REPETITION IN THE BIBLE: PART 2

Part 1 on this subject was posted two years ago on this site. It began with the following introduction:

“Those who are at all familiar with the Bible may rightfully come to the point where they ask:Why is there so much repetition in the Bible? It is an excellent question and actually can be answered in a number of ways depending on what kind of duplication one is talking about. On occasion, my tendency to organize and categorize comes to the forefront, and this is one of them. Here is my own attempt to classify some of the more common types of repetition found in the Bible with examples and comments as to the possible function such duplication performs in the service of the text.

A. Contiguous Repetition

    1. Of words

    2. Within the same verse

    3. Between adjacent paragraphs

    4. Between adjacent chapters

    5. Between adjacent books

B. More Remote Repetition

    1. In service of all the above duplicates

    2. Inclusios

    3. Significant numbers

    4. Mark's Gospel

But among the examples I gave in Section A2 of that post, I neglected to discuss another variation, namely the accumulation of near synonyms within a single verse. This post addresses that prior omission. Craig Keener explains this class of biblical repetition in his exhaustive commentary on I Peter when he states, “Piling up multiple, virtually synonymous terms fits both the traditional biblical and bombastic, so-called Asianic rhetoric.” Below are some of the examples of this rhetorical technique which he cites in his commentary on I Peter.

“Well and good”

The two Hebrew adjectives translated by these, or equivalent, words appear in verses such as Job 34:4 in their most common examples as part of two parallel lines within a single verse:

    “Then let us    examine for ourselves what is right;

    let us together establish                     the true good.” (JB)

However, that same sort of parallelism (Category A2 above) can be expressed even more simply by placing the synonyms right next to one another as a pair, such as we find in the following verses, all quoted from the KJV:

    Deuteronomy 6:18 – “And thou shall do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may go well with you...”

    Deuteronomy 12:28 – “Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go will with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God.”

Note that there is another possible example of two parallel words joined by “and” in this verse, namely, “observe and hear.” Certainly there is a nuance of difference between the two original Hebrew words, but there is much overlap as well.

    I Samuel 12:23 – “God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way.”

    II Chronicles 14:2 – “And Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the LORD his God.”

    II Chronicles 31:20 – “And thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah, and wrought that which was good and right and truth before the LORD his God.”

To this list, Keener appends those occasions in which the same Hebrew phrase appears in an idiomatic, but not theological, context: Joshua 9:25; II Samuel 15:3; and Jeremiah 26:14; 40:4.

Strengthening Language

This is another category identified by Keener in which similar words are accumulated in order to make one general point.

    Isaiah 41:10 – In this verse, it is stated that the LORD strengthened, helped, and supported Israel.” Oswalt states that the use of moreover “between the three verbs give them a sense of being piled on top of one another. Not only has he strengthened, but he has helped, and not only has he strengthened and helped, but he also has upheld them.”

    I Corinthians 16:13 – “Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong.” (RSV)

“The apostle inserts this final brief exhortation. The first four imperatives call for militant action, the last for love. The first pair are defensive, the second offensive.” (Marsh)

    Ephesians 1:19 – “...and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might.” (RSV) This is also rendered by AB as follows: “...and how exceedingly great is his power over us believers. For that mighty strength is at work...”

“These first four imperatives are related in that they all call to watchfulness and steadfastness as to the faith itself (cf. 15:58).” (Fee)

And Marcus Barth says, “At this point the style typical of Ephesians is displayed at either its worst or its best, certainly in most exemplary fashion. Four nearly synonymous Greek words are used in succession to describe God's power, and the author adds the noun 'greatness,' qualified by the attribute 'exceeding' (or 'overwhelming'). The way in which so many words of similar meaning are combined is not simple, but is complicated by the use of three genitives and the preposition 'according to..'..The author wants to point out the absolutely unique and superior power exerted by God in the resurrection of Christ.”

    Ephesians 3:16 – “...he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man.” (RSV)

Hoehner comments, “Two words for power are used here. The first is dynamis, which has the meaning of 'power, ability, capability of acting,' denoting capacity in view of his ability...The second word is the complementary infinitive krataiothenai from krataioo. It is a late construction...which means 'to strengthen' by exercise.”

    Colossians 1:11 – “May you be made strong with all of the strength which comes from his glorious power...” (TEV)

“The sentence runs on with continued emphasis that such fruitful living is wholly dependent on divine enabling...the Semitic doubling ('empowered with all power') is sufficient indication that the thought world here is still preeminently Jewish....As if the point were not already clear beyond doubt, the sense of complete dependence on divine enabling is reinforced with a further flourish: 'according to the might of his glory' (a Semitism = 'his glorious might'). Kratos ('might') is an understandable variant for dunamis ('power')...” (Dunn)

    I Peter 5:10 – The RSV translation of this verse reads, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you.”

Commenting on this statement, Keener says, “Yet despite each term perhaps adding some nuances, the semantic overlap among restore, strengthen, fortify, and establish is considerable.”

Judges 9:16, 19

Lastly, I will throw in one additional example not mentioned by Keener. After Jotham tells the parable of the trees attempting to choose a ruler from among themselves to those who have rejected the rightful king of Israel, he states, “Now, if you have acted faithfully and blamelessly in making Abimelech king, and if you have dealt rightly with Jerubbaal and his house...then rejoice in Abimelech, and let him rejoice in you.”

Webb explains: “Jotham makes it clear what the central issue is by piling up adverbs (faithfully, blamelessly, rightly), all of which have to do with the ethical status of what the rulers of Shechem have done. The issue is not kingship as such, but whether it was right for them to make this particular man king and, in so doing, to support and participate in his slaughter of Gideon's seventy sons. Clearly for Jotham the answer is no.”

BABBLERS IN THE CHURCH

The New Testament has much to say concerning sins of the mouth. And today those same faults can be extended to those who spout off on the Internet at the drop of a hat without first engaging their brains or their hearts. A very recent example of this occurred the other day after the tragic loss of lives in the Kerrville flood, not very far from where I live. A public official posted on her Facebook page that she bet that not nearly as many people would have been upset by this event if it had happened to a group of minority girls instead of “lily white” ones. I would hope that if she had had time to think it over and carefully draft a letter to send to the newspaper, she would had thought better of it and not shared that opinion. But with modern technology, we can just rant and rave to our heart's content, push a button, and the world can read it, for better or worse.

There are many such faults of the tongue condemned in the Bible in relation to actions in church bodies, just one of which is the tendency of many of us to talk too much off the top of our heads with little thought as to what we are saying or on the effect it might have on the listeners. Here are just a few of the biblical passages in which this subject is discussed, along with some personal observations I have made in my many years in various church settings, especially in Sunday school classes.

Proverbs 10:8

Waltke translates this verse as, “The wise in heart accepts counsel, but the babbling fool comes to ruin...The wise in heart, as opposed to the 'wise in their own eyes' (cf. 3:7), knows that he is in need of teaching and welcomes it...Whereas the wise in heart are characterized by continual inner, spiritual growth that leads to wise speech (16:23), the babbling (lit. 'lips') fool despises wisdom and discipline (1:7). The fool is so full of himself that instead of having the capacity to accept wisdom he dangerously prattles out his own 'clever opinions,' which are devoid of true wisdom (cf. 10:13) and scorch like fire (cf. 16:27). By his undisciplined words he entangles himself and comes to ruin. In its teaching about the proper use of speech and the necessity for taking good advice, Proverbs follows the wisdom tradition of the ancient Near East. Here a contrast is drawn between the man who pays attention to the command or advice, of the wisdom teacher and the man who makes a fool of himself by giving advice when he himself is ignorant.”

Merrill explains that in the great majority of cases, a reference to “lips” refers in general to verbal communication. “For the most part, sapa is associated with negative or harmful speech...One who speaks without thinking is called 'a 'man of lips' (Job 11:2)...Such people are fools...”

“A wise person is teachable, willing to become wiser (cf. 1:5; 9:9). But a fool...does not quit chattering long enough to learn anything. In Proverbs needless talking is often associated with folly.”

(Buzzell)

Additional passages listed by Zuck regarding teachableness include Proverbs 10:17; 12:1; 13:1,13,18; 15:5, 31-32; 19:20.

There was one gentleman in a church I attended who also had been part of a small Bible study group during the week. He fancied himself a budding preacher and missionary although he had absolutely no training or aptitude for those roles. Since our church would not support him financially because he did not want to undergo the required prior “vetting,” he thought he could dig up support for his rather hair-brained “ministries” among the members of our small group. He asked for advice from me, which was rather out of character for him. But he totally ignored what I had said to him and went in the opposite direction after telling me how much my advice had encouraged him, obviously not listening to a thing I had said.

Not having learned my lesson, I later made the mistake of asking him to present a 5-10 minute devotional in the Sunday school class I was teaching before the lesson itself. When the day came, he again completely ignored my words and proceeded to babble on and on about absolutely nothing at all for the whole 90 minutes, and I had to scrap the lesson I had been preparing for a month, which I attempted, somewhat unsuccessfully, to do with perfect equanimity.

Matthew 6:7

This verse reads, “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

Hill states, “To heap up empty phrases (battalogeo) is probably connected with the Aramaic battal ('idle, useless'): the word is used in an Aramaic papyrus from Qumran meaning 'without effect'.”

In the same vein, Albright and Mann write, “The Greek word (battalogein) can be used of stammering, and so of constant repetition. Battos (stammerer) and cognate words suggest constant repetition rather than continually interrupted speech.”

And France adds, “Their approach to prayer is characterized by two colorful terms, first 'babbling,' a noisy flow of sound without meaning, and polylogia, 'much speaking,' 'many words.' It is an approach to prayer which values quantity (and perhaps volume?) rather than quality. It is not necessarily purely mechanical, but rather obtrusive and unnecessary.”

“We must not 'babble' (an onomatopoetic word – battalogia, literally, to say batta). In light of vv. 7-8, this at least refers to a long-winded and probably flowery or rhetorical oration.” (Blomberg)

Most of us have probably experienced in church the sort of person Jesus is talking about. Their prayers are long and repetitious, full of their favorite phrases from the Bible which they quote quite out of context. That was why I was never very good giving prayers during church services; I tended to get straight to the point, knowing that God already knew what was in my heart, and as a result my prayers were always much shorter than was felt to be acceptable. I think my problem was that somehow I had the mistaken idea that God was my audience, not the others in the congregation who might need edification from me during that time.

Even worse were those whom my wife encountered who took the opportunity during verbal prayers to put certain unnamed others (“You know who you are!”) in the audience in their place.

This teaching could also be applied to those senior pastors I have known who are in love with their own voices and over-rehearse their sermons down to every small inflection in their voice. We once had such a perfectionist who was indeed an excellent speaker, but he tended to overdo it. As an example, he delivered one sermon while fighting laryngitis. His message was perfectly understandable to all, but he was just not satisfied with it himself. So two weeks later when he was completely recovered, he delivered the exact same sermon again.

Such a driving need to appear before others without any apparent flaws was his eventual undoing. A deranged woman who had been attending the church for only about two weeks took it into her head that she would be helping the pastor out if she aimed a gun (fortunately unloaded) at his head during his morning sermon. Whatever in the world was in her mind at the time, the upshot was that one of the elders, an ex-football lineman, ran up on stage and tackled her while the pastor cowered behind the pulpit crying for help; the woman was carted off to jail; and the pastor had a nervous breakdown and disappeared for weeks until he was tracked down at a psychiatric clinic. He never did return to any pulpit ministry again, as far as I am aware.

I Timothy 5:13

Knight, among others, sets the context for this teaching by explaining that widows who are “enrolled” in the church are given financial support by the church and in turn are to spend their time in helping to carry out various good works for the benefit of those in the congregation.

Hendricksen: “Writing then about a certain type of young widow, the apostle's description becomes very vivid..,. They would become not only idle but chatty and meddlesome. (Note the play upon words: argoi periergoi. One might translate: 'not busy workers but busybodies'...). Of course, the result was that thus they might easily be doing more harm than good. In the midst of their vivacious chatter they would often 'say things which they should not (say),' creating problems for the church instead of solving any!”

I had the unfortunate “privilege” to witness a good (or should I say, bad) example of this class of Christian women. In this particular case, she fit the description of an “enrolled” woman in that she was the paid church secretary, an important job and one that certainly should not be held by one who has “loose lips.” One time when our church was between senior pastors, she became convinced that the official powers to be at the time, the deacons and personnel committee, were not treating the assistant pastors with the respect they deserved. And in an attempt to redress that sin, she used her privileged access to the home and e-mail addresses of all the church members to send out a scathing letter denouncing those two groups in no uncertain terms for their actions.

This unfounded accusation had the immediate effect of dividing the congregation into two warring camps, with the chairwoman of the personnel committee (of which I was a member) being hounded and chased down the hall during Sunday morning church by a screaming young man loudly berating her for her actions and demanding an immediate explanation. And within a few weeks, most of the young married couples left the church along with one of the assistant pastors to start their own short-lived church.

3 John 10

In denouncing a self-appointed church leader named Diotrephes, John censures him for his accusations against him. “phluareo can be used of babbling and talking nonsense (cf. the adjective in 1 Tim. 5:13) and hence of making empty, groundless accusations.” (Marshall)

Similarly, Bruce says that “the verb phlyaroo, here rendered 'prate,' means 'talk nonsense.'”

“Diotrephes was making evil accusations, unjustified charges. He was talking nonsense and 'spouting silliness.' There was an emptiness to what he said as well as a vicious and wicked intent.” (Akin)

Treatment of Such “Problem Children”

By no means all of those who in church settings tend to babble on and on do so for purely selfish or evil motives, and these must be handled with love rather than with censure. For example, I have run into at least three such men in the various churches of which I have been a member.

One had somewhat of a fixation on a particular theological doctrine, the absolute sovereignty of God. That is certainly a subject that needs to be stressed, but he did it to excess and felt that any teaching hour in Sunday school was totally wasted unless it mentioned that particular subject or at least refrained from (heaven forbid) actually suggesting than we had any human responsibilities for our actions.

I don't think he realized how disruptive his comments were when he felt he must constantly interrupt the speaker in order to make that one point. My solution was quite simple. I assigned one of the summer lessons for him to teach all by himself. He hemmed and hawed his way painfully through the lesson and learned first-hand that it was not very easy to fill over an hour of time keeping to the subject at hand while also incorporating into the talk his pet subject. It was at least a year after than experience before he even made a comment in class.

Unfortunately, when he reverted to his old behavior, someone else on our teaching team was presenting the lesson. That teacher, usually a very even-tempered man, totally lost his temper and chewed out that member of our class in no uncertain terms in front of others. The poor man stayed away from the class for over a month before daring to show his face again.

I had tried my own gentler technique earlier at another church with a member of our young married class, who I would guess had a rather limited intelligence and no social sense whatsoever. He tended to raise his hand during class and then babble on with comments which none of us could make heads or tails out of. The solution used above worked here also. We let him teach one lesson all by himself, and he did not acquit himself well, as even he recognized. Again, that experience seemed to satisfy his need to be recognized as a full member of the class, and that was apparently all he was trying to accomplish.

At yet another church, a very dear man in the class, would interrupt the speaker with comments which seemed to not be very well thought out in his own mind before talking. And so after about 5 minutes, he would apologize profusely to the class for his interruptions, and do the same for the speaker when the class was over. It was awfully hard for anyone to get upset about his actions since there appeared to be absolutely no evil or selfish motives behind his actions. I tried my best to assure him that no one had any hard feelings against him, and I took an interest in his personal life. That seemed to help a little, and we are still friends.

BABBLERS IN THE CHURCH

 

Babblers in the Church

The New Testament has much to say concerning sins of the mouth. And today those same faults can be extended to those who spout off on the Internet at the drop of a hat without first engaging their brains or their hearts. A very recent example of this occurred the other day after the tragic loss of lives in the Kerrville flood, not very far from where I live. A public official posted on her Facebook page that she bet that not nearly as many people would have been upset by this event if it had happened to a group of minority girls instead of “lily white” ones. I would hope that if she had had time to think it over and carefully draft a letter to send to the newspaper, she would had thought better of it and not shared that opinion. But with modern technology, we can just rant and rave to our heart's content, push a button, and the world can read it, for better or worse.

There are many such faults of the tongue condemned in the Bible in relation to actions in church bodies, just one of which is the tendency of many of us to talk too much off the top of our heads with little thought as to what we are saying or on the effect it might have on the listeners. Here are just a few of the biblical passages in which this subject is discussed, along with some personal observations I have made in my many years in various church settings, especially in Sunday school classes.

Proverbs 10:8

Waltke translates this verse as, “The wise in heart accepts counsel, but the babbling fool comes to ruin...The wise in heart, as opposed to the 'wise in their own eyes' (cf. 3:7), knows that he is in need of teaching and welcomes it...Whereas the wise in heart are characterized by continual inner, spiritual growth that leads to wise speech (16:23), the babbling (lit. 'lips') fool despises wisdom and discipline (1:7). The fool is so full of himself that instead of having the capacity to accept wisdom he dangerously prattles out his own 'clever opinions,' which are devoid of true wisdom (cf. 10:13) and scorch like fire (cf. 16:27). By his undisciplined words he entangles himself and comes to ruin. In its teaching about the proper use of speech and the necessity for taking good advice, Proverbs follows the wisdom tradition of the ancient Near East. Here a contrast is drawn between the man who pays attention to the command or advice, of the wisdom teacher and the man who makes a fool of himself by giving advice when he himself is ignorant.”

Merrill explains that in the great majority of cases, a reference to “lips” refers in general to verbal communication. “For the most part, sapa is associated with negative or harmful speech...One who speaks without thinking is called 'a 'man of lips' (Job 11:2)...Such people are fools...”

“A wise person is teachable, willing to become wiser (cf. 1:5; 9:9). But a fool...does not quit chattering long enough to learn anything. In Proverbs needless talking is often associated with folly.” (Buzzell)

Additional passages listed by Zuck regarding teachableness include Proverbs 10:17; 12:1; 13:1,13,18; 15:5, 31-32; 19:20.

There was one gentleman in a church I attended who also had been part of a small Bible study group during the week. He fancied himself a budding preacher and missionary although he had absolutely no training or aptitude for those roles. Since our church would not support him financially because he did not want to undergo the required prior “vetting,” he thought he could dig up support for his rather hair-brained “ministries” among the members of our small group. He asked for advice from me, which was rather out of character for him. But he totally ignored what I had said to him and went in the opposite direction after telling me how much my advice had encouraged him, obviously not listening to a thing I had said.

Not having learned my lesson, I later made the mistake of asking him to present a 5-10 minute devotional in the Sunday school class I was teaching before the lesson itself. When the day came, he again completely ignored my words and proceeded to babble on and on about absolutely nothing at all for the whole 90 minutes, and I had to scrap the lesson I had been preparing for a month, which I attempted, somewhat unsuccessfully, to do with perfect equanimity.

Matthew 6:7

This verse reads, “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

Hill states, “To heap up empty phrases (battalogeo) is probably connected with the Aramaic battal ('idle, useless'): the word is used in an Aramaic papyrus from Qumran meaning 'without effect'.”

In the same vein, Albright and Mann write, “The Greek word (battalogein) can be used of stammering, and so of constant repetition. Battos (stammerer) and cognate words suggest constant repetition rather than continually interrupted speech.”

And France adds, “Their approach to prayer is characterized by two colorful terms, first 'babbling,' a noisy flow of sound without meaning, and polylogia, 'much speaking,' 'many words.' It is an approach to prayer which values quantity (and perhaps volume?) rather than quality. It is not necessarily purely mechanical, but rather obtrusive and unnecessary.”

“We must not 'babble' (an onomatopoetic word – battalogia, literally, to say batta). In light of vv. 7-8, this at least refers to a long-winded and probably flowery or rhetorical oration.” (Blomberg)

Most of us have probably experienced in church the sort of person Jesus is talking about. Their prayers are long and repetitious, full of their favorite phrases from the Bible which they quote quite out of context. That was why I was never very good giving prayers during church services; I tended to get straight to the point, knowing that God already knew what was in my heart, and as a result my prayers were always much shorter than was felt to be acceptable. I think my problem was that somehow I had the mistaken idea that God was my audience, not the others in the congregation who might need edification from me during that time.

Even worse were those whom my wife encountered who took the opportunity during verbal prayers to put certain unnamed others (“You know who you are”) in the audience in their place.

This teaching could also be applied to those senior pastors I have known who are in love with their own voices and over-rehearse their sermons down to every small inflection in their voice. We once had such a perfectionist who was indeed an excellent speaker, but he tended to overdo it. As an example, he delivered one sermon while fighting laryngitis. His message was perfectly understandable to all, but he was just not satisfied with it himself. So two weeks later when he was completely recovered, he delivered the exact same sermon again.

Such a driving need to appear before others without any apparent flaws was his eventual undoing. A deranged woman who had been attending the church for only about two weeks took it into her head that she would be helping the pastor out if she aimed a gun (fortunately unloaded) at his head during his morning sermon. Whatever in the world was in her mind at the time, the upshot was that one of the elders, an ex-football lineman, ran up on stage and tackled her while the pastor cowered behind the pulpit crying for help; the woman was carted off to jail; and the pastor had a nervous breakdown and disappeared for weeks until he was tracked down at a psychiatric clinic. He never did return to any pulpit ministry again, as far as I am aware.

I Timothy 5:13

Knight, among others, sets the context for this teaching by explaining that widows who are “enrolled” in the church are given financial support by the church and in turn are to spend their time in helping to carry out various good works for the benefit of those in the congregation.

Hendricksen: “Writing then about a certain type of young widow, the apostle's description becomes very vivid..,. They would become not only idle but chatty and meddlesome. (Note the play upon words: argoi periergoi. One might translate: 'not busy workers but busybodies...). Of course, the result was that thus they might easily be doing more harm than good. In the midst of their vivacious chatter they would often 'say things which they should not (say),' creating problems for the church instead of solving any!”

I had the unfortunate “privilege” to witness a good (or should I say, bad) example of this class of Christian women. In this particular case, she fit the description of an “enrolled” woman in that she was the paid church secretary, an important job and one that certainly should not be held by one who has “loose lips.” One time when our church was between senior pastors, she became convinced that the official powers to be at the time, the deacons and personnel committee, were not treating the assistant pastors with the respect they deserved. And in an attempt to redress that sin, she used her privileged access to the home and e-mail addresses of all the church members to send out a scathing letter denouncing those two groups in no uncertain terms for their actions.

This unfounded accusation had the immediate effect of dividing the congregation into two warring camps, with the chairwoman of the personnel committee (of which I was a member) being hounded and chased down the hall during Sunday morning church by a screaming young man loudly berating her for her actions and demanding an immediate explanation. And within a few weeks, most of the young married couples left the church along with one of the assistant pastors to start their own short-lived church.

3 John 10

In denouncing a self-appointed church leader named Diotrephes, John censures him for his accusations against him. “phluareo can be used of babbling and talking nonsense (cf. the adjective in 1 Tim. 5:13) and hence of making empty, groundless accusations.” (Marshall)

Similarly, Bruce says that “the verb phlyaroo, here rendered 'prate,' means 'talk nonsense.'”

“Diotrephes was making evil accusations, unjustified charges. He was talking nonsense and 'spouting silliness.' There was an emptiness to what he said as well as a vicious and wicked intent.” (Akin)

Treatment of Such “Problem Children”

By no means all of those who in church settings tend to babble on and on do so for purely selfish or evil motives, and these must be handled with love rather than with censure. For example, I have run into at least three such men in the various churches of which I have been a member.

One had somewhat of a fixation on a particular theological doctrine, the absolute sovereignty of God. That is certainly a subject that needs to be stressed, but he did it to excess and felt that any teaching hour in Sunday school was totally wasted unless it mentioned that particular subject or at least refrained from (heaven forbid) actually suggesting than we had any human responsibilities for our actions.

I don't think he realized how disruptive his comments were when he felt he must constantly interrupt the speaker in order to make that one point. My solution was quite simple. I assigned one of the summer lessons for him to teach all by himself. He hemmed and hawed his way painfully through the lesson and learned first-hand that it was not very easy to fill over an hour of time keeping to the subject at hand while also incorporating into the talk his pet subject. It was at least a year after than experience before he even made a comment in class.

Unfortunately, when he reverted to his old behavior, someone else on our teaching team was presenting the lesson. That teacher, usually a very even-tempered man, totally lost his temper and chewed out that member of our class in no uncertain terms in front of others. The poor man stayed away from the class for over a month before daring to show his face again.

I had tried my own gentler technique earlier at another church with a member of our young married class, who I would guess had a rather limited intelligence and no social sense whatsoever. He tended to raise his hand during class and then babble on with comments which none of us could make heads or tails out of. The solution used above worked here also. We let him teach one lesson all by himself, and he did not acquit himself well, as even he recognized. Again, that experience seemed to satisfy his need to be recognized as a full member of the class, and that was apparently all he was trying to accomplish.

At yet another church, a very dear man in the class, would interrupt the speaker with comments which seemed to not be very well thought out in his own mind before talking. And so after about 5 minutes, he would apologize profusely to the class for his interruptions, and do the same for the speaker when the class was over. It was awfully hard for anyone to get upset about his actions since there appeared to be absolutely no evil or selfish motives behind his actions. I tried my best to assure him that no one had any hard feelings against him, and I took an interest in his personal life, and that seemed to help a little. We are still friends.

IS GOD WEAK AND FOOLISH? (I CORINTHIANS 1:25)

This verse reads in the NEB, “Divine folly is wiser than the wisdom, and divine weakness stronger than man's strength.” Thus, at one stroke Paul appears to be taking a potshot at two key attributes of God: His omniscience and His omnipotence. And although this verse may cause some ultra-literalists consternation, it is obvious to most readers that Paul couldn't possibly be stating anything like this. Thus, we see the following translations and paraphrases which attempt to bring out the intended underlying thought in the verse:

    TEV renders it as “What seems to be” God's foolishness and weakness.

    The Message says, “Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can't begin to compete with God's 'weakness.'”

    And The Living Bible reads, “This so-called 'foolish' plan is far wiser than that of the wisest man, and God in his weakness – Christ dying on the cross – is far stronger than any man.”

In addition, even “human wisdom” is a phrase which can't be taken at its face value. The note in the Jerusalem Bible to this verse defines it as “philosophical speculation and tricks of rhetoric.”

So we have here a prime example of irony used to explain why some people, even those considered wise by earthly standards, just can't understand the reason why Jesus needed to die in order to save us. It is certainly a major sticking point with those followers of Islam.

There was once a showing on TV of the cartoon version of C.S. Lewis' “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” It became the discussion of a group of us chemists during break time at work, and one of the most intelligent chemists at our table, who had seen the show, said that he just couldn't understand the logic behind the lion having to die in order to save the boy and Narnia from the witch's spell. It seemed like complete nonsense to him. And this was a PhD who had been raised in Roman Catholic schools. Interestingly, even some of the atheists in our group had absolutely no trouble in immediately recognizing the Christian symbolism in the story, even though they may have personally rejected the message.

Here is how various Bible scholars weigh in on the meaning in this verse:

“Apart from God's active involvement in preaching the message would come as a stumbling block to the Jews (who demanded miraculous signs) and foolishness to the Gentiles (who looked for wisdom). At this point the content and activity of preaching correspond, for both are marked by 'foolishness' (I Cor 1:21-25). Only to those who believe does it bring salvation (I Cor 1:21-23).” (Mounce)

“In the logic of human wisdom the cross of Christ is foolishness (1 Cor 1:18), but in reality the apparent weakness of God is a demonstration of his power (1 Cor 1:24-25).” (Schnable)

Stott states, “What was foolishness to Greeks, and continues to be to modern intellectuals who trust in their own wisdom, is nevertheless the wisdom of God. And what remains a stumbling-block to those who trust in their own righteousness, like the Jews of the first century, proves to be the saving power of God (1Cor. 1:18-25).”

Orr and Walther: “The foolishness of divine love is wiser than the wisdom of human pride; it is the unadorned, stark display of willingness to enter the worst conditions that ever faced a human being. This is wiser than the security sought by the skill of intelligent persons because it accomplishes what no human wisdom can achieve: the reclamation and remaking of the victims of sin and death. The weakness of God is the weakness of the death of Christ. In human experience death is the ultimate weakness, but the death of Christ is more powerful than all human strength. Paul's acquaintance with Christ caused him to change all his previous ways of thinking. Here was indeed the supreme metamorphosis. Now he understood that wisdom and strength were to be found in weakness, life in death.”

“The foolishness of God is that work of God which the world considers foolish: the work of God in Christ. What the world considers foolish and feeble, namely, the death of Christ, is salvation for believers. It saves whereas the world cannot save. That is why the foolishness of God is wiser than man. These words denote man in all his knowledge and power. God's revelation, which by men is thought foolish and weak, is stronger than the strongest work of man.” (Grosheide)

Fee: “Christ crucified as God's power, and therefore God's wisdom, at work in the world is the ultimate contradiction. Paul now brings closure to his argument by grounding the historical outworking of that reality in a theological axiom: God is both wiser and more powerful than mere human beings. But he says that by keeping intact the paradoxical language of the paragraph...In the cross God 'outsmarted' his human creatures and thereby nullified their wisdom. In the same cross God also 'overpowered' his enemies, with lavish grace and forgiveness, and thereby divested them of their strength.”

He continues: “One can scarcely conceive of a more important – and more difficult – passage for the church today than this one...Such 'weakness' in God is scandalous to those who think of themselves as righteous and thus in no need of forgiveness; but to those who recognize themselves as in need of mercy this is the good news that sets us free to follow him. Thus this weakness is also the ultimate power, and therefore the final wisdom of God.”

 

JAMES 2:1

If you compare various English translations of this verse, you are likely to get a little confused as to which is the correct rendering. It turns out that even the scholars who make it their career to study the Greek New Testament are equally confused. I don't expect all of you to follow the intricate ins and outs of the discussion below (I know that it left me more bewildered than edified), but I hope it does serve to prove the great deal of trouble sincere Bible scholars take to derive just the intended nuances out of a biblical text, even if in the final analysis they do not always agree with one another.

I have started out with comments on the five possible translations that Scot McKnight enumerates, and then have supplemented it with some additional suggestions made by others. It would be helpful before you proceed, if you could read this verse in the context of what follows in the biblical text.

1. “our Lord Jesus (glorious) Christ”

2. “our glorious Lord, Jesus Christ”

As far as I am aware, there are no responsible Bible scholars who have proposed either of these variations: the first one in which 'glory/glorious' modifies Christ and the second which takes it to modify Lord instead. Adamson feels that the latter “imposes an intolerable strain on the order of the two nouns.”

3. “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ”

Davids, after proposing yet another understanding, ends up by endorsing this translation. But Adamson responds, “This interpretation is arbitrary: such a genitive with a proper name is at least doubtful, while such parallels as 1 Cor. 2:8; Eph. 1:17; Ps. 29:3; Acts 7:2 are hardly relevant.”.”

Tasker agrees with Adamson's objection as he states, “Others have taken the glory as a genitive of quality, and connected it with the words our Lord Jesus Christ in the sense of 'our glorious Lord Jesus Christ'; but this seems an unduly fulsome expression. Even Ropes, who advocates it, remarks, 'it is not an altogether happy expansion of the Lord of glory in I Cor. ii. 8'.”

McKnight also says, “Even though the expression...is unusual, leading some to suggest an interpolation, all the evidence of the surviving manuscripts suggest that this text is original. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a thoroughly Christian expression, but the addition of 'glorious' is unusual and could derive from early hymnic or creedal lines (e.g., 1 Tim 3:16) and it could be a combination of 'our Lord Jesus Christ' with the 'Lord of glory' (1 Cor 2:8).”

4. “our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious one”

Adamson notes that Bengel suggested “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the glory” and that NEB similarly translated the phrase as “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who reigns in glory.” However, Adamson notes that it is “entirely lacking in evidence to support it.”

And Tasker adds more problems with this reading: “The expression the Lord of glory is found in I Cor. ii. 8 and elsewhere in the New Testament, and presumably means 'the Lord who now reigns in glory'. There is, however, in the Greek text no repetition of the Lord as in A.V., R.V. And R.S.V.; and it is difficult to see why the writer, if he had intended to connect of glory with the Lord, should not have placed the words in juxtaposition. As it is, the glory is found in the genitive case immediately after 'our Lord Jesus Christ'.”

5. “the glorious one, the Lord Jesus Christ”

There are actually several other minor variations on this translation which have been proposed over the years.

Since 'glorious' is the last word in the Greek text, both McKnight and Mayor tend to favor this translation. But even this reading does not entirely determine the interpretation since, as McKnight explains, the glory might (a), as in I Corinthians 2:8 suggest God's own splendor and presence or (b) suggest the future glorification of Jesus Christ after his humiliation on earth. He quotes Sophie Laws: “James is not here concerned with the definition of christology [as in the theophanic view (a)] but with the relation between faith and behavior.”

McKnight concludes that “we are left with the option of leaving two views in balance.” If so, view (a) would stress Jesus' humble position while on earth and shame the Christians into treating the poor better while (b) would remind believers that they will eventually have to answer for their shameful behavior before the now glorified Lord.

In support of (b), Stott says the following: In the Old Testament God's glory or splendor was revealed in nature and history, that is, in the created universe and in the redeemed nation...It is not in the least surprising that, when the New Testament opens, glory should be associated with Jesus Christ... According to the Synoptic Gospels, however, although Jesus' glory was glimpsed at his transfiguration, its full manifestation would not take place until his Parousia and the kingdom which would then be consummated [see Matt. 25:31; Mark 10:37; 13:26; Lk. 9:32; and 2 Pet. 1:16].”

Tasker, after rejecting several other views, endorses this general understanding: “It may well be then that the glory should be taken in apposition to Jesus Christ. He is the glory in the sense that He fully reflected on earth, with the necessary limitations of His incarnate life, the nature of God Himself...for this interpretation, first suggested by Bengel and subsequently adopted by Mayer and Hort, the glory is almost a descriptive title for Christ; and although such a title is not found elsewhere, what is implied in it is a truth unfolded in several passages (see especially Luke. ii. 32; Jn. I. 14, xvii. 5; Heb. I.3).”

“The NIV has done well in...taking the word 'glorious' (doxes) in apposition to, and therefore descriptive of, Christ.” (Blue)

6. “the Lord Jesus Christ, our glory”

Carson: “'Lord' is not repeated in the original before 'glory' and Bengel suggested that the meaning is 'our Lord Jesus Christ (who is) the glory', and that rendering has been accepted by Hort, Mayor and others (cf. Lk 2:32; Jn 1:14; Rom 9:4; Heb. 1:3; 9:5; I Pet. 4:14). A simple emendation would yield the attractive reading: 'the Lord Jesus Christ, our glory'. Mayor quotes evidence to show that the Shekinah, the Jewish name for the divine glory living among men, was used of God and of the Messiah...(cf. Zech. 2:5; 6:13).”

Carson is not the only one who has suggested that small change in the order of the text. For example, Adamson states, “As the text stands, the Greek is hardly the kind one would expect from a writer like James, a circumstance underlined by the various and, in our opinion, unsatisfactory proposed renderings...We therefore propose transference of 'our' to the end of the sentence, making Christ 'our glory.'...This suggestion, made originally by P.B.R. Forbes is viewed favorably also by F.F. Bruce.”

But this is not the only suggested change in the received Greek text which has been proposed, as you can see below.

7. “our Lord Jesus Christ, who is, [that is,] of God”

Hendricksen: “In one of Paul's epistles (I Cor. 2:8) the expression Lord of glory occurs. This is identical to the reference to 'the God of glory' in Stephen's speech (Acts 7:2). Both titles are reminders of the glory of the Lord that settled upon and filled the tabernacle in the desert (Exod. 40:35). A possible interpretation is to take the words of glory and place them in apposition with Jesus Christ: 'Jesus Christ, who is, [that is,] of God.' This interpretation resembles John's testimony about Jesus living among the disciples: 'We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14). The descriptive adjective glorious in this passage demonstrates contrast between the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and the glitter of earthly riches. The brothers should not look at their fellow man and judge him merely by external circumstances.”

8. “the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ”

McKnight notes that some Coptic and Syriac manuscripts place “the glory” before “of the Lord Jesus Christ as well as some manuscripts omitting all mention of “the glory.” Adamson comments that “this has found few supporters..; and there is no good parallel for this construction or the order...” And Davids adds that “the reading is unnatural and the emphasis on glory in this context seems to make no sense.”

9. “the opinion of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Adamson notes: “Erasmus made the fascinating suggestion...that doxa [“glory”] should be taken in the sense of 'opinion,' which would connect directly to 'acts of favoritism.” But Adamson says of Erasmus' opinion, “This is thoroughly unbiblical and finds few modern advocates.”

10. “the glorious faith of our Lord Jesus Christ”

L.T. Johnson mentions that some manuscripts “place 'of glory' (tes doxes) immediately after 'faith,' which would then yield the natural translation, 'glorious faith'...The position after 'our Lord Jesus Christ,' however, is to be preferred.”

11. “faith in/of our Lord Jesus Christ”

Then there is the additional problem of deciding which of the above prepositions to attach between “faith” and “our Lord Jesus Christ.” Johnson states, “Many commentators chose the objective genitive, 'faith in our Lord Jesus Christ'.” But his own opinion is: “The subjective 'faith of Jesus Christ' is more likely.”

12. Interpolation Theories

Johnson explains that the “extraordinary separation of the phrases tou kyriou [of the Lord] and tes doxes [of glory] helped generate theories of interpolation [i.e. accidental or purposeful addition of words to the original text]...even though no MS evidence supports such theories.”

In a similar vein, Adamson says, “we reject the idea that 'glory' is an afterthought (R. A. Knox) or a gloss (Spitta, Meyer), even if absent in two miniscules (Marty). Textual evidence and alleged parallels to 'the Lord of Glory' are both palpably weak: why, too, should a Christian editor be content with such a superficial change? That 'Jesus Christ' was originally a marginal gloss, possibly with 'our' added, is equally untenable: no Jewish reader would break up the phrase; further, 'Jesus Christ' ought to have come first or last.”

The conclusion to the above multiple possibilities is that we will probably never know exactly what was in James' mind as he wrote this verse, but fortunately no particular doctrinal point hangs on the solution.

II SAMUEL 5:1-3

Before commenting on the individual verses here which deal with the rising of David to king, we must first deal with the question as to whether this is a unified text or one pieced together from two separate ancient traditions.

Alter and Kermode explain the situation concerning this “supposedly defective narrative”: “The apparent difficulty here is that the last sentence is a repetition of the first. The atomistic solution of some textual scholars runs along the following lines: two traditions, using similar formulations, have been rather clumsily spliced together by the editor; in the first tradition, it was the tribes of Israel who came to Hebron, in the second tradition, the elders; the editorial compulsion to incorporate both traditions introduces both a redundancy and a contradiction in the text. This is another instance in which inattention to the organizing literary principles of the text leads to faulty scholarship.”

As but one example of this “atomistic solution” to which Alter and Kermode allude, here is what McCarter says regarding this passage: “The original narrative is represented by only a couple of sentences. Verses 1 are Deuteronomistic expansion, looking ahead to Nathan's oracle in chap. 7 and to 7:7-8 in particular...Only v. 3 was a part of our oldest account of David's rise to power.” Note that this is stated quite simply as a matter of fact without any supporting proof.

By contrast, Alter and Kermode see these verses as a completely unified text, although, admittedly their complicated explanation of it as an example of “resumptive repetition” is a bit hard to follow. My own parsing of this passage does not really contradict theirs but may be a little easier to visually follow. These verses can be seen below to form a roughly parallel arrangement of a type which is quite common in the Bible:

    A. All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, (1a)

        B. “Here we are your bone and flesh. Long ago when Saul was king over us,

        you were Israel's leader in battle.” (1b-2a)

            C. The Lord said to you, (2b)

                D. “You shall shepherd my people and you shall be ruler over Israel.” (2c)

    A'. All the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and (3a)

        B'. King David made a covenant with them at Hebron (3b)

            C'. before the Lord (3c)

                D'. and they anointed David king over Israel (3d)

II Samuel 5:1a

McKenzie explains that “the Chronicler describes 'all Israel' coming to make David king (1 Chron 11:1). The parallel (2 Sam 5:1) refers only to the northern tribes, since he has been ruling over Judah for seven and one-half years.”

Contra what some critics claim, there is neither a contradiction nor a redundancy between the tribes coming to David in 1a and the elders in 3a. As Tsumura, among others, points out, “it seems best to understand that all the tribes in vv. 1b-2 means messengers of the tribes, and that having received David's positive response, all the elders of Israel came in person to make covenant with David and anoint him as a king over Israel.”

II Samuel 5:1b

“A frequent expression of kinship in the OT is 'bone and flesh'...When all Israel gathers before David at Hebron, they declare in one voice, 'we are your own bone and flesh' (2 Sam 5:1; 1 Chron 11:1). This expression, in which two opposite parts of the human body – hard structure and soft substance – stand for the whole [a figure of speech called a merism], evokes a rudimentary picture of the body and a recognition of what we would call a 'genetic' relationship between kin.” (Dictionary of Biblical Imagery)

Critics call this a blatant mistake on the author's part since David came from Judah while the tribes under question here were from the Northern Kingdom. Tsumura responds: Even thought there was a distinct division between Judah and the rest of Israel, they still recognize each other as kin (similarly, 'brothers' in 2 Sam. 2:26-27).”

II Samuel 5:2b

Regarding God's promise to David, D.R. Davis states that it “begins in a threat (1 Sam. 13:14), becomes visible – at least to Samuel – in the anointing among Jesse's family (1 Sam. 16:1-13), hangs as a suspicion over a tormented Saul (1 Sam. 18:8) or as a foregone conclusion over an almost resigned Saul (1 Sam. 24:20-21; 26:25), and is assumed by both David's friends (1 Sam. 23:16-17; 25:230-31) and his opponents (2 Sam. 3:9-10, 18).”

On the other hand, Tsumura points to the oracle in 1 Sam. 22:10 as the probable basis for this prediction.

II Samuel 5:2c

Porter says, “Yahweh had promised him two offices; he was to be not only their ruler, but was also to shepherd them. 'This is the first use of this verb in the OT with reference to a king in Israel; it obviously demands of him a pastoral care of his people, and not a despotic use of them.' (Manchline).”

Several NT commentators note that the chief priests and scribes inform Herod where the Messiah will be born. They tell him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for thus it is written through the prophet: 'And you Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the princes of Judah; For out of you there shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.'”

For example, Hendricksen says, “The final line of Matthew 2:6 bears great similarity to what is found in II Sam. 5:2...by the Sanhedrin – and Matthew is in full agreement – these words are now applied to David's great Son and Lord, namely, the Messiah...What is often passed by in silence is the fact that neither King Herod nor the Jewish Sanhedrin for a moment doubted that the reference of Mic. 5:2 and the ultimate reference of II Sam. 5:2 are to a person (not a nation), namely, the Messiah.”

II Samuel 5:3

Baldwin states that “the representatives of the tribes of Israel appear to have lost no time in assembling at Hebron to swear allegiance to David (v. 3). They explain their decision on three counts: i. The ties of kinship are strong (cf. Dt. 17:15); ii. David has already proved himself as a military leader under Saul (1 Sa. 18:30), and on his own account when Saul was after his blood; iii. Most impressive of all, he had divine approval...the prophetic oracle..., though not previously recorded in the book, seems to have been widely known (cf. 2 Sam. 3:8-10)."

GOD ROARS LIKE A LION

 The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery explains that the “Israelites based their opinion of the lion on their encounters with it as pastoralists...A significant portion of the references to lion in scripture concerns its voice...No doubt many more people had heard a lion than had seen one, and this enhanced the mythology surroundings lions.” I would like to concentrate on five of these references (quoting from the RSV) which compare the voice of God with the roaring of a lion.

Jeremiah 25:30 – “The LORD will roar from on high and from his holy habitation utter his voice; he will roar mightily against his fold and shout, like those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.”

This is actually a rather confusing prophecy. If one concentrates on the phrase “his fold,” then that would seem to point to Israel and Judah as the objects of God's wrath. But “all the inhabitants of the earth” could refer to either the foreign nations only or to all the nations including Israel and Judah. Then there is the related question as to whether these two phrases are parallel to one another or refer to different nations. Thus, the following comments from the scholarly literature demonstrate that there are mixed explanations as to what is being said here.

D.R. Jones begins by stating that “the pattern of this sentence is exactly that of Am. 1.2, with which there must be some unexplained connection, cf. also Jl 3.16.” But there is also a drastic difference also, as you can see by looking at those latter two verses below. Jones' explanation is as follows: “The difference is that in Am. the LORD roars 'from Zion' and utters his voice 'from Jerusalem'. Jeremiah could not express the divine intervention thus, for the LORD is to destroy Zion (his fold) and declare his judgment over Jerusalem, as over all the nations of the earth. The change is therefore necessary and deliberate...Here it may be that the picture is of the thunder, itself a figure of the divine judge pronouncing his terrible judgment from one end of the world to the other in the vicissitudes of history.”

Bright: “The second part of the chapter (vss. 15-38) is concerned with Yahweh's judgment on the nations of the world...The very fact that he was commissioned as 'a prophet to the nations' (i 5) would lead one to expect that some of his sayings – as had been the case with most of the prophets since Amos – would concern peoples other than Israel.”

“It is at once evident that vv. 15-39 are closely related to the oracles against the foreign nations in chs. 46-51).” (Thompson)

And Lamb adds, “Perhaps more than any another OT genre, prophetic literature is concerned with nations other than Israel and Judah, but ultimately all peoples and nations...Although most of these oracles involve judgment on those nations and cities, in Isaiah, Yahweh calls Egypt, 'my people' and Assyria 'the work of my hands' (Is 19:25).”

But Schnittjer states, “The shift from Zion [in Amos 1:2] to on high signals, for Jeremiah's readership, the fall of Jerusalem.”

Hosea 11:10 – “They shall go after the LORD, he will roar like a lion; yes, he will roar, and his sons shall come trembling from the west.”

“One day, Israel will return to Yahweh and they will be able to return upon their conversion...When the great lion Yahweh will roar, not one will fail to hear, and the restoration of Israel will be at hand (cf. Joel 3:16). Here that roaring is emphasized by the repetition of the verb...Hosea's audience presumably understood this cliche as a signal of the new age for Israel (cf. 2:16-23; 3:5). But the restoration promised here will apply to reconverted Israelites only (cf. Deut 4:29). Thus first the condition is stated: 'After Yahweh they shall go.' The new Israel will be characterized by righteous behavior and true faith (cf. Zeph 3:12-13).” (Stuart)

Joel 3:16 – “And the LORD roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake. But the LORD is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.”

Barker points out that Joel 3:14 “emphasizes the way in which this prophetic book enacts a complete reversal of the sense of the Day of the Lord. This is evident in a comparison of the use of the Day of the Lord in Joel 2:1-2, 10-11 and Joel 3:14-16. In the former passage the call goes up to sound an alarm in Zion because the day of Yahweh is near. Joel 2:10-11 then reveals that this Day of the Lord entails Yahweh leading an unstoppable army against Zion. Meanwhile, Joel 3:14 also announces that the Day of the Lord is near, using almost the same vocabulary. In Joel 3:14-16, however, Zion is the location of Yahweh's divine activity. Following the announcement in Joel 3:14 that the Day of the Lord is near. Joel 3:16 declares that Yahweh roars from Zion, essentially rendering it impregnable by his very presence.”

Martens says, “A major feature of the Day of the Lord is Yahweh's judging of the peoples. The upshot is safety and protection for some (Joel 3:16b-17) and dire disaster for others (Joel 3:19).”

And Crenshaw adds, “The reversal of normal order for verb and subject places the emphasis on the subject, YHWH, who charges forth from Zion, the sacred city, to lead an army against the assembled warriors from surrounding lands.”

Thus, in these three scholars we see the gamut of concepts from God taking up a purely defensive stand to an image of both judgment and attack, to Him leading an army against the enemy. And Stuart adds, “In the Old Testament, at least, and perhaps in the New Testament also, all detailed statements regarding God's voice describe it as thunderous to the hearer...He will not, however, roar against Israel anymore.”

Before moving on to Amos 1:2, here are some varying comments regarding the obvious correspondences between Joel 3:16 and this verse.

Briggs notes that one recent topic of interest in prophetic studies has been the way in which the 12 minor prophets can be viewed as a unified book. “One suggestion has been the phenomenon of 'catchword linkages,'whereby a noteworthy word or phrase at the end of one prophet is taken up at the beginning of the next (such as 'Yahweh roars from Zion' [Joel 3:16, Amos 1:2]), perhaps to draw attention to some broader thematic link.”

On the other hand, Garrett feels that “Perhaps the framers of the canon had no idea when Joel was written, and thus they used this catchphrase as the best basis for positioning the book in the canon.” Adding to this supposition is Sweeney's confirmation that “Joel is notoriously difficult to date.”

Finally, Crenshaw says, “It is impossible to determine which prophet influenced the other. Both Joel and Amos probably took the sentence from a floating tradition, each one investing it with his own application to the historical situation.” That brings us up to a consideration of the Amos passage.

Amos 1:2 – “The LORD roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of Carmel withers.”

G.V. Smith states, “The roar of God is not just a reference to his 'secret words to the prophets', it is a warning of judgment, a symbol of the beginning of an attack...For a herdsman like Amos, two of the best illustrations of devastation would be the withering of the shepherd's pasture and the lush Carmel ridge...The introduction not only summarized the prophet's prediction that God will judge the nation, it also confirms the validity of the words of judgment spoken by Amos while in Israel.”

Then there is the question of the verb tense. “A few scholars take this initial declaration as the introduction to the Oracles Against the Nations [only]...But this claims too little. It is better, as may commentators agree, to consider 1:2 as the thematic key to the entire book...the actions are beginning even as Yahweh speaks. The voice of God and the roar are the announcement and commencement of the following judgments...His roar resounds like thunder, and he comes not to deliver but to judge his people...” (Carroll R)

But who are his people? Mobley speaks a little more accurately in pointing out what is obvious from the rest of Amos, namely, that it is all of the nations, including Israel and Judah, who are under God's judgment.

And what about the verb tense? Andersen and Freedman devote a number of pages to a detailed study of this one verse. However, I will confine myself to this one comment from them: “Amos 9:13-15, if it is at all like Joel 4:15-18, makes Amos 1:2 a prediction of the general devastation that will be followed by universal reconstruction. And the lion's roar is the boast of the predator after the kill. If, however, Amos 1:2 is connected with Amos 3:8, which is clearly in the past tense ('the Lord has spoken'), the lion's roar is the announcement of coming judgment (1:3-3:8). We suggest that the ambiguity in the verb forms of v 2 (preterit or future) leaves it open for a double connection shown by the literary structure.”

Revelation 10:3 – “And [he] called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring: when he called out, the seven thunders sounded.”

This reference is not as clearly talking about God as the first four above since it is said to refer to a mighty angel, but here is how Beale explains the situation: “The lion metaphor also connotes the sovereign position the angel has over creation by virtue of possession of the scroll, since the lion image has a similar connotation with respect to the scroll in 5:5. A further hint that the angel is Christ or at least his unique representative is that in 4 Ezra 11:37; 12:31 the messiah's judgment of the wicked is described with the wording 'as it were a lion...roaring.' It is also probable that the reference to the roar of a lion in Rev. 10:3 alludes to Amos 3:8, since there is a clear allusion to Amos 3:7 in Rev. 10:7...This underscores further not only the christological nature but also the divine aspect of the angelic speaker in v 3...”

As to the context and meaning of this verse, Mounce says that “the angel's voice had a deep resonance which would demand the attention of those who heard. The voice of the angel calls forth a response from the seven thunders. They too utter their voices. According to Beckworth they are 'premonitions of God's anger about to burst forth in judgment. Elsewhere in Revelation thunder is associated with divine retribution. In 8:5 it follows the casting of fire upon the earth. In 11:19 it is associated with the trumpet-plague, and in 16:18 with the final bowl of God's wrath. Here as well it forebodes the coming peril of divine retribution.”

Conclusion

As you can see, these seemingly similar prophecies are each so ambiguous that they can be interpreted in a number of ways. And that is not at all unusual when it comes to almost all Old Testament prophecies. That is why I tend to be suspicious any time a self-proclaimed prophecy expert claims to have the unique key to what is going to happen in the future and when it when it will occur.

MATTHEW 22:11-14

There are many questions that need answering concerning these words found in Jesus' parable of Matthew 22:1-14. As Snodgrass states in his massive treatise on all the New Testament parables, it “is enough to make any interpreter go weak in the knees; I consider it among the most difficult parables of all.”

Are Matthew and Luke telling the same parable?

The first controversy concerns the relationship of Matthew's account with the somewhat similar parable recounted in Luke 14:15-24. Quoting Snodgrass again: “Whether the accounts of this parable – Matthew on one hand [Matt. 22:1-14] and Luke [14:15-24] on the other – are two versions of the same parable or two separate parables is debatable, and, therefore, whether the two should even be treated together is questionable...I do not think we have two versions of the same parable.”

France agrees with this assessment and begins by pointing out the plot differences between the two stories: “Luke has no king or wedding, focuses at some length on the reasons for nonattendance to which Matthew alludes only briefly in v. 5, and has two waves of replacement guests brought in (perhaps to represent Jews and Gentiles). He has nothing about the ill-treatment of the (single) messenger, and his host takes no punitive action other than excluding the original invitees from the feast. And Luke's parable stops short when the hall is full; there is no second scene with the expulsion of one of the new invitees.” He concludes: “From the point of view of an exegetical commentary it is more responsible to read Matthew's story on its own terms, and in its own literary context, than to look for its meaning primarily in terms of how it differs from Luke's.”

In Kistemaker's book on the parables, he treats these as totally separate parables. And Ellison states, “The force of this...parable is often lost by a wrong comparison with Lk's parable of a private banquet.”

Bright and Mann agree with this consensus: “The Lukan reference...is not a true parallel...both the language and the details are quite different.”

Is Matthew 22:11-14 a separate parable from Matthew 22:1-10?

Bright and Mann state without any proof or elaboration: “This obviously begins a separate parable.” “This may originally have been a separate parable dealing with preparedness, like the parables of judgment in chs. 24-25. Otherwise, given the way in which the substitute guests had been gathered (vv. 9-10), this guest's lack of a wedding robe would be surprising.” (Overman)

Blomberg: “This episode is often seen as incongruous and as a justification for assuming that vv. 11-14 originally came from a separate parable that Matthew has conflated with v. 1-10.” But he disagrees with this view.

Where were the attendees supposed to get wedding clothing at the last minute?

“It is fruitless to discuss whether there was a custom demanding that the giver of a wedding feast had an obligation to provide special clothing. No such custom is known to us and...it is probable that only clean clothes were expected.”

Hendricksen says, “There is only one solution, as far as I can see, that will help us out of this difficulty...It is that, by command of the king and from his bountiful supplies, at the very entrance of the wedding hall a wedding robe had been offered to each guest.” For evidence of a robe being provided for those brought into the presence of a king, he cites II Kings 10:22; Isaiah 61:10; and Revelation 19:7-8.

“Judging by similar rabbinic parables, the man had simply continued about his own business until it was too late to go home and change.” (Ellison)

Blomberg points out “nothing in the passage says that this man has not been given time to find proper dress or that he was unable to locate any. Moreover it is quite possible that the imagery here reflects the custom of a king providing festive dress for those he invited to the banquet. Despite claims that no first-century evidence attests this otherwise common custom of antiquity, see...the plentiful references to other parallels in Gundry, Matthew, 439.”

And then there is David Hill, who feels that the “question of how the guests could obtain wedding garments since they were just called in from the street, is quite irrelevant to Matthew.”

What is the underlying symbolic meaning of the wedding garment?

“Those who belong to this inaugurated [heavenly] banquet are those who have faith (Mt:10-12), who wear the appropriate garments (Mt 22:11-14) and who are sufficiently 'ready' (Mt. 25:11-12)...” (Perrin) But this begs the question as to exactly what the garment stand for.

“The man in question had attempted to enter the Kingdom without prior repentance.” (Abright and Mann)

Kistemaker reconstructs the situation as follows: “All except this one person had accepted the robe [provided by the host]. This one man, however, had looked at his own robe, had perhaps lightly brushed it off with his hand, and had then told the attendant, 'My own robe is good enough. I don't need the one you're offering me.'” If that is the scenario, then the man's clothing represents his own works, which he feels are good enough to get him into heaven without having to accept any grace from God.

However, if the guests are only supposed to go home and change into clean clothes, then the man's fault is that he shows up in the dirty clothes he was wearing when invited. “The symbolism is of someone who presumes on the free offer of salvation by assuming that therefore there are no obligations attached, someone whose life belies their profesion: faith without works.” Note that Kistemaker and France draw almost opposite lessons from this same parable.

Hill: “'The wedding garment' probably symbolizes righteousness (dikaiosune), that faithfulness and obedience which can be expected of those who are members of the Kingdom, or Church.”

And France responds in more detail: “As usual, the more improbable the details of the story, the more likely they are to indicate the intended application...the symbolism again invades the story, as the punishment far exceeds the scale of the man's offense. So to be a member of the 'new' nation is no more a guarantee of salvation than to be born into the old Israel; it still depends on producing the 'fruit,' here symbolized by the wedding clothes.”

 

THE "GREAT OMISSION" IN LUKE'S GOSPEL

This phrase refers to the fact that although the Gospel of Luke generally follows the material in Mark closely, Luke omits most of what is related in Mark 6:45-8:26. The proposed reasons for this omission have been many. Below is a sampling:

A. To place Peter's great confession next to the narrative of Christ's feeding of the multitudes.

“Matthew and Mark locate Peter's confession in the area of Caeserea Phillipi. Luke, who at this point skips over a considerable portion of Mark (6:45-8:26), omits the geographical setting. Probably it is because he wishes to connect the confession to the feeding miracle (cf. Jn 6:14, 68f.).” (Ellis)

Craddock: “Luke, like John (John 6:1-69), joins the feeding and Peter's confession...Luke seems uninterested in geography here. His concern is to locate this event in the prayer life of Jesus. It would be difficult to overestimate the central role of prayer in the ministry of Jesus according to Luke.”

“Luke wished to move straight from the feeding miracle (and the preceding incidents) to the christological confession which was aroused by it.” (Marshall)

B. Due to space limitations, Luke needed to mention only those items which best connected with his overall themes.

Geldenhuys states: “We notice throughout that he by no means professes to give a full biography of the Lord. Out of many items of information he reproduces only those which, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, he regards as the most important in composing his Gospel. We should remember that Luke could not make his writing unlimited in length – among other things he had to consider the question of not exceeding the limits of a normal papyrus roll. As it is, his Gospel is the longest book in the New Testament. So he used his space economically and recorded only the parts which were most necessary for his purpose. If we check the contents of Mark vi. 45-viii. 26, we see that no events are there described which would be of special value for the progress of the Gospel-narrative from the point of view of Luke's method and purpose.”

“The omitted section...does not materially add to the presentation of Jesus as the Messiah...Luke had to make omissions from Mk. in order to accommodate his extra material within a convenient length of book.” (Marshall)

“Luke sensed a need to curtail because of his own inserts (so Schurmann...). This is a possible reason, but not very convincing, since he still retains so much Marcan material.” (Fitzmyer)

C. Luke was relying on the same tradition used by John.

Marshall says, “It is possible that Luke knew of a tradition which joined together the feeding miracle and Peter's confession, as in Jn. 6;...note, however, that Jn. 6 retains the story of Jesus walking on the water.”

D. Our present text of Luke is defective or Luke was copying from a defective text of Mark.

Marshall mentions both of these related theories which have been proposed by others, but firmly rejects both possibilities with the words: “This omission is doubtless deliberate on Luke's part.”

Fitzmyer explains and rejects this theory also: “Luke [accidentally] omits a block of episodes that begin and end at Bethsaida, outside of Galilee (Mark 6:45; 8:22); it is a sort of omission by homoeoteleuton [an error in copying caused from the eye jumping from one line to another one which has the same or simlar wording] (W.E. Bundy). This is, however, a rather tenuous reason because Luke has [purposely] substituted Bethsaida for the Marcan phrase, 'deserted place' of 6:32; and then suppresses the mention of Caesarea Philippi as the location of Peter's confession.”

E. The omitted material was repetitious, and therefore unnecessary.

Fitzmyer notes that “if...there are two series of similar episodes in Mark 6:30-7:37 and 8:1-26, both betinning with a multiplication of loaves and fish, then Luke's tendency to avoid doublets may be a factor in the omission of the Marcan material. That does not wholly explain the matter, because he has no parallel at all to some of the 'duplicated' material.”

Childs holds to this somewhat dubious explanation when he says, “Presumably the Lucan evangelist saw these [two feedings in Mark] as doublets and decided to report only one.”

F. Luke wanted to keep Jesus' actions within Israel

Marshall also suggests, “Possibly also Luke wished to maintain the unity of the scene in Galilee and to avoid Mark's description of Jesus' work in gentile territory.”

And Fitzmyer mentions the same possibility: “Luke is at pains to limit Jesus' ministry to Galilee in this part of the Gospel; hence he omits the Marcan material in which Jesus goes to the areas of Tyre and Sidon in Phoenicia. This is important to his geographical perspective. The omission is therefore to be understood in terms of Luke's composition.”

G. It was necessary to omit Mark's material so that literary symmetry could be maintained.

Fitzmyer states, “The reasons for the omission of the Marcan material are not nearly as important as the resultant shape of this part of the Lucan Gospel.” Although I agree somewhat with Fitzmyer, as you will see below it turns out that his definition of “shape” concerns a grouping of thematically similar material together whereas I believe that the key lies more in the symmetrical literary shape which arises from this omission.

I have previously analyzed the literary structures of both Mark's and Luke's Gospel narratives. In the case of Mark's earlier composition, the material which Luke omits (Section 1 of Part One, Figure 1 below), is placed in parallel with another section dealing with the Twelve Apostles.

                                   Figure 1: The Literary Structure of the Gospel of Mark

Prelude – 1:1-13

Part One – The Sea of Galilee (1:14-8:21)

1. The Twelve are Called (1:14-3:19a)

    2. The Power, the Kingdom and the Glory (3:19b-6:6) 

1'. The Twelve are Sent Out and Warned (6:7-8:21)

Part Two – Jerusalem (8:22-16:8)

1. Jesus' Death and Resurrection Foretold (8:22-11:11)

    2. The Last Days (11:12-14:52)

1'. Jesus' Death and Resurrection (14:53-16:8)

But that section serves no such literary function within Luke's Gospel. And as you can see in Figure 2, the inclusion of that major material would have had a totally disruptive effect on the carefully composed chiastic arrangement below if it had been inserted between sections B and C.

                                      Figure 2: The Literary Structure of Luke 9

A. The Twelve are given power (9:1-11)

B. Miracle: Feeding of the multitudes (9:12-17)

C. Peter’s confession (9:18-27)

                                    C'. The Transfiguration (9:28-36)

B'. Miracle: Healing the epileptic (9:37-45)

A'. The Twelve argue over their importance (9:46-50)

The bottom line is that there is probably more than one good reason for Luke to have deleted the material which Mark includes in his narrative.

II JOHN 10 -- HOW HOSPITABLE SHOULD CHRISTIANS BE TOWARD OUTSIDERS?

Peter Davids brings up the apparent contradiction between two New Testament teachings regarding the welcoming of strangers. Whereas the general tenor of the NT teaches the principle of Christian hospitality toward others (cf. Hebrews 13:2), it seems to actually be prohibited in II John 10. To address this issue, there are several points that need to be clarified.

The first, and most important, considerations is to look at the context of this command by John. It is addressed to “the elect lady and her children.” That is almost universally understood by commentators to refer to the hostess of a home church and those who meet in her home. In other words, it has nothing to say regarding whom you wish to entertain privately at your own house.

Secondly, verse 10 is preceded in verses 7-9 by a description of those who should be excluded from your home church gatherings. These include (1) those who teach that Jesus the man and Christ, the second person of the Trinity, are not the same person as well as (2) those who do not hold to the teachings of Christ in general. Note that these criteria are a bit loose and subject to much interpretation depending upon the exact circumstances.

Lastly, the reason for such exclusion is given in verse 11: If you welcome such people into your group, you are aiding and abetting Satan. Once we understand this underlying reason for the teaching, it does give us more guidelines by which to judge individual situations. And we get some additional help from passages such as Romans 14:1 in which Paul advises the church in Rome: “As for the man who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over opinions.” To understand this one, we must keep in mind that just because a person is “weak” in the faith, that does not at all correlate with how strongly he may express his own opinions on any spiritual topic. As a biblical example, Apollos was a powerful Christian speaker who, however, needed to be taken aside by two itinerant tent makers to correct him on his incomplete theology.

Let me share a few examples from my own life which may illustrate how these various teachings were or were not well followed:

At the first church I attended after leaving for graduate school, we had a small evening college fellowship. Once we decided to have a short series on the subject of science and the Bible, and invited a select, and quite diverse, group of outside speakers. One was a very belligerent fundamentalist pastor in town who had a weekly radio show. He came in with an obvious chip on his shoulder and assumed without any evidence that we were a group of flaming liberals or atheists masquerading as Christians. We listened to him rant and rave for an hour without comment from us and thanked him for coming as he walked out in a huff. The young woman in our church who had suggested him as a visiting speaker later reported a little bemusedly that we were the subject of his following weekly tirade even though we hadn't said a single word to offend him.

Another speaker for this same series was a professor who taught an introductory class in the Bible at the University of Oregon. We began as usual with the singing of a few hymns and an opening prayer. The prof began his talk by saying, “I can tell that you people are not what I would call very theologically sophisticated, and so I will try to talk down to a level you might be able to comprehend.” Again, I was very proud of our group because they did not take any obvious offense in what he said, but listened politely without comment.

It might be said that we had totally ignored John's advice in inviting these two speakers, but fortunately all of us in the group were rather experienced and dedicated Christians, and thus there was not the slightest chance of us being misled in either direction with what they said. Instead, it only served to strengthen our faith even more after seeing such rude examples from both extremes of the theological spectrum.

While at the U of O, I roomed with four Catholics. At one of the houses we rented, a very polite Jehovah Witness came to the door, and one of my roommates thought it might be interesting to invite him back in the evening. Since none of them possessed a Bible, I loaned them a couple of mine to share between them. The man returned, accompanied by his small son (By the way, this was a wise move on his part and probably one of the things they are taught since they know that no one is likely to get highly argumentative with a person while his impressionable son is looking on).

He started in on one of the main points of contention Christians have with the Witnesses, the deity of Christ. He would ask us to turn to a passage, at which point I had to help my roommates find where the New Testament was and how to find that particular book and chapter in it. He would then read the verse, eliminating all surrounding context, and in each case it was fortunate that I could easily point to a verse nearby which clarified the passage and totally invalidated his point. He went through a number of passages in that manner, and we thanked him for his time as he left. I am not sure that I managed to convince him of any of the points I had made, but it did have a salutary effect on my roommates.

At least with a Jehovah Witness, there is a basis of commonality in a belief in the Bible. I can't say the same for the Mormons. I am afraid that the few times I went with Gwen to the local Mormon church library for her genealogy research, I got the creeps just looking at some of the pictures they had hanging on their walls. But I would have brief encounters at my front door with the young pairs of men who liked to canvass our neighborhood. Just the fact that they were no more than 20 years old and called themselves “elders” was enough to turn me off. I did do them the courtesy of reading the Book of Mormon cover to cover and making notes in the margin on all the mistakes and ridiculous events in it, as well as the large sections cobbled together from miscellaneous Bible passages, but presented as if they were spoken by pre-Colonial Jewish settlers in America.

At one point, the Mormons gave me one of their monthly publications and told me that there was an article in it proving that the Book of Mormon had all the characteristics noted in the Bible. I actually purchased a book that was the basis of that claim. It was by a Brigham Young professor of law who claimed he had detected in the Book of Mormon the same literary symmetry found throughout the Old and New Testament. Since that just happened to be the subject of a 20+ year study I had been conducting myself, I was easily able to debunk all those claims and show that the only traces of real symmetry were found in those long passages that had been lifted verbatim from the Bible.

Getting back to the specific subject of entertaining those of dubious theological pretensions in your home church, Gwen and I belonged to two such home groups for a number of years while in Georgetown. At one of these, we were between subjects to study when one of our members said that there was a Bible teacher in town who had given a 4-6 week study on the Bible to another home group and they thoroughly enjoyed it. We invited him to present his series to us, and I for one soon regretted that decision. I would have to agree that it was indeed interesting to listen to, but when I asked the speaker at a break to provide me with the original sources of some of the enlightening “facts” he had been presenting [including the exact number of Christians Saul killed before his conversion and the discovery of Noah's ark], the best he could come up with were an article from a defunct Australian newspaper and a publication put out by a group of Christian businessmen in Singapore – hardly definitive sources.

At another point I privately warned him that equating the creation of light in Genesis 1 with the fact that Jesus is called “light” in the New Testament is the same as proclaiming that Jesus is a created being, a blatant heresy by any standard. He admitted that “perhaps” it could be taken that way and said he would eliminate that from his future presentations. As to the array of quite dubious “facts” he had been regaling us with, I pointed out to him that they were all speculative at best and out-and-out lies at worst. He admitted that I was probably right but responded, “I put them in because they are new and exciting for my audience and grab their attention before presenting the important theological points that I make in my last lessons. I interpreted that to mean he was willing to peddle untruths in the service of truth.

The end of the story is that we were very polite during his presentations, no one (including myself) confronted him openly, and in the weeks after he had left I was able to sort out the wheat from the chaff in a subsequent talks to our group to make sure that no one was misled by what he had said. This is not exactly the same situation that the apostle John was taking about since our invited speaker was not an actual heretic by any means, and again our group consisted of those who had been Christians for years and were unlikely to be led astray too badly by any false teachings. And at the same time, I think it is sometimes very helpful in such situations to be exposed to aberrant ideas to help develop discernment in believers.

Finally, the same general principle taught by John in II John 10 can be applied to Sunday school groups since putting an untested teacher in charge of one is a risky business. So I understood, and actually appreciated, it whenever I joined a new church and volunteered to teach a class, when the leadership took the pains to first carefully monitor what I was saying to make sure that I was not misleading anyone. This was done at one church by first having me team-teach with one of their more experienced teachers. And at a subsequent congregation, the pastor himself sat in on all the special evening classes I taught – at first, I am sure, to keep me on the straight and narrow and later because, as he admitted later, he found he was learning something new himself.

Twice after that point, that pastor asked me to be the one to talk to men in the church who had proposed starting new Sunday school classes and possibly to team-teach with them. One of these men was obviously only interested in utilizing a class as the basis of a multi-generational sociological study he wanted to do. In the other case, the would-be teacher turned out to be a rather obnoxious and totally heretical son of one of the influential deacons in the church. I gained both of those insights in the first and only meeting I had with him at a coffee shop where he was much more interested in what was on his laptop computer than taking the time to talk to me. I think our pastor was also very dubious about letting his teach, but wanted some added ammunition before confronting the father with that news. Fortunately, it turned out the man's father was even more adamant that his son not be allowed to teach and even brought pressure to bear to get him removed from the church rolls.

At that same church, I learned that before I had begun attending, a man started teaching a Sunday school class downstairs on the Jewish customs in the Bible. With time, he began teaching them rudimentary Hebrew and Jewish chants, which morphed into a two-hour session in which they had their own worship service in place of the one held upstairs. Actually, it was an exact replay of what Paul encountered in churches such as at Galatia when “Judaizers” infiltrated the church and began demanding that every Gentile there be circumcised and that all the Jewish ceremonies be observed. After letting the situation get out of control in our church, at last the leadership disbanded the splinter group which had in effect set up their own independent church under our roof.

The same sort of thing happened at that church when I was serving on the Personnel Committee during a time when we were between senior pastors. One of the members of the church was a young man whose full-time job was as a motivational speaker for businesses. He attracted many of the young married men in the congregation to his class where he taught them that they were not only the future of the church, but they should take their rightful spot right now as leaders. And the hiatus between church leadership at the time provided the ideal opportunity for them to do so. As a result, they practically led a revolt against the deacons and church committees, championing our youth pastor at the time as the obvious successor to power. This led to some really ugly confrontations, all of which would probably not have happened if some better screening and monitoring of the Sunday school teacher had been done from the very beginning.

The upshot of all of it was that we had to discipline the youth pastor, warn the remaining associate pastors, and fire one of the church secretaries. The disgruntled youth pastor, along with all of those men in the class and wives, left to start their own church. That fledgling congregation lasted only about six months since the rather self-centered men in the group didn't want to put in the necessary money, time or effort to make a go of it. Instead, I learned that a number of them decided that what they really wanted to do was buy expensive motorcycles instead and ride them around during the weekends rather than attending church.