Frank

I just finished reading through both postings by Mark, as well as their respective comments. And I’m wondering if I should abandon the line of argument I began in Comment #168 on this posting, and try another tack. I wanted to first talk about–in agreement with Cheryl, Gengwall and Susanna–that an honest appraisal of the lexical and documentary evidence revealed that whether kephale was understood as “head of” or “head over” depended on whether it was used the context of Christ as the Sustainer of his Body, the Church (cf. Eph. 4:14-16 and 5:25-30) or Christ the Victor over the powers of darkness (cf. Eph. 1:18-23 and Colossians 2:8-12). And as far as definitive lexical works are concerned, when I was trained to translate and exegete the Greek New Testament, if there was a conflict between Thayer or Bauer as to a word’s meaning or etymology, then the matter was to be resolved by consulting the Lidell & Scott English/Greek Lexicon. It is a shame that Lidell & Scott has become less appreciated and valued due to the complementarian influence.

In the discussions over how the complementarians use 1 Cor. 11:3 to “skew” the Trinity, I noticed that not once, either positively or negatively, did he refer to my earlier, two little “tomes” on the Trinity. I don’t know if that was because he was unwilling to interact with them, or because he didn’t consider them of any worth. And I still think he has to explain how the internal relationships between the Three Persons can only be differentiated or defined by their external and temporal roles as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.

For the Father has always been the Father of the Son, but he became the Creator of all things; the Son has always been the Son of the Father, but he became the Savior of the world; the Spirit has always been the Spirit of God, binding the Godhead together in dynamic union and communion, but he became the Sanctifier. If the Father is above the Son and the Spirit because he is the Sender, and the Son and the Spirit are below the Father because they are the Sent, to whom were they sent before the creation that would result in this demotion of the Son and Spirit?

Well, I must go to bed. It’s 1:00 am and I need to sleep and then decide on how I should procede in this discussion. Good night and God bless you all. Amen!