I apologize...My memory from at least a decade ago is not sharp...I'm sure there were others, Jehu and the "apostate" VW. "Ubiquitous understanding" is a specious excuse for lazy scholarship, in my opinion. I seem to remember you bringing in your research. But, the grammar is not complicated, and Jesus' challenge is so timely, you may have discovered the root cause of the impotence of the church. Faith comes by hearing...well, so does unbelief...and the choice is always up to the individual. It's one of the many times here where I was charged with arrogance because I went with the Greek, and ignored the "ubiquitous scholars". If you've been in a degree program, you know you only progress, not by original thinking, but by citing the scholars in whose path you follow. The Rabbis quote the Rabbis as lawyers quote precedent, and become reputable.
To a great degree, I agree. There of course was much more explanation than just "ubiquitous understanding," it's just that this is where it fell. I asked if I could quote our conversation; he told me which parts I could and which he preferred me not to because it could pull him into the conversation. I honored his wishes.
To the lesser degree, there is the following concept. I don't think you'll agree with me here, and this one I won't (hopefully) chase if you don't, but here goes:
1 Cor 8:11-13
So by your knowledge the weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed. 12 If you sin against your brothers or sisters in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 For this reason, if food causes my brother or sister to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause one of them to sin.
The "ubiquitous understanding" is "Have faith in God." Generally people don't think of God as having faith. So to the general (weak) reader the two are quite synonymous, albeit not exact. But if Dr. Wallace and a small number of scholars come out and compete with or otherwise challenge the "ubiquitous understanding" WHEN THE RESULT is not great, then all they are causing is division and in-fighting (as if we don't have enough of that). To truly understand this as "of God" you'd have to tilt the stage so dramatically toward a "charismatic faith" style of understanding that the majority would simply growl and bite. And all of the ways of thinking and understanding that would have to change for that paradigm shift to occur in the church would be too great a change to occur at once.
In the end, I'm not sure that "ubiquitous understanding" is that far off of something like "transliteration," or "translator's choice" to really be that large of a thing in the grand scheme of things. It certainly does not destroy Christianity, salvation or faith.
Folks come here to fight, because it's easier to criticize WoF than go to Afghanistan to rescue the widow and the orphan...
You went to Afghanistan this time around? No, that is not our calling, necessarily. But to argue that people fight on forums instead of going outside and helping the homeless, etc., well, then, why are we on the forums at all?
Jesus ate at dinners where there were people begging for crumbs. Why wasn't he out feeding the homeless instead? We all have a call in a particular time to do a particular thing. His was far greater at all times, of course. Mine, perhaps not so much. I gave $5 to a kid on a corner near University; he likely was not homeless, but I've been to University and spent many a day with no money and no food. I know his world. $5 would come in handy.
and after all...we all have a self-important call in our lives. Some have the ministry of criticizing strangers and their doctrine which is wrong as a sine qua non. Even if they're right, the ministry of criticism will find something to criticize. I hang here, because it's important to know there are more important things to fight about.
Nah. You hang here just like the rest of us...we think we're right and we have to pass it on. But in reality, none of us are right on everything we say we are right about. We're just throwing mud at the wall to see what will stick.
And I don't care either...
Atta boy!
except this whole Christianity thing is life and health to all the flesh of all who come to believe.
Darn, there is that, isn't there?
My kids in school first...and then anyone driven by something other than Jesus' sole new commandment. I can't quit when the church is worse than Ezekiel's Samaria and Judah. It's time to review the gospel Paul preached.
You say the church is worse. God's likely just shaking his head and wondering why it has always been in the cesspool. But then again, he wrote the narrative so if the story has a setting.....
Anybody who has grieved with Ezekiel knows that is idiocy. His wife was taken in a day, and he wasn't allowed to grieve...and there were no "comforters" around him to be silent for seven days before making idiots of themselves. No the mystery of iniquity is such that when Epaphroditus was spared, Paul was relieved...and jubilant, lest he have sorrow upon sorrow. He didn't celebrate like Faithman. He thanked God because the grief would have been overwhelming. Hebrews eleven is our story. We just do not know but what He has said...and for those who remain and continue in patience and perseverance to believe, there is better to come, until we all come together in the end. Your wife is leading cheers in a cloud of witnesses according to Hebrews 12...and that's all we're allowed to ever know.
No, we are to know that she picked up Psalm 91 and climbed up under the wing of God where the disease and pestilence cannot touch her -- and it touched her and it killed her. The only conclusion: God lied. Because if he didn't, then your next statement is a lie.
Never the why. And she took a courageous stand that has taught all here who are listening.
And those who were listening watched for Psalm 91 to be true. But alas, God has a different meaning and we don't get to know that until we are wrong. Deadly wrong.
BTW, it is these nuances of understanding that render "of God" or "in God" moot.
I'm grateful for your story. And that's all that need be said. BTW...it's not your wife's choices right or wrong, they stand. But it's our choices in light of the gospel and our neighbors in need of that gospel. The questions you have raised here in that light are far more valuable than binging Netflix.
Ahh, but it could be said that while I was here telling the story, and you were listening, and Billy Bob was binging on Netflix, six more people died in Afghanistan. Why are you here?
I'm here because God screwed me over. And now I have no idea what his Word says. Nor do I have any idea that I can trust it. There will be many who come by and tell me that "of course, you can trust it."
But my wife won't be one of those. Why? Because I trusted it to the level that you are asking me to trust it. That's unfair, though true. She trusted it to the level that she was taught to trust it by people I told her she couldn't trust -- but she didn't trust me.
I'll hang here because good questions get raised...even by the critics.
I'll hang here because the debate is fun. That's all. No higher meaning than that. You know why? Because none of us are right. And God has it all going the way that he wants it go and there is nothing that our understanding is going to change about that. He simply wants us to try and play the game as correctly as we can try. It's like 1 Cor 8 above. For by our knowledge other brothers and sisters are destroyed. That's what we do here.
I don't manufacture your arguments, and I don't attack your beliefs...I give answer to the hope that is within me, because it helps me verbalize what I have learned. You're free to believe or not...I don't go to a Calvinist board to correct them. In fact, I don't correct those with whom I'm working. I'm better with a basin and a towel than I am with a bludgeon.
And I'm good at languages.
You think you are better with a basin and a towel. I refute this as I stand here bleeding. You wield all of the above well enough to get your point across .... usually.
And French does have dialects. 😜
(Just in case you think I'm writing this with any drop of anger.)