Cheryl Schatz

Also a note for those who have been praying for me. The Lord is SO good! We received back part of what we lost in the robbery. We received a call from a large department store that found a cloth bag (which had also been stolen from us) in their parking lot and in it were the important papers we lost as well as all of the checks that had been written out to the ministry except for the last three that had come in which were not returned. Unfortunately we did not get the computer back or any of the purchases we had made that were swiped, but to get the ministry funds back was an amazing miracle! PRAISE the LORD!

I lent my laptop to my husband so that he could get his work done, but praise to the Lord that there is another one on the way to arrive on Monday so sometime on Monday I should be back to normal.

For those who have expressed sadness with me over our loss, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your care and your kind words.

Greg, you said that those who are against me will likely see the events that happened as us getting what we deserved (my summary of your statement). I agree with you. I am sure that there are brothers and sisters in Christ out there who were glad for our trial. Some have no heart for other Christians who do not believe as they do on secondary issues and will rejoice in evil. But God has promised that all things will work together for good to them who love God and are called according to His purpose. We are already seeing good brought out of evil and some of that is in character building and we can rejoice and praise God for that too.

God has also gifted us with a brother and sister in the Lord whom we have never met but who have stood with us in this trial. Through their gracious gift we have a good portion of what was taken from us restored. Because God placed it on their hearts to share with us, we have a new computer purchased and on its way. To God be the glory for the GREAT things that He has done! My heart is ever thankful for the land of Australia and for everyone who has supported us through their kind thoughts, their prayers and their support. You will reap a reward from the Lord for your sacrificial giving of your hearts toward us in ministry and especially during this difficult time.

Hi everyone! I am back online and will be going through these posts over the next couple of days to give answers to the questions and challenges.

Dave said:

Yeah, the Aussies have taken over the blog! I declare this blog to be the property of the Commonwealth of Australia…

I surrender!

The Aussies have definitely taken over the blog but I am so happy that you are all here!

Trevor,
Welcome to my blog! I am glad that TL was able to get the link up for you before I could get to it.

Craig,
I agree with TL, it is an excellent example!

The doctors are NOT saying that if the husband doesn’t do his bit that there is no way she can get better.

Not only was your example, excellent, but you have done an excellent job of pointing out that making an “if” statement does not say also state the opposite as a fact. It seems like Mark is trying to overstate the case.

That’s all I have time for right now. I will pop in again when I have more time until I am caught up again.

Just a note that God’s nature is that of goodness and what He allows through His fingers for His children has an ultimate goal of good. Not everything we suffer is of itself a good thing, but the end result will always be turned around for our good. We can trust God to do that.

Thank you to those who have prayed for us and wished God’s blessing at this difficult time. I haven’t had time to read most of the comments yet as there is so much to do when there has been a robbery. Today the bank account was changed and we found out that because of the renovations that the insurance company has raised our deductible so that it is more than the replacement of the computer so we are out of luck there.

When things are straightened out again, I will be back to my blog. I am giving my portable computer for my husband to try to reconstruct the files we lost so I am going to be “lost” myself without access to my laptop. I’ll be back later to jump into the fray.

Folks,
I will be offline for awhile. We have been on a ministry trip shopping for renovation material for our new office and studio and our truck was broken into and we lost a ministry computer and a lot of financial information including gifts to our ministry that were taken that had not yet been deposited. We really need your prayers right now as this has been devastating especially to my husband.

By the way, Mark, I am still waiting for you to email me about the answers I sent you on our John 6 discussion. If your email won’t let mine through, then all you need to do is provide me with another address.

Mark,
You said:

You responded…
“If he follows the lie, it will be very unlikely that she will have any motivation to work at unlearning the false doctrine and learning the truth. ”

You switched the conditional clause to a ‘very unlikely’ scenario, which of course squashes the force of the conditonal clause. PLease answer the challanges.

It is my belief from other examples that the deceived are unlikely to come out without help. As far as Paul’s assurance about the woman’s situation, well, I accept his word that she will be saved if she has help to go with her. That is the truth because it is in God’s word. What would be your reason for not believing it?

While we can assume things about the negative, Paul only speaks about the positive so that is where we can be sure of what will happen. She “will be” saved…if….

It is a difficult verse, but as i stated before, your interpretation is no clearer or better than the traditonal one.

My view doesn’t have any holes and, my friend, you haven’t found any holes either. Paul had an assurance that I believe was the truth.

Thus i will continue to lean on the traditional view since it actually has evidence to support it.

The traditional view says that this passage is not completely understood. The traditional view says that Paul is stopping true teaching while the Scripture never supports this. I would rather stick with Scripture any day rather than be stuck with the contradictions of the “traditional view”.

Thanks again for stopping by. It is just too bad that you aren’t one to answer questions. Challenges are always good if one is sincerely looking to know and understand the truth.

The internet is poor again this evening so I may not be able to get through too much. I will try to keep each comment shorter so that I can get through Mark’s comments.

The conditional clause saids that ‘they’ (husband and wife according to you) must “remain in faith’ aswell as ‘love, sanctification and sobriety’. Now since this is a conditional clause it would appear that if the husband did not remain in faith, the ‘she’ forfeits her future salvation.

It says nothing about “forfeiting” salvation. Paul says “she will be saved…if…” That is an assurance only under certain conditions. Paul cannot say that a person will never be saved, but he can give conditions on what will result in her salvation. He surely knew more about the situation than you or I do. He was the one giving the assurance and I believe him. Since you have no idea what these verses mean, you don’t seem to be so sure about Paul as I am.

That is her or ‘she’ salvation is conditional not only on her faith. love ect, but on their/they faith, love ect. How do you reconcile this?

I already told you. She is fully deceived. She is not coming out of her deception without help. Do you need more help to understand this?

Mark,
Glad to hear that the baby is fine. When the smiles come babies are irresistible. It makes cleaning up after the diapers and drooling really worth it.

Now about your disagreements, you said:

NIce try skirting around her abnormal hermeutical approach, but for anyone versed in biblical exegesis and hermeneutics would realise that such an interpretation needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

I don’t know what you mean by “her” abnormal hermeutical approach. Who is the “her” you are talking about? And you as far as making sweeping statements without actually giving evidence of your position, well, all I can say is that it is a sign of weakness. I am the one with proof from the text. You give generalities about a “grain of salt” that has no substance at all and no verse or grammar to point to and you even have to admit defeat on the verse. Pity. 😉

Your presupposition is that this text is addressed to a specific false female teacher and presumably her husband. Yet, there is no internal biblical evidence to support the ‘theory’ that such a false teacher existed.

Since none of the deceived are named and no gender is attributed to the unnamed people who are deceived, then there must be no internal evidence that a deceived male teacher was in Ephesus either. Do you believe that?

In verse 12 the teaching that is stopped is either true teaching or false teaching. I asked you to prove that God ever stopped any godly person from teaching the truth. You gave no such verse to support the stopping of the teaching of truth. What we have left then is the stopping of the teaching of error. Can we prove that God wants false teaching to be stopped. I think you are in a good position to affirm this.

Paul is not in the habit of keeping these decievers ‘anonymous’ and the only false teachers mentioned are men.

You switched here. I have been talking not about deliberate deceivers but about the deceived. The book of Revelation talks about a deceiver who was a woman and she was named. None of the ones who are ignorantly deceived are named. If you disagree, name one who is deceived but who is not a lying deceiver. The ones who were like Paul who were really believing the lie were never named.

We have been around this bush quite a few times and you have never yet been able to name one of the ignorant deceived. Why is that? Is it because you realize that there is a difference between the deceived and those who are deceivers and liars?

Second, there is no external extra biblical evidence to support your exegesis, for example other early documents ect.

Since Paul didn’t announce their names, why would we find those names in other documents? What are the names of the deceived men found in documents outside the Bible? The fact is that the Bible is enough for doctrine for reproof and for correction. Do you need more than that?

So the only think your exegesis is based on, is Cheryl Schatz’s interpretation of the grammar. This is a hermeneutical approach which is not popular.

Grammar has rules and the rules of grammar support my interpretation. Unfortunately you don’t have an interpretation by your own admission, so we can’t test your interpretation by the grammar rules.

Now the weight of evidence against your interpretation is the writings of church leaders, exegetes theologians throughout the history of Christianity.

Oh really? And since the writings of the early church leaders have pretty much been in unison that they aren’t sure what Paul meant by this entire hard passage, how do you measure the “we are not sure” by my view which fits with the grammar? I am amazed at the claims you make that have no substance at all. Why do you do that?

Now of course this is not infallible, but when one weighs up the evidence, the proper hermeneutic should always lean on the latter.

What “evidence”? What “latter”? What particular claims are you exactly making for the church fathers that you don’t even agree with yourself?

More in a bit.

4. Lastly, Mark you asked:

If this text is dealing with a specific woman and her husband you should at least be consistent with your grammatical approach and say that ‘love’, ‘sanctification’ and ‘sobriety’ are all required elements for this ‘they’ to be ‘saved’, since these are all part of the ‘conditional’ clause.

The conditional clause is set up only for her salvation. The Scripture doesn’t say “they will be saved…if…” I believe that Paul said what he meant and meant what he said. It was only her salvation that was in question.

Thanks for your questions and your challenges! It is always a pleasure to be able to show that the interpretation that I hold to is consistent with each of the inspired words, the inspired grammar and the inspired context.

A challenge back to you….where does God have any rules or any law that would forbid godly teachers from teaching the truth of His word? Please back up your very unconventional hermeneutic from the Scriptures.

continuing with Mark’s questions:

3. You asked:

Why do ‘they’ need to remain in faith ect, for ‘she’ to be saved?

I answered this one already but I am happy to repeat. Those who have been deceived and who are caught in the lie need help in getting out of aberrant doctrine. Those who have been deceived do not often get out on their own. They need at least one person to help them unravel the deception.

Is this hypothetical husband contributing to his wife’s salvation.

He is to bring the truth to her and help her learn from those gifted in teaching God’s Word. He contributes in helping her to be back on track after her deception caused her to “stray” from the truth.

Is her salvation conditional on his remaining in faith aswell.

If he follows the lie, it will be very unlikely that she will have any motivation to work at unlearning the false doctrine and learning the truth.

This is what your exegesis misses and which leads to a drastically contradictory personal salvation that the Bible portrays.

Not so. The issue is deception and how to get out of that snare of the devil. If you had a ministry to the cults as I have, you would be aware of how important it is to one who is trapped in a cult to get them to think outside the box. The cult mentality that is based on a lie is a difficult mindset to break. And a person rarely leaves on their own.

You attempt to solve this tension saying that we need others to direct our teaching ect, but this is not what the verse saids. It saids, ‘if they remain in faith’.

It is no different in saying to one who is in the water, that if they remain in the boat they will not drown. The fact is that there were a number of people in Ephesus who had strayed from the faith (1 Tim. 1:6) and who were unaware that what they were teaching was not true knowledge but was ignorance (1 Tim. 1:7). The solution is education in the truth and Timothy was to help so that God could show mercy to those who were sinning in ignorance and unbelief just as Paul himself had sinned but found mercy from God (1 Tim. 1:13)

to be continued…

Hey Mark, I am delighted that you are still reading here on my blog. And I am very glad that you found some time to try to point out any weaknesses that you think might be in my argument. It gives me a wonderful opportunity to show that there are no weaknesses at all and for that I am very grateful for your challenge. I do hope that you keep reading and will respond once in a while. Maybe you can even catch us up on your family and your new baby.

1. You said that my interpretation is based on a ‘hypothetical’ false teacher. Actually it seems to me that it is you who break the rules of hermeneutics not me. Paul didn’t say that Timothy was to stop the false teachers from teaching AND women who are teaching the truth to men. Since the stopping of true teaching is not in the passage and is not in the Bible as a whole, it would break the rules of hermeneutics to create a special class of people who are not permitted to teach the truth of the gospel to another special class of people. I am just following the proper hermeneutic to show that only error is silenced and not truth. The burden is on you to show a pattern in the Scriptures where truth is silenced depending on a person’s social standing, their nationality, or their gender. The only other option we have is that she was silenced just the same as all the other false teachers. I submit that your ‘hypothetical’ true teacher(s) who are being silenced from the truth of God’s word is impossible.

There is no ‘external’ evidence to support your case, so your exegesis needs to be taken with caution as any solely ‘internal’ exegesis does.

What is truly amazing is that you could even say something like this. You are round about admitting that I have “internal” evidence yet the what I also have is both internal and external consistency of God’s word which does not silence true witnesses of God who are teaching truth. You have neither internal nor external evidence which should be evident to all.

This hermeneutical approach is not a good one as i’m sure you are aware.

This reminds me of the first time that I was asked a teach a class of second year Bible students. Their professor brought me in to teach and I started with asking them a basic question about the gospel and not a single one of those young men who were on their way to becoming pastors could answer me. It is also discouraging to think that many of these places of higher learning are turning out pastors who actually think that a good approach is to accept a view that has no evidence at all within the text or external to the text and yet call this “good hermeneutics”.

It’s basically a ‘guess’ on the grammar with no coroborating evidence, let’s at least be honest about that.

It is not a guess at all on the grammar. Grammar has rules and there is no need for guessing. We can see what applies to Eve and what doesn’t by the precise grammar that Paul used.

2. You asked:

Why is the woman not already saved, when it appears she already has faith.

The answer is deception. Just like Eve was deceived into moving away from the truth about God, so the false teachers strayed from love from a pure heart, a good conscience and from sincere faith according to 1 Timothy 1:5, 6.

We know this because the ‘if’ clause states according to YLT ‘remains in faith.’ You would assume to remain in faith, one would already have faith and to have faith is to be saved!

First of all there is no question on his salvation, just hers. “She” will be saved…if…. Secondly the false teachers all come from within the church. There is no problem in saying to one who has left the boat, “if you remain in the boat you won’t drown”. It isn’t limited to those still in the boat (the man) but to the one who has strayed from the boat. It is perfectly logical to say this to one who has left the boat and the grammar fits perfectly.

Mark, I will continue to answers your points in the next comment.

Greg,
I agree that what may appear to some as a solitary unique doctrine that appears in a personal letter of Paul’s and never repeated again anywhere is not something that people should jump on to claim that it is a universal new law. After all how could one be a Berean this way? If Paul was teaching through a personal letter to Timothy a brand new doctrine (let’s say it is the new doctrine that all godly women are not allowed to teach correct biblical doctrine to men) then as a true Berean we need to ask where is the foundation for that doctrine in God’s first revelation (the OT)? Let’s pull out the OT just like the Bereans did and search the scriptures to see if it is so and gladly accept what is confirmed in the Scriptures. I am so glad that God was willing to repeat and repeat and repeat so that we can know for sure what is sin and what is not. The sin of women teaching correct biblical doctrine to men? It isn’t found in the OT, isn’t repeated by any apostle and is a interpretation of one passage of scripture that is bound to human tradition but never confirmed as God’s law. I believe it is time to challenge a tradition that binds God’s female “sons” and makes it difficult for them to carry on with the will of God without opposition. The world will oppose us but our brothers in Christ should not.

Sorry Craig,
I got caught up in the answer and forgot to read all the way through your comment.

You said:

I however replied to him, “I agree that the bible sometimes says that believers are not only saved now but “will be saved” in the future and for all eternity. But Paul can’t be saying that here in reference to Eve because of v15b.

I think that would be good enough and leave it at that. After all the end of verse 15 makes it so clear that even those who think that the dead can be spoken of as having a future salvation know that the future salvation cannot be conditional on either the dead or the living doing something.

I went through a lot of John MacArthur material when I was writing the script for my DVDs and I do not remember him ever speaking about 1 Timothy 2:15b in giving his reason for why it could not be Eve. He always stopped with the future tense and left it at that. I just think that the conditional phrase adds weight to the future tense.

The issue about Eve is that she is never directly said to be saved. Abraham is said to be saved and so is David but not Eve directly. So the future tense would be questionable since she is not listed in the “hall of faith” per se. We are never told what happened to her or if she remained in faith so why would we think that Paul would speculate about her assured salvation?

Craig,
I should have made it clear that I answered “no” on the last question. I don’t think Paul would have said the second statement as that kind of “future” for the dead is not stated that way. The future statements are always formed in the way of the living.

Does this help?

Craig,
You asked:

If the apostle Paul were alive today, and he knew my grandmother before she died, do you believe he would be happy to say
“She ‘was saved’ when she believed the gospel, was justified, was forgiven for all her sins and became a child of God.

I think he would be happy to say that she was saved and is safe in the arms of the Lord.

She ‘will be saved’ from God’s wrath in the future judgement and for the rest of eternity (not because of anything she has done to deserve it, before or after she died, but because of God’s mercy, forgiving her sins through the death of Christ).”

Neither Paul nor any of the apostles talked like this about the dead for it was the living who were concerned about making it through and being accepted by God. The Bible says that we were children of wrath but as saved people we have already been rescued from the wrath to come.

1 Thessalonians 1:10 (NAS)
10 and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.

1 Thess 1:10 is “rescues” is present tense and this rescue will carry into the future so of the living we can say that we will be kept safe, but of the dead, they are already there. Although I can see the assurance that we who are alive will be saved from God’s wrath (just as we are saved now), since the dead are already with God in His presence, I have a difficult time seeing how one can talk about a future salvation for them.

I have just never seen this kind of talk about the dead since they are either lost or in the presence of God. Perhaps there is a Bible verse that would communicate a future salvation for the righteous dead that I have missed. If you know of anything like that I would be willing to look at it. Perhaps there is something in the Scripture that talks about future salvation for those who are in the realm of the dead. If I can see in the Scripture what you are trying to say, I can have another look at it. Otherwise I just say that the righteous dead are safe with God.

I think I also had a clip of John MacArthur on my DVD saying the same thing as his study Bible – that verse 15 cannot be Eve because it is future and Eve is dead. I don’t think he mentions a thing about having to do something because of “if”. It is only the future tense that he is concerned with. There is a lot that I don’t agree with John MacArthur on, but this is one thing that I do agree with him. The Bible doesn’t ever use future tense words about clearly dead people.

One other point, Eve is not experiencing God’s wrath right not only to be “saved” from God’s wrath in the future, right? And if she is not experiencing God’s wrath right now and is already saved, then her future is a continuation of her saved state. The difference is that she will get her rewards but is not now, nor ever will experience God’s wrath (if she was saved).

Also, Craig, I have no problem that you conceded the point to your friend. Conceding that point doesn’t change the problems he will have in the passage because it won’t make the conditional sentence go away, right? 😉

So let’s have a look at this verse:

Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.

Is this verse saying that we are now justified but right now we are not saved from God’s wrath but we will be saved? Or is it saying that being justified we are safe in the shelter of His wings and in the future that solid place of safety will stay even through the judgment of our works so that we will never face God’s wrath? I would think that the latter is true. That our salvation from God’s wrath is now and into the future and that never changes into eternity.

So I could legitimately say that my grandmother (who is now dead), who was a godly, christian woman “will be saved” from God’s wrath and her spirit “will be saved” in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Yes. However you could legitimately say that she already was saved from God’s wrath before she died and her spirit was already saved before she died. I don’t think that we can say that a saved person’s spirit is not saved right now.

As far as Paul’s quote about the one turned over to satan:

1 Cor 5:5 are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

His actions showed that he was not living in salvation for the Scriptures say that those who continue to practice sin are not walking in the light. This is a man who was living as a wicked man and with no repentance. Paul delivered him over to satan so that he would have consequences of his sin so that he would turn from his sin in repentance. Then and only then would his spirit be saved. At this point, though, he may have been a believer, but he was living in unrepentant sin so was outside the camp by his sin. Paul said that he “may” be saved in the future if he was destroyed here so that he would repent.

The question is whether our spirits are saved right now? I believe thy are and the only thing we await for is the redemption of our body which has not yet happed. But the salvation of our spirits is here for those who are in Christ and that salvation will continue (not be something new) in the future. I believe that the future tense is used as an encouragement not to fear what the future holds regarding God’s wrath.

Again, it is only a small point of difference and in the end we believe the same.

Craig,
I would just like to make it clear that point we are “debating” is a very minor point and in the end we are saying the same thing.

As far as 1 Cor. 3 the person standing before the judge is alive even if he/she was dead since the resurrection would have happened. The future is stated as a future time past his works being tested. The person is a Christian since they are standing at the judgment of the believer and they are alive since the resurrection has happened (or they never died). They are already in a position of completed salvation but their works are now tested. So for that person the future “will be saved” is nothing in addition to what they already are before their works are tested. They were, they are and they will be saved without any addition or change. i.e. They are saved from the wrath of God no differently before they came to the judgment, they are saved from the wrath of God at the judgment and we are confident that all Christians after the judgment has been made will be saved from the wrath of God. Is there any difference at all one moment before the fire is set to the works and one minute after? No. Because a saved person is always saved from God’s wrath.

Craig,
I understand your point, however what I am saying is that the Bible doesn’t ever use the term “will be saved” for dead people. The reference that I gave in 1 Cor. 3 is not about the dead. It is about a living person appearing before the judgment seat. I do grant you your point that the argument is strengthened by the conditional statement. However I am not alone in believing that the future tense proves that this is not talking about a dead person.

That Paul does not have Eve in mind here is clear because the verb translated “will be saved” is future, and he also uses the plural pronoun “they.”
John MacArthur: The MacArthur Study Bible (1 Ti 2:15).

Craig,
I sure would be interested in your friend’s answers to the challenges of verse 15. It is not often that we get a complementarian viewpoint here because so few comps speak out when they are hearing something they have never likely heard spoken in their comp circles. If you feel free to share his “answers”, that would be a marvelous challenge. And thanks again for all the questions that you have asked here. These are things that really get the ball rolling because it causes all of us to have to think and reason from the Scriptures!

Thanks Pastor Dave! You know it really irks me when translators put their own belief system into what should be a literal translation. When I read the translation of the Bible, I want to know what the Bible says, not what some person thinks God meant to write. I find it very helpful to go back to the original to try to work out for myself what God said. I want to handle the Word carefully.

Craig,
The only “future” salvation that I know for believers is an extension on the salvation that they already have. For example:

1 Corinthians 3:10–15 (NAS)
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it.
11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,
13 each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work.
14 If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.
15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

In this passage it says “he himself will be saved” and that is future tense, but the context shows that the person is already saved as verse 10 and 11 shows that our “building on the foundation” is building on Christ. When a man’s works are burned up, the foundation remains which is Christ and he has at that time the same salvation that he had before his works were tested. There is nothing in this passage about “if” he will be saved, but if he will be rewarded or not. So in context the “future” salvation is the continuation of what one already has (the foundation of Christ). This is not like 1 Timothy 2:15 where there is a situation of “if” she is saved or not and what is necessary to make sure that she will be saved. For the man who stands before God with his works burned up, there is nothing that is to be done to save him. He arrives saved and he stays saved, but his works do not remain for a reward.

How do we compare this to Eve? We don’t. She is either saved or she is not. If she is not saved, nothing that she or we can do will change that. No more “remaining in the faith” will make a difference for her as a dead person.

So is the testing of the works what you were thinking about? If so check out the context and you will see that it is not a future conditional salvation. It is a future continued salvation without rewards (or with rewards for those whose building on the foundation survives).

Craig,
The thing that Christians will receive in the future (even the dead ones) is the ransom of the body, not spiritual salvation.

Romans 8:23 (NAS)
23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

The redemption of the body is not called salvation. Is this what you were thinking of?

Craig,
I would ask your friend for a verse to prove that spiritual salvation is still possible for dead people. Claiming a view isn’t a proof.

If salvation is possible after death then why does the Scripture say:

Hebrews 9:27 (NAS)
27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,

The Bible doesn’t say that it is appointed for men to die once and after this you will be saved if in the world of the dead you continue in faith, love and holiness and self control…. Does this make sense? It is one thing to say that the argument that the future tense cannot apply to a dead woman is not a strong argument and and it is completely another thing to show from the Bible that salvation is said to be possible after death “if”….

Your friend cannot claim that it is possible for a dead person to experience future salvation by merely stating it. There must be a strong support from the Scriptures. Is your friend a Catholic who believes that doing good works on behalf of the dead and/or prayers of the saints will cause the dead person to experience salvation? If not, I have no idea where he would get such an idea since it is foreign to Scripture.

The person who makes the claim has the burden of proof. As him for his proof.

Jane,
Some have merely speculated that the “bumps” are Artemis are testicles, but they are not in the right place for those organs. 😉

The article that I linked so said that Artemis was the goddess of women’s concerns as well as the goddess of virginity. You will have to take up your disagreement with that author as their article is a master’s thesis on religious history of ancient Ephesus. If you want to let the author know that you know more about the subject of Artemis than Holly Hayes (the author) does, perhaps you can take it up with her.

and it wasn’t that ‘she is saved IF she has children’ but she won’t lose her salvation if she doesn’t appease Artemis…

My point is that 1 Timothy 2:15 has nothing whatsoever to do with Artemis and that Paul’s grammar would have to be different to make Artemis a part of verse 15.

Juan,
Welcome to my blog. Boy that was a long post you left, but a lot of good thoughts in it.