tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post114811116423674276..comments2023-10-20T07:28:50.948-07:00Comments on Better Bibles Blog: Rhetorical Questions llWayne Lemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18024771201561767893noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-1148178155178015692006-05-20T19:22:00.000-07:002006-05-20T19:22:00.000-07:00However, I do not stand confidently beside my inte...<I>However, I do not stand confidently beside my interpretation and application, because this passage is so difficult.</I><BR/><BR/>I appreciate your attitude, Matthew, and I appreciate that you have been courageous enough to state it so transparently here in public. I used to "know" things much more confidently about the Bible than I do today. Having had to wrestle with the biblical text for many years to translate it into another language has caused me to question many things I once thought were certain doctrine. At the same time, I think I believe even more strongly things which seem to be in focus and stated rather clearly and repeatedly throughout the Bible.<BR/><BR/>Thanks, again, for your helpful comment.Wayne Lemanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18024771201561767893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-1148162326901275992006-05-20T14:58:00.000-07:002006-05-20T14:58:00.000-07:00I don't imagine that I present here a final interp...I don't imagine that I present here a final interpretation of any verse. But that is not an excuse to disengage. We must make clear our understandings in order to interact with others. <BR/><BR/>I have been reading <I>Finally Feminist</I> today by John Stackhouse, a fellow Canadian and fellow Brethren. He writes about the hermeneutic spiral. One can enter the discussion either through the details or the big picture, but in any case you will go around many times without necessarily finding resolution. The important thing is not to close off dscussion and dialogue, and not to be hampered from acting for the gospel. <BR/><BR/>I heard him speak last week, and it was very refreshing to hear him refer, not to his wife, but to his sisters. He asked men to repent of their sexaul reading of women. It was a relief to me. <BR/><BR/>I have to assume that Stackhouse is not presently attending a Brethren assembly, but he maintains connections and mentioned to me a group of Brethren which include women teachers. <BR/><BR/>He, like myself, found the sexism of the Christian community to be almost unbearable after many years in a secular university. It is regrettable, that Christianity pioneered education for women(among the first women medical doctors in Canada were many Baptist missionaries) but now that same Christianity, is imposing limitations on women not encountered elsewhere.Suzanne McCarthyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033350578895908993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-1148161685077341402006-05-20T14:48:00.000-07:002006-05-20T14:48:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Suzanne McCarthyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033350578895908993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875966.post-1148139223897250452006-05-20T08:33:00.000-07:002006-05-20T08:33:00.000-07:00"However, the answer is less obvious. Is it 'Does ..."However, the answer is less obvious. Is it 'Does not nature itself teach you?' or 'Nature itself does not teach you?' I find little support for the first option. The natural world does not teach us this."<BR/><BR/>What about this interpretation? <BR/><BR/>What does Paul mean by the word “nature?” Paul’s use of the term elsewhere and the use of the term teach suggest that he is referring to the natural and instinctive sense of right and wrong that God has planted in us, especially with respect to sexuality. This sense of what is appropriate or fitting has been implanted in human beings from creation. In this sense “nature teaches” us. In Rom 1:26–27 Paul says that women and men involved in a homosexual relationship have exchanged the natural function of sexuality for what is contrary to nature, that is, they have violated the God-given created order and natural instinct by engaging in sexual relations with others of the same sex.<BR/><BR/>We can say, then, that nature teaches in this sense, in the sense that our natural instincts and perceptions of masculinity and femininity are manifested in particular cultural situations. Or to say it another way, nature teaches in that the natural inclination of men and women is to feel shame when they abandon the culturally established symbols of masculinity or femininity. Thus, a male instinctively and naturally shrinks away from doing anything that his culture labels as feminine. So, too, females have a natural inclination to dress like women rather than men. Paul’s point, then, is that how men and women wear their hair is a significant indication of whether they are abiding by the created order, that is, acting like males or females. Of course, what is appropriately masculine or feminine in hairstyle may vary from culture to culture, but in Corinth men were generally identified with short hair and women with longer hair.Bill Combshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16308312845659496916noreply@blogger.com