Interpretation | A People for His Name

Understanding the Biblical Use of "Dunamai" More Accurately

July 29, 2011

The verb δύναμαι occurs more than 400 times in the Bible in Greek. Of those believers who have heard teaching about this important and widely used verb, many probably have the notion that it signifies an inability to do something in the sense that a person is not capable of doing something.

Although the verb does express that idea in numerous passages, it does not always do so. The following passages show that the verb is used at times to express inability due not to a lack of capability but rather to a lack of authority to do something:

LXE Deuteronomy 16:5 thou shalt not have power to sacrifice the passover in any of the cities, which the Lord thy God gives thee.

BGT Deuteronomy 16:5 οὐ δυνήσῃ θῦσαι τὸ πασχα ἐν οὐδεμιᾷ τῶν πόλεών σου ὧν κύριος ὁ θεός σου δίδωσίν σοι

KJV Deuteronomy 16:5 Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee:

LXE Deuteronomy 17:15 thou shalt surely set over thee the ruler whom the Lord God shall choose: of thy brethren thou shalt set over thee a ruler; thou shalt not have power to set over thee a stranger, because he is not thy brother.

BGT Deuteronomy 17:15 καθιστῶν καταστήσεις ἐπὶ σεαυτὸν ἄρχοντα ὃν ἂν ἐκλέξηται κύριος ὁ θεός σου αὐτόν ἐκ τῶν ἀδελφῶν σου καταστήσεις ἐπὶ σεαυτὸν ἄρχοντα οὐ δυνήσῃ καταστῆσαι ἐπὶ σεαυτὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀλλότριον ὅτι οὐκ ἀδελφός σού ἐστιν

KJV Deuteronomy 17:15 Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.

In both passages, the verb signifies inability due to divine prohibition and not to an intrinsic lack of capacity to do the actions in view: The Israelites were physically capable of offering the Passover anywhere, but God did not permit them to do so except in the place that He assigned (16:5). Similarly, they could have set a stranger over them as king, but God did not authorize them to do so (17:15).

In Biblical Greek, Biblical Languages, Interpretation

Morning and Evening Corporate Worship of God

July 27, 2011

The OT reveals in at least two ways that corporate worship of God took place both in the morning and in the evening:

“Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually. 39 The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even: 40 And with the one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering. 41 And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof, for a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD. 42 This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD: where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee. 43 And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory. 44 And I will sanctify the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons, to minister to me in the priest’s office. 45 And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. 46 And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the LORD their God” (Exod. 29:39-46; cf. 2 Kings 16:15; 1 Chron. 16:40; 2 Chron. 2:4; 13:11; 31:3; Ezra 3:3).

“And these are the singers, chief of the fathers of the Levites, who remaining in the chambers were free: for they were employed in that work day and night” (1 Chron. 9:33).

In the contexts of both of the above passages, the people of God were involved in many other activities of divine worship, both corporately and individually. These passages, however, specify two corporate activities of worship that took place continually both at day and at night.

Do these passages provide at least some biblical rationale for the modern-day people of God to meet at least twice for corporate worship on the Lord’s Day, once in the morning and once in the evening?

In Discipleship, Interpretation

Proclaim the Good News of the Destruction of the Enemy!

July 26, 2011

First Chronicles 10 records Saul’s death and the events preceding and following it. Because he did not want to be abused by his uncircumcised enemies (10:4) after he had been wounded (10:3), Saul fell on his own sword and died (10:4-6). The Israelites who were with him deserted their cities and fled (10:7), resulting in the Philistines taking over the cities.

On the next day, the Philistines found the dead bodies of Saul and his sons (10:8). They stripped him, cut off his head, and took it and his armor and sent people around their land (10:9a-b) “to carry tidings unto their idols, and to the people” (10:9c). They then “put his armor in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the temple of Dagon” (10:10).

The LXX rendering of 10:9 is instructive:

LXE 1 Chronicles 10:9 And they stripped him, and took his head, and his armour, and sent them into the land of the Philistines round about, to proclaim the glad tidings to their idols, and to the people.

BGT 1 Chronicles 10:9 καὶ ἐξέδυσαν αὐτὸν καὶ ἔλαβον τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀπέστειλαν εἰς γῆν ἀλλοφύλων κύκλῳ τοῦ εὐαγγελίσασθαι τοῖς εἰδώλοις αὐτῶν καὶ τῷ λαῷ

Because their enemy had been destroyed, the Philistines sent people out to proclaim that good news to both their idols and their people. The verb used here (εὐαγγελίζομαι) is used in the NT for preaching the good news of Jesus Christ (e.g., Acts 14:7).

The great enemy of mankind, Satan, has been destroyed (cf. Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:8). We should continually be praising and thanking our God for His destroying Satan through the work of His Son, and we should be proclaiming His doing so as good news throughout and to the whole world (cf. Acts 10:36-43, especially 10:38)!

In Evangelism, Gospel, Interpretation

Healed to Sin No More

July 25, 2011

Jesus healed a man who had suffered from an infirmity for 38 years (John 5:5). In their subsequent meeting in the temple, He challenged the man by saying, “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee”(5:14).

The man had suffered greatly with a physical problem for a long time, yet Jesus exhorted him concerning his not sinning any longer. Prior to this statement, the passage does not say anything about the man’s having a sin problem. Why then did Jesus challenge him in the way that He did?

Interpreters differ on the meaning of Jesus’ words to the man. Blum holds that his sin did not cause his malady:

(Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you) does not mean that his paralysis was caused by any specific sin (cf. 9:3), though all disease and death come ultimately from sin. The warning was that his tragic life of 38 years was no comparison to the doom of hell. Jesus is interested not merely in healing a person’s body. Far more important is the healing of his soul from sin.

— BKC: NT, 290; bold in original

Carson argues for the opposite view concerning the man’s sinfulness having caused his condition but agrees about what Jesus was most concerned about:

But although suffering and illness have this deep, theological connection with sin in general, and although John elsewhere insists that a specific ailment is not necessarily the result of a specific sin (9:3), there is nothing in any of this that precludes the possibility that some ailments are the direct consequence of specific sins. And that is the most natural reading of this verse. . . . If so, it is just possible John is also telling us that the reason Jesus chose this invalid out of all the others who were waiting for the waters to be stirred, was precisely because his illness, and his alone, was tied to a specific sin. . . . The something worse must be final judgment (cf. v. 29).

—The Gospel According to John, PNTC, 246; bold words are in italics in the original

Regardless of which view we take to be correct, we should keep in mind that the passage teaches that this man was healed to sin no more. From this passage, we, therefore, should learn not to allow a legitimate concern for the healing of even serious physical suffering in people to keep us from being supremely concerned about their eternal destiny.

In Health, Interpretation, Quotes

Christianity is Not Just For "Weak People"

July 22, 2011

Many unbelievers think that people who become Christians do so because they are weak people who need some kind of crutch to make it through their lives. The conversion account of Cornelius seems to refute this common false assertion.

Cornelius was a powerful governmental official in the Roman army (Acts 10:1) of whom everyone in the Jewish nation spoke well (10:22). He thus seems to have been highly successful in his life from a worldly standpoint.

Moreover, he was a very devout and upstanding man who “feared God with all his house” and cared for the indigent in his midst (10:2, 4, 22, 31). The passage thus gives no indication that he was lacking in money, having serious family troubles, disappointed with his life in some psychological sense, or facing some life-threatening physical problem that led him to turn to God.

He did have a fearful encounter with an angel of God (10:4) prior to his conversion, but lost people typically do not have such an experience in mind when they assert that people who get saved do so because they are weak. We who are believers would seemingly do well to use this aspect of the Cornelius account to refute the false notion that Christianity is just for “weak people.”

In Interpretation

An Easily Overlooked Aspect of Paul's Conversion Accounts

July 20, 2011

Scripture provides information about Paul’s conversion in five passages (Acts 9, 22, 26; Gal. 1; 1 Tim. 1). Christ’s judging for God is an easily overlooked aspect of his conversion.

Paul was traveling to Damascus to persecute believers when Christ appeared to him to judge him by confronting him with his sin and by blinding him (9:3-9).[1] Statements in parallel accounts by Ananias (22:14) and Paul (Gal. 1:16) show God’s ultimate agency and Christ’s intermediate agency (cf. 9:17, 26:16) in His appearing to Paul. Through His judging Paul, Christ provided salvation for him.[2]Hence, the conversion accounts of Paul evidence the soteriological importance of Christ’s work as the God-appointed Judge.

[1] Jesus as the Son of Man judged Paul by showing him that he had been persecuting Jesus Himself and by blinding him (9:4-5; cf. Ezek. 22:2). “The risen Lord’s encounter with Paul on the Damascus Road, places under judgment his life of persecuting believers out of zeal for God. Luke highlights the overpowering nature of the divine encounter by noting that in the brightness of the midday sun a divine light flashed around Paul. Blinding at noontime and being cast to the ground picture the spiritual judgment under which Paul found himself (Is 25:12; 26:5; 29:4).” William J. Larkin Jr., Acts in The IVP New Testament Commentary, ed. Grant R. Osborne (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 319. Christ’s restoring Paul’s sight through Ananias also testified to His judicial agency (John 9:39; cf. Isa. 35:4-5).

[2] James M. Hamilton Jr. argues, “The glory of God in salvation through judgment . . . is the center of the theology of the book of Acts.” “The Center of Biblical Theology in Acts: Deliverance and Damnation Display the Divine,” Themelios 33 (2008): 36.

In Dissertation, Interpretation

Praying For God to Avenge Us

July 17, 2011

In Luke 18:1-5, Luke records Jesus’ parable about the repeated appeals of a widow to an unrighteous judge. Jesus gave the parable to convey the necessity of continual prayer in the midst of circumstances that tend to make people lose heart (18:1). Since the widow persisted in her appeals to the judge that he avenge her against her adversary, he gave her the relief that she requested (18:2-5).

Christ demanded that His teaching concerning the words of this unrighteous judge be heard (18:6). He then emphatically asserted through the use of a rhetorical question that demands a positive answer that God, the righteous Judge, in stark contrast to the unrighteous judge in the parable, will certainly avenge His elect who are crying out to Him day and night (18:7a). In the same question, He also taught that God would do so in spite of delays in His response (18:7b).

Furthermore, He proceeded to declare directly that God would quickly give them justice (18:8a). Christ followed up with a question that points to the necessity of faith in God’s ultimate vindication of His own at the coming of the Son of Man (18:8b). The flow of thought in the passage shows that Christ, as the Son of Man, is the One who will execute that vengeance as the Father’s agent.

By giving this parable and its application, Christ validated appeals to God to avenge His own of their adversaries. The emphatic teaching in this parable strongly implies that believers’ crying out to the Father to avenge them of their oppressors is a righteous practice. Such appeals are in keeping with many similar appeals in the Old Testament (for example, Ps. 10) as well as related content in the New Testament (Rom. 15:31; 2 Thess. 3:2).[1]

Furthermore, Christ’s teaching here accords with His own supreme commitment to entrust Himself in His sufferings to the Father as “the One who judges righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23; cf. Luke 23:46). Moreover, this parable underscores that through unfailing prayer to God, faith in Christ is essential for properly handling injustices that believers are powerless to overcome (cf. Acts 7:59-60).[2] Luke’s inclusion of this account in his Gospel argues for the importance of this dimension of the scriptural teaching about Christ as God’s judicial delegate.[3]

[1] Martyred saints in heaven cry out to God for Him to judge and avenge their blood on those who dwell on the earth (Rev. 6:10).

[2] “When the fullness of time has arrived, God will suddenly and without delay put an end to the distress into which His chosen ones will be plunged by a hostile and evil world. There is no doubt about the certainty that Jesus will come again and that God will then make the righteous cause of the faithful triumph completely and forever. . . . [At Christ’s coming], God’s own elect will still continually be praying to Him that justice should be done to them. . . . He concludes the parable with a powerful summons to His followers to maintain true belief in Him, through whom the Father will give final victory.” Geldenhuys, Luke, 447.

[3] Apart from its context, the use of Luke 18:1 as a proof text for encouraging perseverance in prayer, while of some value, does not furnish the people of God with the real substantive teaching of the passage. For example, although he makes many helpful remarks about prayer in general, Warren W. Wiersbe hardly deals with the teaching of the passage about God’s avenging His elect and makes no specific mention of the Son of Man. The Bible Exposition Commentary, 1:247-49.

In Dissertation, Interpretation, Prayer

God's Avenging of the Blood of His Servants through His Anointed Kings

July 15, 2011

Second Kings 9:6-10 relates how a prophet sent by Elisha anointed Jehu to be God’s anointed king over His people at that time for a specific task:

He poured the oil on his head, and said unto him, “Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, ‘I have anointed thee king over the people of the LORD, even over Israel. And thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the LORD, at the hand of Jezebel. For the whole house of Ahab shall perish: and I will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel: And I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah: And the dogs shall eat Jezebel in the portion of Jezreel, and there shall be none to bury her.'”

God chose Jehu to be His judicial agent to avenge the blood of His servants (9:6-7). At the hands of Jehu, Ahab and Jezebel would reap fierce judgment from God (9:8-10) because they failed to repent of their wickedness.

Throughout human history, wicked people have shed the blood of millions of God’s servants. The same God who avenged on Ahab and Jezebel the blood of His servants that they had slain will one day avenge on unrepentant evil people the blood of all His servants that they have shed (Rev. 6:10; 18:20; 19:2). God will do so through His ultimate anointed King, Jesus of Nazareth.

Let all hear and fear the wrath of God to come upon those who will not repent of the blood that they have shed. The God who delights in mercy will forgive all those who will repent toward Him and believe in His Son.

God’s people who have suffered the loss of loved ones at the hands of evil people must be assured that He will avenge their blood on any people who have shed their blood and refused to repent. Such bereaved saints must rest in God, pray for the repentance of these murderers, and leave it to the God-appointed King to render vengeance on murderers who refuse to repent (cf. Rom. 12:19-21).

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).

In Discipleship, Interpretation

"The One Who is Judging All the Earth"

July 14, 2011

In the account of Abraham’s intercession for Sodom (Gen. 18:16-33) and the subsequent judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah (19:1-29), God’s work of judgment through agents is clear. Genesis 18:1-15 shows that the Lord appeared to Abraham with two other men. After two of the group departed (18:22), Abraham interceded with the Third (18:23-32), the Lord, “the One who is judging all the earth” (18:25, my translation).

The two who left were angels (19:1). Later in Sodom, they supernaturally turned away the attempt of the men of the city to molest Lot (19:9-11). They made clear their mission as emissaries of the Lord both explicitly (“the Lord has sent us to destroy it,” 19:13) and by stating that the Lord was the One who was about to destroy the city.

The subsequent account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, however, makes no mention of the activity of the angels in destroying those cities (19:24-29). It states that the Lord who appeared to Abraham destroyed them by raining “brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven” (19:24). This verse shows that the One who destroyed those cities was the preincarnate Christ, and that He did so as the agent of Another, the Lord who was in heaven.

Verse 24 also shows that the righteous Judge of all the earth with whom Abraham interceded (18:25) was the preincarnate Christ. Genesis 18-19, therefore, presents that His divine working as the Lord, the righteous Judge who spares and destroys (18:23-32), was yet as the minister of God’s judgment. This passage that presents the deity of the preincarnate Christ and presents Him as the Lord, the righteous judicial agent of Yahweh, testifies, therefore, to the importance of His judicial agency with reference to His being the Lord. Moreover, in view of the abundant use of κύριος in Genesis (in the LXX) to present God as the Judge,[1] its use in Genesis 18-19 in explicit connection with an emphatic use of the verb κρίνω to speak of work of the preincarnate Christ establishes an important judicial significance for its subsequent reference to Him as κύριος.[2]

Many later Old Testament references to this account further support viewing this passage as an important one.[3] In addition, the New Testament writers’ extensive use of Genesis 18 and 19 (three quotations, twenty-nine allusions and verbal parallels, UBS3) further validates the assessment of these chapters as important to the teaching of the New Testament. Of particular significance are the several New Testament references to the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah that show that this is an important account for understanding apostolic teaching concerning Christ as God’s judicial agent.[4]

Genesis 18-19 shows Christ’s rendering judgment for God. Because Genesis 3:15 prophesied of His future work of judgment, Scripture begins with testimony about Christ’s judging for God both in history and in the future.

[1] Genesis in the LXX repeatedly speaks of κύριος or κύριος ὁ θεός as the One who warned of judgment or rendered judgment (2:16-17; 3:1, 8-24; 4:4-16; 5:29; 6:3, 5, 8, 12, 22; 7:1, 4-5, 16; 8:21; 9:12; 11:5-6, 8-9; 12:3; 15:14; 18:17, 19-20, 22, 25-26, 33; 19:13, 14-16, 20, 24-27, 29; 20:18; 38:7).

[2]ὁ κρίνων πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν (“the one who is judging all the earth,” my translation); the present participle here stresses the ongoing nature of His judging. For data showing the nearly universal use of κύριος in the LXX to speak of God as the Judge, see my article, Interpreting the Word “Lord” in the NT.

[3] Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 1:9; 13:19; Jeremiah 23:14-15; 49:18; 50:40; Lamentations 4:6; Ezekiel 16:49-50; Amos 4:11; Zephaniah 2:9.

[4] Matthew 10:15; 11:24; Luke 10:12; 17:29, 32; 2 Peter 2:6; Jude 1:7.

In Dissertation, Interpretation

People Who Made or Caused Others to Sin

July 7, 2011

Interestingly, unless I missed something in my research, every explicit statement in Scripture about those who made or caused others to sin concerns either a king of Israel or a king of Judah.

Four kings of Israel are said to have made or caused Israel to sin: Jereboam (1 Kings 14:16; 15:26, 30, 34; 16:19, 26; 22:52; 2 Kings 3:3; 10:29, 31; 13:2, 6, 11; 14:24; 15:9, 18, 24, 28; 17:21; 23:15); Baasha (1Kings 16:2, 13); Elah (1 Kings 16:13); and Ahab (1 Kings 21:22).

Manasseh is the only king of Judah whom Scripture explicitly says made Judah to sin (2 Kings 21:11, 16).

Besides the kings who made people to sin, Scripture records that outlandish women caused Solomon to sin (Neh. 13:26).

Undoubtedly, many other people in human history have made or caused others to sin in a manner similar to the people mentioned above. Scripture, however, speaks explicitly only of these people as making or causing other people to sin. I wonder why we do not have many more statements that are explicit in Scripture about those who made or caused others to sin.

In Interpretation

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