Craig

Mark,
You said @147
“Why say he must do x, y, z if someone else can actually do it?”

Why tell Peter to go and tell the gospel to Cornelius if someone else can actually do it? God sometimes uses people to help others. This doesn’t mean God couldn’t find another way if he needs to.

You said
“Again this is an assumption. A) that a famale false teacher existed. B) she was married and the ‘they’ refers to the husband (what if she was a widow?)

If the available evidence points to the truth of a matter, sometimes it is reasonable to make an assumption that it is true. If it smells like a banana, tastes like a banana, and looks like a banana, then it may be reasonable to believe that it is a banana. Making assumptions isn’t wrong, – both comps and egals do it. But we need to realize they are assumptions and check out the evidence for them before believing them.

You said
“we are dealing with eternal salvation (according to Cheryl) not someone’s health problems”

Yes this is true. It is an illustration.

You said
“would a doctor really say that she will be healthy if they do… or would he/she say, “Betty, you need to eat healthy if you want to get better”.

I think if the doctor knew he was a nutritionist and could be a significant help in her recovery that it would be quite natural to say the former.

You said
“I’m not sure we are on the same page here. Let me emphasise the fact that this is eternal destinies at stake. Can we be so hap-hazard just to assume that someone else can bring her out? Can we assume that this is just a hypothetical situation about someone’s eternal destiny?
If we are going to allow this to actually speak about salvation, i think we all need to face the fact that this is a serious verse with serious consequences requiring serious conditions to be met.

Cheryl’s interpretation doesn’t seem at all haphazard or hypothetical to me, and seems quite serious, but encouraging, in the solution given to the problem at hand.