The "Law of First Mention"

I tried clicking through on my work computer...

First link was blocked due to racist and hate speech.
Second link was blocked due to inaproriate content (generally means something along the lines of hate speech but can also include pornography, violent content, etc.)
Third link I could click through, it compared Santa to Jesus...

I find it VERY odd that any true Christian web site would have to be blocked by a filter at work. I get through to this one with no problem, also blue letter bible.org, biblegateway, Christian Library, etc., all work fine.

 

The first one, okay, off the wall. The second one? Some valid points. The third one (same as 4th link)? Obviously a nut. As my grandpa said in the title of one chapter of his book, I Am a Fundamentalist, "Be a Fundamentalist, but Not a Nut."

 

You gotta love this from one of those links:

Talk about an angry KJVer!


"Fluff headed women"? :laugh:


http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/resource/xmas2005.htm

 

John, the problem is that there are a hundred more IFB sites just like those. I've taken some time to look through a bunch of them. They are giving some who are actually biblical scholars and who understand some theology a black eye.

Most particular is that some of the sites I've seen seem to hate EVERYONE except themselves. There are articles a-plenty that take to task almost everyone and everything that has ever happened in the history of the church. Most of their "information" is "dis-information" where quotes are taken out of context, a radical view of the history of the church is assumed, and a certain smugness as to the rightness of that particular group is pressed forward -- all in the name of Jesus, of course.

 

I have that book. He was right. And if he were still alive, he would NOT be welcomed at some IFB churches today, nor - knowing him - would he go to them.

 

Some have used this concept to argue the NIV is a wicked version, as the first mention of "morning star" applies to Satan in Isa 14:12

Isa 14:12 How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! you have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! (NIV)

The KJB uses "Lucifer" here in Isa 14:12.

The problem is Jesus declares himself the "morning star" in Rev 22:16.

Rev 22:16 "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches, I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star." (NIV)

The KJB uses "morning star" here in Rev 22:16.

Some have argued the rule of first mention has the NIV calling Satan the "morning star" (which it does), a name reserved for Jesus.

 

Not exactly correct-

In Isa 14:12, The KJV translators did not actually translate the Hebrew word ‏הילל as ‘Lucifer.’ This word occurs only here in the Hebrew Old Testament. Most likely, the KJV translators were not sure what to make of it, and simply duplicated the word used in the Latin Vulgate that translated ‏הילל. In the Vulgate, Isa 14:12 reads as follows:



quomodo cecidisti de caelo lucifer qui mane oriebaris corruisti in terram qui vulnerabas gentes.



Notice the fifth word of the text—lucifer. It is not a proper name but the Latin word for ‘morning star.’ The word lucifer occurs four times in the Vulgate: Isa 14:12, Job 11:17, Job 38:32, and 2 Peter 1:19. In Job 11:17, the KJV renders the Hebrew word ‏בקר as ‘morning’:


et quasi meridianus fulgor consurget tibi ad vesperam et cum te consumptum putaveris orieris ut lucifer


More at:


http://bible.org/article/lucifer-devil-isaiah-1412-kjv-argument-against-modern-translations

 

But you see, there are nuts in any Christian group. Don't dare tell me you don't have Christian nuts in your church.

A Pentecostal family used to come to our English service who believed and repeated every nutty prophecy they heard, including the Mayan one. Again, my nephew goes to a noted emergent church and was engaged to a young lady whose father was on staff. The father follows this radical idea about parents arranging marriages, allowed my nephew to get engaged to her, then decided he was unworthy and cut him off. Again, this "home church movement" has its share of nuts. And I could give a bunch more illustrations from various churches, and you could too.

 

If the website was against gay marriages, it might be considered "hate speech" by a secular source. Etc., etc. Hard to know without specifics. I saw nothing hateful on the website.

 

This is true and that is why I tried to be careful to emphasize that it isn't only the IFB 'fruit trees' that produce those kind of nuts. But it is not as rare amongst IFB as it would seem.

 

I've been in a number of SBC churches that are just as strange in their own way. I often wonder which rock some of the leaders that teach or taught congregations to be that way crawled out from under. Then, I see some of the points argued here on the board and realize that some of the ones arguing are pastors and I begin to understand.

If it were genetics, we would call it "in-breeding" with all the known and disasterous results. When it happens in a church, where doctrines are taught and handed down as if they are true, it is something else, but with similar disasterous results -- many of which were addressed in Scripture, like Paul's letters to the Corinthians, Galatians, etc. People takining the term "peculiar" to a level never intended by Scripture. :BangHead:

 

Did you read post #5? A. W. Pink believed and taught this law of first mention.

And IFB churches hold no monopoly on nuttiness, the wackiest churches recently in the news was the fellow predicting the end of the world, and that crazy church out in Kansas that protests at soldier's funerals. Both of these are Calvinist churches.

And go to the Outside the Camp site if you want to see some real hyper-Calvinist wackos.

 

Also Ernest Reisinger, the founder of the so-called "Founders" faction:

"The first time the word tears is found in the English Bible is 2 Kings 20:5. It is the occasion of God telling Hezekiah that he would die very soon. This drove him to prayer and tears. The king became so desperate that the attention of God was turned not only to his prayers, but to his tears. “I have seen thy tears” (2 Kings 20:5). If the law of first mention means anything here it may indicate that God does not come to our rescue until He sees our tears—that distress of spirit, that agony of a broken heart."

"The Kind of Man God Uses In Reformation" Founders Journal Summer 2004

 

Head over to SermonAudio for a whole sermon on it by Elder Harold Chase of MN Valley Reformed Baptist Church:

"the vast majority of the First Mentions in the Bible will prove to be invaluable in our understanding"

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=42606125736

 

Or from the "Sovereign Grace" camp, Pastor Don Fortner:

"In the Scriptures it is always important to mark the first mention of a thing. The first mention of anything gives us a clear indication of how that particular thing is to be understood throughout the Scriptures. That rule, or principle of interpretation is sometimes referred to as “the law of first mention.”"

http://www.donfortner.com/sermon_notes/02_exodus-series/exo 070 15v01-21 The First Song.htm

 

I would put as much stock in this "law of first mention" as I would in so-called Biblical numerology.

 

I've met a few myself. :smilewinkgrin:

 

When applying the "guideline of first mention" how do you go from Hebrew to Greek.
Do you use the Septuagint and if the Greek phrase is used of an Old Testament phrase, is that the first mention when studying say morning star in Revelation.

The idea that later writers might well use a phrase or figure of speech in the same way it was used in the Greek Old Testament seems sound. Another aspect might be to consider the first mention of the phrase by the author of the verse being studied, or the first mention in the NT, when considered chronologically.

 

But if someone was not advocating King James Version Only bible study, how would they apply the guideline of first mention?

When applying the "guideline of first mention" how do you go from Hebrew to Greek.
Do you use the Septuagint and if the Greek phrase is used of an Old Testament phrase, is that the first mention when studying say morning star in Revelation.

The idea that later writers might well use a phrase or figure of speech in the same way it was used in the Greek Old Testament seems sound. Another aspect might be to consider the first mention of the phrase by the author of the verse being studied, or the first mention in the NT, when considered chronologically.