leanne

But wasn’t that exactly what the Talmud did say? (well, okay, not the bit about the church, but about the woman’s voice being filthy. . . . )

Hi, Cheryl. I’ve been following these video posts with interest and am astonished at how much comp teaching has in common with JW teaching. Really!

I’ve worked as an overseas missionary most of my life, and in the process learned several other languages. So I understand firsthand how important the grammar issues in video 4 are. In Spanish, for example, the masculine plural noun is used any time a mixed group is meant. A crowd of 99 women and 1 man would be addressed with masculine terms. So in church, unless they are talking about a women’s retreat, the nouns are always masculine. Greek works the same way. Masculine plural nouns, even ones like “brothers” and “sons” can also include “sisters” and “daughters.” “Anthropos” as you point out, means humans, and “pas” (all) and “tis” (anyone) are free of gender. Tis, for example, is the word Paul uses in 1 Tim 3 when he writes, “if anyone aspires to be an elder. . . ”

And, Cheryl, even “aner” can sometimes include women! In the video your text has it correctly–it usually means “man” but not always. Peter’s speech in Acts 2, for example, starts with the plural form of aner to address the crowd listening to him. According to three Greek dictionaries I have (Strong’s, Bauer’s and Freiberg’s) aner has as one of it’s meanings a generic idea of person or human.

These struggles with translation are part of what has fueled the recent TNIV controversy. Among many other changes, one of their purposes was to translate those masculine plurals into English in a way that communicates to English-speakers what the Greek means: males and females. And I don’t know if you’ve posted this already or not, but the TNIV is being discontinued. I’m recommending to all my friends that they get one now while they can.

On the CBE website complementarian Greek scholar Craig Blomberg has an excellent article which delves into the issues of translation and gender. Here’s the link: http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/tniv-untold-story-good-translation. He holds to the complementarian position, yet favors an English translation that enables us to see what the Greek text means, just like you did in showing that the salvation verses apply to everyone, not just men.

Thanks, Cheryl, for sticking with this and pressing forward!

Cheryl, thanks for emphasizing those verses in Romans 14. They certainly help add to the discussion, and I believe you are right on target.

Now, Mike, all I can say to you is that your arguments are really nothing more than slander. You start out by saying, “I’m not saying that “women teaching men” is on the same level as those who are homosexual” and then develop your whole argument based on the assumption that they are, in fact, the same. When you add, “Though I do not associate homosexuals and the gravity of that sin (Romans 1) with “woman teaching men”,” you are saying that women teaching men is a sin. Yet you yourself do not have a passage that says, “Women teaching men is a sin.” Even the verse you use to support your point does not say, “women teaching men is a sin” but only that Paul says, “I do not allow.” That’s a pretty big difference.

There are plenty of lists of sin in the New Testament, most of them written by Paul, and not one of them lists “women teaching men” as a sin. Slander, however, IS most definitely listed by Paul as a sin, in Col. 3:8 and Eph. 4:31. Peter lists it too in 1 Peter 2:1. And let’s not forget that Jesus himself spoke strongly against slander in Matt. 15:19 and Mark 7:22.

This kind of argumentation is nothing more than trying to prove guilt by association. You are reasoning thus: Group A uses these arguments. Group A is clearly in sin. Group B uses the same arguments. Therefore Group B is clearly also in sin. Ridiculous!

Mike, you are the one on the slippery slope here. Your argument has no merit, so you have to attack the people rather than the position.

Great! I will check it out. Seems like we are on the same page. I’m glad to have found your blog.
So, do you also know where the passing-of-spiritual-responsibility-from-father-to-husband stuff is?
And now I will get back to work and leave room for others to participate in this conversation 🙂

Hi, Cheryl. I just found some more stuff I want to talk about with you. Recently I heard about Dennis Rainey’s book, Building Strong Families. You can read some of it here: http://books.google.com/books/p/pub-9000451281933865?id=740FztCiGLAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false. There are some things that bother me very much about this book, which are related to the comments you are making here.
There is a chapter by Bob Lepine called “The Husband as Prophet Priest and King.” He argues like this: Calvin says Jesus had three offices: prophet, priest and king. Eph 5 says the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. Now I will quote directly from the book. “Today, Christ is the head of His church by serving as prophet, priest, and king. If the husband is to be the head of his wife in the same way that Christ is the head of the church, then as a husband he must understand the prophetic, priestly, and kingly roles he is to fulfill.” (102) I’m sure you see the problems here right away. For starters, the author got the roles of prophet priest and king from Calvin. Then he took a description (the husband IS the head of the wife) and made it into a prescription (the husband is TO BE the head of the wife). Then based on that, he elaborates on how the husband is to fulfill the roles. He’s converted the descriptive statement in Eph to a command for husbands to rule.
As priest he is the ‘spiritual leader’ of his wife for prayer and worship. As prophet the husband hears from God (presumably tells his wife what God said), establishes doctrine for his home (again apparently informing the wife of what she is to believe) and confronts her sin. Now, all of these things would be fine IF THIS WERE A TWO WAY STREET between believers. But it isn’t. Information flows one way, putting the husband as spiritual mediator between God and the wife. Finally, as king, I will quote him again. “He is to lead his wife. He is her provider. He is her protector. He is to know and apply the law of God in the home. A husband is to represent his wife and his family in the culture.” There it is again: he is to lead her, something, as you say, that God never once commanded. He applies the law of God in the home. Does that mean he also punishes the wife for infractions of that law? He represents her in the culture. Do we take the vote away from women to fulfill this?
I thought this book also talked about the father passing the spiritual responsibility for the daughter to her husband when she married, but I can’t find it. Must be something else I read. . .
These things are such twisted representations and interpretations of what the Bible actually says that it’s difficult even to know where to start in untangling the errors. The scary part is how many people seem to agree.
I appreciate your insights and am very glad you are writing about this topic.
BTW, did you see Piper’s post on his desiring god page that the husband is to decide how his wife and daughter will dress? Why don’t we all just don burkhas and convert to Islam? It would seem more consistent! http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTopic/52/2028_Why_is_a_daughters_modesty_a_dads_responsibility/