gengwall

“We are all subject to those false presuppositions but if we are lovers of the truth, we will earnestly desire the truth and not just to have our ears tickled by what we really want to find in the passage.”

I once was having a debate with another brother about domestic discipline. He was trying to demonstrate that Revelation 3:19 was proof that disciplining of the wife by the husband (including physical punishment) was a Christlike activity. Here is the verse, and his line of reasoning.

“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline”
Since husbands are to love their wives LIKE Christ loves the church; and since one of the wasy in which Christ shows love to the church is through discipline; domestice discipliine of the wife by the husband is a Christ-like, loving act.

Now, there are many ways to defeat this argument, but my first stab at it was to look at the Greek. I pointed out that the type of “love” in the Revelation’s verse was phileo while the love of husbands for their wives, and the corresponding love of Christ for the church, in Ephesians 5 is agapeo. Therefore, one can’t even begin to make a parallel between the two sections of scripture. His response astonished me (and effectively cut of any further discussion).

He responded that he didn’t know Greek and “love is love” (in English) and therefore he didn’t care what the different Greek words were, the two passages were talking about the same thing.

This is the error that ensues when we ignore the original languages, and even more importantly, the original cultural and linguistic contexts and idioms, in preference for the much more easily derived belief we arive at from trusting in our native language. *sigh*