January 22, 2016
Repairers
You shall be called the Repairer of the Breach (Isa 58:12)
[Part Four]
Again To Those not under the Law
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What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.
Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. (Rom 4:1–10)
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4.
The metaphorical height of the mountain of God—of Mount Sinai for Israel under Moses—separated angelic sons of God from the Most High God, with the Adversary as an anointed guardian cherub, the signet of perfection, being permitted access part way up the mountain of God (Ezek 28:14, 16) as Joshua went halfway up Mount Sinai. Thus, the privileged position the Adversary held prior to iniquity being discovered in him was analogous of the position Joshua held with Moses, whereas the position of the Beloved of the Most High was analogous to the position Moses held with the God of Abraham, the Beloved, with the Beloved being the Creator of all things physical and regularly entering into the presence of the Most High. And these correspondences reveal the relationship between endtime disciples and the glorified Christ Jesus, with inscription of the Bible preventing this second nation of Israel from spiritually ascending to God, Father and Son. And the question that has to be asked, How can this be? How can the Bible stand between God, again Father and Son, when it is through the Bible that the Father and Son are known to humanity? How can that which promises salvation prevent greater Christendom from coming to God?
The first paragraph traverses the spiritual divide that separates theological drainages, with the watershed to the South representing Sin [Egypt], and the watershed to the North representing Death [Assyria]. The divide can be likened to a ridgeline. The twinkling lights to the South are the earthly houses of Trinitarian Christians; the lights to the North emanate from the bunkers of Arian Christians, each of these bunkers well stocked with emergency foods, a years supply that will be eaten in the first seven months following the Second Passover liberation of a second nation of Israel. For Arian Christians will leverage food into discipleship, offering to feed hungry Trinitarians if they are baptized in streams flowing northward, away from the divide on which still grows the metaphorical Tree of Life.
The question that echos from distant canyons to the North and to the South—how can the Bible stand between God and Christians—is heard as its echo, Why the Law? For the Law brought Sin to life so that Sin might scale the ridge and conquer Israel, thereby devouring this firstborn son of the Lord whose only escape from Sin was to flee into the arms of Death, acknowledge that God is One, and thereby die spiritually …
The echo is the better question, the one Paul tangentially addressed:
Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the Law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the Law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the written code. What then shall we say? That the Law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the Law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the Law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. (Rom 7:4–10 emphasis added)
Was Paul alive before the Law was given at Mount Sinai? No, he wasn’t. So how is it that he, a Pharisee, was alive apart from the Law, but died when the Commandment came? Did the Pharisees not keep the Law, not know the Law … what Paul writes holds the Christian back, Paul’s words about being alive apart from the Law functioning as traffic barriers to direct endtime disciples away from “the Way” and onto an ATV track leading into a figurative gravel pit.
The Law [the Royal Law] came into existence to make alive [bring to life] sinful passions [Sin] that would result in the death of the Israelite … but all flesh dies, and has died since the days of Adam. So the Law wasn’t given to kill “all flesh” or the flesh of the person not under the Law; for those not under the Law will die of their own accord because their father is the first Adam. They will die without realizing “everlasting life” is possible. Rather, the Law was given specially to kill the rebellious nation of Israel, the firstborn son of the Lord (Ex 4:22), that would not listen to the Lord when enslaved in Egypt (Ezek 20:5–8).
But how can Sin kill what is already dead? How can the Law bring Sin to life so that Sin might devour unbelieving Israelites when these Israelites are already consigned to disobedience (Rom 11:32) and by extension death?
In order for Paul to make his logic function, Paul needs a second death, a spiritual death—
Did Paul die physically when sinful passions in him were aroused? Again, no, he did not. So why does he speak as if he did … he continued to live as Adam continued to live after eating forbidden fruit. So “die” and “death” do not necessarily mean the death of the fleshly body. And a major problem exists when words do not have inherent meaning, but must have their meaning assigned to them by readers in a reading community.
If angels can hear and understand human speech—there is no reason to believe they cannot—and if angels hear the words of Scripture read and know these words are not true in their literal sense, will angels continue in their rebellion against God? Will angels continue to doubt the words of God? And for rebelling angels, the answer is a resounding yes. For even intelligent human persons, when they “read” the words of Scripture and know these words cannot be literally true—and they are not literally true, and that they were never intended to be taken literally—dismiss Scripture as ancient myth. These persons become either agnostics or atheists even when tenured faculty in university theology departments. Yet Jesus, in John’s Gospel, told His disciples,
I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (John 16:25–27)
Human words, with earthly signifieds [linguistic objects], name and describe earthly or physical things, not spiritual things. They can only name or describe earthly things; therefore the inscription of human words cannot bring a person to God, but can only keep the person separated from God. Hence, human words can only be used for spiritual matters metaphorically or metonymically: they can only “name” a spiritual or godly entity as a human thing or entity, which a heavenly thing is not and will never be. So the Greek linguistic icon <pneuma> used as the root for English words such as “pneumonia,” an illness of the breath or lungs, or “pneumatic tools,” tools powered by moving air, was used by 1st-Century Greek speakers as a descriptive naming noun for the <glory> of God, the life-sustaining energy force that for God is analogous to deep human breath … as physical life is sustained by the dark fire of cellular oxidation, where oxygen molecules brought into the lungs by a person’s breath are removed from the breath and transport by blood flow to every living cell in the body where these oxygen molecules support the oxidation [burning] of simple carbohydrates, spiritual life is sustained by the bright fire that is the glory of God (Ezek 1:26–28), this bright fire appearing as non-oxidizing flames burning inside the spiritual entity, thereby giving to the “body” of the spiritual entity a continuous light show analogous to our solar system’s sun, the surface of which features solar flares and coronal mass eruptions. Thus, in a metaphorical sense, God is spiritual Light as the sun is physical light.
This correspondence between God as Light and the sun as light wasn’t lost on primitive man that globally (with the exception of the Norse) worshiped the sun. This correspondence is imbedded in the so-called Christian observance of <Christmas>, Christ’s mass, on the figurative birthday of the sun, the winter solstice, with the solstice backing up one day for every 900 years, thus revealing that the birthday of the sun/Son has been observed on the solstice for 3,600 years, plus or minus a few—in other words, observed long before Jesus of Nazareth was humanly born.
Now, does Scripture help or hurt understanding the physical/spiritual correspondence forming the enantiomorphic relationship between sun and Son, with one enantiomer [sun] as spiritually deadly as one enantiomer of the Thalidomide molecule, C13H10N2O4, was in producing birth defects, and with the other enantiomer [Son] as life-giving as the mirror image of the Thalidomide molecule proved beneficial?
Behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. (Mal 4:1–2)
The image the prophet Malachi employs is that of a winged sun, a common motif seen throughout paganism; so for Malachi to use the image of a winged sun even in a metaphorical sense—a familiar image within Israel during the reigns of the latter kings, when the Queen of Heaven was believed to be the consort of YHWH—does not Malachi harm pure worship of the Lord? He does. And endtime disciples actually observe that belief in the Bible being the infallible word of God push the intelligent away from God, and then draw the simple minded into fellowships that do not challenge Scripture. The simple-minded seem unusually attracted to fellowships that preach with certainty a message about the Bible being the infallible word of God. Nothing else now needs to be known: It’s in the Bible; therefore, it is so. And the simple-minded take what logically cannot be believed and venture forth, sometimes going from door to door to spread the simplicity of Christ, brushing imaginary dust off their polished shoes when doors are closed in their faces. The “simpleness” of these spiritual dullards is beyond belief.
It takes real faith, real belief of God, real courage to challenge the Bible without losing the innocence of a child … if in a book you were to read, Oh, look, see the man in the scarlet robe in one place, but in two other places, you read, Oh, look, see the man in the purple robe, would you think that the man in the scarlet robe is the same man as the man in the purple robe? What if the story didn’t permit the man in the scarlet robe to change robes, would you think that the man in the scarlet robe was a different man than the man in the purple robe? Most likely you would think different men are being described. But what if these different men bore the same name, José Arcadio Buendía? Would you understand the symbolism of the generational name, or the fluidity of time in Gabriel García Márquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude? You say, Yes, I can. Then why can’t you understand the symbolism of Scripture that has the man Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel being a different “Jesus” than the man Jesus in Mark’s and John’s Gospels, with Matthew’s Gospel being about the indwelling Jesus whose spirit penetrates and enters the spirit of the person, thereby bringing to life an new person, a spiritual son of God that begins life in the fleshly body of a human person, this fleshly body analogous to heaven before iniquity was discovered in an anointed guardian cherub.
What stops a human person from reading the Bible as the person would read any other allegorical or metaphorical text? And the answer is simple, the sacredness of the Bible. Challenging the textual integrity of the Bible is the work of an iconoclast …
If Jesus spoke to His first disciples in figures of speech, He didn’t speak to them in mimetic words; He didn’t speak in words that sought to imitate the things of this world. Rather, He used earthly words to indirectly describe the things of God, meaning that His words cannot be taken literally if that were even possible.
The Bible as a book written in human words conceals—through the “literalness” of the words used—God from men; so that the person not drawn from the world by the Father cannot come to Christ Jesus (John 6:44) through simply the person not knowing “Christ.”
Paul wrote by the hand of Tertius,
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the Law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. (Rom 5:12–14)
Yet in the Pastoral Epistle, 1st-Timothy, we find,
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. (1 Tim 2:12-14)
The author of 1st-Timothy, who wasn’t the Apostle Paul, has Eve being the transgressor, the one by whom sin entered the world … if the first Adam was a type of Christ Jesus, the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45), and if death equates to darkness whereas life equates to light, then the relationship between the first and the last Adam is enantiomorphic, with the first Adam being analogous to the sun and to the transgenic enantiomer of Thalidomide. So the pattern of Scripture will have death entering the world by the first Adam, making Adam the transgressor, not Eve who was “covered” by her husband’s obedience as Christians are covered by Christ Jesus’ righteousness. Thus, it is unreasonable to believe that Paul would contradict himself: 1st-Timothy isn’t of Paul, who understood and employed the key of David found in enantiomorphic relationships.
What does Jesus say in John’s Gospel?
So the Jews grumbled about Him, because He said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" Jesus answered them, "Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—” (John 6:41–45 emphasis added)
The person taught by God has a teacher and is not self-taught. It is this person who can come to Christ Jesus, not anyone else. Hence, the public accessibility of the Bible tends to devalue being drawn from the world by the Father, and tends to encourage personal striving to come to Christ without being drawn from this world.
Justification for personal Bible study comes from the Father NOT having taught the would-be disciple the mysteries of God, but leaving the disciple to “learn” these mysteries from a human teacher, a human father in Christ, such as Paul was to the holy ones at Corinth who, in their liberality, did not condemn the man who was with his father’s wife, but bore this man’s unbelief of God along with their own unbelief.
Who needs to instruct Christ about the mysteries of God? Do Christians not appreciate what Paul wrote to the holy ones at Corinth:
But, as it is written,
"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love Him"—
these things God has revealed to us through the spirit [pneumatos]. For the spirit [pneuma] searches everything, even the depths of [the] God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him [to pneuma tou ’anthropou to ’en auto]? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the spirit of the God [to pneuma tou Theou]. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit from the God [to pneuma to ek tou Theou], that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by spirit [pneumatos], with spiritual things [pneumatikois], spiritual things [pneumatika] matching. The natural person does not accept the things of the spirit [pneumatos] of the God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually [pneumatikos] discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2:9–16 emphasis added)
If we as disciples have the mind of Christ, we think the thoughts of Christ as a human child thinks the thoughts of men. And if we think the thoughts of Christ, who is able to instruct us concerning the mysteries of God? Certainly not Christian pastors or theologians who have not yet been born of spirit; who are not twice-born.
The disciple taught by the Father doesn’t need instruction in the nuances of the mysteries of God, but needs practice in discerning right from wrong, with the author of Hebrews writing,
About this [Melchizedek being a type of Christ] we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Heb 5:11–14 emphasis added)
Disciples are to train themselves to discern good from evil, right from wrong, light from darkness. It is in this way that disciples grow spiritually, with excessive Bible study being the bane of spiritual growth. For when the disciple should be out in the world, daily discerning good from evil, the self-styled Bible student reads Scripture that this student has read many times before … doesn’t the student remember what the student read before? Doesn’t the student know right from wrong? How much Bible study did Noah do? Or Job? Or Abraham? Or even Moses? Did not these men ingest solid spiritual food through constantly discerning good from evil? Did any of these men need a Bible, or diligent Bible study to know good from evil? Could they not recognize “good” by its fruit? Could they not discern evil with equal ease? Why is it so difficult for Christians in this present age to discern evil when the evildoer swindlers his brother in Christ by over-filing a legally recorded Purchase Agreement with one that had a similar but not identical name, a different Purchase Agreement that removed three of the four original purchasers, thereby defrauding these three, stealing from them their ownership position in real properties then valued at $610,000.
Let us, as Sabbatarian Christians consider Abraham: why does Paul cite the example of Abraham? Is it not because endtime disciples are as Abraham was, not under the Law but the disciple’s belief of God counted as righteousness—and the Christian who believes God will keep the Commandments simply because the Christian believes God, not because the Christian is under the Law. The entirely of Paul’s ministry was about dragging converts out from under the Law without these converts quitting keeping the Law … the Christian who doesn’t believe God won’t keep the Law. The Christian who is a coward keeps the Law because this Christian fears God in a negative way—in the way Job feared the Lord—and will sincerely believe that Christians are obligated to keep the Law, but not as Moses gave the Law rather as Christ Jesus modified “Moses.” But this misses the mark: Christians have no legal obligation to keep the Law just as the Adversary as an anointed guardian cherub in Eden had no legal obligation to accept what God said as always true. But the moment this anointed cherub made a judgment about whether God was correct in a decision He made, the anointed cherub rebelled against the Most High, with this rebellion unknown or undiscovered until God made a decision with which this anointed cherub disagreed. And as was the case for the Adversary, the Christian who decides for him or herself what the Christian will accept as reasonable worship of God is in open rebellion against God through the simple act of deciding for oneself what is “reasonable worship.”
The cowardly Christian keeps the Law for legalistic reasons. The unbelieving Christian doesn’t keep the Law as a show of not being legalistic. Both of these Christians are in rebellion against God, with both representing as shadows and types a portion of all angelic sons of God. Meanwhile, the believing Christian hears the word [’o logos] of Jesus and believes that Jesus spoke the words of the Father and believes the words of the Father, and wants to do the will of the Father—and in striving to do the will of the Father, the believing Christian will voluntarily keep the Law, all the while knowing that keeping the Law is of no spiritual value to the Christian. What is of value is believing the Father and His firstborn Son. For to rebel against God, the son of God (angelic or human) has to cease believing God.
Rebellion against God is really nothing in the course of the chronology of salvation. The rebelling son of God takes himself from the ranks of the faithful and slays himself with his unbelief … as the Lord gave the Law to Israel at Sinai in order to bring Sin to life so that Sin might devour unbelievers, the Lord permits rebellion to continue among His sons to distinguish between believers and unbelievers. For the son who believes will, in most cases, do the will of the Most High, and will repent and accept the consequences of failing to do the will of the Most High.
In the manner of Bethsheba, David failed the Lord and failed himself: the weakness of his flesh interfered in him doing what he knew was right. He understood, when he repented, that there would be consequences for what he did. He sought to change the Lord’s mind as to what those consequences would be, but he failed to effect what was to happen. So when his son by Bathsheba died, he was ready to get on with his life, wiser, apparently stronger and better able to resist the pulls of the flesh. Yes, he was an adulterer, a murderer, but he was also a man who believed the Lord. A blemished man. But a believer—and his belief of God trumped his transgressions of the Law. And this is the point Paul sought to make: belief of God trumps transgressions of the Law.
Can a Christian believe God and not keep the Sabbath? A simple question producing an even more simple answer: No! For who is the Christian so ignorant that he or she doesn’t know that the Sabbath is the seventh day of a weekly cycle that goes back to the giving of manna (Ex chap 16), with manna and Christ Jesus having an enantiomorphic relationship, manna coming on six days and Christ coming on the Sabbath as the reality of the Promised Land.
The author of Hebrews warned,
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.' As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'" Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as He has said, "As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest,'" although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works." And again in this passage He said, "They shall not enter my rest." Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again He appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Heb 3:7–4:13)
Transgressions of the Law didn’t keep the nation of Israel numbered in the census of the second year, except for Joshua and Caleb, out of the Promised Land. Unbelief did. And it will not be transgressions of the Law that keep Christians from entering heaven. Unbelief will. For belief of God trumps the Law, said now a third time.
Once that anointed guardian cherub started to judge God by questioning decisions the Most High made, this anointed cherub “rebelled” against the Most High before any rebellion was in evidence; for as long as this anointed cherub agreed with the decisions God made, this anointed cherub’s rebellion was undetectable. So in the timeless of the heavenly realm where heaven itself functions as the fleshly body of a human person, with angels being in “heaven” as spiritually living inner selves dwell in the fleshly bodies of the Elect (with spiritual birth of a human son of God being analogous to the creation of angels, angels having no preexistence to their spiritual birth as human sons-of-God have no preexistence prior to when the breath of God [pneuma Theou] in the breath of Christ [pneuma Christou] entering into the spirit of the person [to pneuma tou ’anthropou]), the anointed guardian cherub’s iniquity functioned to divide angelic sons of God into three classes: disobedient, obedient but unsure, obedient and believing God. These three divisions exist today in greater Christendom, with the Elect believing God and being obedient because of their belief.
Who are the “Independent Sabbatarian Christians” that invite a swindler to their Sabbath assemblies to play special music and to sometimes speak? Are they not analogous to angels who are obedient but doubters of God, obeying God for wrong reasons? Obeying out of fear of losing out on salvation if they do not, say, keep the Sabbath? Are they not all alleged Christians? But if they have any claim to the identifying signifier <Christian> it is as spiritual infants, unskilled in discerning good from evil.
Unfortunately, most independent Sabbatarian Christians are still-born spiritual infants, their diligent study of their Bibles for an hour a day, reading over and over the words of Scripture without understanding anything (reading over and over again the words of Matthew without understanding that Matthew’s Jesus is not Mark’s Jesus, nor John’s Jesus; that Matthew’s Jesus in the indwelling Christ Jesus in the disciple truly born of spirit), doing them little or no good; for they are not able to truly discern good from evil. If they could make that discernment, the swindler wouldn’t be permitted to attend any Sabbatarian assembly, but would have to take his dog and pony show to those Christians who are analogous to disobedient and unbelieving angelic sons of God … in the Thumb of Michigan, he has taken to begging in 8th-day assemblies, but he is still welcomed into Sabbatarian assemblies in Chicago, where his victims are not really known.
Entering the Promised Land did not benefit the children of Israel for much more than Joshua’s generation; for the children of Israel, free to choose good or evil, could not discern between “good based on belief of God” and ‘good based on the traditions of the people’ that allegedly knew the gods of the fields, and of harvest, and of the sky. And so it was with Christians in the 1st-Century and now in the 21st-Century, with ‘good based on tradition’ being less than half of “good based on faith.”
Today, there are few Christians taught by God, but then, that was also the case in the 1st-Century. Today, most believing Christians are as the holy ones were in Corinth, in that they have many teachers, even super-apostles, but they remain infants in Christ for they are unable to discern good from evil. They simply cannot believe that a person who outwardly strives to keep the Commandments can be rotten inside, an apple whose core is the frazz of codling moths.
What good does Bible study do when the student is not taught by God and is his or her own “father in Christ”? What good does Bible study do when the Bible stands between the disciple and Christ Jesus? What good does Bible study do the woman who is without a husband if 1st-Corinthians as received is to be believed?
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints … was it from you that the word of God came? Or are you the only ones it has reached? If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. (1 Cor 14:33, 36–38)
But you say, I left out the two most important verses: “The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (1 Cor 14:34–35).
The two verses don’t belong, but entered the biblical canon as a marginal note in the 4th-Century CE—and these two verses have done immeasurable harm to the Churches of God. These two verses alone have kept many women from coming to God; kept the inner selves of many women [these inner selves being sons of God, as is the living inner self of their husbands] from growing beyond spiritual infancy; for tell me, if you can, how can a woman pray or prophesy with her head covered (1 Cor 11:4–5) and still be silent, learning from her husband? What if her husband is an unbeliever content to dwell with a believing wife?
In the next installment of this Repairers, we will look at prophecy and at how traditional understanding of biblical prophecy has kept Christians camped around the base of the mountain of God.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."