημερας ιησου χριστου	πεποιθως αυτο τουτο οτι ο εναρξαμενος εν υμιν εργον αγαθον επιτελεσει αχρις ημερας χριστου ιησου

1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3 (NET)	1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3 (KJV)
For you know quite well that the day of the Lord will come in the same way as a thief in the night.	For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

1 Thessalonians 5:2 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 5:2 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 5:2 (Byzantine Majority Text)
αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἀκριβῶς οἴδατε ὅτι ἡμέρα κυρίου ὡς κλέπτης ἐν νυκτὶ οὕτως ἔρχεται	αυτοι γαρ ακριβως οιδατε οτι η ημερα κυριου ως κλεπτης εν νυκτι ουτως ερχεται	αυτοι γαρ ακριβως οιδατε οτι η ημερα κυριου ως κλεπτης εν νυκτι ουτως ερχεται

Now when they are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction comes on them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will surely not escape.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

1 Thessalonians 5:3 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 5:3 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 5:3 (Byzantine Majority Text)
ὅταν \|δὲ\| λέγωσιν· εἰρήνη καὶ ἀσφάλεια, τότε αἰφνίδιος αὐτοῖς \|ἐφίσταται\| ὄλεθρος ὥσπερ ἡ ὠδὶν τῇ ἐν γαστρὶ ἐχούσῃ, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἐκφύγωσιν	οταν γαρ λεγωσιν ειρηνη και ασφαλεια τοτε αιφνιδιος αυτοις εφισταται ολεθρος ωσπερ η ωδιν τη εν γαστρι εχουση και ου μη εκφυγωσιν	οταν γαρ λεγωσιν ειρηνη και ασφαλεια τοτε αιφνιδιος αυτοις εφισταται ολεθρος ωσπερ η ωδιν τη εν γαστρι εχουση και ου μη εκφυγωσιν

1 Thessalonians 5:5, 6 (NET)	1 Thessalonians 5:5, 6 (KJV)
For you all are sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness.	Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

1 Thessalonians 5:5 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 5:5 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 5:5 (Byzantine Majority Text)
πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς υἱοὶ φωτός ἐστε καὶ υἱοὶ ἡμέρας. Οὐκ ἐσμὲν νυκτὸς οὐδὲ σκότους	παντες υμεις υιοι φωτος εστε και υιοι ημερας ουκ εσμεν νυκτος ουδε σκοτους	παντες υμεις υιοι φωτος εστε και υιοι ημερας ουκ εσμεν νυκτος ουδε σκοτους

So then we must not sleep as the rest, but must stay alert and sober.

Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

1 Thessalonians 5:6 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 5:6 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 5:6 (Byzantine Majority Text)
ἄρα οὖν μὴ καθεύδωμεν ὡς οἱ λοιποί ἀλλὰ γρηγορῶμεν καὶ νήφωμεν	αρα ουν μη καθευδωμεν ως και οι λοιποι αλλα γρηγορωμεν και νηφωμεν	αρα ουν μη καθευδωμεν ως και οι λοιποι αλλα γρηγορωμεν και νηφωμεν

1 Thessalonians 2:12-15 (NET)	1 Thessalonians 2:12-15 (KJV)
exhorting and encouraging you and insisting that you live in a way worthy of God who calls you to his own kingdom and his glory.	That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.

1 Thessalonians 2:12 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 2:12 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 2:12 (Byzantine Majority Text)
παρακαλοῦντες ὑμᾶς καὶ παραμυθούμενοι καὶ μαρτυρόμενοι εἰς τὸ περιπατεῖν ὑμᾶς ἀξίως τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ καλοῦντος ὑμᾶς εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ βασιλείαν καὶ δόξαν	και μαρτυρουμενοι εις το περιπατησαι υμας αξιως του θεου του καλουντος υμας εις την εαυτου βασιλειαν και δοξαν	και μαρτυρομενοι εις το περιπατησαι υμας αξιως του θεου του καλουντος υμας εις την εαυτου βασιλειαν και δοξαν

And so we too constantly thank God that when you received God’s message that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human message, but as it truly is, God’s message, which is at work among you who believe.

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 2:13 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 2:13 (Byzantine Majority Text)
Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἡμεῖς εὐχαριστοῦμεν τῷ θεῷ ἀδιαλείπτως, ὅτι παραλαβόντες λόγον ἀκοῆς παρ᾿ ἡμῶν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐδέξασθε οὐ λόγον ἀνθρώπων ἀλλὰ καθώς ἐστιν \|ἀληθῶς\| λόγον θεοῦ, ὃς καὶ ἐνεργεῖται ἐν ὑμῖν τοῖς πιστεύουσιν	δια τουτο και ημεις ευχαριστουμεν τω θεω αδιαλειπτως οτι παραλαβοντες λογον ακοης παρ ημων του θεου εδεξασθε ου λογον ανθρωπων αλλα καθως εστιν αληθως λογον θεου ος και ενεργειται εν υμιν τοις πιστευουσιν	δια τουτο και ημεις ευχαριστουμεν τω θεω αδιαλειπτως οτι παραλαβοντες λογον ακοης παρ ημων του θεου εδεξασθε ου λογον ανθρωπων αλλα καθως εστιν αληθως λογον θεου ος και ενεργειται εν υμιν τοις πιστευουσιν

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,

For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews:

1 Thessalonians 2:14 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 2:14 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 2:14 (Byzantine Majority Text)
ὑμεῖς γὰρ μιμηταὶ ἐγενήθητε, ἀδελφοί, τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν οὐσῶν ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ ἐπάθετε καὶ ὑμεῖς ὑπὸ τῶν ἰδίων συμφυλετῶν καθὼς καὶ αὐτοὶ ὑπὸ τῶν Ἰουδαίων	υμεις γαρ μιμηται εγενηθητε αδελφοι των εκκλησιων του θεου των ουσων εν τη ιουδαια εν χριστω ιησου οτι ταυτα επαθετε και υμεις υπο των ιδιων συμφυλετων καθως και αυτοι υπο των ιουδαιων	υμεις γαρ μιμηται εγενηθητε αδελφοι των εκκλησιων του θεου των ουσων εν τη ιουδαια εν χριστω ιησου οτι τα αυτα επαθετε και υμεις υπο των ιδιων συμφυλετων καθως και αυτοι υπο των ιουδαιων

who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us severely. They are displeasing to God and are opposed to all people

Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:

1 Thessalonians 2:15 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 2:15 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 2:15 (Byzantine Majority Text)
τῶν καὶ τὸν κύριον ἀποκτεινάντων Ἰησοῦν καὶ τοὺς προφήτας καὶ ἡμᾶς ἐκδιωξάντων καὶ θεῷ μὴ ἀρεσκόντων καὶ πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις ἐναντίων	των και τον κυριον αποκτειναντων ιησουν και τους ιδιους προφητας και υμας εκδιωξαντων και θεω μη αρεσκοντων και πασιν ανθρωποις εναντιων	των και τον κυριον αποκτειναντων ιησουν και τους ιδιους προφητας και ημας εκδιωξαντων και θεω μη αρεσκοντων και πασιν ανθρωποις εναντιων

1 Thessalonians 1:9, 10 (NET)	1 Thessalonians 1:9, 10 (KJV)
For people everywhere report how you welcomed us and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God	For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;

1 Thessalonians 1:9 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 1:9 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 1:9 (Byzantine Majority Text)
αὐτοὶ γὰρ περὶ ἡμῶν ἀπαγγέλλουσιν ὁποίαν εἴσοδον ἔσχομεν πρὸς ὑμᾶς, καὶ πῶς ἐπεστρέψατε πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἀπὸ τῶν εἰδώλων δουλεύειν θεῷ ζῶντι καὶ ἀληθινῷ	αυτοι γαρ περι ημων απαγγελλουσιν οποιαν εισοδον εχομεν προς υμας και πως επεστρεψατε προς τον θεον απο των ειδωλων δουλευειν θεω ζωντι και αληθινω	αυτοι γαρ περι ημων απαγγελλουσιν οποιαν εισοδον εσχομεν προς υμας και πως επεστρεψατε προς τον θεον απο των ειδωλων δουλευειν θεω ζωντι και αληθινω

and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus our deliverer from the coming wrath.

And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 (NET Parallel Greek)	1 Thessalonians 1:10 (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	1 Thessalonians 1:10 (Byzantine Majority Text)
καὶ ἀναμένειν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν, ὃν ἤγειρεν ἐκ [τῶν] νεκρῶν, Ἰησοῦν τὸν ρυόμενον ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς ὀργῆς τῆς ἐρχομένης	και αναμενειν τον υιον αυτου εκ των ουρανων ον ηγειρεν εκ νεκρων ιησουν τον ρυομενον ημας απο της οργης της ερχομενης	και αναμενειν τον υιον αυτου εκ των ουρανων ον ηγειρεν εκ των νεκρων ιησουν τον ρυομενον ημας απο της οργης της ερχομενης

The Day of the Lord, Part 2

Back to Christianity, Part 9

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 3

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 4

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 5

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 6

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 7

Back to αὐτοῦ and ἑαυτοῦ, Part 1

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 8

Back to Christ-Centered Preaching, Chapter 1

¹ 2 Thessalonians 2:3 (NET)

² The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had ἔχουσιν here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had εχομεν (KJV: we have).

³ Mark 8:16b (NET)

⁴ Mark 8:15b (NET)

⁵ The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had και (KJV: even) here. The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ did not.

⁶ 1 Corinthians 1:9 (NET)

⁷ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had ἄχρι here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had αχρις.

⁸ Philippians 1:6 (NET)

⁹ The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had the article η preceding day. The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ did not.

¹⁰ The NET parallel Greek text had δὲ here. The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had γαρ (KJV: For). The NA²⁸ had neither.

¹¹ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had γὰρ here. The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text did not.

¹² The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had ὡς και here, where the NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had simply ὡς.

¹³ 1 Thessalonians 5:4 (NET)

¹⁴ 1 Corinthians 1:8b (NET)

¹⁵ 1 Corinthians 1:8a (NET)

¹⁶ 1 Thessalonians 4:9b-10a (NET)

¹⁷ The NET parallel Greek text had παρακαλοῦντες ὑμᾶς καὶ παραμυθούμενοι (NET: exhorting and encouraging you) here. The Stephanus Textus Receptus, Byzantine Majority Text and NA²⁸ had it at the end of verse 11.

¹⁸ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had περιπατεῖν here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had περιπατησαι (KJV: would walk).

¹⁹ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had Καὶ here. The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text did not.

²⁰ The NET parallel Greek text, NA²⁸ and Byzantine Majority Text had τὰ αὐτὰ here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus had ταυτα (KJV: like things).

²¹ The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had ιδιους (KJV: their own) preceding prophets. The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ did not.

²² 1 Thessalonians 2:12b (NET)

²³ 1 Thessalonians 2:15 (NET)

²⁴ 1 Thessalonians 2:14 (NET)

²⁵ 1 Thessalonians 2:13b (NET)

²⁶ 1 Thessalonians 1:6 (NET)

²⁷ The NET parallel Greek text, NA²⁸ and Byzantine Majority Text had ἔσχομεν here (NET note 19: “what sort of entrance we had to you”), where the Stephanus Textus Receptus had εχομεν.

²⁸ The NET parallel Greek text, NA²⁸ and Byzantine Majority Text had the article τῶν here. The Stephanus Textus Receptus did not.

²⁹ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had ἐκ here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had απο.

³⁰ Romans 1:18 (NET)

³¹ Romans 1:22, 23 (NET)

³² Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

³³ Romans 1:25 (NET)

³⁴ Romans 1:26, 27 (NET)

³⁵ Romans 1:28a (NET)

³⁶ Romans 1:28b-32 (NET)

³⁷ 1 Corinthians 1:4b-8 (NET)

³⁸ Isaiah 59:17b (Tanakh)

Condemnation or Judgment? – Part 16

Posted on July 4, 2016 by admin

Paul wrote believers in Colossae (Colossians 3:1-6 NET):

Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ (who is your life) appears, then you too will be revealed in glory with him. So put to death whatever in your nature belongs to the earth: sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, evil desire, and greed which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience.

A note (4) at the end of this passage in the NET reads:

The words ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας (…“on the sons of disobedience”) are lacking in Ì⁴⁶ [correct symbol won’t display] B b sa, but are found in א A C D F G H I Ψ 075 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy bo. The words are omitted by several English translations (NASB, NIV, ESV, TNIV). This textual problem is quite difficult to resolve. On the one hand, the parallel account in Eph 5:6 has these words, thus providing scribes a motive for adding them here. On the other hand, the reading without the words may be too hard: The ἐν οἷς (en hois) of v. 7 seems to have no antecedent without υἱούς already in the text, although it could possibly be construed as neuter referring to the vice list in v. 5. Further, although the witness of B is especially important, there are other places in which B and Ì⁴⁶ [ditto above] share errant readings of omission. Nevertheless, the strength of the internal evidence against the longer reading is at least sufficient to cause doubt here. The decision to retain the words in the text is less than certain.

Whether the words sons of disobedience were original or not is immaterial to me. I’m more concerned with δι᾿ ἃ ἔρχεται ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ (“Because of these things the wrath of God is coming”). First, ἔρχεται (a form of ἔρχομαι) is present tense; appears or shows itself might be a better translation. Though because is a possible translation of δι᾿^[1] (a form of διά), through would be more common (verse 17) and more in line with Paul’s teaching in the opening of Romans, the wrath of God…revealed from heaven. So I would translate it, “through these (e.g., sexual immorality, impurity, shameful passion, evil desire, and greed which is idolatry) the wrath of God appears” or “shows itself.” In other words, these are the evidence or symptoms of the depraved, unapproved, reprobate or debased mind to which God gave those over who did not like to retain God in their knowledge.^[2]

God’s wrath was to give them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.^[3] Paul enumerated what should not be done for believers in Rome (Romans 1:29-32 NET):

They are filled with every kind of unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, malice. They are rife with envy, murder, strife, deceit, hostility. They are gossips [Table], slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, covenant-breakers, heartless, ruthless [Table]. Although they fully know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but also approve of those who practice them.

A young mother put it this way on Facebook:

Parent shaming. Judging. Close mindedness. Mass murders. Hate on Nationalities. Hate on skin colors. Hate on LGBT’s. Hate on parenting. Hate. I can honestly say I’m worried to bring my children up in the type of society we’ve become. What will it take to change? Will it get better before it gets worse? I have to believe there’s more love in this world than hate. Incredibly saddening that my happy, loving boys will one day learn the world is so ugly and destructive.

Even if sons of disobedience wasn’t original I don’t see why ἐν οἷς or ἐν τούτοις are “too hard” of a reading. Paul’s contrast was to the lives the Colossians lived before they died and [their] life [was] hidden with Christ in God, not to some mysterious others called the sons of disobedience. Even Ephesians reads διὰ ταῦτα γὰρ ἔρχεται ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς τῆς ἀπειθείας (for because of these things God’s wrath comes on the sons of disobedience^[4]). But again διὰ could be through, ταῦτα refers back to the person who is immoral, impure, or greedy^[5] (probably immorality, impurity or greed) and ἔρχεται is present tense, appears or shows itself.

So I would understand it more like, “For through these [immoral, impure or greedy persons, or immorality, impurity or greed] the wrath of God shows itself upon the sons of disobedience.” The sons of disobedience are no longer a mystery. The Greek word translated disobedience is ἀπειθείας (a form of ἀπείθεια). God has consigned all people to disobedience (ἀπείθειαν, another form of ἀπείθεια) so that he may show mercy to them all. The sons of disobedience are old humans, they have not been born from above: Therefore do not be partakers with them, for you were at one time darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light…^[6]Paul made this same contrast between the old human (παλαιὸν ἄνθρωπον) and the new (νέον, a form of νέος) for the Colossians (3:7-11 NET):

You also lived your lives in this way at one time, when you used to live among them (ἐν τούτοις; literally “in these”). But now, put off all such things as anger, rage, malice, slander, abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old (παλαιὸν, a form of παλαιός) man (ἄνθρωπον, a form of ἄνθρωπος) with its practices and have been clothed with the new man that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Here there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.

I think the Bible has been translated by those who expect most people to spend eternity in the lake of fire. I don’t intend to dispute that view. On the contrary, the idea I’m experimenting with here is that all old humans are condemned to spend eternity in the lake of fire. How many new humans spend eternity with Jesus and his Father? That depends on God’s mercy—I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion^[7]—up to and including all—For God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.^[8]

I’m a long way, however, from accepting Universalism, demanding that He save all. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,^[9] was a perfect opportunity to specify few, many or all. Neither Paul nor the Holy Spirit chose to do so. Enter through the narrow gate, Jesus said, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. But the gate is narrow and the way is difficult (τεθλιμμένη, a form of θλίβω) that leads to life, and there are few who find it.^[10] In the past I took this to mean that ultimately relatively few will be saved. Now I think differently.

Since y^ehôvâh informed Cain, you must subdue [sin],^[11] and Moses commanded Israel to choose life,^[12] salvation was determined by the desire, or willingness, of human beings, whosoever will. The result, there are few who find it, is what Jesus became human to change. Someone asked Him directly, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” Speaking in real time before his crucifixion and resurrection, He said, “Exert every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able (ἰσχύσουσιν, a form of ἰσχύω) to. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, then you will stand outside and start to knock on the door and beg him, ‘Lord, let us in!’ But he will answer you, ‘I don’t know where you come from.’” ^[13] I tell you the solemn truth, Jesus also said, I am the door for the sheep.^[14] As I considered both of these together I wondered what door the head of the house gets up and shuts.

Surely, it was not Jesus but whosoever will. The most immediate reason why the many could not enter was the shut door, but a survey of the word ἰσχύω suggests they were not good enough,^[15] not strong enough,^[16] not healthy enough,^[17] not vigilant enough^[18] and they would not endure long enough^[19] in their own strength. And so Jesus became the door. No one can come to me, He said, unless the Father who sent me draws him…^[20] And I, Jesus promised, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.^[21]

I’ve written elsewhere what I think about the Greek words translated draws and draw relative to “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling.” And I don’t think much of the old human’s free will in any sense beyond contingent choices. I certainly don’t think it is sacrosanct to God. It wasn’t sacrosanct when He gave old humans over in the desires of their hearts to impurity,^[22] to dishonorable passions,^[23] and to a depraved mind.^[24] Why should it be sacrosanct when one is born from above, not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God?^[25]

Nor can I embrace patristic universalism. I can’t believe in a purgatorial hell. In fact, I think the Old Testament narrates how God has gone out of his way to demonstrate over and over again that the best that is ever achieved by punishment, or by the fear of punishment, is hypocrisy. Jesus said (John 3:5-7, 10 NET):

I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’…Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don’t understand these things?

J.W. Hanson painted the early universalist church fathers as elitists in his book Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years (p. 56):

Some of the fathers who had achieved a faith in Universalism, were influenced by the mischievous notion that it was to be held esoterically, cherished in secret, or only communicated to the chosen few,–withheld from the multitude, who would not appreciate it, and even that the opposite error would, with some sinners, be more beneficial than the truth….Origen said that “all that might be said on this theme is not expedient to explain now, or to all. For the mass need no further teaching on account of those who hardly through the fear of aeonian punishment restrain their recklessness.”

I’m not oblivious to Origen’s concern, though it seems to me that someone who would return to sin because God is merciful really hasn’t finished with sin yet. And I consider myself the rankest of the rank and file. On the other hand Mr. Hanson characterized many of the patristic fathers as liars whenever they taught endless punishment (p. 59):

There can be no doubt that many of the fathers threatened severer penalties than they believed would be visited on sinners, impelled to utter them because they considered them to be more salutary with the masses than the truth itself. So that we may believe that some of the patristic writers who seem to teach endless punishment did not believe it. Others, we know, who accepted universal restoration employed, for the sake of deterring sinners, threats that are inconsistent, literally interpreted, with that doctrine.

I began this second round considering condemnation or judgment after I read John F. Walvoord’s commentary on Revelation 20 online (Revelation 20:11, 12 NET).

Then I saw a large white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened – the book of life. So the dead were judged (ἐκρίθησαν, a form of κρίνω) by what was written in the books, according to their deeds.

I’m not aware of ἐκρίθησαν translated condemned in any English Bible, but that is what Mr. Walvoord took it to mean: “Their standing posture means that they are now about to be sentenced.” John’s vision continued (Revelation 20:13-15 NET):

The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged (ἐκρίθησαν, a form of κρίνω) according to his deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death – the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.

Mr. Walvoord wrote, “The summary judgment is pronounced in verse 14 that ‘death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.’ In a word, this means that all who died physically and were in Hades, the intermediate state, are here found unworthy and cast into the lake of fire.”

I was shocked that the doctrine I’ve heard my whole life was based on a rationalist assumption that death and hell, or Death and Hades, were not entities that might be thrown into the lake of fire but merely euphemisms for “all who died physically and were in Hades.” And this in an essay where literal was used 35 times, literally 12 times and literalness twice, mostly relative to the thousand years, but it was a consistent theme of Mr. Walvoord’s argument. He wrote for example:

[Barnes] further holds that Revelation 20 should not be taken literally, and interposes the words “as if” before the judgment and resurrection of 20:4 as well as with the binding of Satan. This would seem to be adding to the book, so strongly forbidden in 22:18.

But Mr. Walvoord’s understanding of Revelation 20:13-15 presents us with the following rewrite:

Revelation 20:14, 15 NET	Revelation 20:14, 15 John F. Walvoord
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death – the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire.	Then the dead that were in Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death – the lake of fire. No one’s name was found written in the book of life, so they were all thrown into the lake of fire.

Mr Walvoord concluded, without a Scripture quotation or any fear of contradiction:

If the point of view be adopted that the book of life was originally the book of all living from which have been expunged the names of those who departed from life on earth without salvation, it presents a sad picture of a blank space where their names could have been written for all eternity as the objects of divine grace. Though they are judged by their works, it is evident that their destiny is determined primarily by their lack of spiritual life. When the fact is contemplated that Jesus Christ in His death reconciled the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19) and that He died for the reprobate as well as for the elect, it is all the more poignant that these now raised from the dead are cast into the lake of fire. Their ultimate destiny of eternal punishment is not, in the last analysis, because God wished it but because they would not come to God for the grace which He freely offered.

What about the dead in the sea? I think we can accept that the sea is not an entity that might be thrown into the lake of fire. I would assume that the names of some, up to and including all, were written in the book of life. Mr. Walvoord changed the subject:

A special problem is introduced by the resurrection of those who were cast into the sea with the presumption that their bodies have disintegrated and have been scattered over a wide area geographically. The special mention of the sea is occasioned by the fact that resurrection usually implies resurrection from the grave. The resurrection of the dead from the sea merely reaffirms that all the dead will be raised regardless of the condition of their bodies.

I would assume though Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire, the names of some of their dead, up to and including all, were written in the book of life. The idea I’m experimenting with is that the new humans born of God are spared while the old humans, in a one for one correspondence, are judged according to their deeds and thrown into the lake of fire. And this, because the names in the book of life are not written there by some who came “to God for the grace which He freely offered” but by the mercy of God (Romans 9:15, 16 NET):

I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion [e.g., “whosoever will”], but on God who shows mercy.

Back to Romans, Part 54

Back to Sowing to the Flesh, Part 2

^[1] Enter through (διὰ) the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through (δι᾿, another form of διὰ) it (Matthew 7:13 NET).

^[2] Romans 1:28 (NKJV)

^[3] Romans 1:28b (NET)

^[4] Ephesians 5:6b (NET)

^[5] Ephesians 5:5b (NET)

^[6] Ephesians 5:7, 8 (NET)

^[7] Romans 9:15 (NET)

^[8] Romans 11:32 (NET)

^[9] 1 Timothy 1:15b (NET)

^[10] Matthew 7:13, 14 (NET)

^[11] Genesis 4:7b (NET)

^[12] Deuteronomy 30:19 (NET)

^[13] Luke 13:23-25 (NET)

^[14] John 10:7 (NET)

^[15] It is no longer good (ἰσχύει, another form of ἰσχύω) for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people (Matthew 5:13b NET).

^[16] No one was strong enough (ἴσχυεν, another form of ἰσχύω) to subdue him (Mark 5:4b NET).

^[17] Those who are healthy (ἰσχύοντες, another form of ἰσχύω) don’t need a physician… (Matthew 9:12b NET)

^[18] Couldn’t (ἴσχυσας, another form of ἰσχύω) you stay awake for one hour? (Mark 14:37b NET)

^[19] I am able (ἰσχύω) to do all things through the one who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13 NET).

^[20] John 6:44a (NET)

^[21] John 12:32 (NET)

^[22] Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

^[23] Romans 1:26 (NET)

^[24] Romans 1:28 (NET)

^[25] John 1:13 (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 6

Posted on December 22, 2014 by admin

There is another way I might view the wrath of God…revealed from heaven against [my] ungodliness and unrighteousness,^[1] a way more in keeping with my normal method of Bible study—superficially more in keeping with it. I confess that, Although [I] claimed to be wise, [I] became [a fool] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings…^[2] I am one of them of which Paul wrote: Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.^[3]

The Greek word translated dishonor above is ἀτιμάζεσθαι (a form of ἀτιμάζω). Jesus told a parable about a man who planted a vineyard and leased it out to tenant farmers (Mark 12:2-5 NET):

At harvest time he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his portion of the crop. But those tenants seized his slave, beat (ἔδειραν, a form of δέρω) him, and sent him away empty-handed. So he sent another slave to them again. This one they struck on the head and treated outrageously (ἠτίμασαν, another form of ἀτιμάζω). He sent another, and that one they killed. This happened to many others, some of whom were beaten (δέροντες, another form of δέρω), others killed.

They beat (δείραντες, another form of δέρω) this one too, Luke’s Gospel narrative reads, treated him outrageously (ἀτιμάσαντες, another form of ἀτιμάζω), and sent him away empty-handed.^[4] So the word translated dishonor in Romans 1:24 was associated here with a beating. This association is explicit in Acts. The highest legal court in Jerusalem summoned the apostles and had them beaten (δείραντες, another form of δέρω). Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus and released them. So they left the council rejoicing because they had been considered worthy to suffer dishonor (ἀτιμασθῆναι, another form of ἀτιμάζω) for the sake of the name.^[5]

I’ve considered that my masochism is one of the potential meanings of the wrath of God revealed from heaven. It is a desire of my heart. It could be considered impurity. It isn’t hard to find people online who propose that sexual desire, especially desire the author considers deviant, is demon inspired if not a symptom of demon possession. But if I plug that interpretation into Paul’s statement—Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to masochism, to beat their bodies among themselves—I am not convinced or convicted of sin. I am excited—sexually. The implication then, if this interpretation were true and I so blindly given over to the desire of my heart, is that I remain under the wrath of God.

Such a conclusion, though disheartening, isn’t rationally problematic if I believe that my salvation is partially, if not largely, predicated upon my desire and effort. I’ve followed this line of reasoning before, and it led inexorably to my taking charge again of my righteousness without altering my natural responses at all. If I believe however that it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy,^[6] this conclusion functions something like a reductio ad absurdum. It gives me pause to examine the Scriptures in more detail.

Jesus had an interesting exchange with some in the temple courts (John 8:46-49 NET):

Who among you can prove me guilty of any sin? If I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? The one who belongs to God listens and responds to God’s words. You don’t listen and respond, because you don’t belong to God.”

The Judeans replied, “Aren’t we correct in saying that you are a Samaritan (Σαμαρίτης, a form of Σαμαρείτης) and are possessed by a demon?” Jesus answered, “I am not possessed by a demon, but I honor my Father – and yet you dishonor (ἀτιμάζετε, another form of ἀτιμάζω) me.

Here dishonor (ἀτιμάζετε, another form of ἀτιμάζω) meant name-calling and an accusation that Jesus was possessed by a demon. Jesus took issue most directly with the latter: I am not possessed by a demon, He said. As it pertains to impurity then, I have an instance where people with religious minds accused Jesus—for being, doing and speaking the word of God—of being possessed by a demon because they disagreed with Him. He didn’t comment about being called a “Samaritan” but I think even that is worth some consideration here.

Jesus asked a Samaritan (Σαμαρείας, a form of Σαμάρεια) woman for some water to drink, though that may be difficult to discern in translation: Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.”^[7] Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink (ASV, KJV). Jesus says to her, Give me to drink (DNT). Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink of water” (GWT, TEV). Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink” (NKJV, NAB). Jesus saith to her, ‘Give me to drink’ (YLT). Where I hear this as a request is in the woman’s response.

So the Samaritan (Σαμαρῖτις, a form of Σαμαρεῖτις) woman said to him, “How can you – a Jew – ask (αἰτεῖς, a form of αἰτέω) me, a Samaritan (Σαμαρίτιδος, another form of Σαμαρεῖτις) woman, for water to drink?”^[8] The Greek word αἰτεῖς might have been translated beg. Jesus’ actual tone didn’t convey the gruff and imperious command that many English translations of his request imply. “Will you give me a drink?” (NIV) and “Would you please give me a drink of water?” (CEV) and “Would you give me a drink of water?” (TMSG) and “Please give me a drink,” (ISVNT) are truer to his tone in this particular case despite the fact that the statement was transmuted into a question or please was added to text.

Jesus asked her to give Him some water (MSNT) strayed even further from a word-for-word translation yet also carries the more accurate tone. Give me to drink (δός μοι πεῖν) is the same basic construction in Greek as Give us today (δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον) in our plaintive cry for our daily ration of God, the bread of life^[9]—Give us today our daily bread^[10]—a sinner’s only hope for righteousness. I don’t think anyone who prays thus with even the slightest understanding thinks it a gruff and imperious command.

Jesus’ request surprised the Samaritan woman. John, wanting his readers to understand her surprise, added: For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans;^[11] or, For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.^[12] The note in the NET explains: “The background to the statement use nothing in common is the general assumption among Jews that the Samaritans were ritually impure or unclean. Thus a Jew who used a drinking vessel after a Samaritan had touched it would become ceremonially unclean.” This sounds as if the Jews were prejudiced against the Samaritans. And, ultimately, I want to assert that they were. But I need to take the long way around.

The common assumption, if I say that Jews were prejudiced against the Samaritans, is that they misjudged the Samaritans. But they were fairly accurate in their judgment of Samaritans according to Scripture (2 Kings 17:6a, 24-29, 32, 33 NET).

In the ninth year of Hoshea’s reign, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the people of Israel to Assyria…The king of Assyria brought foreigners from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the Israelites. They took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. When they first moved in, they did not worship the Lord. So the Lord sent lions among them and the lions were killing them. The king of Assyria was told, “The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land.” So the king of Assyria ordered, “Take back one of the priests whom you deported from there. He must settle there and teach them the requirements of the God of the land.” So one of the priests whom they had deported from Samaria went back and settled in Bethel. He taught them how to worship the Lord.

But each of these nations made its own gods and put them in the shrines on the high places that the people of Samaria had made. Each nation did this in the cities where they lived….At the same time they worshiped the Lord. They appointed some of their own people to serve as priests in the shrines on the high places. They were worshiping the Lord and at the same time serving their own gods in accordance with the practices of the nations from which they had been deported.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below [Table], the Lord commanded Israel. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God…[Table]^[13] The Jews’ judgment qualifies as prejudice, I think, because they misjudged themselves and the righteousness of God. Jesus addressed their prejudice obliquely yet forcefully.

If you had known the gift of God, He said to a descendant of foreign idolaters, and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked (ᾔτησας, another form of αἰτέω) him, and he would have given you living water.^[14] So, without reproach, while the Samaritan woman was ignorant of the gift of God and who Jesus is, the implication is fairly clear that this living water was hers for the asking. And as we’ll discover momentarily the gift of God did not merely belong to God, the gift is God in the person of the Holy Spirit.

This is scandalous to a religious mind. I feel like I’m back in the garden, but instead of a serpent offering a lying promise to be like God, Jesus offered God Himself—not to Eve the innocent or a pious Jewish woman—to a Samaritan—not as a reward for good behavior but as the only source of goodness: Now as Jesus was starting out on his way, someone ran up to him, fell on his knees, and said, “Good (ἀγαθέ, a form of ἀγαθός) teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good (ἀγαθόν, another form of ἀγαθός)? No one is good (ἀγαθὸς) except God alone.^[15].

“Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you?^[16] At first I thought she was either not particularly clever or deliberately obtuse, not unlike Jesus’ disciples when he told them to beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.^[17]

They had forgotten to bring bread on their journey.^[18] So they began to discuss this among themselves, saying, “It is because we brought no bread.”^[19] When Jesus overheard their discussion, He chided them humorously (Matthew 16:8-12 NET).

“You who have such little faith (ὀλιγόπιστοι, a form of ὀλιγόπιστος)! Why are you arguing among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many baskets you took up? How could you not understand that I was not speaking to you about bread? But beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!” Then they understood that he had not told them to be on guard against the yeast in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Why didn’t He say teaching in the first place? I assume He wanted to reinforce his own teaching on the social construction of reality: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen.”^[20] But Jesus didn’t chide the Samaritan woman.

So I began to consider that she was cagey with this Jew who shouldn’t be drinking from her bucket, probably shouldn’t be speaking with her at all, much less about a gift of God. Besides, she was educated enough to know that they spoke together at Jacob’s well,^[21] and indoctrinated enough to have adopted him as her ancestor (πατρὸς, literally father). So Jesus continued by contrasting living water (ὕδωρ ζῶν) to the water from Jacob’s well.

Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain (πηγὴ) of water springing up to eternal life.^[22] My people have committed a double wrong, the Lord spoke through Jeremiah, they have rejected me, the fountain of life-giving water (Septuagint: πηγὴν ὕδατος ζωῆς), and they have dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.^[23] You are the one in whom Israel may find hope, Jeremiah prayed. All who leave you will suffer shame. Those who turn away from you will be consigned to the nether world. For they have rejected you, the Lord (Hebrew: y^ehôvâh), the fountain of life (Septuagint: πηγὴν ζωῆς).^[24]

Sir, give me this water, the Samaritan woman said, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.^[25] Surely this time, I thought, Jesus should have said something to her like, Do not work for the food that disappears, but for the food that remains to eternal life – the food which the Son of Man will give to you.^[26] But Jesus disagreed. Go call your husband and come back here,^[27] He said instead.

What? Where did that come from?

I have no husband,^[28] the woman said. The Greek is actually ἀπεκρίθη ἡ γυνὴ καὶ εἶπεν, The woman answered and said (NKJV). But even that translation isn’t quite sufficient. As I stare at the Greek I begin to think that John or the Holy Spirit has tried to communicate something of the dynamic of this conversation between a man and a woman.

Reference	NET	Greek
John 4:7	Jesus said to her…	λέγει αὐτῇ ὁ Ἰησοῦς
John 4:9	So the Samaritan woman said to him…	λέγει οὖν αὐτῷ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ Σαμαρῖτις
John 4:10	Jesus answered her…	ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ
John 4:11	the woman said to him…	λέγει αὐτῷ ἡ γυνή
John 4:13	Jesus replied…	ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ
John 4:15	The woman said to him…	λέγει πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡ γυνή
John 4:16	He said to her…	λέγει αὐτῇ
John 4:17	The woman replied…	ἀπεκρίθη ἡ γυνὴ καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ

I take λέγει αὐτῇ ὁ Ἰησοῦς (Jesus said to her) as my point of departure for normal conversation. The Samaritan woman (ἡ γυνὴ ἡ Σαμαρῖτις) responded in kind, λέγει οὖν αὐτῷ (literally, “said then to him”). But Jesus opened up to her, ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ (literally, “answered Jesus and said to her”). I say He “opened up” because εἶπεν (a form of ῥέω), though legitimately translated said, means to pour forth. The woman however remained guarded, λέγει αὐτῷ ἡ γυνή. Undeterred, Jesus remained open, ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῇ. The woman began to open up, λέγει πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡ γυνή. Perhaps I’m reaching here, but πρὸς αὐτὸν rather than simply αὐτῷ seems to accentuate the fact that she spoke to him. Abruptly, Jesus closed up again, λέγει αὐτῇ, back to normal conversation, and the woman opened up to Him, ἀπεκρίθη ἡ γυνὴ καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, and said, I have no husband.

Then Jesus commended her. Again, this may be difficult to hear in English translations: Thou saidst well, I have no husband (ASV); That’s right (CEV), Thou hast well said, I have not a husband (DNT); You’re right when you say that you don’t have a husband (GWT); You are quite right in saying, ‘I don’t have a husband’ (ISVNT); Thou hast well said, I have no husband (KJV); You rightly say that you have no husband (MSNT); You have well said, ‘I have no husband’ (NKJV); You are right when you say you don’t have a husband (TEV); That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband’ (TMSG); Well didst thou say—A husband I have not (YLT); You are right when you say you have no husband (NIV); You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband’ (NAB); Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband.’^[29]

The Greek is καλῶς εἶπας ὅτι ἄνδρα οὐκ ἔχω (literally, “beautifully you poured forth that husband you not have”). Traditionally καλῶς is translated as the adverbial form (well) of ἀγαθός (good), even καλός (beautiful) is translated as if it were ἀγαθός (good). Traditions have origins. J.A. McGuckin^[30] credits Maximos^[31] with the insight: “The Beautiful is identical with The Good, for all things seek the beautiful and the good at every opportunity, and there is no being that does not participate in them.” Maximos lived half a millennium after John and the Holy Spirit chose καλῶς. I want to experiment with a pre-traditional reading of some Scriptures.

Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce beautiful (καλὸν, a form of καλός) fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.^[32] In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your beautiful (καλὰ, another form of καλός) deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven.^[33] In the same way, every good (ἀγαθὸν, a form of ἀγαθός) tree bears beautiful (καλοὺς, another form of καλός) fruit, but the bad (σαπρὸν, a form of σαπρός) tree bears bad (πονηροὺς, a form of πονηρός) fruit. A good (ἀγαθὸν, a form of ἀγαθός) tree is not able to bear bad (πονηροὺς, a form of πονηρός) fruit, nor a bad (σαπρὸν, a form of σαπρός) tree to bear beautiful (καλοὺς, another form of καλός) fruit. Every tree that does not bear beautiful (καλὸν, a form of καλός) fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.^[34]

Rather than a metaphor about bad fruit (καρποὺς πονηροὺς) what follows is a vivid contrast of Jesus’ beautiful good with the Pharisees’ pious good (Matthew 12:10-14 NET):

A man was there [in the Synagogue] who had a withered hand. And they asked Jesus, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” so that they could accuse him. He said to them, “Would not any one of you, if he had one sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath, take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! So it is lawful to do beautifully (καλῶς) on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and it was restored, as healthy as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted against him, as to how they could assassinate him.

Some explanation why I called—the Pharisees went out and plotted (or, counseled) against him, as to how they could assassinate (or, destroy) him—a pious good rather than evil is in order. Jesus came to make atonement for sin but had not yet accomplished it in this period of transition. There is nothing beautiful about plotting to kill or destroy a man as there is nothing beautiful about running a man and woman through with a javelin.^[35] But Phinehas was commended for the latter (Numbers 25:11-13 NET):

“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. Therefore, announce: ‘I am going to give to him my covenant of peace. So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, and has made atonement for the Israelites.’”

The Pharisees had this Scriptural precedent when faced with Jesus’ willful and recalcitrant desecration of the Sabbath (as they perceived it). I could go on and on about the beautiful good but will entertain only a few more examples here (Luke 6:26-31 NET):

“Woe to you when all people speak (εἴπωσιν, another form of ῥέω) beautifully (καλῶς) of you, for their ancestors did the same things to the false prophets.

“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies, do beautifully (καλῶς) to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well, and from the person who takes away your coat, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks you, and do not ask for your possessions back from the person who takes them away. Treat others in the same way that you would want them to treat you.

I am the beautiful (καλός) shepherd, Jesus said. The beautiful (καλός) shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.^[36] And Paul’s words make so much more sense if I recognize that he desired Jesus’ beautiful good rather than the Pharisees’ pious good,^[37] of which he was already a master (Romans 7:15-21 NET):

For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is beautiful (καλός). But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good (ἀγαθόν, a form of ἀγαθός) lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the beautiful (καλὸν, a form of καλός), but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good (ἀγαθόν, a form of ἀγαθός) I want, but I do the very evil (κακὸν, a form of κακός) I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. So, I find the law that when I want to do the beautiful (καλὸν, a form of καλός), evil (κακὸν, a form of κακός) is present with me.

I’m not advocating for a new translation of καλός and καλῶς. As words go beautiful is as slippery as good. I’m not likely to heal a withered hand in a synagogue or church any Saturday or Sunday soon, something I would wholeheartedly consider a beautiful good. And it is a fair question how beautiful I feel blessing those who curse me, praying for those who mistreat me, with both cheeks red and stinging, missing my coat and my shirt. But when the One who commended Phinehas made atonement Himself and told us to live this way instead, I think it is important to see it as a beautiful good.

I had to go this roundabout way to get over my tendency to hear sarcasm and ridicule in Jesus’ voice. Now I believe He took his roundabout course to find a reason to commend the Samaritan woman: This you said truthfully^[38] (τοῦτο ἀληθὲς εἴρηκας). And then He added that she in her beautiful truthfulness was exactly the kind of worshipper his Father is seeking: a time is coming – and now is here – when the true (ἀληθινοὶ, a form of ἀληθινός) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit (πνεύματι, a form of πνεῦμα) and truth (ἀληθείᾳ, a form of ἀλήθεια), for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. God is spirit (πνεῦμα), and the people who worship him must worship in spirit (πνεύματι, a form of πνεῦμα) and truth^[39] (ἀληθείᾳ, a form of ἀλήθεια).

Now I can back up and hear Jesus’ other statements for what they are. “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully!”^[40] I would have no way of knowing this about the woman if Jesus hadn’t said it. More to the point, He demonstrated something important for her.

“Sir, I see that you are a prophet,”^[41] she said. Taking Jesus at face value allows me to take this woman at face value as well. Recognizing a prophet before her, she broached the single most pressing religious issue on her mind: Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.^[42] I have no idea how she was treated when she climbed the mountain in Samaria to worship God. I can only imagine how she might have been treated if this Samaritan woman had dared to journey to Jerusalem to worship God.

The priest sent back to teach her ancestors was from the northern kingdom of divided Israel. From its very beginning Jeroboam, the first king, had changed the Lord’s decrees (1 Kings 12:26-32 NET):

Jeroboam then thought to himself: “Now the Davidic dynasty could regain the kingdom. If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem, their loyalty could shift to their former master, King Rehoboam of Judah. They might kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.” After the king had consulted with his advisers, he made two golden calves. Then he said to the people, “It is too much trouble for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look, Israel, here are your gods who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” He put one in Bethel and the other in Dan. This caused Israel to sin; the people went to Bethel and Dan to worship the calves.

He built temples on the high places and appointed as priests people who were not Levites. Jeroboam inaugurated a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival celebrated in Judah. On the altar in Bethel he offered sacrifices to the calves he had made. In Bethel he also appointed priests for the high places he had made.

I could have pummeled this woman with chapter and verse after chapter and verse of Scripture proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jerusalem was the place where people must worship God. Jesus did not. All He said on the subject was: Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what (ὃ) you do not know. We worship what (ὃ) we know, because salvation is from the Jews.^[43]

I don’t know why ὃ was translated what rather than who or whom. I hope it’s a subtlety of the Greek language, for Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship^[44] is very near the beginning of the translation of Scripture into English. I would hate to think that the translators made a conscious decision to turn the eyes of the English-speaking world to doctrine and dogma at the very moment when Jesus turned his away. You Samaritans don’t really know the one you worship. But we Jews do know the God we worship… (CEV) You worship One of whom you know nothing. We worship One whom we know… (MSNT) You Samaritans do not really know whom you worship; but we Jews know whom we worship… (TEV)

Crouching furtively in the Samaritan woman’s conundrum was a desire to worship God and a concern to do it as He desired. Jesus heard that desire and concern, and responded to it: 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.”^[45]

I don’t get the impression that she understood Him. Then, I’ve spent my adult life trying everything from obeying the law to faith alone. I suppose my current understanding of worshipping the Father in spirit and truth is living honestly by the Holy Spirit. The Samaritan woman did reveal a profound and faithful hope: “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” ^[46]

Fresh from this knowledge of God I can look at the original Scriptures with fresh eyes. In Jesus’ parable about the owner of the vineyard ἠτίμασαν and ἀτιμάσαντες (forms of ἀτιμάζω) associated with forms of δέρω described slaves who were beaten up. I have been beaten up before. I felt pain, anger and humiliation but no sexual excitement whatsoever. I can’t dismiss the judicial beating associated with ἀτιμάζω in Acts 5:40 and 41 quite so easily.

I typed “judicial whipping fantasy” into Google and “Maragana Girl, Chapter 12 – The Punishment in the School Auditorium”^[47] by caligula97236 came up (second, actually, scanning the titles quickly I mistook “Judicial Spanking in Taiwan” for actual rather than fantasy punishment). It is a tale about twenty naked male criminals humiliated and switched by female medical students and police officers as an educational spectacle for teenage girls. It is couched in terms of how wrong this was and in need of reform.

There is no denying that the judicial or punishment whipping fantasy is part of sado-masochistic lore. It is part of the reason I attempted to distinguish sadism from masochism in the first essay of this series. I recall my own state of mind whenever I was the dominant masochist, as I call it:

First, and not incidentally, was the sight of a beloved woman’s body laid out for my enjoyment. I measured each stroke of the whip by the sound it made, the mark it left on her beautiful flesh, how she flinched, and the whimpers or gasps she vocalized as a result. My goal was to whip her in tempo (both velocity and frequency) with her own growing euphoria, the same euphoria I had known at her hand as a submissive masochist. But beyond any goal or thought of the future was the sheer pleasure of the moment, sharing that extreme intimacy with her.

I have no access to the mind of the judicial torturer who beat Jesus’ disciples. I suspect that it was not what I have just described. As I perceive it a judicial torturer is the business end of an institutional belief that certain actions, words or thoughts deserve, or may be modified for the good through, the application of physical pain and social humiliation (though I suppose the hope is that the fear of physical pain and social humiliation will achieve the latter end more often than not).

Fiery hell seems to be presented in terms of physical pain. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable…For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.^[48] The prospect, that so offended Ingmar Bergman, of the dead being raised and given new imperishable, immortal bodies only to suffer for an eternity in hell lends credence in my mind to the deservedness of physical pain. Though I admit, I tend to abstract fiery hell as a metaphor for knowing, face to face beyond any doubt, that God is Love and then being cast out from his omnipresence forever. In that sense I can see physical pain as salutary, a welcome distraction from the actual horror of the situation.

The application or the fear of the application of physical pain and social humiliation inspires many to a hypocritical compliance with many kinds of social norms. It will never produce goodness: No one is good (ἀγαθὸς) except God alone.^[49] The Holy Spirit mocked a faith in physical pain and social humiliation when Jesus’ disciples were beaten to conform their behavior to Jewish social norms. He filled them with his joy^[50] (χαρά) instead so they walked away from their beatings rejoicing (χαίροντες, a form of χαίρω) because they had been considered worthy to suffer dishonor (ἀτιμασθῆναι, another form of ἀτιμάζω) for the sake of the name.^[51] Viewed this way, my concern that my masochism, dominant or submissive, is the wrath of God revealed from heaven seems as absurd as Jesus’ disciples fretting because they had brought no bread.^[52]

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 7

Back to Apostles and Prophets, Part 2

Back to Forgiven or Passed Over? Part 1

Back to Apostles and Prophets, Part 3

Back to Jesus the Leg-breaker, Part 1

Back to Young, Virginal or Single

Back to Romans, Part 76

Back to Romans, Part 79

Back to Romans, Part 80

Back to Paul’s Religious Mind Revisited, Part 3

Back to To Make Holy, Part 1

Back to Who Am I? Part 6

Back to Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 3

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 8

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 11

Back to To Make Holy, Part 4

Back to Hypocrisy

Back to Cobwebs

Back to Atonement, Part 2

Back to A Monotonous Cycle Revisited, Part 2

Back to To Make Holy, Part 8

Back to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Part 3

Back to Psalm 22, Part 5

Back to Paul’s OT Quotes – Romans 3:10-18

Back to Romans, Part 55

Back to Christianity, Part 11

Back to Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Part 10

Back to Christ-Centered Preaching, Chapter 4, Part 3

Back to Matthew 8:23-34

Back to Exploration, Part 2

^[1] Romans 1:18 (NET)

^[2] Romans 1:22, 23 (NET)

^[3] Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

^[4] Luke 20:11b (NET)

^[5] Acts 5:40, 41 (NET) Table

^[6] Romans 9:16 (NET) Table

^[7] John 4:7b (NET)

^[8] John 4:9a (NET) Table

^[9] John 6:25-71 (NET)

^[10] Matthew 6:11 (NET)

^[11] John 4:9b (NET) [Table] The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had Σαμαρίταις here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had σαμαρειταις.

^[12] John 4:9b (NKJV) Table

^[13] Exodus 20:4, 5a (NET)

^[14] John 4:10 (NET)

^[15] Mark 10:17, 18 (NET) also Luke 18:18, 19 (NET)

^[16] John 4:11, 12a (NET)

^[17] Matthew 16:6 (NET)

^[18] Matthew 16:5 (NET)

^[19] Matthew 16:7 (NET)

^[20] Matthew 13:33 (NET)

^[21] John 4:6, 12b

^[22] John 4:13, 14 (NET)

^[23] Jeremiah 2:13 (NET)

^[24] Jeremiah 17:13 (NET)

^[25] John 4:15 (NET)

^[26] John 6:27a (NET)

^[27] John 4:16 (NET)

^[28] John 4:17a (NET)

^[29] John 4:17b (NET)

^[30] http://www.spc.rs/eng/notion_beautiful_ancient_greek_thought_and_its_christian_patristic_transfiguration_ja_mcguckin

^[31] http://ww1.antiochian.org/saint_maximos

^[32] Matthew 3:10 (NET)

^[33] Matthew 5:16 (NET)

^[34] Matthew 7:17-20 (NET)

^[35] Numbers 25:1-9 (NET)

^[36] John 10:11 (NET)

^[37] Philippians 3:1-11 (NET)

^[38] John 4:18b (NET)

^[39] John 4:23, 24 (NET)

^[40] John 4:17b, 18 (NET)

^[41] John 4:19 (NET)

^[42] John 4:20 (NET)

^[43] John 4:21, 22 (NET)

^[44] John 4:22 (KJV)

^[45] John 4:23, 24 (NET)

^[46] John 4:25, 26 (NET)

^[47] http://www.i.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=464923

^[48] 1 Corinthians 15:52, 53 (NET)

^[49] Luke 18:19b (NET)

^[50] Galatians 5:22 (NET)

^[51] Acts 5:41 (NET) Table

^[52] Matthew 16:7 (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 5

Posted on October 18, 2014 by admin

Late that summer before we began our senior years of high school, I asked B if she wanted to have sex for real. “I think you already know the answer to that,” she said. Actually, I didn’t. That’s why I asked. But I took her evasion for a negative answer. When I asked C to the first football game of the season, I imagine that B felt rejected for her refusal. But I had been biding my time all summer, waiting for the seniors who buzzed around C to leave for college. I didn’t have the connection with B, that sense of loyalty and commitment, I had experienced with A.

A week or so after that football game C and I had sex for real for the first time, for both of us. Everything began to change for me. I didn’t think so concretely at the time, but if someone had tried to communicate the fruit of the Spirit to me then, I would have argued that sex with C was my source of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and, after I failed to inaugurate my water brothers scheme, faithfulness and self-control. I had my parents’ example.

They could barely tolerate one another. I might have suspected, since I existed, that sex lacked the staying power I thought, and hoped for, at the time. I reasoned instead that my parents didn’t do it right, and suspected that their religion inhibited and prohibited them from doing it right. Now, I believe that the forbidden fruit was a forbidden fruit, that Adam enjoyed a blessed wedding night and a wonderful afterglow that first Sabbath with his beautiful naked wife (Proverbs 5:18, 19 NET).

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in your young wife –a loving doe, a graceful deer; may her breasts satisfy you at all times, may you be captivated by her love always.

But at seventeen it was all too easy to assume that forbidden fruit was a religious euphemism for sex. I didn’t recognize that new-found faithfulness and self-control as something alien to me, as something quite contrary to my own will in fact. I assumed that I had changed my mind. It was My love for C, after all, that filled me with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, even faithfulness and self-control. Isn’t that what we mean and expect of someone who loves us? He/She is filled with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and even self-control (as it pertains to another) in our presence? And aches for the want of these things in our absence?

It wasn’t long before C and I discovered a mutual attraction for spanking and whipping (though I had more affinity for dominant-submissive role-play than she did). It became a routine part of our foreplay. Yes, I was spanked as a child. No, she was not. But I’m not interested in psychological explanations. What interests me is the wrath of God…revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness.^[1]

Clearly, I did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but [I] became futile in [my] thoughts and [my] senseless [heart was] darkened. Although [I] claimed to be wise, [I] became [a fool] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings…^[2]

I didn’t know that Jesus was with God in the beginning. All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.^[3] I didn’t know that Jesus was fully God.^[4] I had wondered about John’s mysterious Word, thrilled to the sound of the words that sang its praises, but hadn’t connected that Word with Jesus.

Jesus was the Son of God, less than God by definition, I thought. I believed in Jesus as a child but later (about twelve or thirteen) I put childish things away and prayed to God the Father, the true God, instead. Jesus was the bait; God the Father was the switch.^[5] For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,^[6] sounded wonderful in the sales pitch. When I learned that faith wasn’t enough, that I had to live as a child of God, the deal changed dramatically: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.^[7] And Jesus being found in fashion as a man, was the image of the good son: he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.^[8] But at the critical moment when Jesus was most obedient to God the Father’s will, God the Father abandoned Him because, Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…^{^[9]} Or, as another story goes, rather than abandoning Jesus on the cross God the Father hurled even more secret punishments at Him, because his death alone was not sufficient to atone for sins.

I feel bad about the previous paragraph, and can’t continue without correcting it. Though the Scriptures are true, my tone was all off. The surprise when Jesus appeared on earth as a man born of a virgin was not that Yahweh had a Son, but that He had a Father: Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am!”^[10] For this is the way God [the Father] loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.^[11] He gave Him in the garden of Eden, and in the burning bush, and on Mount Sinai, and at Bethlehem and on Golgotha. No one [not Adam, not Eve, not Moses] has ever seen God [the Father]. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God [the Father] known.^[12]

When Philip said to Jesus, Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content,^[13] Jesus said: Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his miraculous deeds.^[14] To imagine secret punishments (and one must imagine them since they are not revealed in Scripture) which God the Father hurled at Jesus on the cross, is to misunderstand his salvation (Colossians 1:13-20 NET):

He [God the Father] delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for all things in heaven and on earth were created by him – all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers – all things were created through him and for him. He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him. He is the head of the body, the church, as well as the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, so that he himself may become first in all things. For God [the Father] was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

The reason Jesus’ death on a cross makes any peace or atonement is that God the Father is pleased to accept it as such. Human attempts to rationalize his salvation are rationalizations by definition. And in context Habakkuk had whined that Yahweh/Son/Jesus was too longsuffering (Habakkuk 1:13 NET):

You are too just to tolerate evil; you are unable to condone wrongdoing. So why do you put up with such treacherous people? Why do you say nothing when the wicked devour those more righteous than they are?

The point here is that He was putting up with such treacherous people. It is not particularly prudent then to turn it around and use poetic language—Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity—to make a rule forbidding God the Father from drawing near to, or compelling Him to turn away from, God the Son at the moment He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God,^[15] when Scripture states otherwise (Psalm 22:21b-24 NET):

You have answered me! I will declare your name to my countrymen! In the middle of the assembly I will praise you! You loyal followers of the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! All you descendants of Israel, stand in awe of him! For he did not despise or detest the suffering of the oppressed; he did not ignore him; when he cried out to him, he responded.

This is the very Psalm Jesus quoted from the cross, when he cried out in Aramaic, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”^[16] Psalm 22 is a heartrendingly accurate prophecy of the death of Yahweh the Son of God from his own point of view. Whether one believes that it was a psalm of David or not, it was clearly part of the Scripture translated into Greek in the Septuagint a couple of centuries before Jesus died in Jerusalem. It is fitting that He, who lived by every word that comes from the mouth of God,^[17] died with that word in his heart and mind as well.

But even years later after I returned to faith, I strove with every Zen particle of my being to let patience have her perfect work, that [I] may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.^[18] When I read my sister’s annotated Shakespeare and realized for the first time that, “Wherefore art thou Romeo,” means, “why is your name Montague,” I got my first Bible translated in my own tongue. I was shocked to learn that wanting nothing meant lacking in nothing (James 1:4 NASB):

And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

The King James translation had made sense to me. Nothing angered my father more than my wanting something from him. I assumed that God the Father was the same. Wanting nothing was difficult but possible to achieve, I thought. But lacking in nothing? How could I achieve that through some form of meditation or patience or endurance? It was crazy stuff.

I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. For I am God, and not a man—the Holy One among you.^[19] I didn’t believe it at first. I thought it was some evil introduced into a modern translation. So I checked the Bible, you know, the King James version: I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee:^[20]

In my mind to carry out fierce anger was the essence of God the Father, the Lord Jehovah. How could He turn it around and blame it on man? How did He dare try to distinguish God, the Holy One among you, from man with a statement like, I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again? It was nuts.

So, I was guilty. I had a man-made image of God in my mind, one much more like a man—my father^[21]—than like God revealed in Scripture. And I endeavored to worship that image, even after I prayed, if You are there I want to know You. Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.^[22] I have connected this to, Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body” – but the immoral person sins against his own body.^[23] So, I have considered unfaithfulness to a spouse to be the impurity to which God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves.

In an absolute sense taking up with C may have been a matter of infidelity to B or A, but in dynamic terms I was returning to a belief in faithfulness to one woman. Now, I credit that to the Holy Spirit trying mightily to get through to me. At the time I thought it was my doing. After C and before my first wife (or, second, depending on your willingness to receive the law) there were other women, not enough to brag about, just enough to be ashamed of. Two of those women were married. The first was separated from her husband. The second was living with her husband, but I was beyond caring. If this was God’s wrath revealed from heaven I can easily attest to its justice, for I recall it as a time of profound loneliness, a loneliness I have not experienced since though I have mostly been alone (without a wife).

I’ll pick this up again in the next essay.

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 6

Back to Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 3

Back to Who Am I? Part 7

Back to Romans, Part 90

Back to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Part 1

Back to Who Am I? Part 10

Back to Psalm 22, Part 3

Back to Christianity, Part 13

^[1] Romans 1:18 (NET)

^[2] Romans 1:21-23 (NET)

^[3] John 1:2, 3 (NET)

^[4] John 1:1 (NET)

^[5] bait-and-switch

^[6] John 3:16 (KJV)

^[7] Hebrews 12:6 (KJV)

^[8] Philippians 2:8 (KJV)

^[9] Habakkuk 1:13a (KJV)

^[10] John 8:58 (NET)

^[11] John 3:16 (NET)

^[12] John 1:18 (NET)

^[13] John 14:8 (NET)

^[14] John 14:9, 10 (NET)

^[15] 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NET)

^[16] Mark 15:34; Psalm 22:1 (NET)

^[17] Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3 (NET)

^[18] James 1:4 (KJV)

^[19] Hosea 11:9 (NIV)

^[20] Hosea 11:9 (KJV)

^[21] Though to be fair, my father had serious reservations about, and had stopped attending, the church where I became an atheist, and to which I returned after I returned to faith.

^[22] Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

^[23] 1 Corinthians 6:18 (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 2

Posted on February 8, 2014 by admin

I took my mother to see “Saving Mr. Banks” after Christmas. We enjoyed it. It was a well-done adult Disney movie. (I wouldn’t recommend it for children.) We’re both interested in the creative process so a movie about making a movie didn’t seem too masturbatory. It was interesting to consider how P.L. Travers’ reservations about Walt Disney making “Mary Poppins” impacted the final project. And it was enlightening to me that the “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” ending was born not of an idyllic childhood but of a troubled and conflicted relationship with fathers, both Disney’s and Travers’.

My mother and I hadn’t seen a movie together in a theater since “The Sound of Music.” We almost didn’t see that. She read a blurb in the paper that indicated it was about a “young prostitute.” Later she read another that described Maria as a “young postulant” and chided herself for misreading the word. Knowing my mother and her voracious reading habits, I doubt she mistook “postulant” for “prostitute.” I suspect a typo in the first blurb.

We recalled how we had seen “Mary Poppins” at a matinee together with my younger brother and sister in the summer of 1965. We liked it so much we stayed to watch it again. We forgot about (and I missed) my ballgame that evening. That was not easy to live down with my teammates. Missing a game for “Goldfinger,” maybe, but “Mary Poppins” was definitely not cool. I wasn’t permitted to see movies like “Goldfinger.” I didn’t tell my teammates how I spent my time viewing the movie the second time. Almost fifty years later I didn’t tell my mother either.

I was young enough that I still couldn’t predict a storyline. The first time through I thought the movie was ending when Bert and Mary and Jane and Michael looked out over the city after climbing the stairs made of smoke. All movies ended too soon to my childish mind. I did feel the pathos of Mr. Banks’ situation and rejoice at his redemption once I saw it. I just had no idea that it was coming. Of course, “Saving Mr. Banks” informed me that his redemption was a late idea anyway.

What troubled me the second time through the film was Mary Poppins’ righteous indignation over the children’s concern that she had been “sacked.” I didn’t know what “sacked” meant, but could glean from the context that it had something to do with losing her job. But her reaction seemed too over-the-top for something so trifling. (I was eleven.) Before the movie ended the second time, I had satisfied myself with a definition for “sacked” that included Mary Poppins, naked, tied spread-eagle between the pillars in the entry foyer of the Banks’ home, and soundly whipped by Mr. Banks with a buggy whip. That seemed sufficient to justify her reaction.

I laughed rather inappropriately a decade or so later watching the “The Story of O,” when the door at the top of the stairs opened to reveal the scene I had imagined as a child. O had recreated it with the maid to educate a young man who wanted to rescue her from her slavery. He gazed from her sweaty beaten body to the inexplicable look of her face. The disheveled maid regarded him as an unwelcome intruder. Obviously, she would resume beating O the moment he left. This “harsh reality” was just too much for O’s would-be rescuer, so he fled.

I thought I might be dragged off in handcuffs from the Fine Arts Theater for watching “The Story of O.” I thought maybe I deserved to be arrested and charged with something for enjoying it so much. And I felt like that every time I saw it. I saw it three different times with three different male friends. But I was the only one who got it. I knew something at twenty-two I didn’t know at eleven. I didn’t want to beat O, necessarily, I wanted to be her. We shared an intimate secret by then courtesy of my highschool girlfriend; namely, that we could be whipped into a euphoric state of submission.

O was the fictional creation of French author Anne Desclos, a.k.a. Dominique Aury, a.k.a. Pauline Réage. She wrote it for her married lover, twenty-three years her senior. “I wrote it alone, for him, to interest him, to please him, to occupy him….I wasn’t young, I wasn’t pretty, it was necessary to find other weapons…The physical side wasn’t enough. The weapons, alas, were in the head….You’re always looking for ways to make it go on….The story of Scheherazade,^[1] more or less.”^[2] Histoire d’O, its title in French, was first published in 1954.^[3]

“The author said later,” according to Carmela Ciuraru,^[4] “that Story of O, written when she was forty-seven, was based on her own fantasies…Some twenty years after the book came out, she admitted that her own joys and sorrows had informed it, but she had no idea just how much, and did not care to analyze anything. ‘Story of O is a fairy tale for another world,’ she said, ‘a world where some part of me lived for a long time, a world that no longer exists except between the covers of a book.’” Earlier, she had quoted the author, “‘By my makeup and temperament I wasn’t really prey to physical desires…Everything happened in my head.’”^[5]

Ms. Ciuraru also quoted Susan Sontag, “the first major writer to recognize the novel’s merit and to defend it as a significant literary work….In her 1969 essay ‘The Pornographic Imagination,’ Sontag…compared sexual obsession (as expressed by Réage) with religious obsession: two sides of the same coin. ‘Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their minds,’ she wrote.”

I can’t help but see the relationship to πορνεία ^[6] here as Ms. Ciuraru continued to highlight Sontag’s contribution: “In her disciplined effort toward transcendence, O is not unlike a zealot giving herself to God. O’s devotion to the task at hand takes the form of what might be described as spiritual fervor. She loses herself entirely…”^[7] Then she connected this kind of πορνεία to death.

“If O is willing to sustain her devotion all the way through to her own destruction, so be it. She wants to be ‘possessed, utterly possessed, to the point of death,’ to the point that her body and mind are no longer her responsibility.”^[8] I’ve not read the book, and this particular concept of possession was not clear to me from the movie I saw almost forty years ago. One of the friends who saw it with me had a more filmic eye than mine and recognized the genre as horror, a monster movie. Then I saw it as a tale of a damsel in distress who became a monster.

As O questioned whether her master could or would endure for her what she had endured for him, she branded him with an ‘O’ from a hot cigarette holder. (She had been branded for him earlier in the film.) She was both dominant and submissive, top and bottom, and I would be hard-pressed to decide if she was more masochistic or sadistic by my own understanding of the terms (fig. 4).

fig. 4

But in the above description—“She wants to be ‘possessed, utterly possessed, to the point of death,’ to the point that her body and mind are no longer her responsibility”—I perceive some insight from “The Story of O” into πορνεία as an ancient religion of the flesh, primarily as ironic contrast to being led by the Spirit.

Writing to the Corinthians about ancient Israel at Sinai, Paul said, God was not pleased with most of them, for they were cut down in the wilderness. These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did. So do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” And let us not be immoral (πορνεύωμεν, a form of πορνεύω),^[9] as some of them were (ἐπόρνευσαν, a form of πορνεύω), and twenty-three thousand died in a single day.^[10] Paul was fairly explicit here that the Israelites’ play to celebrate the golden calf was πορνεία, the noun which signifies what those who engage in πορνεύω do.

In college, the second time after I gave up writing “The Tripartite Rationality Index,” I read “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, by B.Z. Goldberg ^[11] (the pen name of Benjamin Waife). Goldberg, a journalist and managing editor of the Yiddish “the Day…found time to research in the field of psychology of religion” as he wrote a daily column on foreign affairs. Of Baal, he wrote:

Baal was the one great abstract god of antiquity.^[12]

On the summit of every hill and under every green tree Baal is worshipped—the god whom people knew long before they had heard of Jehovah, the divinity whom they loved long after they had learned of the one and true God.^[13]

Baal was the greatest god of all, but what was Baal? How could one fathom this infinite mystery? Primitive man, limited in his thinking and circumscribed in his imagery, sought a concrete form for the mightiest of the gods. So he looked into the mirror of life and in the image of what he saw therein he created his Baal.^[14]

The consummation, if you will, of this man-made religion, according to Goldberg, is “in the union of the sexes.”^[15]

The songs grow wilder, the contortions of the bodies more frenzied, while the drum and the flute fill the air with passionate tones that steal into the hungry hearts of dancer and worshipper. The dances break up in chaotic revelry. Priestess and worshipper join in the merry-making. Tired, drunk, half-swooning, the dancer is still conscious of one thing: somebody will touch her navel—she must follow—but the coin; he must first give her a coin, the coin that is sacred to Baal. As she is trying to seat herself, hardly able to stand upon her feet, a worshipper touches her. She rises as if awakened from sleep. She follows him blindly into a tent, where both priestess and worshipper consummate the final crying prayer to Baal, the prayer of love.^[16]

The instructor who employed me as a TA was a neo-pagan, a witch in his own words, who worshipped Celtic Baal. The ligature marks on his wrists after a Samhain ^[17] celebration alerted me that πορνεία might be kinkier than Goldberg let on. I didn’t call it πορνεία yet. I only saw the relationship to ancient Israelite religion in the Old Testament.

O as a slave was naked. When worshippers “entered the most sacred chamber and faced the statue of Baal, they would have to present themselves naked before their god.”^[18] (“Only a few laymen ever entered this vestibule, the holy of holies of the great god.”)^[19] Though the translations are disputed by the translators of the NET, the sight Moses witnessed according to the King James translators was that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies).^[20] Or as John Nelson Darby (known as the father of Dispensationalism^[21]) translated the verse: And Moses saw the people how they were stripped; for Aaron had stripped them to [their] shame before their adversaries.^[22]

So in contradistinction to the nakedness of πορνεία as a religion of the flesh, God said, And you must not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness is not exposed.^[23] Beyond that He told Moses to make undergarments for the priests to cover their naked bodies; they must cover from the waist to the thighs.^[24] Consider Leviticus 18:6-18 (NKJV) in this context:

None of you shall approach anyone who is near of kin to him, to uncover his nakedness: I am the Lord [Table].
The nakedness of your father or the nakedness of your mother you shall not uncover. She is your mother; you shall not uncover her nakedness [Table].
The nakedness of your father’s wife you shall not uncover; it is your father’s nakedness. [Table]
The nakedness of your sister, the daughter of your father, or the daughter of your mother, whether born at home or elsewhere, their nakedness you shall not uncover [Table].
The nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for theirs is your own nakedness [Table].
The nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, begotten by your father—she is your sister—you shall not uncover her nakedness [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is near of kin to your father [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is near of kin to your mother [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother. You shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law—she is your son’s wife—you shall not uncover her nakedness [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness [Table].
You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness. They are near of kin to her. It is wickedness [Table].
Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive [Table].

The note in the NET claimed that to uncover nakedness “is clearly euphemistic for sexual intercourse,” and the translators translated the phrase have sexual intercourse. They may be correct. Consider, Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister, to uncover her nakedness while the other is alive. But the more literal translation seems pointedly addressed to familial Baal worship.

For the submissive masochist, however, nudity is the preferred state of being. Even the humiliation of nakedness is a pleasure. The wrath of God…revealed from heaven,^[25] as Paul described it was, God gave [those who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles^[26]] over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.^[27] Even in wrath there is mercy.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart. And no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.^[28] The truth of this image, being naked and accountable to God, that so horrifies my religious mind, is warm, familiar and comforting to my masochism.

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 3

Back to Adultery in the Prophets, Part 1

Back to Adultery in the Prophets, Part 2

Back to Adultery in the Prophets, Part 3

Back to Paul’s Religious Mind

Back to What is Sexual Immorality?

Back to Romans, Part 64

Back to Romans, Part 65

Back to Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 3

^[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade

^[2] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_O

^[4] http://www.carmelaciuraru.com/

^[5] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[6] https://religiousmind.net/2012/06/08/conclusion/

^[7] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[8] “The Story of the Story of O,” Carmela Ciuraru, Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics http://www.guernicamag.com/features/ciuraru_6_15_11/

^[10] 1 Corinthians 10:5-8 (NET)

^[11] http://www.library.upenn.edu/cajs/goldberg.html

^[12] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 145 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[13] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 144 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[14] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 145 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[15] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter I, p. 147 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[16] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter IV, p. 158 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[17] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain

^[18] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter III, p. 152 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[19] “The Sacred Fire, the story of sex in religion”, B.Z. Goldberg, (1930) Book II, Chapter IV, p. 154 http://www.sacred-texts.com/sex/tsf/tsf08.htm

^[20] Exodus 32:25 (KJV)

^[21] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEGe8EzygwM In this YouTube clip a preacher condemned Darby to hell “according to the Bible” for modern biblical scholarship (deleting or changing words from the KJV). The verses cited in his sermon (1 John 5:7; Acts 8:37; Luke 2:33; Colossians 1:14) are annotated in the NET. Anyone can decide whether the arguments are valid or not. I’m only concerned when changes are made without including the argument in a footnote. I suppose my point here is that Darby and the translators of the KJV were in closer agreement with each other than with the translators of the NET.

^[22] Exodus 32:25 (DNT)

^[23] Exodus 20:26 (NET)

^[24] Exodus 28:42 (NET)

^[25] Romans 1:18 (NET)

^[26] Romans 1:23 (NET)

^[27] Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

^[28] Hebrews 4:12, 13 (NET)

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 1

Posted on December 16, 2013 by admin

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, practicing homosexuals, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, the verbally abusive, and swindlers will not inherit the kingdom of God.^[1]

In an earlier essay I wrote that I didn’t want my quotation of Paul’s listing of the unrighteous (ἄδικοι, a form of ἄδικος)^[2] “to come down disproportionately hard on those who favor the ‘Side A’ position discussed on the Gay Christian Network website.^[3] My reasons can wait for another essay.” This is that essay, or more likely the beginning of a series of essays. As I think about it now I see my personal reasons falling under two distinct yet related headings: 1) my attempt to find some meaning for πορνεία apart from the “whatever you want” imprecision of sexual immorality; and, 2) I am a masochist.

I’ve already written some about πορνεία, so I’ll begin here with what I mean by masochism. I didn’t use the term sado-masochism deliberately, though my earliest thoughts on the subject started there. I thought Sadism and Masochism were a continuum associated with dominance and submission respectively (fig. 1).

fig. 1

In college I read the commentary included in an edition of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s “Venus in Furs.”^[4] It was a while ago, my notes are gone, so I can’t credit the woman (I think it was a woman) who wrote the commentary. One thing she said resonated with me, something to the effect that a sadist would never be satisfied with a willing masochist. She began to distinguish Sadism from Masochism as she included dominance and submission within both categories. My graphical representation changed immediately (fig. 2).

fig. 2

I’ve stuck with this graphical representation as I tried to figure out what was on the other axis, what distinguished sadism from masochism. What I came up with is still a bit elusive even to me. I call it Self and Other, but I don’t necessarily mean selfishness and altruism (fig. 3).

fig. 3

Lisa, the dominatrix in “Exit to Eden,”^[5] as she mused on the airplane about slaves in a slave market was totally wrapped up in the experience of the submissive. Her mission in life was to give them the submissive experience they craved. It excited her. She was a masochist as I understand it, a dominant masochist.

“I am in awe of the courage that it must take to submit with willingness and grace,” wrote Lady N in an essay ^[6] posted online titled Why I Love Male Submissives. “It inspires me to strive for greatness within myself, so that I may remain completely worthy of such a gift. Simultaneously humbled and enobled by pain and passion, he becomes a rare and beautiful creature that defies any simple description.” She, too, is a dominant masochist.

Conversely, the “pain slut”^[7] who latches on to a dominant and berates and humiliates them in order to provoke them to the level of desired violence is a submissive sadist in my opinion. And a second look at even the opening reverie of “Venus in Furs” causes me to suspect that Severin,^[8] Sacher-Masoch’s alter-ego, was never a masochist at all, but a submissive sadist who became in the end a dominant one. But this makes the terms submissive and dominant seem too masochist-centric to be of much use in describing Sadism. Perhaps I should close the loop and describe the “pain slut” as a bottom who tongue-lashes a top to incite the top to lash the bottom’s bottom harder and faster (fig. 4).

fig. 4

Sexuality to the non-Sadist and non-Masochist is about pleasure and honor. They assume that a “sado-masochist” likes pain and humiliation instead of, or confuses them for, pleasure and honor. I’ve read things online from both dominants/tops and submissives/bottoms that seem to support that point of view. But I don’t have any difficulty distinguishing between pleasure, pain, honor and humiliation. I would say (in theory at least) that they are interesting and unique flavors that are enjoyable to combine in different recipes with one’s spouse, willing spouse, that is (I am a masochist).

It is apparent to me that what I call masochism may be nothing more than something called sado-masochism filtered through the fruit of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).^[9] But I’m going to continue as if my masochism has its own existence, something like I have been describing. I must face then that it may be nothing more than the fruit of being one of those given over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.^[10] Consider Lady N’s ode to male submissives again:

He is John Barleycorn, consort and sacrifice. He is brutally degraded and taken for the most profane of uses, and thus a god worthy of worship and reverence. Crucified in leather, his flesh is violated and sanctified, celebrated and decorated by the bright blood roses of our passion. His body is the altar at which I worship. It is the sacred paradox, and it is the deepest truth and the greatest beauty that I can know in this life.

I am the respectful penitent and the savage goddess, and the scourge rises and falls to glorify as much as to humble. I am as deeply reverent as I am merciless to the sacrifice. Dea gratias ^[11] [“thanks be to God (Deo) Goddess (Dea)”], forever and ever, amen.

The sheer intensity of taking a consenting submissive and making him hurt and cry and suffer for me, the power and passion that is as hot and raw as the living hearts the Aztecs once tore from the chest of a willing sacrifice, that is what feeds me and fuels the flames of my desire.

Lady N’s reference to John Barleycorn probably has less to do with Jack London’s novel ^[12] than it does with this quote from Raven Kaldera on Pagan BDSM:^[13] “There’s one other point to make that is uniquely pagan in worldview. Each spirit that gets called into a man-made object is a tiny reflection, a snapshot, a splinter, an avatar of a much greater spirit…When someone takes on the archetype of the Owned Slave, they allow into themselves a piece of the greater spirit that is All That Is Sacrificed That We May Live. This Spirit has many faces and names — the Sacred King, John Barleycorn, Iphigenia, Persephone, the Sacrificed Maiden, the Prey Animal, the Bull God and Goat God, Lugh, Baldur, the Corn Dollie, the Wicker Man, and so forth.” Here my masochism and my understanding of πορνεία seem to intersect.

The shape of my masochism was pretty much established by about nine or ten years of age, the fourth grade. I truly don’t remember what I was thinking, believing or doing that might have made me a fool in God’s eyes who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.^[14] And the idea—that the wrath of God [was] revealed from heaven against all [the] ungodliness and unrighteousness^[15] of the nine-year-old (or younger) boy that I was—causes me to recoil some. And that recoil has made it difficult for me to fully embrace my masochism as God’s wrath: Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.^[16]

It gives me some cause, however, beyond the fruit of Christ’s Spirit, to be patient with those whose homosexual desires are so deeply rooted in their childhoods that it seems like an integral part of who they are as human beings.

My Reasons and My Reason, Part 2

Back to Romans, Part 48

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 3

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 6

Back to Who Am I? Part 5

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 8

Back to Paul in Corinth

^[1] 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10 (NET) Table

^[3] http://www.gaychristian.net/greatdebate.php

^[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_in_Furs

^[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_to_Eden

^[6] http://www.fad-nc.org/words-of.html

^[7] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pain%20slut

^[8] http://www.fullbooks.com/Venus-in-Furs.html

^[9] Galatians 5:22, 23 (NET)

^[10] Romans 1:24 (NET)

^[11] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deo%20gratias

^[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Barleycorn_(novel)

^[13] http://www.paganbdsm.org/articles/power-exchange/slavetraining.html

^[14] Romans 1:23 (NET)

^[15] Romans 1:18 (NET)

^[16] Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

Romans, Part 4

Posted on July 31, 2012 by admin

There is something important to remember about ἀσέβεια (ungodliness). If it is not overcome in people by the Spirit of God, the word of God, faith in the Lord Jesus, being born from above—it simply continues to function. That sounds so simple. But those plagued with ἀσέβεια, even after experiencing God’s wrath, don’t understand what they have experienced. They don’t realize they’ve been given over in the desires (ἐπιθυμίαις, a form of ἐπιθυμία) of their hearts to impurity (ἀκαθαρσίαν, a form of ἀκαθαρσία), to dishonor (ἀτιμάζεσθαι, a form of ἀτιμάζω) their bodies (σώματα, a form of σῶμα) among themselves¹ because they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.² On the contrary, the religious minded among them in particular assume that this new demon worship with its cultic sexual practices is good and righteous.

Now here is where it gets confusing. Religious minded people plagued with ἀσέβεια invent rules governing the proper ways to worship demons, and the correct methods to engage in cultic sexual practices. And they teach their good and evil to the next generation.

Unrighteous Worship

The Wrath of God Revealed from Heaven

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped (ἐσεβάσθησαν, a form of σεβάζομαι) and served (ἐλάτρευσαν, a form of λατρεύω) the creation (κτίσει, a form of κτίσις) rather than the Creator (κτίσαντα, a form of κτίζω), who is blessed forever! Amen.

Romans 1:25 NET

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable (ἀτιμίας, a form of ἀτιμία) passions (πάθη, a form of πάθος). For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones (παρὰ φύσιν, φύσιν is a form of φύσις), and likewise the men³ also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions (ὀρέξει, a form of ὄρεξις) for one another. Men committed (κατεργαζόμενοι, a form of κατεργάζομαι) shameless acts (ἀσχημοσύνην, ἀσχημοσύνη) with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Romans 1:26, 27 NET

So one generation worshiped God as if He were a created thing. And the next generation, or so, worshiped created things instead of God. For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable (ἀτιμίας, a form of ἀτιμία) passions (πάθη, a form of πάθος).⁴ Here again ἀτιμία, like ἀτιμάζω and ἄτιμος, is a negation of τιμή. I assume then that this is not the way to know how to possess my own body in holiness and honor (τιμῇ, a form of τιμή), but is more likely the lustful (ἐπιθυμίας, another form of ἐπιθυμία) passion (πάθει, another form of πάθος) like the Gentiles who do not know (εἰδότα, a form of εἴδω) God.⁵
The Greek word ἐσεβάσθησαν (a form of σεβάζομαι) translated worshiped in Romans 1:25 (NET) is only used here. I imagine Paul and the Holy Spirit chose it because it comes from σέβομαι (a form of σέβω; to worship, honour, revere) like the negations ἀσεβής and ἀσέβεια (ungodliness). The first occurrence in the New Testament of a form of λατρεύω, translated served (ἐλάτρευσαν) in Romans 1:25 (NET), is in Matthew 4:8-10 (NET).

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their grandeur. And he said⁶ to him, “I will give you all these things if you throw yourself to the ground and worship (προσκυνήσῃς, a form of προσκυνέω) me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go away, Satan!⁷ For it is written: ‘You are to worship (προσκυνήσεις, another form of προσκυνέω) the Lord your God and serve (λατρεύσεις, another form of λατρεύω) only him.’”

I’m always impressed when things work out like this in a word study, that the first occurrence of the word pretty much says it all. I take it for granted that the Holy Spirit knew λατρεύω would lead here. But I often wonder if the human author, Paul in this case, knew it as well.

He might have used δουλεύω in Romans 1:25. That would have led to, No one can serve (δουλεύειν, a form of δουλεύω) two masters, 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 (δουλεύειν, a form of δουλεύω) God and money.⁸ But that is not anywhere near as appropriate to his theme as Jesus quoting the law to Satan. If he had used διακονία I would have found, But Martha was distracted with all the preparations (διακονίαν, a form of διακονία) she had to make, so she came up to him and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work alone? Tell her to help me.”⁹ If Paul had used διακονέω, Then the devil left him, and angels came and began ministering (διηκόνουν, a form of διακονέω) to his needs,¹⁰ I would have at least been led to the end of the same story as λατρεύσεις (a form of λατρεύω).

In this instance I do think Paul was very aware of the law Jesus quoted, even if he did not have access yet to Matthew’s (or Luke’s) Gospel. The word λατρεύσεις (λατρεύω) is used in the passage Jesus quoted (Deuteronomy 6:13) in the Septuagint. And Paul certainly had λατρεύω on his mind. For God, whom I serve (λατρεύω) in my spirit by preaching the gospel of his Son,¹¹ is how Paul described his own service earlier in the same chapter.

The Greek word κτίσει (a form of κτίσις), translated creation in Romans 1:25 (NET), leads just as profoundly to Mark 10:6-8a (NET). But from the beginning of creation (κτίσεως, another form of κτίσις) he¹² made them male (ἄρσεν, a form of ἄῤῥην) and female (θῆλυ, a form of θῆλυς). For this reason a man will leave his father and mother,¹³ and the two will become one flesh. So when men exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation (κτίσει, a form of κτίσις) rather than the Creator¹⁴ God gave them over to dishonorable passions;¹⁵ namely, Men (ἄρσενες, another form of αρσην) committed shameless acts with men (ἄρσεσιν, another form of αρσην).¹⁶

What about the women? I don’t know. I can’t tell if they were seeking out other women or anal intercourse with men. Both options seem to fit the symmetry of the language. Both are equally against natural germination (παρὰ φύσιν, φύσιν is a form of φύσις). The latter accords better with a “sprung bum,”¹⁷ which I assume is what Paul meant by the due penalty for their error. But does this penalty only apply to men? Again, I don’t know the answer.

These are sensitive issues and I want to continue in a more personal way in another essay.

Addendum: May 17, 2020
A note (17) in the NET indicated that Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:13 in Matthew 4:10. First, here is a comparison of English translations from the Masoretic text and the Septuagint.

Masoretic Text		Septuagint
Deuteronomy 6:13 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 6:13 (NET)	Deuteronomy 6:13 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 6:13 (Elpenor English)
Thou shalt fear HaShem thy G-d; and Him shalt thou serve, and by His name shalt thou swear.	You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name.	The Lord your God you shall fear, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall cling, and by his name you shall swear.	Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve; and thou shalt cleave to him, and by his name thou shalt swear.

The clause and thou shalt cleave to him (καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν κολληθήσῃ) was added to the Septuagint or deleted from the Masoretic text. Here is a comparison of the Greek from Matthew’s Gospel narrative to that of the Septuagint.

Matthew 4:10b (NET Parallel Greek)	Deuteronomy 6:13a (Septuagint BLB)	Deuteronomy 6:13a (Septuagint Elpenor)
κύριον τὸν θεόν σου προσκυνήσεις καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις	κύριον τὸν θεόν σου φοβηθήσῃ καὶ αὐτῷ λατρεύσεις	Κύριον τὸν Θεόν σου φοβηθήσῃ καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις
Matthew 4:10b (NET)	Deuteronomy 6:13a (NETS)	Deuteronomy 6:13a (English Elpenor)
You are to worship the Lord your God and serve only him.	The Lord your God you shall fear, and him you shall serve	Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve

It didn’t sit quite right with me that Jesus changed fear (φοβηθήσῃ, a form of φοβέω) to worship (προσκυνήσεις, a form of προσκυνέω) in a quotation simply because Satan had said, throw yourself to the ground and worship (προσκυνήσῃς, another form of προσκυνέω) me. So I searched προσκυνήσεις in the Septuagint.

Masoretic Text		Septuagint
Exodus 20:5 (Tanakh)	Exodus 20:5 (NET)	Exodus 20:5 (NETS)	Exodus 20:5 (Elpenor English)
thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I HaShem thy G-d am a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;	You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me,	You shall not do obeisance (προσκυνήσεις) to them, nor are you to serve them, for I am the Lord your God, a jealous god, repaying sins of fathers upon children up to the third and fourth generation to those who hate me,	Thou shalt not bow down (προσκυνήσεις) to them, nor serve them; for I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, recompensing the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation to them that hate me,
Exodus 23:24 (Tanakh)	Exodus 23:24 (NET)	Exodus 23:24 (NETS)	Exodus 23:24 (English Elpenor)
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their doings; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.	“You must not bow down to their gods; you must not serve them or do according to their practices. Instead you must completely overthrow them and smash their standing stones to pieces.	You shall not do obeisance (προσκυνήσεις) to their gods nor serve them. You shall not act according to their practices, but with demolition shall demolish and by smashing shall smash their steles.	Thou shalt not worship (προσκυνήσεις) their gods, nor serve them: thou shalt not do according to their works, but shalt utterly destroy them, and break to pieces their pillars.
Deuteronomy 5:9 (Tanakh) Table	Deuteronomy 5:9 (NET)	Deuteronomy 5:9 (NETS) Table	Deuteronomy 5:9 (English Elpenor)
Thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I HaShem thy G-d am a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate Me,	You must not worship or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I punish the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for the sin of the fathers who reject me,	You shall not do obeisance (προσκυνήσεις) to them, nor are you to serve them, because I am the Lord your God, a jealous god, repaying the sins of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation to those who hate me,	Thou shalt not bow down (προσκυνήσεις) to them, nor shalt thou serve them; for I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation to them that hate me,
Deuteronomy 26:10 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 26:10 (NET)	Deuteronomy 26:10 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 26:10 (English Elpenor)
And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the land, which Thou, O HaShem, hast given me.’ And thou shalt set it down before HaShem thy G-d, and worship before HaShem thy G-d.	So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him.	And now look, I have brought the first fruit of the produce of the land that you, O Lord, have given me, a land flowing with milk and honey.” And you shall leave them before the Lord your God and do obeisance (προσκυνήσεις) before the Lord your God.	And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruits of the land, which thou gavest me, O Lord, a land flowing with milk and honey: and thou shalt leave it before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt worship (προσκυνήσεις) before the Lord thy God;
Psalm 81:9 (Tanakh)	Psalm 81:9 (NET)	Psalm 80:10 (NETS)	Psalm 80:10 (English Elpenor)
There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.	There must be no other god among you. You must not worship a foreign god.	There shall be no recent god among you, nor shall you do obeisance (προσκυνήσεις) to a foreign god.	there shall be no new god in thee; neither shalt thou worship (προσκυνήσεις) a strange god.

Alluding to this synopsis of the law He had given Israel to protect them from Satan’s laws and religions, Jesus assured Satan with his own word that He would not submit to deceit as so many of his people had done.

A table comparing the Greek of Jesus’ quotation from Genesis in the NET with that of the Septuagint follows.

Mark 10:7, 8a (NET Parallel Greek)	Genesis 2:24 (Septuagint BLB)	Genesis 2:24 (Septuagint Elpenor)
ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν	ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῗκα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν	ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν
Mark 10:7, 8a (NET)	Genesis 2:24 (NETS)	Genesis 2:24 (English Elpenor)
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and the two will become one flesh.	Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.	Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

A table comparing the Greek of Jesus’ quotation from Genesis in the Stephanus Textus Receptus with that of the Septuagint follows.

Mark 10:7, 8a (Stephanus Textus Receptus)	Genesis 2:24 (Septuagint BLB)	Genesis 2:24 (Septuagint Elpenor)
ενεκεν τουτου καταλειψει ανθρωπος τον πατερα αυτου και την μητερα και προσκολληθησεται προς την γυναικα αυτου και εσονται οι δυο εις σαρκα μιαν	ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῗκα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν	ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν
Mark 10:7, 8a (KJV)	Genesis 2:24 (NETS)	Genesis 2:24 (English Elpenor)
For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh:	Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.	Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

Tables comparing Deuteronomy 6:13; Exodus 20:5; 23:24; Deuteronomy 26:10; Psalm 81:9 and Genesis 2:24 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and tables comparing Deuteronomy 6:13; Exodus 20:5; 23:24; Deuteronomy 26:10; Psalm 81:9 (80:10) and Genesis 2:24 in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor) follow. Then tables comparing Romans 1:27; Matthew 4:9, 10; 6:24 and Mark 10:6, 7 in the NET and KJV follow those.

Deuteronomy 6:13 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 6:13 (KJV)	Deuteronomy 6:13 (NET)
Thou shalt fear HaShem thy G-d; and Him shalt thou serve, and by His name shalt thou swear.	Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.	You must revere the Lord your God, serve him, and take oaths using only his name.

Deuteronomy 6:13 (Septuagint BLB)	Deuteronomy 6:13 (Septuagint Elpenor)
κύριον τὸν θεόν σου φοβηθήσῃ καὶ αὐτῷ λατρεύσεις καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν κολληθήσῃ καὶ τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ ὀμῇ	Κύριον τὸν Θεόν σου φοβηθήσῃ καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν κολληθήσῃ καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι αὐτοῦ ὀμῇ
Deuteronomy 6:13 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 6:13 (English Elpenor)
The Lord your God you shall fear, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall cling, and by his name you shall swear.	Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve; and thou shalt cleave to him, and by his name thou shalt swear.

Exodus 20:5 (Tanakh)	Exodus 20:5 (KJV)	Exodus 20:5 (NET)
thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I HaShem thy G-d am a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;	Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;	You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me,

Exodus 20:5 (Septuagint BLB)	Exodus 20:5 (Septuagint Elpenor)
οὐ προσκυνήσεις αὐτοῗς οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσῃς αὐτοῗς ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι κύριος ὁ θεός σου θεὸς ζηλωτὴς ἀποδιδοὺς ἁμαρτίας πατέρων ἐπὶ τέκνα ἕως τρίτης καὶ τετάρτης γενεᾶς τοῗς μισοῦσίν με	οὐ προσκυνήσεις αὐτοῖς, οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσεις αὐτοῖς· ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου, Θεὸς ζηλωτής, ἀποδιδοὺς ἁμαρτίας πατέρων ἐπὶ τέκνα, ἕως τρίτης καὶ τετάρτης γενεᾶς τοῖς μισοῦσί με
Exodus 20:5 (NETS)	Exodus 20:5 (English Elpenor)
You shall not do obeisance to them, nor are you to serve them, for I am the Lord your God, a jealous god, repaying sins of fathers upon children up to the third and fourth generation to those who hate me,	Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them; for I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, recompensing the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation to them that hate me,

Exodus 23:24 (Tanakh)	Exodus 23:24 (KJV)	Exodus 23:24 (NET)
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their doings; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars.	Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.	“You must not bow down to their gods; you must not serve them or do according to their practices. Instead you must completely overthrow them and smash their standing stones to pieces.

Exodus 23:24 (Septuagint BLB)	Exodus 23:24 (Septuagint Elpenor)
οὐ προσκυνήσεις τοῗς θεοῗς αὐτῶν οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσῃς αὐτοῗς οὐ ποιήσεις κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν ἀλλὰ καθαιρέσει καθελεῗς καὶ συντρίβων συντρίψεις τὰς στήλας αὐτῶν	οὐ προσκυνήσεις τοῖς θεοῖς αὐτῶν, οὐ δὲ μὴ λατρεύσῃς αὐτοῖς· οὐ ποιήσεις κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν, ἀλλὰ καθαιρέσει καθελεῖς καὶ συντρίβων συντρίψεις τὰς στήλας αὐτῶν
Exodus 23:24 (NETS)	Exodus 23:24 (English Elpenor)
You shall not do obeisance to their gods nor serve them. You shall not act according to their practices, but with demolition shall demolish and by smashing shall smash their steles.	Thou shalt not worship their gods, nor serve them: thou shalt not do according to their works, but shalt utterly destroy them, and break to pieces their pillars.

Deuteronomy 26:10 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 26:10 (KJV)	Deuteronomy 26:10 (NET)
And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the land, which Thou, O HaShem, hast given me.’ And thou shalt set it down before HaShem thy G-d, and worship before HaShem thy G-d.	And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land, which thou, O LORD, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before the LORD thy God, and worship before the LORD thy God:	So now, look! I have brought the first of the ground’s produce that you, Lord, have given me.” Then you must set it down before the Lord your God and worship before him.

Deuteronomy 26:10 (Septuagint BLB)	Deuteronomy 26:10 (Septuagint Elpenor)
καὶ νῦν ἰδοὺ ἐνήνοχα τὴν ἀπαρχὴν τῶν γενημάτων τῆς γῆς ἧς ἔδωκάς μοι κύριε γῆν ῥέουσαν γάλα καὶ μέλι καὶ ἀφήσεις αὐτὰ ἀπέναντι κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ σου καὶ προσκυνήσεις ἐκεῗ ἔναντι κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ σου	καὶ νῦν ἰδοὺ ἐνήνοχα τὴν ἀπαρχὴν τῶν γενημάτων τῆς γῆς, ἧς ἔδωκάς μοι, Κύριε, γῆν ρέουσαν γάλα καὶ μέλι. καὶ ἀφήσεις αὐτὰ ἀπέναντι Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ σου καὶ προσκυνήσεις ἔναντι Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ σου
Deuteronomy 26:10 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 26:10 (English Elpenor)
And now look, I have brought the first fruit of the produce of the land that you, O Lord, have given me, a land flowing with milk and honey.” And you shall leave them before the Lord your God and do obeisance before the Lord your God.	And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruits of the land, which thou gavest me, O Lord, a land flowing with milk and honey: and thou shalt leave it before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt worship before the Lord thy God;

Psalm 81:9 (Tanakh)	Psalm 81:9 (KJV)	Psalm 81:9 (NET)
There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.	There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.	There must be no other god among you. You must not worship a foreign god.

Psalm 81:9 (Septuagint BLB)	Psalm 80:10 (Septuagint Elpenor)
οὐκ ἔσται ἐν σοὶ θεὸς πρόσφατος οὐδὲ προσκυνήσεις θεῷ ἀλλοτρίῳ	οὐκ ἔσται ἐν σοὶ Θεὸς πρόσφατος, οὐδὲ προσκυνήσεις Θεῷ ἀλλοτρίῳ
Psalm 80:10 (NETS)	Psalm 80:10 (English Elpenor)
There shall be no recent god among you, nor shall you do obeisance to a foreign god.	there shall be no new god in thee; neither shalt thou worship a strange god.

Genesis 2:24 (Tanakh)	Genesis 2:24 (KJV)	Genesis 2:24 (NET)
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.	Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.	That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become one family.

Genesis 2:24 (Septuagint BLB)	Genesis 2:24 (Septuagint Elpenor)
ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῗκα αὐτοῦ καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν	ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔσονται οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν
Genesis 2:24 (NETS)	Genesis 2:24 (English Elpenor)
Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.	Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.

Romans 1:27 (NET)	Romans 1:27 (KJV)
and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.	And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
ὁμοίως τε καὶ οἱ ἄρσενες ἀφέντες τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν τῆς θηλείας ἐξεκαύθησαν ἐν τῇ ὀρέξει αὐτῶν εἰς ἀλλήλους, ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν τὴν ἀσχημοσύνην κατεργαζόμενοι καὶ τὴν ἀντιμισθίαν ἣν ἔδει τῆς πλάνης αὐτῶν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ἀπολαμβάνοντες	ομοιως τε και οι αρρενες αφεντες την φυσικην χρησιν της θηλειας εξεκαυθησαν εν τη ορεξει αυτων εις αλληλους αρσενες εν αρσεσιν την ασχημοσυνην κατεργαζομενοι και την αντιμισθιαν ην εδει της πλανης αυτων εν εαυτοις απολαμβανοντες	ομοιως τε και οι αρρενες αφεντες την φυσικην χρησιν της θηλειας εξεκαυθησαν εν τη ορεξει αυτων εις αλληλους αρσενες εν αρσεσιν την ασχημοσυνην κατεργαζομενοι και την αντιμισθιαν ην εδει της πλανης αυτων εν εαυτοις απολαμβανοντες

Matthew 4:9, 10 (NET)	Matthew 4:9, 10 (KJV)
And he said to him, “I will give you all these things if you throw yourself to the ground and worship me.”	And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· ταῦτα σοι πάντα δώσω, ἐὰν πεσὼν προσκυνήσῃς μοι	και λεγει αυτω ταυτα παντα σοι δωσω εαν πεσων προσκυνησης μοι	και λεγει αυτω ταυτα παντα σοι δωσω εαν πεσων προσκυνησης μοι

Then Jesus said to him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: ‘You are to worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’”

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
τότε λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· ὕπαγε, σατανᾶ· γέγραπται γάρ· κύριον τὸν θεόν σου προσκυνήσεις καὶ αὐτῷ μόνῳ λατρεύσεις	τοτε λεγει αυτω ο ιησους υπαγε σατανα γεγραπται γαρ κυριον τον θεον σου προσκυνησεις και αυτω μονω λατρευσεις	τοτε λεγει αυτω ο ιησους υπαγε οπισω μου σατανα γεγραπται γαρ κυριον τον θεον σου προσκυνησεις και αυτω μονω λατρευσεις

Matthew 6:24 (NET)	Matthew 6:24 (KJV)
“No one can serve two masters, 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.	No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
Οὐδεὶς δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει. οὐ δύνασθε θεῷ δουλεύειν καὶ μαμωνᾷ	ουδεις δυναται δυσι κυριοις δουλευειν η γαρ τον ενα μισησει και τον ετερον αγαπησει η ενος ανθεξεται και του ετερου καταφρονησει ου δυνασθε θεω δουλευειν και μαμμωνα	ουδεις δυναται δυσιν κυριοις δουλευειν η γαρ τον ενα μισησει και τον ετερον αγαπησει η ενος ανθεξεται και του ετερου καταφρονησει ου δυνασθε θεω δουλευειν και μαμωνα

Mark 10:6, 7 (NET)	Mark 10:6, 7 (KJV)
But from the beginning of creation he made them male and female.	But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
ἀπὸ δὲ ἀρχῆς κτίσεως ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐποίησεν \|αὐτούς\|	απο δε αρχης κτισεως αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους ο θεος	απο δε αρχης κτισεως αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους ο θεος

For this reason a man will leave his father and mother,

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife;

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
ἕνεκεν τούτου καταλείψει ἄνθρωπος τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν μητέρα	ενεκεν τουτου καταλειψει ανθρωπος τον πατερα αυτου και την μητερα και προσκολληθησεται προς την γυναικα αυτου	ενεκεν τουτου καταλειψει ανθρωπος τον πατερα αυτου και την μητερα και προσκολληθησεται προς την γυναικα αυτου

Romans, Part 5

Back to Romans, Part 6

Back to Romans, Part 7

Back to Romans, Part 24

Back to Adultery in the Law, Part 2

Back to David’s Forgiveness, Part 13

Back to Fear – Exodus, Part 1

Back to Torture, Part 4

Back to My Reasons and My Reason, Part 6

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 3

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 9

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 12

Back to The Two Covenants

Back to Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Part 1

Back to A Monotonous Cycle Revisited, Part 1

Back to Romans, Part 48

Back to Sexual Immorality Revisited, Part 2

Back to To Make Holy, Part 4

Back to Fear – Deuteronomy, Part 16

Back to Westworld, Part 1

Back to The Day of the Lord, Part 1

Back to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Part 8

Back to Christ-Centered Preaching, Chapter 4, Part 3

Back to Matthew 8:23-34

¹ Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

² Romans 1:23 (NET)

³ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had ἄρσενες here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had αρρενες.

⁴ Romans 1:26a (NET)

⁵ 1 Thessalonians 4:4, 5 (NET)

⁶ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had εἶπεν here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had λεγει (KJV: saith).

⁷ The Byzantine Majority Text had οπισω μου (“behind me”) here. The NET parallel Greek text, NA²⁸ and Stephanus Textus Receptus did not.

⁸ Matthew 6:24 (NET) The NET parallel Greek text, NA²⁸ and Byzantine Majority Text had μαμωνᾷ here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus had μαμμωνα (KJV: mammon).

⁹ Luke 10:40 (NET)

¹⁰ Matthew 4:11 (NET)

¹¹ Romans 1:9 (NET)

¹² The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had ο θεος here (KJV: God). The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ did not.

¹³ The Stephanus Textus Receptus, Byzantine Majority Text and NA²⁸ had καὶ προσκολληθήσεται πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ (KJV: and cleave to his wife) here. The NET parallel Greek text did not.

¹⁴ Romans 1:25 (NET)

¹⁵ Romans 1:26 (NET)

¹⁶ Romans 1:27 (NET) ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν (literally, “men in men”)

¹⁷ See the dialogue between Right and Wrong Logic from Clouds, translated by Moses Hadas, from The Complete Plays of Aristophanes, Bantam Book 1962, pp. 130, 131 In response to Wrong Logic’s argument that the gods did it, Right Logic replied: But what if your backside’s singed and rammed with the adulterer’s rod? How will your argument then prevail to void the stretching of your bum? Wrong Logic answered: And what’s the harm of a bottom stretched? Tell me even one. Wrong Logic proceeded to persuade Right Logic that the societal advantages of being a catamite to established men far outweighed the inconvenience of a sprung bum.

Romans, Part 3

Posted on July 26, 2012 by admin

I want to consider παραδίδωμι as used by Paul in Romans and 1 Corinthians. The wrath of God…revealed from heaven against all ungodliness (ἀσέβειαν, a form of ἀσέβεια) and unrighteousness of people¹ was revealed in three stages:

1) God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) in the desires of their hearts to impurity.

2) God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) to dishonorable passions.

3) God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) to a depraved mind.

This usage of παραδίδωμι is virtually identical to that of Paul encouraging the Corinthians to turn over the man who had his father’s wife to Satan.

When you gather together in the name of our Lord Jesus, and I am with you in spirit, along with the power of our Lord Jesus, turn this man over (παραδοῦναι, another form of παραδίδωμι) to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

1 Corinthians 5:4, 5 (NET) Table

Therefore God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) in the desires of their hearts to impurity…

Romans 1:24 (NET) Table

For this reason God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) to dishonorable passions.

Romans 1:26a (NET)

God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) to a depraved mind…

Romans 1:28b (NET)

I’ve already indicated that Paul’s reaction to this man seems disproportionate when compared with his reaction to the sin he addressed in his letter to the Galatians. But if I accept Paul’s second explanation in 2 Corinthians as the more appropriate, then Paul was not reacting to this man’s sin as much as he was responding to the Corinthians’ reactions to it (2 Corinthians 2:9-11; 7:11, 12 NET):

For this reason also I wrote you: to test (δοκιμὴν, a form of δοκιμή) you to see if you are obedient (ὑπήκοοι, a form of ὑπήκοος) in everything. If you forgive (χαρίζεσθε, a form of χαρίζομαι) anyone for anything, I also forgive him – for indeed what I have forgiven (κεχάρισμαι, another form of χαρίζομαι) (if I have forgiven [κεχάρισμαι, another form of χαρίζομαι] anything) I did so for you in the presence of Christ [Table], so that we may not be exploited by Satan (for we are not ignorant of his schemes)…
For see what this very thing, this sadness [e.g., caused by Paul’s original letter, cf. 2 Corinthians 7:8 (NET)] as God intended, has produced (κατειργάσατο, a form of κατεργάζομαι) in you: what eagerness, what defense of yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what deep concern, what punishment! In everything you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. So then, even though I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did wrong (ἀδικήσαντος, a form of ἀδικέω), or on account of the one who was wronged (ἀδικηθέντος, a form of ἀδικέω), but to reveal to you your eagerness on our behalf before God [Table].

And Paul questioned their reaction right from the beginning: And you are proud! Shouldn’t you have been deeply sorrowful instead and removed the one who did this from among you?² In my opinion, yes, they should have been sorrowful, but whether they should have removed him from their midst or not is open to question by Paul’s own subsequent writings.

And knowing that Paul passed on (παρεδίδοσαν, another form of παραδίδωμι) the decrees that had been decided on by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the Gentile believers to obey³ as he traveled on his second missionary journey, I have an even better idea why he called the man’s sin πορνεία. If I examine the list of James’ abbreviated version of the law—abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what has been strangled and from πορνείας (a form of πορνεία)⁴—it was the only thing left to Paul that even came close to describing the man’s sin.

All of this is based on my assumption that the man Paul encouraged the Corinthians to forgive in 2 Corinthians 2:5-8 was the same man he told them to turn over to Satan in 1 Corinthians 5:4, 5. It is not the only assumption I could make. I might take Paul’s phrase, the destruction of the flesh, literally and assume that the man died, or that he simply left, or that he moved on to the Baptist church down the street.⁵ I know that Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians before 1 Corinthians, I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral (πόρνοις, a form of πόρνος) people.⁶ The unspecified man in 2 Corinthians could be some other sinner Paul had the church shun in any number of unknown letters he wrote between 1 and 2 Corinthians.

For me it all comes down to my account (λόγον, a form of λόγος).⁷ Assuming the man is one and the same is an honest mistake (if that’s what it proves to be) that I can live with. But if I stand before the Lord with all kinds of imaginary excuses—the first man died, left the church, moved on to the Baptist church down the street, and the second man was introduced in an imaginary letter I don’t have access to—all He has to say is, “What does it say, Dan?” and I have no λόγον to offer Him. I can honestly say that I thought Paul was talking about the same man in both letters. The Lord already knows better than anyone how bright I’m not. I would like, by his grace, to keep the willful ignorance to a minimum from here on out.

After people were given over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonorable passions, and to a depraved mind by God, the rest of the occurrences of παραδίδωμι in Romans form a mini-Gospel lesson. [Jesus] was given over (παρεδόθη, another form of παραδίδωμι) because of our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification (δικαίωσιν, a form of δικαίωσις).⁸ The word is used in a similar way in 1 Corinthians, If⁹ I give away everything I own, and if I give over (παραδῶ, another form of παραδίδωμι) my body in order to boast,¹⁰ but do not have love, I receive no benefit.¹¹

The next step of the mini-Gospel lesson is, But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to (παρεδόθητε, another form of παραδίδωμι), and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.¹² There is a similar reference to a message that was passed on and a similar theme in 1 Corinthians: For I passed on (παρέδωκα, another form of παραδίδωμι) to you as of first importance what I also received – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures…¹³

Another usage in 1 Corinthians corroborated this idea of a message that was passed on and introduced the related word παράδοσις which is that message. I praise you¹⁴ because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions (παραδόσεις, a form of παράδοσις) just as I passed them on (παρέδωκα, another form of παραδίδωμι) to you.¹⁵ And another usage of παραδίδωμι is both the idea of a message passed on and Jesus given over or given up. For I received from the Lord what I also passed on (παρέδωκα, another form of παραδίδωμι) to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed¹⁶ (παρεδίδετο, another form of παραδίδωμι) took bread…¹⁷

In Romans the mini-Gospel lesson continued: Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?¹⁸ And I suppose the final occurrence in 1 Corinthians adds the finishing touch to this lesson: Then comes the end, when [Jesus] hands over (παραδιδῷ, another form of παραδίδωμι) the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power.¹⁹

Below is a copy of this mini-Gospel lesson in tabular form.

Paul’s usage of παραδίδωμι in Romans / 1 Corinthians as a Mini-Gospel Lesson

Therefore God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) in the desires of their hearts to impurity…

Romans 1:24 (NET)

For this reason God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) to dishonorable passions.

Romans 1:26a (NET)

God gave them over (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) to a depraved mind…

Romans 1:28b (NET)

[Jesus] was given over (παρεδόθη, another form of παραδίδωμι) because of our transgressions and was raised for the sake of our justification.

Romans 4:25 (NET)

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were entrusted to (παρεδόθητε, another form of παραδίδωμι), and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

Romans 6:17, 18 (NET)

Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?

Romans 8:32 (NET)

Then comes the end, when [Jesus] hands over (παραδιδῷ, another form of παραδίδωμι) the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power.

1 Corinthians 15:24 (NET)

Addendum: May 1, 2020
Tables comparing 1 Corinthians 13:3; 11:2; 11:23 and Acts 18:25 in the NET and KJV follow.

1 Corinthians 13:3 (NET)	1 Corinthians 13:3 (KJV)
If I give away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I receive no benefit.	And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
κὰν ψωμίσω πάντα τὰ ὑπάρχοντα μου \|καὶ ἐὰν\| παραδῶ τὸ σῶμα μου ἵνα καυχήσωμαι, ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω, οὐδὲν ὠφελοῦμαι	και εαν ψωμισω παντα τα υπαρχοντα μου και εαν παραδω το σωμα μου ινα καυθησωμαι αγαπην δε μη εχω ουδεν ωφελουμαι	και εαν ψωμισω παντα τα υπαρχοντα μου και εαν παραδω το σωμα μου ινα καυθησωμαι αγαπην δε μη εχω ουδεν ωφελουμαι

1 Corinthians 11:2 (NET)	1 Corinthians 11:2 (KJV)
I praise you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I passed them on to you.	Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
Ἐπαινῶ δὲ ὑμᾶς ὅτι πάντα μου μέμνησθε καί, καθὼς παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, τὰς παραδόσεις κατέχετε	επαινω δε υμας αδελφοι οτι παντα μου μεμνησθε και καθως παρεδωκα υμιν τας παραδοσεις κατεχετε	επαινω δε υμας αδελφοι οτι παντα μου μεμνησθε και καθως παρεδωκα υμιν τας παραδοσεις κατεχετε

1 Corinthians 11:23 (NET)	1 Corinthians 11:23 (KJV)
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread,	For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
Ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς ἐν τῇ νυκτὶ ᾗ παρεδίδετο ἔλαβεν ἄρτον	εγω γαρ παρελαβον απο του κυριου ο και παρεδωκα υμιν οτι ο κυριος ιησους εν τη νυκτι η παρεδιδοτο ελαβεν αρτον	εγω γαρ παρελαβον απο του κυριου ο και παρεδωκα υμιν οτι ο κυριος ιησους εν τη νυκτι η παρεδιδοτο ελαβεν αρτον

Acts 18:25 (NET)	Acts 18:25 (KJV)
He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and with great enthusiasm he spoke and taught accurately the facts about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John.	This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
οὗτος ἦν κατηχημένος τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ζέων τῷ πνεύματι ἐλάλει καὶ ἐδίδασκεν ἀκριβῶς τὰ περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, ἐπιστάμενος μόνον τὸ βάπτισμα Ἰωάννου	ουτος ην κατηχημενος την οδον του κυριου και ζεων τω πνευματι ελαλει και εδιδασκεν ακριβως τα περι του κυριου επισταμενος μονον το βαπτισμα ιωαννου	ουτος ην κατηχημενος την οδον του κυριου και ζεων τω πνευματι ελαλει και εδιδασκεν ακριβως τα περι του κυριου επισταμενος μονον το βαπτισμα ιωαννου

Romans, Part 4

Back to Romans, Part 7

Back to Romans, Part 13

Back to Romans, Part 87

Back to Romans, Part 53

Back to Romans, Part 59

Back to Romans, Part 79

Back to Who Am I? Part 13

Back to Christianity, Part 14

¹ Romans 1:18 (NET)

² 1 Corinthians 5:2 (NET) Table

³ Acts 16:4 (NET) Table

⁴ Acts 15:29a (NET) Table

⁵ I’m only half joking. As I consider Acts 18:24-28 it is not too hard to imagine others like Apollos who spoke and taught accurately the facts about Jesus (KJV: the Lord), although he knew only the baptism of John (Acts 18:25 NET).

⁶ 1 Corinthians 5:9 (NET)

⁷ Romans 14:12 (NET)

⁸ Romans 4:25 (NET)

⁹ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had κὰν here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had και εαν (KJV: And though).

¹⁰ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had καυχήσωμαι here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had καυθησωμαι (KJV: to be burned). See NET Note 1.

¹¹ 1 Corinthians 13:3 (NET)

¹² Romans 6:17, 18 (NET)

¹³ 1 Corinthians 15:3 (NET)

¹⁴ The Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had αδελφοι (KJV: brethren) here. The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ did not.

¹⁵ 1 Corinthians 11:2 (NET)

¹⁶ The NET parallel Greek text and NA²⁸ had παρεδίδετο here, where the Stephanus Textus Receptus and Byzantine Majority Text had παρεδιδοτο.

¹⁷ 1 Corinthians 11:23 (NET)

¹⁸ Romans 8:32 (NET) Table

¹⁹ 1 Corinthians 15:24 (NET) Table

Romans, Part 2

Posted on July 25, 2012 by admin

By the time he wrote his letter to the Romans Paul was back. He abandoned all pretense of being concerned about nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.¹ His letter began with a history lesson like those he preached at Pisidian Antioch and Athens. It was the history of sin since the flood. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth by their unrighteousness…²

I think it is important not to confuse ungodliness here with sinful acts. The word is ἀσέβειαν (a form of ἀσέβεια) in Greek from ἀσεβής, a compound word, the negation of σέβομαι (a form of σέβω; “to worship, honour, revere”). This ἀσέβεια is something in people that causes them not to revere God in truth. What I am calling the religious mind is surely part of this ἀσέβεια (ungodliness). Because of this ἀσέβεια people either ignored or denied the obvious truths that were made plain to them by the creation itself, because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes – his eternal power (δύναμις) and divine nature – have been clearly seen, because they are understood through what has been made. So people are without excuse.³

So people are culpable for their failure to worship Him in truth, and his wrath was visited upon them as they worshiped after their own inclinations (not unlike Nadab and Abihu in some cases). For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks,⁴ but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.⁵

In other words both people and the rest of creation were made in such a way by God that it should have been plain to us that no human being, bird, mammal or reptile made everything that had been made. But this ἀσέβεια in human beings makes our thoughts futile, our hearts senseless, and though it may flatter us that we are wise, ultimately it makes fools of us before God. And so God’s wrath against our ἀσέβειαν (a form of ἀσέβεια) and our unrighteous worship was revealed (Ἀποκαλύπτεται, a form of ἀποκαλύπτω) from heaven.

Unrighteous Worship

The Wrath of God Revealed from Heaven

For although they knew God, they did not glorify (ἐδόξασαν, a form of δοξάζω) him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.

Romans 1:21-23 NET

Therefore God gave (παρέδωκεν, a form of παραδίδωμι) them over in the desires (ἐπιθυμίαις, a form of ἐπιθυμία) of their hearts to impurity (ἀκαθαρσίαν, a form of ἀκαθαρσία), to dishonor (ἀτιμάζεσθαι, a form of ἀτιμάζω) their bodies (σώματα, a form of σῶμα) among themselves.⁶

Romans 1:24 NET

The desires of their hearts were not necessarily evil because of the Greek word ἐπιθυμίαις (a form of ἐπιθυμία). Jesus said, I have earnestly (ἐπιθυμίᾳ, another form of ἐπιθυμία) desired (ἐπεθύμησα, a form of ἐπιθυμέω) to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.⁷ But ἀσέβεια (ungodliness) even in religious people nudges those desires toward evil. You people are from your father the devil, Jesus said to those who were trying to kill him,⁸ and you want to do what your father desires (ἐπιθυμίας, a form of ἐπιθυμία). He was a murderer from the beginning…⁹

So the idea here is that when God gave those who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles over to impurity (ἀκαθαρσίαν, a form of ἀκαθαρσία), this was their own desire (ἐπιθυμίαις τῶν καρδιῶν, “desire of the heart”). In other words, He stopped restraining their urges. Later, Paul wrote the believers in Ephesus (Ephesians 4:17-19 NET):

So I say this, and insist in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles¹⁰ do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts [Table]. Because they are callous, they have given themselves over (παρέδωκαν, a form of παραδίδωμι) to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity (ἀκαθαρσίας, a form of ἀκαθαρσία) with greediness.

The Greek word ἀκαθαρσίας (a form of ἀκαθαρσία) comes from the word ἀκάθαρτος, (unclean), used extensively in the Gospels to describe unclean¹¹ spirits. I mean, Paul wrote the Corinthians, that what the pagans¹² sacrifice¹³ is to demons and not to God.¹⁴ Paul was not the originator of this explanation of the gods, he paraphrased Moses’ prophecy to Israel: They made him jealous with other gods, they enraged him with abhorrent idols. They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about.¹⁵

So God gave them—who exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles—over in the desires of their hearts to the impurity of demon worship, to dishonor (ἀτιμάζεσθαι, a form of ἀτιμάζω) their bodies (σώματα, a form of σῶμα) among themselves. The word ἀτιμάζω is from ἄτιμος, the negation of τιμή. Paul wrote the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 NET):

For this is God’s will (θέλημα): that you become holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality (πορνείας, a form of πορνεία), that each of you know how to possess his own body in holiness and honor (τιμῇ, a form of τιμή), not in lustful (ἐπιθυμίας, another form of ἐπιθυμία) passion (πάθει, a form of πάθος) like the Gentiles who do not know (εἰδότα, a form of εἴδω) God.

These Gentiles did not know (εἰδότα, a form of εἴδω) or see God because they were not born from above. I tell you the solemn truth, Jesus explained to Nicodemus, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see (ἰδεῖν, another form of εἴδω) the kingdom of God.¹⁶ So I know the cure, or antidote, Paul proposed to this ἀσέβειαν (ἀσέβεια, ungodliness) that caused the Gentiles not to εἰδότα (εἴδω) God. And I am beginning to get a fairly clear picture of how the demon worshippers dishonored their bodies among themselves. They were in this fix because they did not glorify (ἐδόξασαν, a form of δοξάζω) him as God or give him thanks. Paul wrote the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NET Table):

Flee sexual immorality (πορνείαν, another form of πορνεία)! “Every sin a person commits is outside of the body (σώματος, another form of σῶμα)” – but the immoral person (πορνεύων, a form of πορνεύω) sins against his own body (σῶμα). Or do you not know that your body (σῶμα) is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify (δοξάσατε, another form of δοξάζω) God with your body (σώματι, another form of σῶμα).

I’m convinced the ἀτιμάζεσθαι (ἀτιμάζω) Paul referred to was πορνείας (πορνεία), the cultic worship practices that even descendants of Israel followed before (and after) they were liberated from Egypt. (And as I mentioned before I hope that Paul used the word πορνείας in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 to describe adultery rather than cultic worship practices.) So where my religious mind may have conceived of God’s wrath as punishment (even as atonement) for sin, Paul’s Christ mind conceived God’s wrath as God releasing people to even more sinfulness—the desires of their hearts—because it is God who makes people righteous, not people themselves.

Addendum: April 21, 2020
Tables comparing Deuteronomy 32:16 and 32:17 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and Deuteronomy 32:16 and 32:17 in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor) follow. Following those are tables comparing Romans 1:21; 1:24; Ephesians 4:17; 1 Corinthians 10:20 and John 3:3 in the NET and KJV.

Deuteronomy 32:16 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 32:16 (KJV)	Deuteronomy 32:16 (NET)
They roused Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations did they provoke Him.	They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.	They made him jealous with other gods, they enraged him with abhorrent idols.

Deuteronomy 32:16 (Septuagint BLB)	Deuteronomy 32:16 (Septuagint Elpenor)
παρώξυνάν με ἐπ᾽ ἀλλοτρίοις ἐν βδελύγμασιν αὐτῶν ἐξεπίκρανάν με	παρώξυνάν με ἐπ᾿ ἀλλοτρίοις, ἐν βδελύγμασιν αὐτῶν παρεπίκρανάν με
Deuteronomy 32:16 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 32:16 (English Elpenor)
They provoked me with foreign things; by their abominations they embittered me.	They provoked me to anger with strange gods; with their abominations they bitterly angered me.

Deuteronomy 32:17 (Tanakh)	Deuteronomy 32:17 (KJV)	Deuteronomy 32:17 (NET)
They sacrificed unto demons, no-gods, gods that they knew not, new gods that came up of late, which your fathers dreaded not.	They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.	They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors had not known about.

Deuteronomy 32:17 (Septuagint BLB)	Deuteronomy 32:17 (Septuagint Elpenor)
ἔθυσαν δαιμονίοις καὶ οὐ θεῷ θεοῗς οἷς οὐκ ᾔδεισαν καινοὶ πρόσφατοι ἥκασιν οὓς οὐκ ᾔδεισαν οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν	ἔθυσαν δαιμονίοις καὶ οὐ Θεῷ, θεοῖς, οἷς οὐκ ᾔδεισαν· καινοὶ καὶ πρόσφατοι ἥκασιν, οὓς οὐκ ᾔδεισαν οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν
Deuteronomy 32:17 (NETS)	Deuteronomy 32:17 (English Elpenor)
They sacrificed to demons and not to God, to gods they did not know. New, recent ones have come, whom their fathers did not know.	They sacrificed to devils, and not to God; to gods whom they knew not: new and fresh [gods] came in, whom their fathers knew not.

Romans 1:21 (NET)	Romans 1:21 (KJV)
For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened.	Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
διότι γνόντες τὸν θεὸν οὐχ ὡς θεὸν ἐδόξασαν ἢ ἠυχαρίστησαν, ἀλλ᾿ ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοῖς διαλογισμοῖς αὐτῶν καὶ ἐσκοτίσθη ἡ ἀσύνετος αὐτῶν καρδία	διοτι γνοντες τον θεον ουχ ως θεον εδοξασαν η ευχαριστησαν αλλ εματαιωθησαν εν τοις διαλογισμοις αυτων και εσκοτισθη η ασυνετος αυτων καρδια	διοτι γνοντες τον θεον ουχ ως θεον εδοξασαν η ευχαριστησαν αλλ εματαιωθησαν εν τοις διαλογισμοις αυτων και εσκοτισθη η ασυνετος αυτων καρδια

Romans 1:24 (NET)	Romans 1:24 (KJV)
Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.	Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
Διὸ παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ θεὸς ἐν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις τῶν καρδιῶν αὐτῶν εἰς ἀκαθαρσίαν τοῦ ἀτιμάζεσθαι τὰ σώματα αὐτῶν ἐν αὐτοίς	διο και παρεδωκεν αυτους ο θεος εν ταις επιθυμιαις των καρδιων αυτων εις ακαθαρσιαν του ατιμαζεσθαι τα σωματα αυτων εν εαυτοις	διο και παρεδωκεν αυτους ο θεος εν ταις επιθυμιαις των καρδιων αυτων εις ακαθαρσιαν του ατιμαζεσθαι τα σωματα αυτων εν εαυτοις

Ephesians 4:17 (NET)	Ephesians 4:17 (KJV)
So I say this, and insist in the Lord, that you no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.	This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
Τοῦτο οὖν λέγω καὶ μαρτύρομαι ἐν κυρίῳ, μηκέτι ὑμᾶς περιπατεῖν, καθὼς καὶ τὰ ἔθνη περιπατεῖ ἐν ματαιότητι τοῦ νοὸς αὐτῶν	τουτο ουν λεγω και μαρτυρομαι εν κυριω μηκετι υμας περιπατειν καθως και τα λοιπα εθνη περιπατει εν ματαιοτητι του νοος αυτων	τουτο ουν λεγω και μαρτυρομαι εν κυριω μηκετι υμας περιπατειν καθως και τα λοιπα εθνη περιπατει εν ματαιοτητι του νοος αυτων

1 Corinthians 10:20 (NET)	1 Corinthians 10:20 (KJV)
No, I mean that what the pagans sacrifice is to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons.	But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι ἃ θύουσιν, δαιμονίοις καὶ οὐ θεῷ [θύουσιν]· οὐ θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς κοινωνοὺς τῶν δαιμονίων γίνεσθαι	αλλ οτι α θυει τα εθνη δαιμονιοις θυει και ου θεω ου θελω δε υμας κοινωνους των δαιμονιων γινεσθαι	αλλ οτι α θυει τα εθνη δαιμονιοις θυει και ου θεω ου θελω δε υμας κοινωνους των δαιμονιων γινεσθαι

John 3:3 (NET)	John 3:3 (KJV)
Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”	Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

NET Parallel Greek	Stephanus Textus Receptus	Byzantine Majority Text
ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ· ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ	απεκριθη ο ιησους και ειπεν αυτω αμην αμην λεγω σοι εαν μη τις γεννηθη ανωθεν ου δυναται ιδειν την βασιλειαν του θεου	απεκριθη ο ιησους και ειπεν αυτω αμην αμην λεγω σοι εαν μη τις γεννηθη ανωθεν ου δυναται ιδειν την βασιλειαν του θεου