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Alrighty, this one looks to be simple now. I looked at this verse and the preceding verse and took it to mean that 'by this gospel you are saved, if you follow all of the rules that have been lain down in the word I preached to you.' That would mean salvation through works, and faith would be worthless. As it is, that is not how it is. :)
By 'hold firmly,' Paul means to say 'believe.' You see, as made evident by later verses, there was an argument among the church that there is no resurrection of the dead. Yet, if Christ died for our sins and was raised again, as was preached, then there is resurrection of the dead. So Paul says, basically, 'If you believe what I said earlier about Christ being raised from the dead, on which your entire faith is based, then you must believe, also, in the resurrection of the dead. Otherwise, your faith is worthless.'
There ya go. Really simple for what I thought I was getting into. I feel like I went through it really quickly though, so if you need an explanation, ask me. :)
Discussion please! :D
The reason I marked this one is fairly obvious. In our world, the phrase 'women should remain silent' normally isn't taken very well. This one has me super confused, so I'll be reading some insights into this one.
I checked out Chuck Smith once again, and he had some very interesting thoughts. He mentions that in the Jewish synagogues, the women sat on one side and the men would sit on another. So if a women had a question and wanted to ask her husband, she would shout across the room and disrupt the congregation.
I have a few problems with this. First, it paints all women as simple-minded for shouting across a large room to have questions answered in the middle of a church service. (Imagine: "What? What was that? HEY HONEY! What did the preacher mean by that? Do you know? What's going on there? DON'T YOU HIDE YOUR FACE FROM ME!" Haha. :D Ok, anyways.) And second, it makes it seem like women don't understand the Bible enough, that they would have to shout across a room multiple times to their husbands, disrupting everything to get their questions answered. I don't think so. Most times, the ladies get it down before us guys.
Now after checking out The Message, it looks as if Chuck wasn't completely insane for a second there. It still gravitates away from the silence-of-all-women-during-church-at-al
My HCS Bible completely ignores the subject. That was disappointing. :\
And, of course, there is the idea that this relates to submission of women to men in authority. That could work almost better than anything. It is also supported by 1 Timothy 2:12. There is a lot of weird stuff around there as well, though. I'll get to that book eventually. :)
So I'm pretty sure that I would have to go with the Message and 1 Timothy on this one. So, number one: the general statement is don't be disruptive during church. Not just women. Men are capable of speaking as well. So don't be disruptive. And, number two: women should not hold a position of authority over men in the church.... That's a huge statement. Umm,... I will definitely be contemplating that one. And as always, let me know your thoughts. :)
(First page done!)
Discussion please! :D
This is a very weird part. I've always thought that. Probably because I've never understood prophesying or speaking in tongues (or why there is a sort of hierarchy between them).
SO, if any of you have idea on this, this would probably be a better place to post your thoughts on that. Any ideas help, really.
Discussion please! :D
Alrighty. The reason I listed this verse: I have the Holy Spirit in me (1 Corinthians 6:19), and I could easily say either of those things at any time.
What I didn't see is the context that this verse is in. At the moment, Paul is talking about spiritual gifts; namely, speaking in tongues. So, wht I could imagine is someone inside their congregation who said, while supposedly speaking in tongues, 'Jesus be cursed.' Now I'm unsure, so here's where I go to other people to see what they say. :)
Right, so after looking around, I realized that I had already looked up this verse and subconsciously stolen the idea from what I had read before. :D The basic idea is that people speaking in tongues by the Spirit will not say things like, 'Jesus be cursed.' I'm pretty sure I agree.
However, I think if I go any further, I'm going to get deep into speaking in tongues, which I don't understand one bit. SO, if any of you have ideas on what I said, or even on speaking in tongues itself, that would be very appreciated.
Discussion please! :D
- Music:1000 Generations
This is a fairly long passage, but there are three main things I questioned here: the Trinity and hierarchy within, the relationship and hierarchy between men and women, and the passage about the angels. This could get intense.
The first thing I want to talk about is the Trinity. The Trinity is supposed to be a three-in-one deal with the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit where every part is equal. That's the part I want to deal with. This passages clearly states that "the head of Christ is God." This seems to establish a hierarchy within the Trinity. (Which is pretty typical. A lot of people would say God is the big guy, Jesus is his son underneath him, and the Spirit is that crazy, floaty guy.)
Well, I happen to disagree with this. I really like Philippians 2:6. It clearly states that the Father is not above Jesus. Also John 14:1-14 says much of the same thing. Now the Spirit is a bit more difficult. First, there is John 20:21-22 which seems to imply the Spirit has the same authority and power as the other two. Also John 14:15-21, 25-31 has much more on that subject. I especially like verse 17 there because it sounds much like John 1:10-12 where it clearly speaks of Jesus. It seems to equalize the two. That about all I can say to that effect.
So why does 1 Corinthians 11:3 say the head of Christ is God? This is my favorite part about this. Jesus made an example of himself for the church by submitting himself to God, taking on the form of man who's will is completely under God's. He was right up there with God, sitting equal with him. Yet he chose to humble himself immensely and let God be his superior, just as God sent his son and took an authority over him. It wasn't a hard decision, because we are worth it to him. So now there is still a Trinity with all three sides equal, yet somehow, because Jesus is still fully God, yet fully man, God is the head of Jesus. It's both. I don't know how to understand it. I don't think we, with our simple minds, can understand it. We follow, knowing that God is God and trusting him entirely.
Read The Shack. It has SUCH a good picture of God, the Trinity, and our relationship within it to... Her. lol, just check it out.
So here we come to the subject of men and women. First of all, there is a lot of cultural stuff here, and I don't really want to write about all that. This is all mostly cleared up in verses 13-16. Also, Chuck Smith, once again, has an adequate explanation of this. Click on his name, find where he quotes verses 3 and 4, then scroll down to the 6th paragraph. Start there and read until satisfied. But don't read the men and women stuff. I want to talk about that. :)
So the issue here: "the head of women is men," and "woman is the glory of man." Alrighty. Man is the head of woman. In marriage, the man is the head of the household. He is above the woman in that sense, but she is not subservient to him. As stated elsewhere, the man's focus is on pleasing his wife. It's a give and take. Man can't exist without woman, and woman cannot exist without man (Verses 11-12). See, there is a hierarchy created here. Man is the head of woman, Christ is the head of man, and God is the head of Christ. (And I already explained the Christ-to-God hierarchy.) This doesn't mean that a woman should follow everything a man says. (Please don't.) This says something more to the effect of, 'If a man is submitted to this hierarchy, then the woman should follow his lead. If the man is not in Christ or Christ in him, it's a bit like the hierarchy skips. But even when the woman is under the man, she should follow Christ more closely because the man is under Christ as well.
Now the glory of man part. This seems to me to say that the woman is to support the man in whatever he does (as long as he remains in Christ), even if she would do it differently or disagrees. But I really don't know here. I'm more like throwing out hypotheses. That's a lot to explain, let me know if any of that doesn't make sense.
Finally, the angels. In short, I have no idea what that means. :\
Discussion please! :D
Alrighty, here's another stupid one, but it might be worth typing out. So basically, I looked at the 'one' and wondered why only one would get the prize. But that's not what it says. It says 'Run as if there is only one prize.' Not to set us against our fellow believers, but to challenge us to be the best we can be in the Lord. God wants all of His children to finish first.
Discussion please! :D
I'm actually NOT going to write about these verses and why I disagreed with them. It would be a waste of everyone's time and effort for me to write and you to read. If anybody has a problem with these verses, post it and I'll talk about that. And I promise, I won't make a habit out of doing this. :)
So... umm... yeah. :D
This one is tough. Really tough. Let's go through this one part at a time, ok? Verse 14, the 'unbelieving, unbelieving wife' part. From what I can see, we have two options here. Either the unbelieving spouse is saved by being married to a believer, or the unbeliever is set apart to be worked in through the Holy Spirit because of the faith of their spouse. (Chuck Smith) (Here, sanctified would mean something closer to blessed.) I'm not sure I believe that the spouse of a believer is saved by them, though that is the most direct interpretation. I'd guess that it's more of an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work in the unbelieving spouse's life through their marriage to a believer. Verse 16 seems to support that. But I'm unsure.
Now here is another tricky part. The second part says, I believe, that because the unbelieving spouse is sanctified by being married to a believer, then the children are as well. Now this could mean the same as for the spouse. It could mean either that the child is blessed in being born to at least one saved parent, or that the child is saved by being born to a believing parent. Taking the latter, then are children of unbelievers not saved? And what would be considered a child? Anyone under a certain age or a certain point of understanding? Will they lose this 'salvation by default' after a time? OR, (here's a crazy thought) maybe young children understand dependency on God better than anyone and are therefore saved, but we grow into our own states of independence.
A lot of this seems ridiculous. But guess what? It really doesn't matter. One could say that our goal is a world with hearts devoted to the Lord, whether some are 'saved by default' or not. Don't worry about it. We should all have one singular focus that overrides and out-does everything else on Earth: That is, the glory and love of our Lord.
Verse 15. I should not have put this down. (I really shouldn't have questioned any verses, but I am glad God and I are taking care of it now.) Let me ask you something. Imagine you are married to someone for years, both of you unbelievers. You have a fairly normal married relationship until you are saved by Christ. You're new attitudes and new-found morals cause your spouse to disagree with you more and more often. Your spouse won't accept Christ, and you can't follow their ways anymore. Your spouse decides to get a divorce. Do you think it would be a good idea to keep the marriage going? A relationship is very difficult between 'creatures of the dark' and 'creatures of the day.' There is practically no common ground. You decide.
Verse 16. Maybe I thought it was saying that a husband could save his wife, or vice versa. (Going back to verse 14.) But I think it fits better with verse 15. It seems to say, 'Don't continue your relationship with a nonbeliever because you think you can help them find the Lord.' It's more destructive than constructive.
Discussion please! :D
I believe it is fairly easy to see why I noted these verses. It's a little daunting to hear Paul say "not I, but the Lord," or, "not the Lord, but I," as it seems to imply that he is speaking of his own opinions and not of the Lord's. I'm fairly sure that I noted another verse like these.
What I failed to notice is that (as far as I can tell) Paul is quoting Jesus here. The HCS Study Bible I have points this verse back to Mark 10:2-10. It is almost exactly the same teaching. That's why this small part would be noted as the Lord speaking.
Now how to explain the part addresses as 'I.' From what I can see, the fact that he specifies who the teaching comes from in these verses seems to imply that Paul is supplying the teaching throughout the remainder of the book. You could use this like I did and say "this contradicts 2 Timothy 3:16." I would guess, thought, that 'God-breathed' is another thing we can't fully comprehend. What I would say to explain this, though, is that Paul wouldn't be writing these letters thinking, 'God is speaking through me now.'
...That's about all I can think for now. My brain is a little dead from my first day of work (9 hours to close at 2 am).
Discussion please! :D
Alrighty, so I looked at this one, and it seemed to say that he who has sex with a prostitute is married to her. The NIV says, "is one with her in body," and goes on to quote the verse in Genesis that says, "the two shall become one flesh." From this, I drew a whole bunch of weird theories.
This almost looks like it means that if you have sex with someone, you are consequently married to him/her. Taking that and applying it back into the verse, it seems like it means sex equals marriage. (Basically, God doesn't require us to go through a wedding or anything to be married. Just have sex.) And if that was true, why worry about sex outside of wedlock. Sex is marriage, so it shouldn't matter. And somehow, talking with Brandon, we got onto the subject of polygamy, and even wondered if God favored that (all of those OT guys, you know). Good thing we eventually decided that God is mostly in favor of monogamy. :D
So if you haven't noticed, I was really off base. I talked with a bunch of people about this, and we agreed on some things, disagreed on others, and had no idea on most of it. First, we all agreed that marriage, as our feeble human tendencies have made it these days, is really screwed up. Aside from the fact that most people don't even know what it's about, we really don't NEED a wedding and all the ceremony.
After that, I talked with Amanda about it, and she made the point that the verse didn't actually say they were married. It said they were one. Having sex with someone he wasn't married to, this man created a bond with the prostitute that imitated marriage. So here's my take on this:
Being married is not what we make to be now. It is, put very simply, a commitment. This commitment is made before God and intended to be honored until the death (as most commitments should be). "Let your yes be yes and your no be no," and all that jazz. The wedding seems to be, in many ways, much like a baptism. First, it is a public announcement of your commitment, and second, it is enacted (maybe a bad word to use there) in front of others for accountability. The only reason I can think to have a pastor marry the couple is for more accountability (but also probably just a tradition passed down from Catholics when we thought priests had super powers).
Now the sex. AFTER marriage. Having sex seems to be (obviously I don't speak from experience) like signing your wedding vows in blood. It is the consummation of your commitment to each other through God. That could be why sex before marriage is brutally wounding. It's like signing wedding vows in blood, except there are no vows, no commitment. There's just blood. As I remember Mark saying, you've given a part of yourself to that person, and you don't escape unscathed. FYI, if you give yourself away to people you're uncommitted to, you'll arrive in front of your future spouse bloodied and injured. I'd suggest being a whole person when you meet your future spouse. :)
(THIS is why it took so long to write another one. And some other reasons....)
Discussion please! :D
- Music:Josh Bales, Owl City, Jon McLaughlin, Alli Rogers, The Glorious Unseen
