</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scott J:
]Originally posted by paidagogos:
I won’t even try flogging these dead horses.
IOW's, you have no real answer of substance to the plain, direct, liteal intepretation of the text. You have to add words and concepts to the passage that God never inspired to make your case. </font>[/QUOTE]This is the kind of drivel that I don’t have the time to refute. I have more useful things to do than to engage in childish repartee.
The text says what it says in spite of the fact that you don't like it.
Yeah, you’re taunting me but I don’t take you seriously. This is absolutely an inane statement.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />It is all so appealing, soothing, mild and humanly reasonable that I along with about six billion other human beings want to believe it.
I doubt that. Legalism and operating under some self-contrived "higher standard" and the feelings of superiority some get from being holier than thou are very much appealing to the flesh. </font>[/QUOTE]You’re assuming and reading lots into this matter. Are you a Freudian psychoanalyst or something? Just how do you know? Do you experience these things in yourself? Even so, how do you know another’s heart or mind? Tell me.
Your condescending remarks indicate that you are getting a good deal of pleasure "putting us in our places."
Yeah, you’re right that I probably allow a little condescension to creep into my posts but you must read the above balderdash and consider what I have to deal with. As for my pleasure, I defy you to prove it. How can you read my thoughts and emotions? You can only know what is in your mind but you can never read mine. You see, there’s no way to know that what is in your heart and mind resembles mine in any way.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />The problem is that is doesn’t match the Scriptures.
Actually, your problem is that it does match the scriptures in question precisely. These scriptures don't mention divorce and, like noted before, all of the others deal with a man's character. The grammar of the sentence lends further support to the "present" behavior of the man. </font>[/QUOTE]All of the others? Novice? Good report? Seems that the good report is external, not an internal character trait.
You have added to the scriptures words that simply aren't there in order to promote a human opinion.
I have added no words to the text. I mentioned theological ideas that you morphed into some textual aberrant. This is your fantasy, not mine.
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />This is not God’s requirement for his minister (i.e. pastor) who should ideally picture in his marriage the relationship between Christ and His church. Why don’t you chew on this idea for a while? (Chew on the idea, not me.)
Why don't you show where God said that rather than you? </font>[/QUOTE]Yeah, seems you still want to chew on me instead of ideas. This is a theological concept that is based in those ideas that you don’t like—marriage, covenant,
etc. This is no way to answer my question. If you are going to behave like this, why should I take you seriously or your questions seriously?
Why don't you demonstrate that the marriage of a divorced man cannot picture the relationship between Christ and the Church?
Will Christ ever divorce the church?
You once again have supplied thus saith Paidagogos where you have found thus saith the Lord insufficient to sustain your argument.
You really seem angry. Do you want to put me in my place? I thought that’s almost what you accused me—deriving pleasure from intellectual dominance or something.
Further, for all your pompous words, you still haven't made any kind of case for why your intepretation is consistent.
Now, you criticize my word choices. Can’t a man speak his mind and use his own vocabulary? Are you jealous of my vocabulary? Get a good thesaurus. Seems that you really are nitpicking to find something wrong here.
You never addressed with substance why a divorcee isn't a "one woman man" while those who have considered or had more than one woman are.
Yes, I did but you ignored it. It's not about sex--it's a covenant, a promise. A sexual act does not consitute a commitment or covenant.
God could have said divorce. There is a greek word for it if that's what He had in mind. He didn't and for some reason... you can't stand for it.
There you go reading my mind again! Perhaps, God intended more than divorce. There are some Baptist preachers who might as well be divorced as far as they fulfill their husbandly duties toward their wives. Some make slaves of their wives and claim they are Biblical in doing so.
Scott J, I don't have time to play with this nonsense further. I did a reply on this one post. If you want to continue in this vein, then I'll just decline to reply. You can think that you win by default--I don't care. You don't appear amendable to reason or argument. Please dicuss ideas.
I think we can all agree that Paul was a scholar.? Regardless of our view of divorce, he does not use that word in the I Timothy verses or the Titus verses. Since Paul was a scholar and we ought to let the Scripture speak for Itself. There are clearly many qualification terms used by Paul in both the above verses, but divorcement is not one of them. I personally believe if Paul was speaking of divorce he would have used the word divorce. Not once in I Timothy or Titus does he use the word (Apoluo) or any form of it. While both he in I Corinthians 7 and Jesus in Matthew 19 used this word to refer to divorce. It is completely absent from the I Timothy and Titus text. So being that Paul was being specific about the qualifications of a deacon and overseer and did not deal with the matter of divorce it seems to me that to use the term "husband of one wife" to refer to divorce goes beyond Paul's intent. Again, if you hold that a divorced man should not serve as Pastor, that is your perogative, but Paul did not say that in the above verses.