Roots, Shoots, Fruits

Good morning,

1 Corinthians 15:35-58 was written by Paul to further solidify his assertion in the previous verses that the resurrection from the dead is a certainty.  The Corinthians had many questions about this. Remember that most of them believed that Christ would return to earth during their lifetimes.  So, when many of them began to die from natural causes or to be martyred, as they all continued to age, they began to doubt other doctrinal truths.  This doubt led to their contamination by various errors.
1 Corinthians was written to correct these.

They had many questions about how it would unfold, if the resurrection from the dead was a future certainty.  The following verses were given to answer these questions.

35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 Fool! What you sow will not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed—perhaps of wheat or something else. 38 But God gives it a body just as he planned, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. 39 All flesh is not the same: People have one flesh, animals have another, birds and fish another.40 And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly body is one sort and the earthly another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.

42 It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam,became a living person”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 Like the one made of dust, so too are those made of dust, and like the one from heaven, so too those who are heavenly.49 And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, let us also bear the image of the man of heaven.

50 Now this is what I am saying, brothers and sisters: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen,

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”“

Where, O death, is your victory?  Where O death is your sting?

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! 58 So then, dear brothers and sisters, be firm. Do not be moved! Always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

Wiersbe1 points out that "resurrection is not reconstruction", the latter being what the Corinthians anticipated.  Because the supernatural transformation from seemingly nothing into a heavenly body is difficult to understand, Paul used the analogy of a seed to illustrate.  When one plants a seed, no one expects the seed itself to rise up in its planted form from the ground.  Yet, undeniably, the roots, shoots and fruits come from the seed itself.  Similarly, our earthly bodies are like "the first Adam's" - - - the Adam of Adam and Eve, our ancestors.  But, our heavenly bodies will be like ("the second Adam) Jesus Christ's resurrected body.

What will that body be like, you ask?  We are given some hints in Scripture, telling us some of the attributes of Jesus' resurrected body.  Paul plainly states in Philippians 3:20-21 that our resurrected bodies will be like His.  We know, then, that our new bodies will be incorruptible and eternal.  (However, some believe that some of what we read about Jesus' actions after the resurrection were characteristics given only to Him.  Frankly, I find no support for such in Scripture, preferring to adopt Paul's position.) If you want to explore the given characteristics of our "forever bodies", here are some references.  I'll also include a web link in the Sources: section, where you can read about several more.

*teleportation                                     His sudden appearance on the road to Emmaus   Luke 24:13-14
                                     "I must ascend to my Father"  (spoken to Magdalene at the tomb)  John 20:17

*walk through solid matter       His walking through a locked door to appear to the 12  Jn. 20:19-26
*ability to disguise oneself                Mark 16:12, Luke 24:13

Paul concludes this chapter by telling the Corinthians to be encouraged by these truths.  Holding on to such a certainty gives us, as it gave the Corinthians, the power for victorious living, for a resplendent walk, as we work for the furtherance of our Lord's kingdom.

Father, thank you for these sneak previews of the glorious future You have planned for Your children.  Since our only earthly experience has been with a troublesome, inconvenient human body, we cannot fathom how wonderful our heavenly bodies will be.  Thank you for redeeming our souls, so that we, at the moment of our deaths, will fly into the loving arms of our Savior, to be with Him forever.  And thank you for resurrecting our bodies on that day which only You know, to unite our spirits with our forever bodies.  We may be here on that amazing day; or, we may already be with our Lord and Savior, worshipping our Triune God in Your presence.  That is not for us to know.  But, You know, O majestic Lord!  Our times and seasons are in Your hands.  With love and praise, in Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

1  Wiersbe, Warren W. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary. 2nd ed. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2007. 495. Print.
2  http://devotionalnet.faithsite.com/uploads/147/95680.pdf

Vicarious Baptism

Good morning,

Well, you look at that title and you think, "What in the world is she doing?"

I have to be honest.  I was not in the mood to do Bible study this morning.  I really was not.  Some mornings are just like that.  I knew that 1 Corinthians 15 was ahead of me, and I just was not very jazzed.  But, part of the reason I write this is blog is to discipline myself to daily study of the Word.
Thing is:  I'm learning that sometimes I find the unexpected.

Today, "the unexpected" took the form of 1 Corinthians 15:29-34.  Here are the verses from the NET:

29 Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they baptized for them? 30 Why too are we in danger every hour?31 Every day I am in danger of death! This is as sure as my boasting in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32 If from a human point of view I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what did it benefit me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. 33 Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 34 Sober up as you should, and stop sinning! For some have no knowledge of God—I say this to your shame!

For years I've been aware that some faiths practice baptizing their members on behalf of dead loved ones.  Most notably, the Mormons do this in our present day.  It also sprang up as a false teaching in the early Christian church. For example, Cerenthand and Marcien, two early church fathers, taught this.  It was branded as heresy by many believers, even then.

But, I never thought about or investigated where this belief originated, until I came across 1 Cor. 15:29, where it was staring me in the face.  Ahhhh, THAT's where it comes from!

You know, it is amazing to me how we just gloss over or ignore difficult passages of Scripture.  It's almost like we think that God is not big enough to get us over the hurdles.  The Bible is a complex book.  But, it is a perfect book as well, infallible.  So, what do we do when we find a Bible verse that is puzzling?  What we should do is to look at the whole fabric of Scripture and interpret the verse or passage in light of the rest of the book.  That is what we should do here.

Having said that, you should know that there are scores of different interpretations about this verse. You can see that some faiths have built entire doctrines around 1 Cor. 15:29, around this one verse. Nowhere else in the Bible are we told to baptize people on behalf of dead loved ones.  We aren't told to do that by Paul here either, for that matter.

Paul had been spending several verses reinforcing to the Corinthians the truth of the bodily resurrection from the dead.  They had gotten themselves mired in error over this issue.  Some of the Corinthians had stopped believing in a literal, bodily resurrection.  They had begun to listen to those who did not believe this scriptural teaching.  Part of the Corinthians' error had also involved corrupt association with those who use baptism inappropriately.  Paul brings this up when he uses those heretical practitioners as an example.  He has been making the point that even those practicing the heresy of vicarious baptism do so because they believe in a resurrection from the dead.  He does not mention them to affirm their heretical practice or to "enhance" Jesus' true teaching on baptism or to suggest that the Corinthians get baptized for loved ones.  He lumps these heretics into the those warned against in verse 34 - - - those who "have no knowledge of God".

This interpretation of 15:29-34 makes sense to me as a mother because, in trying to reason with an errant child (much as Paul was trying to correct the Corinthians), I will sometimes mention other wayward folk as a negative example.  Let me illustrate:
"Son, cocaine will kill you.  Stay away from it as well as from all illegal substances.  Look at your classmates, Rufus and Baldaric.  They are pot-smokers, but even they stay away from cocaine because they know it will kill you.  If cocaine is not terribly dangerous, why would Rufus and Baldaric avoid it?"
Now, do you really think that by invoking Rufus and Baldaric, the pot-smoking associates, I am encouraging my son to smoke pot?  God forbid!  But, this type of argument is what Paul is using, I believe, in this passage. Makes total sense to this mom.

You will note that no notable person in the Bible, either in the Old or New Testaments is seen being baptized on behalf on someone else, either living or dead.

A couple other interpretation of these verses I'll mention as possible true interpretations.  This is the one that John MacArthur holds.  He believes Paul mentions verse 29 to say that the witness of the dead believers leads others to salvation (and thereafter to their own living baptism).1  Warren Wiersbe believes Paul is saying that new believers are being saved and then baptized to replace the ranks in the Church of those believers who have died and gone on to their reward.2  Both of these highly respected men hold slightly different views from mine, a lowly lover of the Bible and by no means a Bible scholar of any renown whatsoever.

Regardless of which alternate explanation you choose, it is obvious by the absence of this "doctrine" anywhere else in Scripture that vicarious baptism (being baptized on behalf of someone else) is a false doctrine.  Some of you, readers of this blog, will disagree.  It is not my intention to start an argument, but to exegete the Scriptures as the Holy Spirit instructs.

What we should focus on instead is the true teaching of Paul in this chapter, that being that it is the bodily resurrection of the dead which compelled (and still compels) believers to die for their faith (15:19).  Christ was the first to be raised from the dead into a resurrection body; the bodily resurrection of us, His followers, will happen in a similar way (15:20-23).  This is "the blessed hope" Titus describes in Titus 2:13.

Father, thank you that we do not follow our Savior only in this present world, but that we have Your promise that we will be with You, our Triune God, for all eternity, in resurrected, supernatural bodies.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

1  file:///Users/genahood/Downloads/ResurrectionIncentives.pdf
2  Wiersbe, Warren W. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary. 2nd ed. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2007. 494. Print.

Unlikely Stars

Good morning,

The Bible is such a real-life type of book.  It presents God in as much of His glory as we can handle with our human limitations.  And, it also presents humans in their range of ridiculous to sublime. Thank God for both presentations!

Take the story of Hagar, for instance.  Hagar was a maidservant to Sarah, Abraham's wife.  When Sarah continued to be barren, even when stared down by the repeated promises of God to the contrary, she devised a plan (common in those days) to get a son by letting her husband procreate with Hagar.  Hagar conceived and Ishmael was born.  Later on in the story Hagar was banished from the camp, along with her teenage son.  They were sent off into the desert, where they would have died if God had not rescued them. (Genesis 21).  This was not the first time that Hagar had been rescued by God in the desert.  When she saw that she had conceived by Abraham she began to flaunt the "accomplishment" in front of Sarah, her mistress, to the point that Sarah kicked her out of the camp.  On that occasion, "the angel of the Lord", which most believe to be, not a regular angel, but instead a physical appearance of Jehovah God, appeared to rescue Hagar.  We know this from Hagar's response in Genesis 16:13 (NET).

The Lord’s angel found Hagar near a spring of water in the desert—the spring that is along the road to Shur. 8 He said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She replied, “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai.”

9 Then the Lord’s angel said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her authority.10 I will greatly multiply your descendants,” the Lord’s angel added, “so that they will be too numerous to count.” 

13 So Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “Here I have seen one who sees me!” 

Here's the amazing part.  Hagar had been pretty much a "nobody". She was an Egyptian slave girl, probably acquired by Sarah on one of her trips to Egypt with her husband.  Even so, we read in Genesis 16 that God Himself physically appeared to her.

This was not Hagar's original plan.  I'm quite sure she:
*never intended to become a maidservant
*never intended to bear Abraham's child
*never intended to be sent out into the wilderness, not once but twice
*never intended to see God face-to-face
*never intended to be the mother of all Arab peoples.
It just was not in her plan.
But, it was in God's plan.

Or, consider Paul.  He had a grand plan.  He was raised in a well-to-do Jewish family from Cyprus, a mediterranean island.  He was a very highly regarded, very ardent Jew.  He zealously persecuted Christians, whom he viewed as a blight on the face of Judaism, a pox that had to be eradicated, a heretical fringe element to be expunged!  And, his plan was to destroy that fledgling cult.  He pursued his goal with all his might, killing Christians left and right.
But this was not God's plan.  1 Corinthians 15:8-10 - - 

8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me.

NET

"He appeared to me also."  Paul came to see that he was of the same stature as the original 12 disciples, because a mark of such a person was that they had seen Jesus, face-to-face.  Can't you just hear the wonder in Paul's voice?  He admits it was as if he had been born at the wrong time!  He marvels at the amazing acts of God, His unsearchable ways.

Paul also marvels at the fact that, of all people, he least deserved God's favor.  A lot of us feel that way and, unfortunately, we get stuck there.  I have a friend who absolutely cannot see herself as God sees her.  I think that all of us have this problem to some degree or another, but for some of us, it is incapacitating, making our lives for Christ "lived in vain".  The key to walking resplendent is to first see ourselves as God sees us: redeemed in Christ, restored, forgiven, free.  And then, knowing this living in light of those truths, that glorious, liberating grace.

Paul recognized that it was through God's amazing grace that he was all those things, and only through His grace.  You'll notice that he caught himself almost taking credit in verse 10, almost saying that it was his hard work that had brought him to a place of zealously serving Jesus Christ. Then, he stopped himself, to give credit where credit was due.

The point is this:  it does not matter so much where you start out.  What matters is where you end up. If you think otherwise you are deceived.  We are all where we are because of the grace of God, not because of our own "good plans".  On the other hand, you may have made some truly horrible choices.  The path along the way may not be the one you wanted to walk or planned to walk.  But, God is greater than your choices!  He can still fashion you into a star in his kingdom in spite of your past!  Did he not do that for Paul?

If you embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and seek to follow Him with your whole heart, you are going to be just where God wants you to be, regardless of the outward circumstances. Believe that!  Embrace it, and thank God for it.

All of us who follow Christ are "unlikely stars".

Father, I thank you that each one of us, your children, is special in your eyes.  You have a plan for each of us; none of us is insignificant to You.  Help us to see ourselves as the princes and princesses you have made us, through Your Son, Jesus Christ.  Give us a clear picture of the heritage we received when we received Jesus.  And then, Lord God, urge us through Your Holy Spirit to walk in it, not bound by our past, but...resplendent.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Of First Importance

Good morning,

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul moves on to another heretical teaching which had invaded the Corinthian church.  This was the truth of Jesus' resurrection.  In coming to that topic, though, he makes a statement which has been often taken out of context and misinterpreted.  Let's examine verses 1-11.

 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, this is the way we preach and this is the way you believed.

NET

In the past couple of months, I have heard two preachers refer to 1 Cor. 15:3-4 as "the gospel defined".  That is ... if anyone asks you, "What is the gospel?", here is the answer:
Jesus Christ died for our sins, according to how the Old Testament prophets predicted He would.
Jesus Christ was buried.
Jesus Christ, on the 3rd day, was resurrected.  Again, this was prophesied in the Old Testament.

{Implicit in these statements by Paul was Jesus's divinity, His 2nd Personhood of the Holy Trinity. That was not a point of dispute among the Corinthians, and Paul had drilled that doctrine elsewhere. He does not stop to perseverate on that point here in this context.}

So, that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which Paul had preached, not only when he was with the Corinthians, but to all to whom he preached.  That is the gospel which the Corinthians had received.  It is the only gospel which saves.  Corinthians were being saved, coming to know Jesus Christ; but, this would continue to occur only through the preaching of the true gospel.

Verse 2 is one that trips some believers up, because they point to it as a proof that our personal salvation is dependent upon our working hard to keep it.  That is not what Paul is saying in verse 2.  Remember that this is the same man who, under divine inspiration, penned Ephesians 2:8-9!

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

ESV

What is his meaning here in verse 2, then?  He is emphasizing that we must hold fast to the truth of the gospel as he laid it out in verses 3 and 4 because, if believers perverted the gospel, their belief would be polluted, misdirected, false, "in vain" as Paul phrases it.  They would be believing "another gospel other than the one I preached to you" (Galatians 1:8-9; 2 Cor. 11:4).

The social and historical contexts are very important to note.  Christianity was born in the midst of Roman and Greek culture.  The Greeks did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.  In fact, when Paul was preaching on Christ's resurrection at Mars Hill in Athens (see Acts 17:32), the listeners laughed at him!  This societal belief had crept in to deceive the Corinthian believers, to make them question the concept of an afterlife and a resurrection.  It is to this point that Paul writes chapter 15.

Paul emphasizes that the true gospel must be "right".  If it is not right, then nothing else matters; nothing else will be "right".   The gospel is "of first importance".  This begs the question:  why does Satan try so hard to pervert the true gospel of Jesus Christ?  Because this true gospel is the only one with the power to save.  It is the only one given by God for the redemption of mankind.  There is one way to God, and there only one (John 14:6).

In verses 5-8, Paul lists some eyewitness accounts of Jesus' resurrection:  His appearance to Peter, His appearance to the 12 disciples, His appearance to over 500 people at one time (!), His appearance to James, His appearance to the apostles, His appearance to Paul (on the road to Damascus and possibly also during Paul's 3 years of solitary, private study in Arabia - - see Galatians 1:11 through 2:21).

Then, Paul sort of "digresses" a bit to talk about his own personal testimony.  I love these verses.  In fact, they deserve a blog post all their own.  We'll meditate on them tomorrow.

Father, we see from this letter that the enemy has, from the beginning of the Church, sought to pervert Your gospel message.  The same tactics are being used today.  Help us to be wise to recognize such perversion and deception when we encounter it.  Make us watchful to reject its infiltration into our own spirits.  In Jesus' name, amen.

To Speak or Not?

Good morning,

We are finishing up 1 Corinthians 14 today with an examination of verses 33b-36.  These are some of the most problematic verses in the Bible because they pose a seeming contradiction to 1 Corinthians 11:2-9.  I think it is worth reprinting both passages here.

As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak. Rather, let them be in submission, as in fact the law says. 35 If they want to find out about something, they should ask their husbands at home, because it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church. 36 Did the word of God begin with you, or did it come to you alone?

1 Cor. 14:33b-36
NET

2 I praise you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I passed them on to you. 3 But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. 4 Any man who prays or prophesies with his head covered disgraces his head. 5 But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head, for it is one and the same thing as having a shaved head. 6 For if a woman will not cover her head, she should cut off her hair. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, she should cover her head. 7 For a man should not have his head covered, since he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for man.

1 Cor. 11:2-9
NET

So, in order to try to be comprehensive, I did some research on these passages.  Along the way I encountered terms like "early marginal gloss" or "transcriptional probability" or "lectio difficilior potior", for goodness' sake!  For literally centuries, Bible scholars have tried to explain (or explain away) these verses.

Other relevant verses include Acts 2:16-17 and 1 Timothy 2:11, if you want to go read those before proceeding.

Most assuredly, I am not a Bible scholar of any merit.  I expect you, the reader, to search matters such as this one out for yourself and let the Holy Spirit speak to you from the Scriptures.  That is what I try to do in my personal studies.  Like I said in yesterday's post, we all must weigh what we read from those who have studied the Bible for years.  With the complexities of God's revelation to us, I doubt that any human (excepting Jesus, who was also divine) has a 100% infallible interpretation, 100% of the time.

I'm going to start by bullet-pointing some of the misinterpretations of this passage, sometimes accompanied by the scholars who propagated it.  For the sake of space, I won't extensively refute them.  I am taking much of this material from a publication by Dr. D.A. Carson's series Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, 20051  If you want to read the refutations, please visit that site.

• The verses are not authentic; they were later textual additions to the original manuscripts. {Fee, Bengel} (However, be advised that these verses DO appear in all known manuscripts of this letter.)
• Women may pray and prophesy privately, but not in the public church assembly.  In other words, the 1 Cor. 11 passage refers to the former only, and 1 Cor. 14 to the latter only.  There are a couple of problems with this:  earlier in this same chapter (14) Paul expressly defined prophesying as a publicly expressed spiritual gift and that after its public expression the prophecy would be evaluated.  Second, there were no large church assemblies at all at the time this letter was written.  The believers met in small groups in homes.  Furthermore, there is nothing in the 1 Cor. 11 passage that restricts it to a private setting.
• It's a contradiction; let's leave it at that.  For me, though, it is inconceivable that Paul would so boldly contradict himself in the space of a few pages!
• Fiorenza and Ellis suggest that the prohibition in 1 Cor. 14 only applies to wives, not to single women. (That, to me, makes no logical sense...)
• Paul's admonition is specific to problems in the Corinthian church; the command is a local and cultural one.  There are a couple of problems with this, the first one being that Paul made it clear in the chapter 14 verses that this practice was followed in all the New Testament churches.  So, we must then assume that all the NT churches had this problem with their women?  There is also the danger of applying this dismissive attitude toward other passages of Scripture, a perilous practice, at best.
• Still another interpretation is that in verses 34-35 Paul is speaking sarcastically because he follows in verse 36 with an exasperated "What?!  Did the Word of God come only to you?", with the "you" referring to men specifically.  {Odell-Scott, Manus, Thayer, Bilezikian} While this is a beguiling interpretation, Carson extensively refutes it.  I won't get into all that here, as it takes a lot of coffee to get through it, believe me.  It's too bad that Paul didn't make an audiobook of his letters.  So much is lost by our not being able to hear his vocal inflections...

Here is what Carson believes to be the correct interpretation within the context of the passage, and Wiersbe agrees with him (see Sources).

Paul has been writing about the correct use of the gifts of tongues and prophecy.  In 14:37-40, he returns to that same topic to close the chapter.  So, it makes sense that verses 33b-36 should apply to this specific context.  Let me quote Carson here:

Paul has just been requiring that the church in Corinth carefully weigh the prophecies presented to it. Women, of course, may participate in such prophesying; that was established in chapter 11. Paul’s point here, however, is that they may not participate in the oral weighing of such prophecies. That is not permitted in any of the churches.

More broadly, a strong case can be made for the view that Paul refused to permit any woman to enjoy a church-recognized teaching authority over men (1 Timothy 2:11ff.),46 and the careful weighing of prophecies falls under that magisterial function.

Honestly, this interpretation seems the most sensible and logical to me, for what it's worth.  It lines up with other scriptural commands about women's leadership role in the church and in their relationship to men.  This position does not make me feel enslaved or inferior, nor does it prevent me from teaching other women and also children/youth in the local body, nor does it imply that only women misinterpret Scripture, or cause discord, etc. It does not prevent me from praying and prophesying and teaching, as the Holy Spirit leads. I am quite content to let men take the primary leadership roles in the Church, those of pastor, elder, deacon and so forth.  I am content because this is the order and structure that God established, even as far back as Genesis 2!

I realize that this will "rile" some of you who interpret the Bible differently.  You could argue that because I blog on biblical matters I am violating these scriptural injunctions.  Perhaps you are right.  I could also point out, though, that people may feel free to read my blog...or not, according to their own convictions on this point.

We need to avoid being legalistic on this point, as there are far more important matters on which we must unite for the furtherance of the Lord's kingdom.  I have a very dear friend who is a female minister in the United Church of Christ, in Canada.  I love her, although we don't totally agree on this passage (and others!)

Let me close with a true story.  When I was preparing to go to Peru, I had been asked to speak to the women there about a couple of topics.  So, I did that study and preparation.  In the process of that, though, I was reading a book on the topic of effective prayer.  It just flowed out of my spirit to prepare a lesson on that as well.  I took all of that material with me.  On the trip, I was privileged to share with the women 4 of the 6 lessons prepared beforehand.  The two that remained were on Rahab and also that one on prayer.  The last morning we were at the teaching retreat, the schedule and "plan" got disrupted by an emergency.  The pastor who had been scheduled to speak was unable to do so.  The leader of the retreat asked me to teach in his place.  It became crystal-clear that God had placed that lesson on prayer in my hands for that very moment.  No one stood around and debated 1 Cor. 14:33b-36.  Similarly, there are times when a woman will teach our "couples" Sunday School class at church, in our regular (male) teacher's absence.

Finally, let's remember to be united in Christ's love and to minister to one another in peace.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:15
NIV

Father, we have difficulty with your revealed Word when it clashes with the worldly society in which we live.  In such cases, Your way seems...extreme.  It appears that the Corinthians felt the same, which is why Paul wrote this letter of correction and redirection.  Make our hearts soft toward You, O God, and receptive to Your ways, so that we can walk resplendent on the path You have laid out before us.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

https://bible.org/seriespage/6-silent-churches-role-women-1-corinthians-1433b-36

Wiersbe, Warren W. The Wiersbe Bible Commentary. 2nd ed. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2007. 492. Print.

Decently and in Order

Good morning,

I find 1 Corinthians 14 to be difficult.  In my travels through 1 Corinthians, I arrived here late last week, amid trying personal circumstances.  The chapter just got the best of of me.  So, really I've been avoiding it.  However, that can't continue to go on; so, here we are.

Although born and raised in the Baptist church, I have had occasional forays into the more charismatic denominations.  I've worshipped with believers who spoke in tongues, for example.  I've worshipped in services where people were healed, where they danced, even where people became so ecstatic in the Spirit that they fainted.  I don't mention any of these things to demean or condescend to any Christian denomination, based on these behaviors.  In all those situations, the congregation behaved in a peaceful, orderly way (vs. 40).

It occurs to me that Christians congregate with each other according to their spiritual gifts.  If a person has been given the gift of tongues, for example, he or she will probably worship in a congregation where that particular spiritual gift is more often exercised.  I see nothing wrong with that.  Otherwise, disorder could result.

In this chapter Paul is instructing the new church on how the spiritual gifts should be exercised so as to build up the local congregation of believers and also to be a witness to an unbelieving world. Apparently, the Corinthians needed this type of corrective guidance, because their worship services were characterized by disorder, as was their communal eating (1 Cor. 11).  The points of disorder seemed to center around the exercise of the gifts of speaking in tongues, in interpreting of tongues and of prophecy.  In their eagerness to "share", members were not waiting their turn, were behaving disrespectfully to each other and were generally causing havoc among the people.

Paul had these things to say about the exercise of the gifts of speaking in and interpreting tongues.
1.  The primary purpose for speaking in tongues is for the believer to communicate with God, to draw closer to Him in prayer (vs. 2).
2.  The one with the gift of speaking in tongues should not exercise his gift in public unless there is someone present who understands the foreign language he is speaking and who can interpret his utterances to the people present (vs. 5, 9-12, 27).

If you do not speak clearly with your tongue, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air. 10 There are probably many kinds of languages in the world, and none is without meaning. 11 If then I do not know the meaning of a language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me. 12 It is the same with you.

3.  The implication here is that the believer's utterance should be a recognized foreign language that another person present who speaks that language would be able to interpret.
The goal of public manifestations of the gift of tongues is to strengthen the church and to be a sign to unbelievers.  (vs. 12, 22)
4.   Public manifestations of speaking in tongues should occur one person at a time, with an interpretation following immediately thereafter (vs. 27-28).

Whereas the gift of tongues is to be primarily a private gift with carefully ordered public use, the gift of prophecy is a much more public gift (vs. 19, 39).  The purpose of the gift of prophecy is to:
1.  reveal hidden things from God to the people (29-31)
2.  to strengthen, encourage and console the Church  (vs. 3)
3.  to bring unbelievers to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus (vs. 24, 25)

Even though the gift of prophecy is the more preferable gift for public use, Paul was clear that all spoken prophecies should be evaluated by the hearers, as to whether they are truly from God.  In the days of the early Church, the people did not have written revelation other than the Old Testament and the newly circulating letters from the apostles.  The spoken words of the apostles and missionaries (the apostles were the first missionaries) were also used as evaluation tools.  Today, we have the entire written revelation of Jesus Christ to His Church, both Old and New Testaments.  We must be careful to evaluate prophecy according to The Book.

Here's an example.  Every day a new "religious" book comes out, seeking to interpret the Scriptures in light of current events.  The most notable examples concern the nation of Israel and "end times" prophecies.  Books come and books go.  Some of their predictions (prophecies) are proven to be true. Others are not.  What makes me think of these phenomena is a piece I read by Joel C. Rosenberg yesterday.  He was commenting on both a huge natural gas reserve (16 trillion cubic feet) discovered in Israel (off the coast of Haifa in 2010) and also more recently, a huge oil reserve , in the Golan Heights.  Joel had penned a non-fiction work, Epicenter, in 2006.  In that book, he prophesied that a future newspaper headline would tell of both of these discoveries.

I would hope that you would do the same with this blog:  evaluate its contents according to the Scriptures, rather than taking it at "face value".  Look up the cited verses each day.  Search the Word of God yourself.

The gift of prophecy, though, has a more personal application as well.  Verse 25 says that this gift discloses secrets of people's hearts - - - not in a public, defaming way - - - but rather that the Holy Spirit uses preachers or teachers with this spiritual gift to produce conviction in the hearts of both believers and unbelievers.

Tomorrow we will conclude this chapter by examining verses 33-36.

Good morning, Lord.  Thank you for giving us the Body of Christ all of the spiritual gifts, so that as Your Church we can more powerfully bring You glory, so that the lost may come to know You.  May all things be done decently and in order.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Sources:

https://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/11/israel-makes-massive-discovery-of-oil-in-the-golan-heights-is-this-a-prelude-to-the-war-of-gog-magog-heres-the-answer-part-two/

https://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/bible-prophecy-update-israel-discovers-another-16-trillion-cubic-feet-of-natural-gas/

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/major-shale-find-could-guarantee-israels-oil-supply-for-years-cm528693

Later, 'Gator!

{Normally, I begin every post with "Good morning,".
That is a tall order today.}

Good morning,

This is the day the Lord has made.  I will rejoice and be glad in it.  

Psalm 118:24

As has been alluded to in recent posts, my church family has been going through some grievous times these past couple of weeks.  On Oct. 1st, we marked the one-year anniversary of the death of one of our sweetest, most devout teens, killed in a car accident. Near that same time, a couple in our church lost their adult son to death.  Then, four days ago, another couple lost their adult son.  Then, three days later, tragedy struck again, this time snatching from us the precious 5-year old son of our children's pastor.  In addition to this, Hubster and I lost a friend (from a neighboring church) to a brain aneurysm.

We, and our church family, are simply "beside ourselves" with grief.

Psalm 116:3 describes deep grief as "the pains of Sheol (or Hell) got hold of me".  The Psalmist describes the situation as one of "being tied up with strong cords" by death.  The word picture that his contemporaries would have understood was that of a creditor tying up a person who owed him money, tying him up so securely that he could not escape until the account was settled.
Tied up, "encompassed" by death.  Bound up in grief.

Most of us have "been there" - - overtaken by the trouble and sorrow which accompany the death of a loved one.  Some of us have gone there and are having a very hard time being set free.  It is normal and right to grieve the loss of a dearly beloved.  It is not the way of our God to live there, imprisoned in our grief to the point that we are destroyed.

If you are an unbeliever, someone who reads my posts out of curiosity, let me tell you a secret.
Christians grieve differently.  We love deeply, because we seek to imitate the love of Jesus Christ, modeled for us. We feel our losses as keenly as anyone who do not know Jesus.

The difference is that our grieving is infused with what the Bible calls "hope" (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
The word "hope" in the New Testament is not the same as our English word.  In this verse and many others, the Greek word "elpida" means "a calm assurance".

A calm assurance of what?  Christians believe that by knowing Jesus Christ as Savior we will never truly die.  Our bodies will certainly continue to deteriorate, with each day we live, until they succumb to physical death, at which point our eternal spirits will be released to go be with our LORD.  We will remain with Him forever, until and even past that grand day when He returns to Earth to raise our mortal bodies, convert them to a "forever body" and reunite our eternal spirits with that immortal body forever.  To fellow Believers who cross over into eternity before us we say, "Later, 'Gator!"  We love you desperately, and will miss you terribly.  But, we know we will love you until the end of all time and beyond.  And, we will see you, be with you, love you again, after we have stepped from here into eternity to join you and our most-beloved Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is He, and only He, who has broken the binding cords of Hell and Death (Acts 2:24).

Oh sure, there are times like this when we are tempted to "throw it all in".  Praying last night, I said to the Lord, "You know, it is in moments like this - - - moments when it seems our prayers were not heard, moments when we don't understand Your ways, moments when we lose precious, little souls like Christian, that I am tempted to stop believing."  It is just so hard to understand!  I wish you knew these families who have suffered the worst of losses this week!  Godly people!  People who serve their Savior faithfully, humble people who love their LORD!  It just doesn't seem "fair".

While at the hospital on Wednesday, praying over little Christian, I was blessed by a short conversation with Stephanie, the mother of the teen who was taken from us a year ago.  She said, "I am so thankful!"  Then, she proceeded to tell me of how God has blessed her over and over in the past 12 months.  In the middle of her ongoing grief, she is embracing the goodness of the LORD.

I pray that you know the calm assurance that comes from having received Jesus' offer of eternal salvation, that He is your Lord as well as your Savior.  At no time in this earthly life is His love any sweeter than when we lose those most dear to us.  It is then that His arms hold us the tightest.  It is in those times that we often say to each other, "How do people live without Jesus?  How do they make it through this life's most severe trials?"  There is no sweeter life than walking with Him, both here and in The Thereafter.

The Psalmist begins Psalm 116, a cry of deep grief, with the words, "I love the Lord" and he ends the psalm with the words, "Praise the Lord".  The LORD is always good to His children.  He is always righteous.  His compassion towards His Beloved knows no end.

Dear Father, even though we know the Truth, even though we know that little children and Believers go to be with You at their moment of physical death, our hearts are broken by the losses we have sustained these past few days.  We are so in need of your healing love, Your matchless comfort, Your supernatural peace.  Please bathe us in it as we continue to minister to each other in our sadness.  There is no earthly hope that can compare to the certainty of Your "blessed hope", Father.  I am so thankful that You made a way for our souls to be reconciled to You.  I am so grateful that I will one day see my precious loved ones, my fellow Believers, again in that great, holy City Not Made by Human Hands.  So humbly grateful, LORD.  In Jesus' name, amen.