Monday, June 30, 2014
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Women Rising | Rogue Theologian
Women Rising | Rogue Theologian
5. Gilbert Bilezikian, Th.D. Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman’s Place in Church and Family. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985. ISBN: 0-8010-0885-9.
On page 248, Bilezikian writes, “It is worth noting that in 1
Corinthians more than in any of his other Epistles, Paul uses the é
particle to introduce rebuttals to statements preceding it. As a
conjunction, é appears in Paul’s Epistles in a variety of uses. But the
list below points to a predilection for a particular use of é, which is
characteristic mainly of 1 Corinthians. “The verses he listed I also
list below, in the order they appear, with a notation indicating the
appearance of the é particle, in each case translating it as “Nonsense!”
as Bilezikian did to indicate its flavor: 1 Cor. 6:1-2–”If any of you
has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for
judgment instead of before the saints? (é Nonsense!) Do you not know
that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world,
are you not competent to judge trivial cases?”
The e of which he speaks is the Greek letter “eta,” which looks like h
This device is called the “rhetorical eta,” many of my Greek
professors confirmed its use. Paul uses this device many times in 1
Corinthians. Its importance here is that it clearly marks a refutation
of the previous passage. That is what the rhetorical ate is for, it
indicates that what precedes it immediately is being refuted. Since the
Greeks did not have quotation marks, this device serves as quotation
marks and shows the injunction against women speaking was actually the
statement of the Corinthians to Paul. Apparently some faction in the
church, perhaps Judaizers, or some group the Corinthians has been in
contact with, had said this to them.
We can see this clearly in English, if we know what to look for. The
verse states: (35)”If there is anything they desire to know, let them
ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in
church.”
(36) What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?”
Clearly that sounds like a reversal of what has been said. One can get a
sense of the refutation of the previous remark, after all, those who
want to allow women to speak are not demanding that mean be silent. Why
would they seem to come across, as thinking that they were the only
one’s to hear from God? That idea makes much more sense if they wanted
to silence someone. It makes more sense in speaking to the silencers,
because they are acting like they are the only ones to receive the word
of God.
Those sky-blue italicized words, “what” and “or” represent where
the h comes. There are two of them, grammatically two of them should
make it say “what, or” but they can also function as rhetorical and that
fits the sense of the passage much better. Otherwise it sounds like
nonsense, with Paul railing against those he supports! So the etas are
here:
h “did the word of God come only to you? h are you the only one’s it has reached?” This signals the refutation of the previous idea, the silencing of women.
5. Gilbert Bilezikian, Th.D. Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says About a Woman’s Place in Church and Family. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985. ISBN: 0-8010-0885-9.
On page 248, Bilezikian writes, “It is worth noting that in 1
Corinthians more than in any of his other Epistles, Paul uses the é
particle to introduce rebuttals to statements preceding it. As a
conjunction, é appears in Paul’s Epistles in a variety of uses. But the
list below points to a predilection for a particular use of é, which is
characteristic mainly of 1 Corinthians. “The verses he listed I also
list below, in the order they appear, with a notation indicating the
appearance of the é particle, in each case translating it as “Nonsense!”
as Bilezikian did to indicate its flavor: 1 Cor. 6:1-2–”If any of you
has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for
judgment instead of before the saints? (é Nonsense!) Do you not know
that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world,
are you not competent to judge trivial cases?”
The e of which he speaks is the Greek letter “eta,” which looks like h
This device is called the “rhetorical eta,” many of my Greek
professors confirmed its use. Paul uses this device many times in 1
Corinthians. Its importance here is that it clearly marks a refutation
of the previous passage. That is what the rhetorical ate is for, it
indicates that what precedes it immediately is being refuted. Since the
Greeks did not have quotation marks, this device serves as quotation
marks and shows the injunction against women speaking was actually the
statement of the Corinthians to Paul. Apparently some faction in the
church, perhaps Judaizers, or some group the Corinthians has been in
contact with, had said this to them.
We can see this clearly in English, if we know what to look for. The
verse states: (35)”If there is anything they desire to know, let them
ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in
church.”
(36) What! Did the word of God originate with you, or are you the only ones it has reached?”
Clearly that sounds like a reversal of what has been said. One can get a
sense of the refutation of the previous remark, after all, those who
want to allow women to speak are not demanding that mean be silent. Why
would they seem to come across, as thinking that they were the only
one’s to hear from God? That idea makes much more sense if they wanted
to silence someone. It makes more sense in speaking to the silencers,
because they are acting like they are the only ones to receive the word
of God.
Those sky-blue italicized words, “what” and “or” represent where
the h comes. There are two of them, grammatically two of them should
make it say “what, or” but they can also function as rhetorical and that
fits the sense of the passage much better. Otherwise it sounds like
nonsense, with Paul railing against those he supports! So the etas are
here:
h “did the word of God come only to you? h are you the only one’s it has reached?” This signals the refutation of the previous idea, the silencing of women.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Have all people sinned or not? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
Romans 3:23; Romans 3:10; Psalm 14:3 and Job 1:1; Genesis 7:1; Luke 1:6
- All have sinned
- (Romans 3:9-10)--"What
then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already
charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; 10as it is
written, "There is none righteous, not even one." - (Romans 3:23)--"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
- (Psalm 14:3)--"They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one."
- (Romans 3:9-10)--"What
- All have not sinned
- (Job 1:1)--"There
was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job, and that man was
blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil." - (Genesis 7:1)--"Then
the Lord said to Noah, "Enter the ark, you and all your household;
for you alone I have seen to be righteous before Me in this time." - (Luke 1:5-6)--"In
the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a certain priest named
Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the
daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6And they were both
righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the
commandments and requirements of the Lord."
- (Job 1:1)--"There
clearly condemns all under sin. But when it mentions people like Job,
Noah, Zacharias, and Elizabeth as people who were "blameless" and
"righteous," it is not saying that they are not sinners. It is saying
that they were godly people, who kept the commandments of God; and in
that sense, they were righteous. But of course, we realize that no one
can keep the commandments of God perfectly which is why all people are
deserving of damnation (Eph. 2:3), and why we need a savior. If righteousness can come through the Law, then Christ died needlessly (Gal. 2:21).
Have all people sinned or not? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
God does not want YOUR fruit!
Source article by Phil Drysdale
God is not interested in your fruit. He wants His fruit to be made manifest through you. Our calling as believers is not to produce fruit but rather to be branches which simply bear His fruit.
To illustrate what I’m talking about let’s look at the best fruit we can have in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit.
So often I get so wrapped up in trying to produce these wonderful fruits that I forget that they are not my fruits to produce. They are the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit I produce ends up being a cheap counterfeit. So surely it would just be a better idea to let the Spirit produce fruit in us rather than working hard to produce what ends up being a substandard produce anyway.
Below I’ve gone through the fruits and described what I have experienced in both allowing the Spirit to produce the fruit in me and trying to produce the fruit myself.
God is not interested in your fruit. He wants His fruit to be made manifest through you. Our calling as believers is not to produce fruit but rather to be branches which simply bear His fruit.
The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-24)
To illustrate what I’m talking about let’s look at the best fruit we can have in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit.
So often I get so wrapped up in trying to produce these wonderful fruits that I forget that they are not my fruits to produce. They are the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit I produce ends up being a cheap counterfeit. So surely it would just be a better idea to let the Spirit produce fruit in us rather than working hard to produce what ends up being a substandard produce anyway.
Below I’ve gone through the fruits and described what I have experienced in both allowing the Spirit to produce the fruit in me and trying to produce the fruit myself.
Love
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| Overwhelming love and affection for someone bursting forth from inside – never influenced by their actions or circumstances but rather solely based on who the Spirit is and the Father heart of God. | An attempt to show affection and love for someone based on my own effort. Strongly influenced by how they perform around me or how I am feeling that day. |
Joy
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| Joy unspeakable that cannot be contained. It is not influenced by situations – death, depression, sickness, persecution, losing your job – all these things have no say in this joy which is rooted in Heaven. | An attempt to plaster a smile on every situation. When times are good it might even look and feel like the real thing but when times get hard it’s all too easy for people to see the hypocrisy – the smile is from ear to ear but behind closed doors there are tears and uncertainty. |
Peace
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| A peace that transcends understanding. This peace doesn’t care about the storms of life because it doesn’t take it’s report from Earth but rather from Heaven. This peace is not tethered in what man says but rather in what God has to say. | An attempt to find peace in every situation. On the outside it looks like you don’t panic that much, but on the inside there are constant nagging questions. It focuses on us and our ability to understand rather than leaning on God and His understanding. |
Patience
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| A confidence that God has said what He has said and it will happen. A knowledge that things are happening in the spiritual realm even if they don’t appear to be happening in the natural yet. It is a patience that doesn’t look at the surrounding circumstances but rather rests in God’s word. It waits in perfect peace. | An attempt to not get too impatient and if possible actually show patience on the outside. To many people it looks like patience but on the inside there are frustrations and a lack of peace. We may even end up getting angry and upset with God for not doing His part while we wait so “patiently”. It focuses on how long you can wait, not how well you do the waiting. |
Kindness
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| A relentlessly kind disposition to all people, not choosing to be kind to people based on if they will be kind in return, or if they have been kind to begin with. Rather choosing to be kind because you have been made kind, kindness is in your nature. | A deep down knowledge that we are supposed to be kind to everyone. This can be pretty easy to express towards those we love or who we may get something in return from but to everyone else it sure is hard work. Usually when we do manage to be kind it is met with one of two emotions, guilt for knowing we didn’t really want to, or pride and self-righteousness, thinking about how kind we are. |
Goodness
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| A general posture of good. We are good and produce good easily. We believe all things work together for the good of those who love God and that we are an active part of that. Everything we do produces good in our lives and the lives of those around us. Goodness follows us. | An attempt to do more good than bad. It’s a constant burden of knowing what is right and desperately trying to always do it. We very often manage to do it (making us proud) and yet more often fail to reach the high standards of “good”. We also know exactly what we shouldn’t do and try with all our might not to do those things… of course, we fail at that leaving us feeling guilty and full of condemnation. |
Faithfulness
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| A confidence in the goodness of God, other people, ourselves and an expectation of good in our circumstances. This allows us to see everything through God’s lenses and powerfully walk in the grace that Christ has given us. Faith is a gift and so even this faithfulness is simply a resounding “OK” to the rhema word of God in our lives. | An attempt to rustle up faith in God and to believe in something enough to change things. It always has the nagging doubt in the back of our heads “do I have enough faith?” and when we do see results leaves us feeling self-righteous about our ability to have faith. It’s utterly self-focused and not focused on the giver of faith, Jesus Christ. |
Gentleness
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| A natural disposition to think of others first and ourselves second. We are consumed with the thought of others and their wellbeing. We are other-focused in our thoughts and actions. People who have been around us feel encouraged, edified and equipped to be better people. | An attempt to be as gentle as possible. Desiring to care for people, however, ultimately failing to do so and succumbing to selfishness. It attempts to show people that you love them more than yourself but while the fruit might be there sometimes you know yourself the truth is that you love yourself more. While you are gentle more often than not, there is still definitely the “not” in your life. |
Self-control
| Spirit | Me |
|---|---|
| Because we are fully aware of our union with God we don’t find ourselves thinking of the 101 different things we shouldn’t do. The Holy Spirit doesn’t produce bad fruit and so we aren’t worried about that. Rather we are free to enjoy ourselves in Him and watch as the “flesh” gradually becomes a non-existent issue the less we think of it. Why would we worry about doing bad when God is so preoccupied with doing good through us. | We are consumed with what is right and wrong. We must consistently focus on every possible sin that we might commit and how we might avoid doing that. We of course then absolutely fail to do so like Paul explains in Romans 7 and 1 Cor 15 – the strength of sin is the law. If we focus on how not to sin we will only sin more. We live frustrated and angry because we spend so much time trying to control our behaviour and passions failing to realise that this is the problem in the first place! |
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