Slo-Mo Reflections: The Lord’s Prayer

Confession: My mind’s natural setting is overdrive.  I have to work to slow down the torrent of thoughts gushing through my prefrontal cortex.  In teaching, I do that by forcing myself to make the same point three different ways.  In business meetings, I do it by listening to the English but taking notes in Spanish using only Greek characters (not kidding).  And in Bible study, I do it by remembering: Exeraunao.

Exeraunao is a Greek word found in 1 Peter 1:10.  It means “to search out,” “to investigate carefully,” to pursue a matter until it has been examined deeply.  That’s often what my brain needs.  By slowing down and experiencing Scripture less as an act of speedreading, more as an act of exeraunao, I hear the voice of God better in my daily meditations on his word.

I’ll show you what I mean.  Let’s take a deep-dive, slo-mo walk through the best-known of all Scripture passages, the Lord’s Prayer as found in Matthew 6:9-13.  Along the way, my mind will flit and flutter among ideas – but safely within the guardrails established by the Savior’s words.

And throughout, I’m going to keep in mind that the Lord's Prayer isn’t just a collection of words meant for once-a-day recital.  Christ had just told the disciples to avoid empty phrases and vain repetitions (Matthew 6:7).  This was a guide to their life of prayer – how they should pray, and the specific elements of praying without ceasing.  That’s the approach my longtime friend Rev. Brett Bailey (who inspired this post) emphasizes for his own prayer life.

It should guide my prayer life, too.

 

PATER HEMON

~ “Father of us”

I’ve heard multiple sermons focused on the fatherhood metaphor for God.  Many of those sermons emphasized how uniquely Christian it is to view the Creator as our own father (although references to God as the father of believers can be found scattered throughout Hebrew Scriptures as well, as early as Deuteronomy 32:6 and as late as Malachi 2:10).

Since I’ve heard less emphasis on the word “our,” that’s where my mind goes today.  That’s the hemon word in the Greek up above – “of us” when translated with the literal word order preserved.

"Our."  We live in a Western culture and era of individualism.  In our individualist society, the “I” comes first and the “us” and “you” are secondary.  I speak of accepting Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.  I sing that Jesus loves me, and that this I know because the Bible tells me so.

Jesus is those things.  But Scripture was written in cultures and eras of collectivism.  In such cultures, the group, the household, the nation, and the plural “you” carry far more weight.  In a culture like that, I’d be far less likely to see every “you” in the Bible as meaning “me.”

Example: When I read Jeremiah 29, my Western brain immediately assumes it offers a promise to me, Yolanda Ramírez:

I know the plans I have for you,

Says the Lord,

Plans for peace and not for evil,

To give you a future and a hope. (v. 11)

It doesn’t matter (I presume) that the passage is actually about the entire nation of Israel... and, more poignant still, that it is addressed to a people already in exile in Babylon, many of whom would not live to see that promise fulfilled.  No, I am more than preprogrammed to rip that verse from its original context and craft a personalized theology that declares, “God has a plan of peace and a future of hope for me, and that’s what this verse is all about!”

Jesus urged me to go into a room, close the door, and pray this prayer alone (Matthew 6:6).  In the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer, however, he reminds me: It’s not my Father.  It’s our Father.  I have a family.  I pray as part of a larger group, a body, a community of siblings to Christ who are freely adopted into God’s clan of grace.  Despite my focus on myself, I can never forget you, the plural you.  Y’all, if you’re in the southern U.S.  Y’uns in Appalachia.  You lot in Britain.

But... brain flitter.  I digress.

 

HO EN TOIS OURANOIS

~ “The [One] in the Heavens”

When I learned the Lord’s Prayer in English, I was surprised that it made heaven singular.  “The heavens,” as a plural, was how the Spanish version I first learned phrased it, los cielos.  It turns out “heavens” is plural in French, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, and the original Greek of the Lord’s Prayer as well.  German and English change it to singular.

The Greek ouranois doesn’t separately distinguish (1) the “heaven” we think of as God's realm, (2) the celestial “heavens” of the stars and planets, and (3) the sky itself.  It heartens me to think of God as present throughout all of those heavens.  Not one drop of moisture in Earth’s cloudy skies, not one pebble in the rings around Neptune, not a single plasma burst on the star Arcturus, and not one massless gluon particle at the farthest reaches of galaxy MoM-z14 is beyond the reach of God.  In fact, he put them where they are.  They are the heavens of the God, and he is present through all his heavens.

 

HAGIASTHETO TO ONOMA SOU

~ “Set apart be the name of you.”

Reflections on the onoma, the Name, could fill an entire library.  For today, I’ll focus on hagiastheto, what we often translate as “hallowed be.”  As you probably know, “hallowed” means “holy.”

Cool enough, but here’s my thought: “holy” doesn’t mean “holy.”  Not in our modern sense of “morally pure” or “religiously inclined.”  In Greek, this word is saying that God’s name needs to be proclaimed as unique, one of a kind, set apart, seen as not just “different,” but as “one of one and the only one.”  Think of Isaiah 40:25, where God himself asks:

“To whom, then, shall you compare me,

That I should be like him?”

The implied answer is: nobody.  We can’t make God’s name any holier, any more one-of-a-kind.  But we can and must spread the word about just how holy it is.  We need to openly venerate his name as the Incomparable Name.  That’s what we’re asking in this prayer – that the Name be held up as All That, and that more and more of humanity see it as the Only Name it is.

 

ELTHETO HE BASILEIA SOU

~ “Let come the kingdom of you”

Ah, the human basileus, “king.”  We’re hero worshippers, we Homo sapiens.  Whether it’s top athletes, movie stars, corporate executives, or favorite megachurch preachers, we’re ready to esteem anyone outstanding in their field.

But nothing tops a human king, a basileus.  When Israel got tired of its hero-judges, the people clamored for human royalty to lord it over them.  When fans of Lord of the Rings read the books or view the films, they root for the return of the absolutist monarch.  When a political party gets their guy into executive office, they insist he have more power than anyone before him.  That’s kingship.  And we’re dying to be subjects.

The truth is, we do need a king.  There’s a purpose for that natural longing.  We’re tempted to direct it toward human heroes, but deep down we know whose kingdom ought to have first claim on our hearts.  We’re created to be subjects of the universe’s one Benevolent Monarch.  Those lesser kings and heroes?  One day, with us, they’ll bend the knee and joyfully proclaim the true Lord (Philippians 2:10-11).

 

GENETHETO TO THELEMA SOU

~ “Be accomplished the intention of you”

“Thy will be done,” I pray as I work my way through this model of prayer.  His thelema, his will, desire, plan, intention.  But I have to pause here to notice something… something about this prayer; something about his will.

I'm praying, and I haven’t asked for anything yet.

To say that better: I haven’t asked for anything… for me.

Instead, I’ve asked that God get three things he deserves.  I asked that his name be venerated, that his kingdom arrive, and that his will be fulfilled.  I will be asking for things for myself, and very soon.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But this model of prayer Jesus demonstrates is starting to convict me.  So, seeing this, I ask myself: Do I start my daily prayer time with a list of requests and grievances, or do I follow Jesus’ lead to “pray, then, like this” (Matthew 6:9)?

Does my prayer life always, always, put God’s intentions first and foremost?

• Does it glorify his unmatched Name, upfront?
• Does it long aloud for his kingship?
• Does it recognize the superiority of his eternal will over my passing wants?

Not enough in my prayer life.  Not yet.  So, I am learning.  “Pray, then, like this.”

 

HOS EN OURANO KAI EPI GES

~ “As in heaven, also upon the land”

Culture time!

Heaven gets its second mention in Christ’s prayer model, but this time it needs no final -s in English.  Jesus has switched the term from plural to singular in Greek.

A close look at that word, ourano, might trigger in your brain its Latin rendering: Uranus.  In Jesus’ time, this didn’t refer to the distant planet where the gaseous skies rain diamonds (not kidding, fun planet fact).  Jesus’ culture had, for three hundred years, been "Hellenized", an adjective that means “made really, really Greek-ish.”  It was a multilingual world that was well aware of Greek culture.  Ouranos, in Greek mythology, was a primordial being, “the heavens” themselves.  He and his goddess-wife Gaia, “Earth” (in the Lord’s Prayer, we see a form of her name in ges, “Earth” or “land”), had monstrous children that brought chaos and violence to the universe.  This mythology was part of the worldview of the Greek cities Christianity was reaching.

I'm not claiming that Matthew 6:10 is secretly "about" Ouranos and Gaia.  I'm saying that, in the Greek-speaking world into which Christianity spread, heaven and earth were not culturally neutral words.  Against mythologies in which Heaven and Earth could be treated as divine powers, the Lord's Prayer places both realms under the will of the Father.

In short: mythological Heaven and Earth passed away.  But the Savior, God’s Word, can’t be made to pass away.  His will overcomes ancient Greek worldviews, overcomes all.  Our human mythologies are interesting tales, but in the light of the Lord’s will, they dissolve as vain imaginings.

His will gets done.  His will stays done.

 

TON ARTON HEMON TON EPIOUSION DOS HEMIN SEMERON

~ “The bread of us, the needed, give us today”

Finally, we begin to mention the things we may need.  Of course, Jesus told us that our heavenly Father knows what we need even before we ask (Matthew 6:8).  In a sense, our request is simply punctuation to his omniscience.

I recently discussed this portion of the prayer at length (in this post), so visit there if you’re curious.

 

KAI APHES HEMIN TA OPHEILEMATA HEMON

~ And forgive us the owings of us

True, “owings” isn’t a proper English word.  My bad.  But sometimes we’re so accustomed to a common translation – “trespasses,” “debts” – that we need to freshen it up.  We need to make the commonplace “uncommon” once again, in the spirit of the Russian literary term ostranenie, a defamiliarization for the sake of seeing something anew.

Sorry.  Flitting brain.  I warned you.

Yes, the term opheilemata is usually translated “debts” or “trespasses.”  It’s a legal term in Greek meaning a financial or contractual obligation.  “Debts” gets close in English, and it wouldn’t be unthinkable to translate the term as “outstanding balances.”  But it’s stronger than that.  In the ancient world, defaulting on one’s opheilemata could result in imprisonment or enslavement.  Asking our Father to relieve us of our debts isn’t just a request like, “Could you pick up the check this time, Dad?”  It’s a plea for redemption from the chains we very much deserve.

We should say such words as “forgive us our debts” slowly.  Very slowly.  Knowing the eternal significance.

 

HOS KAI HEMEIS APHEKAMEN TOIS OPHEILETAIS HEMON

~ “As also we pardon the owers of us”

At first glance, this part of the Lord’s Prayer looks transactional: “Hey, God, I’ve forgiven others, so how’s about a little quid pro quo?”

That isn’t how grace works, of course.  The free gift of God’s salvation (Romans 6:23) doesn’t come as an upfront purchase on my part, and it isn’t maintained through upkeep fees.  Free is free, and we couldn’t afford it even if we tried (which we, of course, attempted throughout the age of the Law).

So, what’s this “cancel our debts as we cancel others’ debts” line all about?  At one level, it’s definitional.  It defines who we are now; being forgiven of the eternal debts we owe, we turn right around and become the kind of redeemed and sanctified human beings who naturally forgive others.

Let’s be honest, though.  We’re forgiven, but we’re not perfect yet.  We need reminders to stay true to who we are as new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Scripture regularly reminds us to forgive as we’re forgiven – Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:13, Mark 11:25, Matthew 18:35, and so many others.  I start to get the message: I am a forgiver, and I must walk that path daily.

My “enemies” belong in my prayer life.  Is there someone I dislike and can’t forgive?  Someone I find irritating and from whom I withhold love?  I need to make them part of my Lord’s Prayer practices.  After all, it’s really hard to continue disliking someone I’m praying for every single day.  The forgiveness flowed to me, so forgiveness flows from me.

 

AND SO ON

Alas, I’ve reached the maximum word count I allow myself for these blogs.  I still haven't discussed why I need to ask God not to lead me into temptation or why I think I still need to be delivered from evil!  But my self-imposed rules are what keep me from descending into chaotic rambling, so I have to draw a line for this month.

Perhaps someone will come along and do a full sermon series on this prayer so that I know how this ends!  That’s been done before, no doubt.  But each generation needs a fresh voice for an eternal message.

I want to hear that voice.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez

BIBLE: The Uninspired Parts

Okay, I confess.  That title is obviously clickbait.  I wanted you to wonder, “What on Earth is YoYo claiming?  Is she about to attack the Holy Bible?”

Not in the least.  Many versions of your modern Bible include parts that are uninspired.  The “Maps” section at the back?  Not God-breathed.  The translators’ introduction pages to the King James Version?  Not inspired.  The exhaustive explanatory notes in the Scofield Reference Bible?  Nope, not the Word of God, just opinions about it.

Before you say, “Well, duh, that’s obvious!”, allow me to throw in one more: the names of the books themselves.  The titles.  Not inspired.  Not God-breathed.  Not dictated by the Holy Spirit.

But with interesting stories behind them, nonetheless.

Because "not inspired" doesn't mean "not important."

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

While I was studying for this month’s blog (which was going to be about something else entirely), I grabbed my grandmother’s 1949 Douay-Rheims version of the Scriptures off my bookshelf to do a quick translation comparison.  I was stopped in my metaphorical tracks by the title of one of the Old Testament books: 2 Paralipomenon.

In this sharp-witted noggin of mine, I thought, “Who the what, now?”

I knew that paralipomenon was the Greek word for what we’d roughly term in English as “stuff left out,” so I wondered, “What’s this book of ‘stuff left out’?  And why are there two ‘stuff left out’ books?”

It turns out that it’s all the stuff left out of 1 Kings.  And 2 Kings.  And 3 Kings.  And 4 Kings.  All of which are also found in my grandmother’s 1949 Douay-Rheims Bible.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “Oh, it’s that Roman Catholic apocrypha stuff I’ve heard about!”  Not so.  The four books of Kings and the two books of Paralipomenon are what we today call the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.  Our current titles for those books aren’t part of the original inspired text.  Neither were the book titles in my grandmother’s Bible.  And neither are the titles in most of our early, ancient manuscripts.

Which is why a still, small voice whispering in the back of my mind said, “Guess what you’re studying and writing about this month?”

LESS THAN OBVIOUS

The names of Old Testament books were added by ancient Bible copyists, commentators, translators, church Fathers, and scribes.  Sometimes the choice of a title was an obvious decision: “This is the second letter we have that Paul is writing to Timothy; let’s call it 2 Timothy.”  Other times, the choice isn’t so clear: “This one says it’s written by a guy called Qoheleth; let’s title it ‘Ecclesiastes’.”

Who made all these additions and changes to titles?  Often it was Jewish scholars themselves.  Some lived a few generations after the original writers, grabbing the first words on the scrolls to act as quick-reference headings.  Others lived long after the first texts were written, developing (over many, many decades) a Greek version of their Hebrew Scriptures, an ancient work that came to be called the Septuagint.  It’s not an insignificant text; when Jesus and the apostles quoted Scripture, they frequently quoted from forms of the Greek Septuagint.

We’ll take a walk through the 39 books of the Old Testament, quickly discussing how each got its name.  Don’t worry, this month’s post isn’t a thirty-nine-page epic.  Sometimes a title’s explanation is pretty straightforward.  But other times, you might raise an eyebrow and wonder, along with me: “Who the what, now?”

 

Genesis: “Genesis” is a Greek word that means “origin,” “beginning,” or “starting point,” just as it does in English.  But since the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (with brief lapses into what older scholars called Chaldean [look it up]), then why does this book have a Greek name?

Answer: The ancient Hebrews didn’t use titles as we know them.  They often referred to their sections of Scripture by the first word or words of the text.  This section they called Bereshit, which translates to “In the beginning.”  As Greek culture spread through the ancient world, Jewish scholars added the title “Genesis” to this part of their Scriptures, probably influenced by the fact that this scroll detailed all the generations (in other words, origins) of the nations and of the world itself.

 

Exodus: Shemot in Hebrew, which means “names,” is the second Hebrew word in this text, and per the grab-a-word tradition, became the earliest title.  The later Jewish translators of the Greek text called this book Ex Hodos, meaning “the way out.”  The book’s topic makes that choice understandable.  We’re already seeing a naming pattern: the earliest Jewish scholars grabbed titles from a text’s opening words; the later Jewish translators leaned more toward the themes of a book to craft a new title.  Thus, Ex Hodos, which became Exodus for us.

Of interest to me is that Christianity was originally called by the same Greek term, Hodos, which means Way (like in Acts 19:9).  I like calling our faith “the Way.”  It connects us to the earliest pages of Scripture.  We, like the early people of God, have to walk out of Egypt, through the age of the Law. And into the age of Grace… walking the Hodos first trodden by Israelites of old.

 

Leviticus: This book was first titled Vayikra, “And He called…”  Filled with regulations about sacrifices, holy days, and worship, it made the later Jewish translators think of the tribe of Levi, those specifically set aside for religious service.  However, this book is misnamed, in a sense.  It’s filled with priestly regulations, and priests were the descendants of Aaron.  All priests were Levites, but not all Levites were priests.  If you ask me, a better title might have been the Aaronikon, latinized in our modern texts as the book of Aaronicus.

 

Numbers: This book details censuses and headcounts in chapters 1 and 26, so the ancient translators slapped the title Arithmoi on it (“numbers”).  You might notice that of the first five books of the Bible, this is the only one shown in plain English.  More on that below.  Personally, I think the earlier Hebrew designation, Bemidbar (“in the wilderness”) captures the spirit of this particular book much better.

 

Deuteronomy: This Greek word means “Second Law.”  That doesn’t mean it’s Part Two of Moses’ laws (although there are scattered new items like laws about kings in Deut. 17:14-20).  It’s basically the law on repeat, a second telling.  Again, we see a Greek word transliterated into English – had all the first five books of the Bible been translated instead of transliterated, their names would be Origins, Departure, Priest Matters, Numbers, and Second Law.

 

Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings: Whoa!  That’s a bunch of books at once!  That’s because they were very likely part of one continuous narrative.  Called the Deuteronomistic History, this chunk of Scripture from 1 Samuel through the end of 2 Kings shares similar vocabulary, thematic development, and a unified storyline from right after the death of Moses through to the exile.

So why are they chopped up into different books if they were all part of one story?  One very practical reason: scroll length.  Hebrew scribes could fit roughly thirty- to forty-thousand Hebrew words per scroll.  That’s how many words you find in Judges + Joshua, which many scholars believe circulated as a single scroll.  You get a similar word count for the books of Samuel.  And the next, the books of Kings.  Chances are, these pairs of books were scrollmates (to coin a term).  By word count alone, they'd pair up tidily in single scrolls. 

Then comes the Greek era.  When you translate Hebrew to Greek, your word count and character count (and thus your scroll size) increases.  Greek translations needed significantly more space than their Hebrew originals, and that led to the book divisions we see today.  The translators knew they were breaking up a single narrative.  They kept the pieces unified by calling the scrolls Kingdom 1, Kingdom 2, Kingdom 3, and Kingdom 4.

Aha!  Grandma’s Bible is suddenly making sense!  And we also now understand why 2 Samuel is named after Samuel, even though he died back in 1 Samuel 25:1 and never appears in his own second book.  Originally, it was all part of one scroll.

 

1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles: We actually know who named these books.  As Hebrew texts, these were a single scroll called Divrei HaYamim, “the records of the times.”  The Jewish translators of the Greek text called it Paralipomenon (there you go, Grandma!) and had to break it into two scrolls due to its length.  But, that title, meaning “things left out,” sounded sloppy and undignified to Jerome, the Christian scholar who produced the Latin Vulgate version of the Scriptures in the late 300s C.E.  Jerome renamed the book in Latin: Chronicon Totius Divinae Historiae, “Chronicles of the Whole Sacred History.”  The first word of that name stuck.

 

Ruth (and Esther): Observant readers may have already said, “Wait!  You skipped the book of Ruth!”

Indeed, I did… because Ruth never sat after Judges, the way we have it today.  It was often placed as part of what’s called the Five Megilloth, short writings used as Festival Scrolls.  “Ruth” appears to be the book’s original Hebrew name, a shift from the “use the first words” custom.  Only two books in Hebrew Scripture carry the name of women, Ruth and Esther – one a direct ancestor of Jesus, and the other an orphan who saved Israel.  Interestingly, Esther is one of only two books in the Bible that never mention God.

 

Ezra, Nehemiah: Other books in the “named-after-me” category are Ezra and Nehemiah – again, originally a single scroll, but broken up to accommodate translations and scroll size.  The name “Ezra” bemuses me, since Ezra doesn’t even show up in the story until seven chapters into his ten-chapter book.  When he does arrive, an interesting new genre is showcased – memoir writing.  Ezra introduces one of Scripture's earliest autobiographical extended-memoir sections.  Nehemiah does this genre as well.  Bible scholars like 19^th-century theologian Julius Wellhausen suspect both works may have originally been royal records.  That would make these two works examples of some of Scripture’s earliest autobiographical writings with the authors’ names right up top.

 

Job: Another main-character naming… in a book that never mentions Israel or any Hebrews at all, and where all the action takes place outside of Israel.  All names have an original meaning (my full name, fun fact, translates to “the Purple-Flowered Daughter of Wise Counsel”).  But “Job” is a name whose meaning seems lost to antiquity, probably not etymologically tied to any Hebrew word since he was “a man in the land of Uz,” not an Israelite.

 

Psalms: This collection was called Tehillim in Hebrew, which means “Praises.”  A title like that might be surprising to those who have read plaintive, grief-filled entries like Psalm 88.  Or Psalm 22.  Or 69, or… well, you get the idea.  The Septuagint translators decided to change the collection’s name to “Songs sung to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument.”  In Greek, that’s Psalmoi.  Not kidding, that whole idea is built into a single word.  Latin kept in that spirit with Psalmi, and English settled on Psalms, a term that stays nice and neutral about whether praises or lamentations are being sung. But my mind wanders back to the original title; could my grief-filled calls to God also be tehillim, forms of praise and trust in him?

 

Proverbs: “Proverbs” is a fairly decent translation of the Hebrew title Mishlei.  The Greek translators didn’t mess with it much, but it should be noted that mishlei is its own broad genre – proverbs, sayings, wise instructions, parables, maxims.  Mishlei can be tiny, like “Pride goes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), or highly detailed, like the lengthy homage to a good wife (Proverbs 31:10-31).

 

Ecclesiastes: This book was called Qoheleth in Hebrew, after the man whose words it shares.  Qoheleth isn’t really a name.  It means something close to “the speaker at an assembly” or “the teacher of a group.”  Knowing this, the Septuagint translators chose the Greek title Ekklesiastes, meaning “assembly” or “congregation” … or, in New Testament vocabulary, what we call “the church.”

 

Song of Songs: This name perfectly preserves the Hebrew wording that opens the book, Shir ha-Shirim.  The Septuagint translators didn’t mess with it: Asma Asmaton, also meaning “Song of Songs."  The Latin Vulgate translation was just as faithful to the name: Canticum Canticorum.  It was English translations that first started juggling a title that had endured for thousands of years: “Song of Solomon,” “Canticles,” “Canticle of Canticles,” “Solomon’s Song,” or sometimes just “the Song.”

 

AND THE REST OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

You may think I’ll never get through the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures at this rate.  As I mentioned upfront, though, some books are easier to categorize than others.  And in the next batch of book titles, things get really easy.

Books Named After Their Main Character: Jonah and Daniel.

Books Named After the Prophet Whose Words and Visions They Record: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

Well.  That certainly cleared my plate!  And that leaves only:

Lamentations: One of the Bible’s gloomier books, its original title in Hebrew was its first word: Eikhah, a word that asks “How?”  According to biblical scholars Jill Middlemas (in Lamentations: An Introduction and Study Guide) and Adele Berlin (in Lamentations: A Commentary), any early Hebrew reader seeing eikhah at the start of a sentence knew an expression of grief was coming.  “How?” it demands.  “How did this happen?  How did Jerusalem fall, and how did things get so bad?”

The Septuagint translators gave this book the fitting title Threnoi, a word for “funeral songs,” which are, in fact, "laments."  Our English title retains that.  Is the book a downer?  Sure.  But it pairs nicely with the book of Job.  Job rings out an anguished “why?” about personal suffering; Lamentations balances it with a vehement “how?” over the fate of a whole fallen people.

 

SO, WHY ALL THIS TITLE STUFF?

It’s true that we work hard to rightly divide the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15), but there’s more to deep dives into Scripture (and its titles) than that.  Obviously, I have no way of knowing what you got out of learning things like this.  But I can share what this study built, revealed, and stirred up in me:

• God’s Truth comes through all types of people.  There are book titles named after great warriors like Joshua and royal noblemen like Nehemiah.  But the Hebrew Scriptures also offer me a book named for a widow, Ruth.  For an orphan among an oppressed people, Esther.  For a prophet who does everything wrong and runs away.  For a has-been favorite foreigner of God’s who has lost it all.  People I can relate to, people I might even be some day.
  
  
• God’s Word comes through human history.  With all the changing of titles, assembling of texts, and changes in book order, I realize God’s Word didn’t get delivered, done and dusted, into the laps of humanity.  No.  God chose to use humanity to develop his message through the lives people lived and the decisions they made about preserving his Word.  Decisions they hoped honored him.  Not decisions of “right” or “wrong” titles, but decisions of “good for our times” and “better for our times.”  God does that in my life, too.  The choices, the changes to better, all my daily walk of faith – those things become the Word expressed through me, always growing.
  
  
• I belong to a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1).  All these titles came to me through countless generations of believers... the changes, the reasons for the changes, and the results that arise in English that encapsulate centuries of reflection on the importance of the Word.
  
  
• God hears me in my language.  I don’t mean English or Spanish or ASL.  I mean the freedom of “language” these titles provide.  God hears my praises, Psalmoi, even when they are loaded with laments; God hears my Eikhah, my laments, not only for myself but for my family, for my nation, for many nations.  I can beg to know How?  I can cry out Why?  And I can deliver my praises to him through all of that.  The titles themselves model it for me.  I am heard.

That’s what I’ve learned this month.  I’m certain more will dawn on me, blessing me as I hold these things in my heart.  As always, I pray the same for you.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx / YoYo Rez

SUFFER NOT A WOMAN:Three men tackle 1 Timothy 2:11-15

This May 10th, it’s officially Mother’s Day in over 90 countries.  In honor of that occasion, I’ve kicked off my mom shoes, propped up my feet, and I'm letting men do all my blog-writing work this month.

The topic – 1 Timothy 2:11-15:

“Let a woman learn in silence with full submission.  I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.  For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.  Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.”

My three guest contributors are by no means newcomers to Bible interpretation.  Our multigenerational panel includes a Baby Boomer bishop, a Gen X pastor, and a Millennial Bible College graduate, all of whom do the hard work while I sit back and sip on an extra-spicy Virgin Mary mocktail stirred with a celery stalk.

And while I remain in silence, of course.

Since I know all these gentlemen through the virtual world of Second Life, I’m using either their real-life or their Second Life identities, based on their preference: the Reverend Brad Bailey, the Reverend Michiel Alarie, and Mr. David Busscher.

So, gentlemen, take it away...

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REV. BRAD BAILEY (Rev Brett in Second Life) has served in ordained ministry under appointment by the bishop of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church for the past thirty years.  Having earned a degree in Business Administration, he annually fulfills all continuing education requirements for his ongoing ministerial appointments.

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BRAD: I have an interesting, probably surprising take on 1 Timothy 2:11-15.  I tend to be, as you well know, a somewhat conservative individual when it comes to interpreting scripture.  I'm a literalist, and it's hard sometimes for me to explain things… because it seems like sometimes the Bible, God's Word, is seemingly contradictory. And I don't believe that it is.  I believe that, when properly fleshed out, everything is as it needs to be.

Having said that, 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is a very controversial passage of Scripture because a lot of people have applied meaning to it that's not there.  I hate for people to use this as an example, or an instance, of finding something contradictory in the Bible that's not there.

For example, there is a couple in the book of Acts, a very prominent couple, Priscilla and Aquila.  And I want you to note that I find it interesting that everywhere Priscilla and Aquila are mentioned in the book of Acts, Priscilla is always mentioned first.  We see that Priscilla, along with her husband Aquila, straightened a man named Apollos out.  They took him aside and taught him some things.  So, right there is an example of a woman, Priscilla, being instrumental in teaching a man, Apollos, some things about Scripture.  And Paul does not – we see nowhere in Scripture – Paul does not chastise Priscilla for her outspokenness regarding Scripture.

Another interesting character is Lydia.  Lydia in the book of Acts was a businesswoman, a “seller of the color purple,” and she was a founder and a leader there in the church in Philippi.  In the book of Acts, Paul says some really great things about her.  So here you have another example of a woman in the New Testament community, in the early church age, that was very instrumental in the church.

But there was a gentleman who's mentioned there in Scripture, Philip, who had four daughters, and they were described by Luke in the book of Acts as prophetesses.  Well, what's a prophet?  A prophetess, someone who speaks on behalf of God; a prophetess, someone who teaches and brings revelation on behalf of God.  This guy had four daughters… and they were prophets.  All through the book of Acts, all through the New Testament, we see examples of women being leaders in the church, being spokesmen and teachers for God.  So, obviously there's something unique about this particular passage of Scripture, 1 Timothy 2:11-15, that doesn't necessarily apply across the board everywhere.

When you do a Greek word study, you find that the word Paul chose to use for “authority” in this passage has a very interesting meaning.  It doesn't necessarily mean normal, basic authority.  It’s more like an overpowering, more dominant, more controlling type of authority.  So that softens it a little bit when Paul says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or assert authority.”  I think he means a dominating style of teaching or a really controlling type of personality.

Now, let’s talk about “cultural arguments” related to this passage.  Honestly, I don't like the cultural argument that people make about 1 Timothy 2 because I believe that God is the same today as he was yesterday when 1 Timothy 2 was written, and as he will be two thousand years in the future if we’re here that long.  I don't think God is going to speak something or put something in His Word that is cultural-specific, that doesn't have the ability to translate across the years.  So, I don't particularly like cultural arguments.

But to comment on that just for a moment: Timothy was put in charge of the church of Ephesus.  And Ephesus was a pagan city.  The goddess Artemis was very strong there, and it was a very female-oriented cult.  Their leaders were priestesses.  When it comes to the aspects of women’s clothing and the gold and the braided hair and all of that stuff, I think Paul may have been speaking specifically with that church to keep the pagan culture of Ephesus from spreading over into the church.

I would like to conclude by saying that the Bible is very clear.  Paul says that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, there is no male or female in Christ – no distinguishing difference between male and female – and there's no slave or free.  Paul's very emphatic about that.  So, if in Christ there is no male or female, then what is all of this other stuff that he's talking about in Corinthians and Timothy about how women need to be?  It’s interesting.  

In light of all of this, I’d like to go back to the prophet Joel.  He was speaking about how the Holy Spirit was to be poured out upon the church.  In the great sermon that Peter made on Pentecost, he said, “This is that which the prophet Joel spoke of, saying that your old men will dream dreams, your young men will have visions”… and it talks about on “your sons and daughters.”  They will prophesy.

It just doesn't make sense to believe that anywhere in Scripture women are excluded and women are told to be quiet.  I think there's a lot more to this passage of Scripture than what we first think.

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REV. MICHIEL ALARIE is an ordained bishop serving the Churches of God in Christ of East Central Florida.  He has 49 years of pastoral and ecclesiastical experience and is working his calling in virtual reality to share the Gospel as pastor of Second Life’s Holy Presence Church. 

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MICHIEL: Let's take a look at the scripture we're considering, 1 Timothy 2:11-15:

“Let the women learn in silence with all subjection.  But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

               For Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

               Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

This particular passage of Scripture that I've read comes from the Bible that I use, the King James Version.  This is a very popular scripture, often quoted and often debated amongst Christian scholars all over Christendom.  And I have a particular viewpoint: that God's ultimate will is for leadership to be based on spiritual gifting, not gender.  And I will share the reason that I feel this way in two different parts.  

Firstly, if we look at the Scripture in Galatians 3:28, it states that in Christ there is neither male nor female, which suggests that biological distinctions do not limit one's calling or authority in the church.  And then there are contextual mandates in restrictive verses like this passage in 1 Timothy, as directed at specific temporary problems in the early church – in this case, women spreading heresy – rather than acting as universal bans for all time.

There is biblical precedent in which we see God's will evidenced in his choice of female leaders throughout history, such as in the scripture where Deborah was a judge.  There's also Phoebe, who was a deacon.  And then there was Huldah who was a prophetess.  All of these were leadership positions.

Consider the prophet Joel in the Old Testament.  In Joel 2:28, we read “And it shall come to pass afterwards, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” And then in verse 29, “and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days, will I pour out my spirit.” Both upon servants and handmaids.  In those verses, God speaks through the prophet not only that He will use both male and female genders to share His will, but He also gives context to a time when he would do so.

Female leadership was my first point.  My second point is that I feel 1 Timothy 2:11-15 is one of those instances where the apostle Paul expresses his personal feelings.  This is shown in verse 12 where he specifically mentions “I suffer not a woman…”.  The word “I.” There are several examples of Paul's expressing his personal feelings in the Scripture rather than direct commands of the Lord.  And while it should be understood that Paul believes he was guided by the Holy Spirit in his instruction, there were instances where he expressed his personal opinion.  And he always gave a reference when that was the case.

These examples are a few.  For instance, concerning marriage and singleness in 1 Corinthians 7:6, 7:12, 7:25, Paul advises that his preference for celibacy is a concession rather than a command.  He distinguishes between the Lord's command – no divorce – and his own advice for a believer married to an unbeliever.

Then, another example is Paul’s wishes on ministry in 1 Timothy 2:8-13.  Paul expresses personal desires regarding how men and women should conduct themselves in worship, which some interpret as personal counsel rather than absolute, universally applicable commands.

Then, also, there’s the case of the widow in 1 Corinthians 7:40.  Regarding a widow’s remarriage, Paul suggests it is better to remain single, noting, "I think that I too have the Spirit of God," suggesting a confident personal opinion.

Then there is Paul's perspective on Apostolic Authority.  In 2 Corinthians 11:17, he writes, “That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were, foolishly.” In this verse, Paul explicitly notes that he is speaking NOT "after the Lord" but confident in his own reasoning during a boastful appeal.

In reference to our selected scripture of consideration in 1 Timothy 2:14-15, Paul is not saying that Adam was not without guilt or sin.  The commandment of not eating of that specific fruit was given to Him, which he shared with Eve.  That's right, God gave him the specific commandment not to eat that particular fruit, and he shared God's commandment with Eve.  She may have been deceived by the serpent, but both knew full well of God's will concerning the fruit.  Paul concludes that statement sharing that women still have hope of God's mercy if she continues in faith, charity, holiness, and sobriety – virtues which ALL Christians should practice, not just one gender in particular.

To sum up my thoughts concerning the 1 Timothy passage, let me say this: To say Paul was wrong to suggest a lesser role in the church for women would not be fair.  He spoke his heart.  He spoke from his own experience and the culture which he was a part of.  Paul, originally Saul of Tarsus, was a Jew and a Roman citizen.  He knew he was teaching an infant church, a body of believers who would spread across the globe with the help of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, of course.  And that's very important.  We thank the Lord we have the Holy Spirit's guidance as Paul did.

It was also Paul’s understanding that his views on doctrine would not be the only words to be considered moving forward.  More would come after him… and more have.

I hope these few words will be a help to someone.

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MR. DAVID BUSSCHER is a lay believer residing near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He attended Bible college to better serve his local Dutch Reformed church as an educated layperson.  After years of study since, he is completing final edits of his first book, Blueprints for the Sacred.

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DAVID: What do I think 1 Timothy 2 teaches about women, silence, and authority?

Before we crack the spine on 1 Timothy 2, we have to talk about the man behind the curtain.  Who wrote this?  In New Testament scholarship today, 1 Timothy is what they call a "disputed" letter.  If you compare it to the heavy hitters like Romans or Galatians, the vocabulary and writing style are... well, different.  It is almost like listening to an artist you love suddenly drop a jazz album when you were expecting rock.  The flavor and tone has shifted.  And for many critical scholars, that is enough to say Paul did not write it – that some later follower was overcorrecting and putting out local fires in Paul's name.

I get the argument.  But I am not ready to go full liberal and toss the whole thing into the "man-made" bin.  My starting point is that there is some type of inspiration here – a baseline that this text is trustworthy and intended for us.

Why do I still land on Paul being the guy?

First, the Scribe Factor: In the ancient world, it was common for a writer to use an amanuensis, a secretary or scribe, who had the freedom to put the author's core thoughts into their own words.  Paul even names one in Romans 16:22: "I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter." So, the soul is Paul, but the polish could easily belong to a scribe.  That explains the different Greek style without resorting to forgery.

Then there’s the "Wait, I've Heard This Before" Factor.  The message about order and quietness is not a new invention in 1 Timothy.  In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is dealing with a similar brand of "dumpster fire" chaos in the church, and he tells women to be silent there, too.  The beat is consistent.

And there’s also the “church's receipts,” if you will.  For nearly 1,800 years, the church was virtually unanimous that this was Paul.  The generations closest to the source confirmed it.  That doesn’t settle the debate, but it means the burden of proof is on those who say it is a forgery.

So, for the rest of this interview, I’m going to assume Pauline authorship and inspiration.  Not because the critical questions are invalid – they are real – but because my interest here is in what the text means, not just who wrote it.

This will take a little detective work in the Greek.  When you look at 1 Timothy 2:12, the word translated as "exercise authority," authentein, is what scholars call a hapax legomenon.  Loyal readers of Yolanda's blog will recognize that from her previous blog, that it’s just a fancy way of saying it appears exactly one time in the entire New Testament.

Now, why does that matter? It matters because when Paul wants to talk about "normal" or "neutral" authority, the kind of authority a pastor or a leader should have, he almost always uses a different Greek word: exousia.  But here, he reaches for a word that is, put this in quotes, "weird and rare."

When we look outside the Bible at other Greek literature from around that time, authentein doesn't usually describe a healthy, orderly leadership.  Instead, it carries a much darker flavor.  Most lexicons and contemporary sources suggest it means "to domineer" or to exercise control in a way that is overbearing.  It often refers to "usurping authority," taking power that hasn't been given to you or grabbing the steering wheel from someone else.

So, if we just translate this as a generic ban on "authority," we’re probably missing the "local fire" Paul was trying to put out.  It’s not that he’s saying women can never have a seat at the table; he’s saying he doesn't permit them to usurp or domineer.

What do I mean by “local fire”?  Ephesus wasn't just any city; it was the world headquarters for the Artemis cult.  We’re talking about a culture where the massive Temple of Artemis was the center of everything, and female priestesses held the highest religious status.  In that world, the women were used to being in charge, and they were often seen as the true source of spiritual enlightenment.

Some scholars argue that there was even a “New Eve” myth floating around.  Some of these local teachings suggested that Eve was actually created first, or that she was the one who brought true gnosis, “knowledge,” to the world by eating the fruit.  Imagine these "rowdy females" bringing that culturally conditioned, domineering attitude into the early church.  They weren't just participating; they were likely usurping authority and spreading a doctrine that placed women above men based on these Ephesian myths.

This is where Paul pulls out his winning move.  He doesn't just say, "Stop it because I said so."  He appeals to the creation order.  When Paul says, "For Adam was formed first, then Eve" (1 Tim 2:13), he is slamming down a "trump card" against the Ephesian myth.  He’s looking at these women who claimed Eve was the source of enlightenment or was the firstborn and saying, "Actually, let’s go back to the baseline.  Adam was formed first."  He is appealing to the telos of things—God's original design and order—to correct a specific historical myth that had inverted that order.

And look, this isn't just a one-off trick Paul does.  He uses this "creation principle" all over the place.  In Romans, he uses the story of Adam to explain the universal reality of sin and salvation.  In 1 Corinthians, he appeals to creation to handle the "local dumpster fire" of conduct and order in that church.  And, of course, he uses it here as well.

So, where does that leave us? We have a universal principle, the creation order, being used to put out a local fire, the rowdy, domineering situation in Ephesus.  Universal and local, two distinct things.  My position is that you can’t just pick one and ignore the other.  It’s a conjunction.

Paul is taking a foundational truth about how God ordered the world and applying it to a specific local fire where that order was being completely usurped.  By pointing back to Adam and Eve, he isn't just giving a local opinion; he is appealing to the telos, the design plan, that he taught across all the churches.

This view has its own tension points.  This is where I have to give a nod to [renowned evangelical theologian] Don Carson.  Carson famously asks: “If the problem was just domineering behavior, why does Paul only tell the women to knock it off? Aren’t there men who domineer too?”

Here is my retort to that: if the Artemis and "New Eve" myths were the driving force behind the chaos, then women were the specific ones causing the disorder in that assembly.  It makes sense to single them out because they were the ones actively flipping the script based on their cultural background.  If a specific group is starting the fire, that’s the group you address.  It doesn’t mean men can’t be domineering, but in Ephesus, the rebuke had to go to the source of the chaos.

If we say it's a universal ban on all women speaking ever, we struggle with the rest of the New Testament, where we see Priscilla teaching Apollos, Phoebe serving as a deacon, and women hosting the very home churches Paul is writing to.

So, here’s my bottom line.  In 1 Timothy 3, Paul lays out the job description for the office of overseer, and it is explicitly gendered.  He refers to the candidate as a "husband of one wife" and a man who "ruleth well his own house." He even asks, "if a man knoweth not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?"

Here is where I land.  Paul's creation order wasn't just a reaction to rowdy women in Ephesus.  It was the blueprint for how he structured leadership in all the churches.  This passage addresses the public teaching office in the gathered assembly, not a total ban on female authority everywhere.  We see Phoebe and Priscilla active in the church.  But for the public office?  Paul ties it to the telos of creation.  That is what I think the Bible teaches.

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My deepest thanks to Brad, Michiel, and David for their viewpoints and work digging into this passage.  This is the kind of biblical investigation I most enjoy as part of my faith walk!  I'll be back next month, Lord willing, to break my Mother's Day silence and again put pixel to pantalla.  Until then...

Marana Tha,

YoYo Rez / Cosmic Parx / Yolanda Ramírez

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