Paula, very good points!

int3grity,

You said:

I would be interested to see if there are recorded prayers of the early Church fathers and contemporaries of the apostles which show the early Church directed prayer to Jesus rather than the Father.

Early Christians prayed to both the Father and the Son not just one or the other. The earliest prayer to Jesus is recorded in scripture in the book of Acts.

Acts 7:59 They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”

Paul also wrote the book of Corinthians to all those who call on the name of Jesus.

1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

When a Christian prays to Jesus, he is calling on the name of the Lord Jesus.

You said:

The question that I have is regarding orthodoxy. The original question was whether the orthodox position of the Church has historically been roles within the Trinity or if the egalitarian position which removes those distinctions apart from the incarnation was the historically orthodox view of the Church.

The orthodox teaching of the Trinity never involved the teaching that because of some “roles” that the Word of God in the Trinity did not have equality i.e. equal authority, yet this is exactly what is being taught by those who teach that there are separate “roles” in the Trinity. This is the part that is considered not orthodox. Jesus is not less than the Father in any way in the Trinity. He does not have any less authority, or less power, or a subordinate will. All three in the Trinity share the same authority, power and will.

You asked:

So how can it then be said that complimentarians hold to arinism and unorthodox views when the writtings of the early Church fathers, including Athenatias himself, seem to line up clearly with the complimentarian position of roles within the Trinity?

Those who hold to the view that Jesus is not equal in authority with the Father are not the same as full arians as the Jehovah’s Witnesses are, but they do share some characteristics with them. They share the teaching that Jesus will be eternally subordinate to the Father and that Jesus does not have the same authority as the Father and consequently Jesus cannot be prayed to.

You said:

It seems like there are misrepresentations of bothe positions in this debate.

I don’t think that the egalitarian position misrepresents the complementarian position when they point out that there are similarities with the teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. When one is clear in what the similarities are, then one should not be considered guilty of misrepresentation. Of course there are some complementarians who do not believe in the eternal subordination of the Son. They are unwilling to negate the equality of Jesus in the Trinity because of their views of women. I heartily applaud complementarians who will stand strong and true to Jesus and thus honor the Father by their refusing to lower Jesus’ authority.

Paula, Don and Truthseeker,

I forgot to mention you’all and your kind words to me. Thank you!!

Truthseeker, I have not heard about salt added to fuel to make it burn brighter. If anyone else comes across more information, feel free to post it.

int3grity,

Are you talking about the Trinity DVD or the Women in Ministry DVD set?

While Jesus was on the earth, he taught people to pray to the Father, but when he left the earth, he took on a relationship with his body just as his Father has a relationship with us.

Relationship with Jesus is not going past him to the Father. Nor is it going to the Father in the authority or name of Jesus. It is going through the Son. Through the very person of Jesus so that our relationship is with BOTH the Father and the Son.

When I was in communication with Dr. Bruce Ware, I asked him how he had a relationship with Jesus if he never prayed to him. He never answered me. In scripture we are to have a relationship with Jesus. How do we do that? Our relationship is not with only one person of the Trinity.

The teaching is spreading and infecting Christian seminaries that we are not allowed to have a personal relationship with Jesus by communicating with him in prayer. The teaching is that this is not allowed because of the Father’s greater authority so that our relationship is with the Father thru the Son (meaning we come to the Father and end our prayer “in Jesus name”) This is not a relationship with Jesus. It is not the historical position and it greatly concerns me that young men and women are being taught to see Jesus as a secondary authority and a merely a way to the Father. Yet the Bible shows us that Jesus is our bridegroom. We are to be in intimate relationship with him. Anyone who denies this intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus through communicating with him in prayer and sharing our heart’s desire with him is not following after the orthodox teaching about Jesus.

When error comes into the church, it is always very subtle. However the end result is always a denial of the Lord Jesus in one way or another. When Jesus is denied a relationship with us and us with him, scripture is denied and Jesus is not being honored as the Father is honored.

By the way, it is always okay to ask questions. Asking a question is asking for more information to understand what a person believes. It was not a statement. But thanks for trying to clarify.

Have a look at my Trinity DVD clip on youtube and then tell me if I have misrepresented the view. This view that you will hear is being taught in Christian seminaries to many denominations through teachers like Dr. Bruce Ware. It concerns me very much.

int3grity,

Well, when I had personal email communications with Bruce Ware, I told him that his view of the Trinity would not allow him to witness to JWs for he would find himself in agreement with them that Jesus cannot be prayed to and Jesus is subordinate to the Father. I have never seen that this view of the unequal authority of Jesus is historically orthodox. Nor have I ever seen in historic Christianity a teaching that Jesus cannot be prayed to. I do not view that as orthodox at all, and I think it is harmful to forbid Christians to pray to Jesus.

int3grity,

Please do not cut and paste large volumes of material. We would like to hear what you have to say, but the cut and paste is not helpful nor do I want to allow it. Please summarize your position instead.

Where does the material say that the Son is not equal in authority with the Father as the complementarian position states? This is not a historical position at all.

Thanks for dropping by. I would recommend that you have a look at the Trinity DVD clip on youtube at http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=JLe-qF2nptA This will give you some idea of what the complementarian position entails.

Perhaps you too are saying that Jesus should not be prayed to?

int3grity,

Thanks for popping in and welcome!

I think you, perhaps, need to reread my post. When a man loves a woman like Christ loves the church, he will not abuse her or override her will. But many men are taught that their position as “head” means to override his wife’s will when there is a conflict of wills. I point out that overriding one’s will is not God’s way. Perhaps, if you believe otherwise you can show where it is God’s way for marriage. I do not see it in scripture and Jesus doesn’t override our will in his marriage with the church. He gently works with us and brings us along with his patience and love.

If you think that chauvinism is only within nominal Christianity, I can point you to Christian counselors who can educate you otherwise.

Thanks again for stopping by. I hope you find a lot of things in my blog that will be very helpful for you!

Thank you Ingrid!! I appreciate your very kind words!

Don,

I was considering constructing a graphic with a jolly old guy with hairy legs and a banner discreetly placed but I thought that a naked fish would be in better taste 😉

Okay, we are back to numbered comments and no more nested comments since it appeared that numbered comments made it easier to read and reply too.

Tiro,

At the beginning of each post we now have a print option. This includes the pictures. If you don’t want the pictures to print, then use the “send post as PDF to…” option at the bottom of each post. This should help out, thanks to my very helpful son and the excellent suggestions of Paula!

Unfortunately it looks like the numbering system has gone the way of the birds since the latest update, but if you want to refer to someone’s comment you can right click on the date of the comment and you can post that in your comment and that will give a link to the comment that you are writing about. Or you can “reply” at the comment level, but of course this will put your comment underneath the person’s comment instead of at the bottom so people may miss the comment. We will see how this all works out.

Just to let everyone know that we now have capabilities to reply to an individual to allow nested comments.

Cindy K,

Excellent reasoning!

That which was/is/always will be God-breathed does not need additional inspiration or extra breath, does it?

Absolutely not!  God said it.  He said what we needed and we are to take what he did say and pull out that sense instead of adding in our own faulty human reasoning.  The odd thing is that those who typically accuse Eve of sinning by adding to God’s word, are doing the same thing they accuse Eve of, by adding to what God has said.  They add in an accusation outside of what God did say and by doing so they twist the Word.

I also do feel for those who are deceived.  I believe that Paul was especially concerned about false deceived teachers in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and he related to them because he too had been deceived at one time.

Where I don’t have as much compassion is when a teacher has been corrected and he knows that his addition is not in the text but he keeps his interpretation because it suits him and he teaches it influencing others in his error.  One time I heard a preacher say that he had been told by several people that he was misusing a text.  He said that he was still using it that way because he “liked it that way”.  A person like this goes beyond being deceived into purposely deceiving others.

The first seminary prof that I had discussions about Eve with had his eyes opened right away.  He was amazed because he said that he had never before considered that Eve wasn’t adding to God’s words.  He looked at the text with me and he had to agree with me because he could see that it fit the text while the other options about why Eve would add to God’s words didn’t fit.  He then accepted Eve’s testimony because he had no reason not to accept her words.  He did not have a doctrine to protect.  Those who must protect their own doctrine, their own interpretation, will resist “seeing” the truth.  Sometimes it is like trying to pull a security blanket away from a baby.  But I have great respect for those who “love the truth” and are willing to test all things by God’s word.  Those who truly love the truth will not be easy to deceive if they hold onto and respect God’s word and read it in context.

The hardest thing is when one has built an organization on hierarchy and then the truth starts to shine through the cracks of that organization.  What does one do?  If one admits to the light of truth shining through, the foundation of the organization will crack.  How can one admit you are wrong when it isn’t just your own self anymore.  It is about staff and books written and lectures given and many churches who trust you for giving them the facts.  This is the hardest test for lovers of truth.  One who would turn their back on their own ego, their own pride and their own standing in their church and amongst their fellow male ministers may receive persecution for a time from their own people, but they will be help up and honored in the body of Christ for their stand for truth.

I also want to share pinklight’s delight with your “coulda, shoulda, woulda”.  Very profound!  😉

Cindy K,

Good questioning attitude!  You said:

Ortlund seems to be saying that Eve set out with the willful intent to twist what God had said, as if she needed no encouragement from the serpent.  If that was true, the serpent would likely never have had to convince Eve with craft and subtlety with his “surely argument.”  All he would have had to have said was “Go ahead and eat,” and Eve would have followed the lust in her heart.

This is exactly how I read Ortlund as well.  At the point of Eve’s statement about what God said, there was no encouragement from the serpent to twist God’s words, nor is there anything in Eve that was an enticement to sin by distorting God’s word.  While all of us can have sinful desires because we are already sinners and are easily tempted to sin just because of the fallen humanity, we cannot make any of these assumptions about Eve since her nature at creation was not like our sinful nature.  If Ortlund is going to say that Eve’s thoughts were sinful or that she added to God’s word, which is a very serious sin, then he would have to give us reason for believing from the text his account of a pre-fall sinning Eve.  I see no evidence whatsoever except for his addition to the text.

You also said:

If I have a misconception about what the Word actually means, am I misquoting God?  I don’t think so.  That just makes me human.  It makes me very much like Eve was when she was trying to discern the truth.  She just discerned wrongly.

What evidence do we have that she discerned wrongly?  Eve said “God said…” and she gave his words.  If Eve had given her own understanding then she would have said, “God said that we are not to…”  By using the plural word “you”, this shows that Eve is not giving her own understanding but quoting God.  If we consider this passage as having the grammar inspired as it is written, then I think we can be confident that Eve was not giving a general understanding of God’s command since she would not be talking about herself by calling herself “you”.  The structure of the sentence is a direct quote.

The issue here is one regarding the extent of God’s words.  Let’s consider Jesus.  John wrote:

John 21:25  And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself *would not contain the books that would be written.

Does the Bible contain every single word that God spoke to people?  I propose that if it did and if they were written in detail, that our bible would be much larger.  I think most would agree that the few words that are recorded in the Genesis account are not everything that God ever said to Adam and Eve.  If so, then God created Eve and silently brought her to Adam without telling her anything about himself, or Adam or why he was taking her, or what she could eat, etc.  It appears from the account that hearing God walking in the garden was not a once-for-all-time event.  It would have been something that Adam and Eve did with God as they walked with God in fellowship in the garden.

The question would next be why are all the words of God not recorded?  The answer should be that we were given why God gave us for our good.  We do not need to know everything he said, but what he has recorded and given to us is for our benefit:

2Ti 3:16  All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
2Ti 3:17  so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

If the words that Eve quoted from God are not given to us in scripture except in the quotation provided by Eve, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to believe that God did speak to Eve and give her the command directly than to assume that Eve made a mistake or sinned and lied about God?  If Eve merely made a mistake, I would like someone to tell me how that happened?  We know that God did speak to Eve directly because Genesis chapter 1 says so, and if Eve could get a simple command wrong, then how was this simple-minded woman a “helper” to Adam?  It my own simple-minded understanding, it appears that Eve needed a “keeper” because she wasn’t able to retain a simple command without discerning the words of God and the twittering of the birds near by.  How could she be trusted to get Adam’s communication right?  Perhaps he should have picked the dog.  I am being silly here but I hear dogs are considered man’s best friend and they don’t mix up commands because they usually are quite bright.

My point is that man’s tradition looks right past a bright, articulate Eve and is quick to find fault with her testimony.  Yet it is interesting that God picks women as his first in line witnesses at the tomb and instructs them to give the witness to the disciples.  In this he trusts the women as true and dependable witnesses of Jesus.  If these early  Christian women who have sinful natures can be trusted with the most important news of all time – the resurrection – then why would we even consider that Eve got things wrong in the garden?  She didn’t.  And I maintain that there is not one piece of evidence that Eve made a mistake and misquoted God or that she got confused when she spoke to the serpent.  I maintain that her testimony is true and there is no evidence to the contrary.

As usual, if I am wrong, I welcome evidence to the contrary.  I do love logical reasoning, but I accept the inspired text.  If Eve somehow got it wrong when she spoke about God, then Eve would have been a perfect sermon example for Paul or Peter.  It is most interesting to note that neither used Eve’s words as an error or an addition to God’s word.  Now I ask my readers, why do you think this is?  Did Paul or Peter miss an opportunity to show how misplaced words can get people in trouble just as they got Eve in trouble?  Or is Eve never used as an example in this way because she told the truth?  What do you think?

Thanks Paula very muchly 😉

I will give it to my techno son and ask him to install it for me.  Hopefully soon we will have a “print this” link.

Pinklight,

You said:

I feel like counting. And I like the text myself.

This is 6, count ‘em 6 additions to the Genesis text:

1Eve hadn’t even known that there was a “problem”.

2But the Serpent’s prejudiced question unsettles her.

3It knocks her back on her heels.

4And so the Serpent engages Eve in a reevaluation of her life on his terms.

5She begins to feel that God’s command, which Adam had shared with her has to be defended…

6Eve’s misquote reduces the lavish generosity of God’s word to the level of mere, perhaps grudging, permission…

Mighty fine counting there, pinklight!

Don,

You said:

As I see it, there are 3 origins stories in Gen, starting at Gen 1, Gen 2:4 and Gen 5.  It is not a single chronological story and does not claim to be.

I agree with you that Genesis 1 & 2 are not a single chronological story.  By that I mean that chapter 2 is not another account but rather a closer look at the details of the creation of man while chapter 1 is a bird’s eye view.  Chapter 5 goes right along with both Genesis 1 & 2 and I see no contradictions at all.

While some see contradictions in the Genesis account and so they dismiss the accounts as merely “stories” that are not to be taken as real events or factual accounts, I see the different look at creation as the work of one person who received the information from the inspiration of God who was the only one around to witness most of the events in chapter one except of course for the angels who also witnessed creation.

In my DVD set I mentioned that Genesis is foundational for our faith. Those who take Genesis as accurate are able to build a solid foundation of the Christian faith in the rest of the bible.  Those who take Genesis as merely “stories” without any ties to actual facts are left without a foundation to base moral and spiritual issues of faith and marriage since all of these issues have their roots in Genesis.  These issues also include hierarchy, authority and submission and the ability to dig into the inspired words of scripture help us to eliminate bad doctrine and hold fast to what is good.

Lin #7,

You said:

This was all planned…even the process. God wanted Adam to see that being alone was not good.  I cannot see where that part has anything to do with sin entering the world. However, I do see where Adam did not ‘guard’ the garden and sin resulted.

I agree with you.  If there was sin prior to Eve’s creation we would have to learn that from the inspired text.  There is no biblical precedent for turning “not good” into a sin issue.  At least not in anything else that I have read.  There would have to be at least a second witness to make this an established fact and I see no such witness, so I think your point does stand quite well.

Paula #5,

A factor to consider is that God had only said “when you eat you die”. He never said anything about additional penalties like cursing the earth. Both Adam and Eve became mortal when they ate, but God added to Adam’s penalty by cursing the ground. So the curse on the ground must be tied to Adam’s unique rebellion.

Or from another angle: God expressly stated that “Because you listened (perhaps meaning he “only listened and did not act”?)… and ate, the ground is cursed”. Adam both ate and “listened”, the ground he was taken from was cursed because of him, and sin was attributed to him alone according to Paul (Rom. 5:12).

Yes, I believe this is correct.  I would add that God listed the punishment for eating the fruit and this would be death.  The punishment on Adam for being an unfaithful watchman was also added as a curse on the earth and the animals.  Eve as the one who got fooled into disobeying God, was not cursed by God but she did experience the result of her body being changed to mortal and her reproductive cycle was greatly increased to accommodate the preservation of mankind and the changes to her body would give her pain in childbirth which was not something that her previous immortal body would have had to endure.

tiro,

At the bottom of each blog post is a little box that says “send post as PDF to…”  All you have to do is type in your email address here and the PDF program sends you a PDF file.  The only problem with it is that it doesn’t appear that my graphics are showing up in the file.  But if it is only text that you want anyway, this should work for you.

The other way to do it is to copy and paste the text into a word document and print that way.  If anyone else has any other good ideas how to easily reproduce the text with the graphics for printing, I welcome your thoughts.

3 Don,

You said:

On the “not good” I understand that in the sense of “non-functional”.  The human alone could not function in all ways God intended.  Gen 2 is about 2 lacks, the lack of a human to irrigate the land, which God addresses with the human, and the lack of the human to be fully functional like the rest of creation, which God addresses by splitting the Adam/human into male and female.

I mostly agree with you here.  “Not good” is certainly in some sense “non-functional” since a single man cannot reproduce himself.  I think it goes past “function” though because men need women for more than just procreation.  Women provide a complementary part of thinking, reasoning, relationship and intimacy and a man alone or men alone do not have.  There is some sense of “lack” that the woman provides the answer to the “lack”.  I will be bringing this up in my next post so I won’t go on about the Adam splitting issue here.  By the way, “Adam splitting” is very punny 🙂

Charis,

Does the Bible identify the moment sin entered the world?

I think God is quite clear when he identifies to Adam the reason why his actions (his sin) brings a curse upon the earth and the animals.  It is because Adam sinned by omission and commission.  He was commanded to guard the garden and instead of guarding and protecting the garden against the enemy, he listened to the voice of his wife while she was being deceived.  This was considered treason as God brings the blood of the victims upon the head of the watchman on the wall.  Adam also ate of the fruit willfully and without being deceived.  This was his act against God and both sins brought a curse from God on this world.

I do not think that we can equate “not good” with sin.  Rather, I would think that God’s saying that Adam alone was “not good” was a statement that God intended male and female all along to work together and have a special intimacy together.  A human without intimacy is “not good”.

You wrote:

Whyte quotes Behman as teaching,—
“There must have been something of the nature of a stumble, if not an actual fall, in Adam while yet alone in Eden . . . Eve was created [he should say, “elaborated”] to ‘help’ Adam to recover himself, and to establish himself in Paradise, and in the favor, fellowship and service of his Maker.”

The problem with this is that sin is a very serious issue.  God identifies sin for us because he does not want us to have fellowship with him broken.  If Adam stumbled while being alone, then God would have to identify that and tell us that there was sin in the “camp” before God brought the woman to Adam.  God certainly could have told us that Adam was already a sinner and that Eve would help to recover Adam in his sin, but God didn’t say that.  Also if Eve’s place was to help Adam come out of his sin, then where does that leave Jesus?  Isn’t Jesus our only Redeemer?  One human cannot account for the sin of another and if Adam was already a sinner then no “mere” human could help him but the God-man Redeemer.

Since God only identified a “not good” issue not a “sin” issue, then we can know that there is an issue of incompleteness not of raw sin.  If I am wrong about this, I welcome the opportunity to see from the inspired words in the text that I am wrong.  Where else did God ever identify “sin” as “not good” rather than calling it “transgression”, “sin”, etc?  I haven’t seen any evidence of this so I think it is much safer to stay with what the text actually says.

Lin,

Thanks for your encouragement.  It is time to pull back the curtain to see what really lies behind the traditions that claim to be biblical but which are far from an accurate representation of the text.

Trent,

Just read the complete context of 1 Corinthians 14.  While Paul refutes the saying of 1 Cor. 15:34, 35 by his negation in verse 36, he has already given instruction that all are allowed to participate and minister their gifts in the church:

1Co 14:31  For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted;

I hope this helps with your confusion.

Jennifer,

I just emailed you back at the email provided on your last comment.  Your DVD will go in the mail shortly.

Cheryl

Don, (comment #1)

You said,

It is clear in the case of Mouser that her trusted others did not help her in this, by publishing it, they endorsed her deceiving of herself.

This is a very valid point.

Nicole,

Bingo!  You get the prize for picking this out.

Paula,

Thanks for letting Nicole be the first one to point this out!

Mary,

Thanks for the information on Barbara Mouser.  I thought her last name sounded familiar.  It appears that the egalitarian viewpoint poses a great threat to Christianity according to William and Barbara.  It appears that the Christian faith is supposed to be lived out in a way that regards sexuality.  It appears that they believe that there are male Christians and female Christians instead of just Christians.  Below is a quote that I found that concerns me:

The International Council for Gender Studies (ICGS) is formed of evangelical Christians in America and Europe who are committed to speaking the historic Christian faith to this generation.  We think that non-biblical egalitarian tenets about the nature and relationship of men and women are not only corrosive to society at large, but also pose a threat to the spiritual vitality and integrity of the Church. Persuaded that God has spoken through the Prophets and Apostles in the Bible concerning human sexuality, we have joined together to call Christians to reaffirm and to live anew the whole counsel of God as He has spoken concerning gender issues.

Paula,

Ah, a magical umbrella!  That explains it all!

pinklight,

I agree there is a lot of confusion coming from people who claim they agree with the “plain reading” of the bible.