Playing with Debian GNU/Hurd

Playing with Debian GNU/Hurd

Singing Praise to God, Among the Gentiles

Paul often quoted from the "Old Testament" as authoritative scripture. For example, here are four quotes from four different OT passages, in four consecutive verses written by Paul:

Rom 15:9-12 WEB 9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will give praise to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.” 10 Again he says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.” 11 Again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Let all the peoples praise him.” 12 Again, Isaiah says, “There will be the root of Jesse, he who arises to rule over the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles will hope.”

Something that might interest this list is that the first quote comes from Psalm 108:3, in the context of the very phrase Paul uses elsewhere -- "sing and make music with the inner person" -- and these two Paulian quotes sandwich a detail about how this singing God's praise amongst the Gentiles will take place:

Psa 108:1-3 WEB 1 My heart is steadfast, God. I will sing and I will make music with my soul. 2 Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn. 3 I will give thanks to you, Yahweh, among the nations. I will sing praises to you among the peoples.

This is how Paul expected his readers to understand singing and making melody in the inner person, as they sang praise to God among the Gentiles. It's how his authoritative scripture described the process.

 

Originally published at:
https://kentwest.blogspot.com/2021/08/singing-praise-to-god-among-gentiles.html

"Original" less-than-ness

"sin" does not mean "guilty"; it means "less-than-ness".

Adam had a choice, but prior to that choice, he was not affected by a "less-than-ness" of his physical nature. Once he made that choice however, everyone was affected by an inherited "less-than-ness" of their physical nature (as was the entire cosmos - Rom 8:20), except for one man, who inherited a different set of male genetic material, which was not tainted by this "less-than-ness".

This other man was the Second Adam, who also had a choice, unaffected by a "less-than-ness" of his physical nature. This Second Adam made the right choice, and as a result, those who follow him are free from the condemnation of this law of "less-than-ness" and its resulting death, and in the future, will experience life given to their mortal bodies by the same spirit that resurrected the Second Adam (Rom 8:1-11).

God Requires Us To Live Righteously

I would argue that God *does* require us to live sinlessly.

But we've each failed.

So God came to earth to live sinlessly for us, and then paid the penalty for not living sinlessly. His right-ness, and his penalty-payment, both become ours, as a gift from him. Our job now is to strive to emulate him in his sinlessness, knowing we're still going to fail. Our best right-ness is as filthy rags before him. But the more of his spirit we have within us, the better we'll get at living sinlessly.

Babies Are Not Born in Sin

 We often turn to 1 John 3:4 for our definition of "sin" - a transgression of law.

But the New Testament uses the term more broadly than that one narrow definition. More generally, the term "sin" simply means "falling short of the target".

Paul uses this term in Romans 5-8 in this broader sense: Adam "fell short" of the target of obedience, and brought death into the world. This death then caused the entire cosmos to "fall short" of the target of its created ideal, which brings death to everyone, even those who are innocent of the type of "falling short" committed by Adam. There's a "falling short" that brings guilt, like Adam's, and there's a "falling short" that is not like Adam's, which still brings death even when there is no law to be broken.

So in the sense of "falling short" of law-keeping, it is correct to say that babies are not born in/with "sin".

But in the sense of "falling short" of what God intended in his creation, babies are born in "sin", and this is why innocent babies sometimes die. Such babies are not guilty of breaking law, and thus do not have sin in the way John uses the term, but they do have sin in the sense of falling short of the created ideal, as Paul uses the term.

Saved by "Faith Alone"

There is no such "real" thing as "faith alone".

What we believe determines what we do.

It is the shift from non-faith to faith that alone determines the direction we go (like shifting a car's gears from Reverse to Drive). There are other things involved (having gas in the tank, turning the key, pressing on the accelerator, etc), so it's inaccurate from one semantic viewpoint to say "faith alone saves", as pointed out by the New Testament author James. But from another semantic viewpoint, the only thing that saves one from driving off the cliff and moves him forward into safety is shifting the gear from Reverse to Drive.

Faith is the fundamental difference-maker. In that sense, we are saved by "faith alone". But in a different sense, faith is never "alone"; what you believe determines how you act. And a mere mental acknowledgement without act-changing behavior is a "dead faith" that has no power to save. The demons believe that "God is one". But that's not an action-changing faith; it's only a partial "faith", that doesn't turn them around, that doesn't shift them from Reverse to Drive. Salvation requires a living faith, not a dead faith.

When one has the appropriate faith, that faith saves, and it manifests as appropriate action. It's not the faith alone that saves, but conversely, it's the faith alone that saves. It's just a matter of what is meant by the words. The "faith alone doesn't save" crowd has better wording, or at least a better "my wording is more specifically found in the Bible" argument. But don't wrangle over words; seek unity in the spirit, not in the letter, of what's being said, to strengthen the bond of peace.

Forsake Not the Assembling of the Saints

I'm going to suggest that Heb 10:25 is not as "plain" as most people believe.

The underlying Greek word there for "assembling (or "gathering) together" is ἐπισυναγωγὴν (episynagogen); this word is used in only one other place in the NT:

WEB 2 Thess 2:1 Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our --> gathering together <-- (ἐπισυναγωγῆς) to him, we ask you 2 not to be quickly shaken in your mind, and not be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come.

Now with that in mind, reread the Heb passage:

WEB Heb 10:24 Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, 25 not forsaking our own --> assembling together <-- (ἐπισυναγωγὴν), as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

Is the writer warning against forsaking a periodic gathering of believers, or is s/he warning against giving up on the coming gathering of all saints when Jesus returns? The similarity in these two passages, especially using the same unique word in each, points to the latter. Yet I daresay few find this to be their concept of the "plain language of Heb 10:25".

Even if this is referring to a regular assembly of believers, the focus of the meeting seems to be horizontally, outward-focused one-another oriented ("provoke", "encourage") rather than vertically, upward-focused God oriented ("worship"). It seems to be an "encouragement service" rather than a "worship service".

 

The First Christian Evangelist ("bearer of good tidings") Was a Woman

The very first person whom Jesus appointed to tell the good news of his resurrection was a woman.

And when the men failed to believe her, Jesus rebuked them.

WEB John 20:[17] Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold me, for I haven’t yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mark 16:[10] She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. [11] When they heard that he was alive, and had been seen by her, they disbelieved. ... [14] Afterward he was revealed to the eleven themselves as they sat at the table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they didn’t believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

Here's perhaps another way of reading the 1 Cor 14 passage forbidding women to speak: 

Since chapter 7, Paul has been addressing issues that the Corinthians had written to him about. It seems that in some places he quotes what they say, and then replies to that quote.

For example:

Corinthian's Letter to Paul:

"It's good for a man to not touch a woman." 

Paul's Response: 

No, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife.

or

Corinthians:

"All things are legal for me to do."

Paul: 

Maybe, but not all things are expedient/helpful. So, no, not all things are "legal" for you.

I suggest that Paul is doing the same thing with the silent-women passage:

Corinthians:

"Women must be silent in the church!"

 Paul:

What? Was it from you men that the word of God went out (that is, remember Mary)? Are you men the only ones to whom God has given his word?

Paul had just spent three chapters explaining that God gives gifts, including speaking his word, to whomever he wants to give them, to be used for building up the church. And if God gives the gift of speech to a woman in the midst of an assembly, who do these Corinthian men think they are to say they know better than God how and when his giftings should be used? If it's shameful for a woman to speak among men, then Jesus sent Mary on a "shameful" errand, and then rebuked those who didn't listen to this "shameful" woman. And what law says these things? It's certainly not in the law of Moses, where women occasionally spoke and even took the lead. Maybe it was a Corinthian law, but how does that have bearing on what God's people do?

It is a hard thing to consider that we've misunderstood a passage all our lives, and perhaps this view of the passage is not correct. But I urge you to consider it with an open mind, and not just reject it out-of-hand in favor of your life-long-held traditional belief.

Jesus seems not to have held the typical Rabbinic view of women. According to https://www.bible-history.com/court-of-women/women.html

In the Temple proper the females occupied, according to Jewish tradition, only a raised gallery along three sides of the court. They were allowed to observe the ceremonies but never to participate in them.

Rabbinic literature was filled with contempt for women. The rabbis taught that women were not to be saluted, or spoken to in the street, and they were not to be instructed in the law or receive an inheritance. A woman walked six paces behind her husband and if she uncovered her hair in a public place she was considered a harlot.
...
They could not be disciples of any great rabbi, they certainly could not travel with any rabbi.
...
In court a woman's testimony was considered suspect....

Makes me wonder if the law referenced in 1 Cor 14:34 is the Rabbinic Law, that same law that specified hand-washing before eating, and which Jesus railed against as setting aside the commands of God for the sake of tradition.

It's interesting that Jesus was a rabbi that had a woman student (Mary choosing "the good part, that will not be taken away from her" - Luke 10:42), and had women as followers and fellow-travelers (Luke 8:1-3), despite "the law" forbidding such.

It's interesting that Jesus rebuked the men who disbelieved the woman's testimony, despite the culture's attitude toward the testimony of women.