Category Archives: Christian Ministry

Revisiting Foh’s View of Women vying for Dominance over Man in Genesis 3:16

27 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Adam and Eve, Biblical Interpretation, Christian Ministry, Exegesis and Interpretation, Gender Issues

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“Is Foh’s view of Gen. 3:16 still the correct view to hold or are the more modern interpretations of the verse better fitting? Is man’s ruling over woman a result of the fall, or the fact that woman was made from man as a help mate mean man’s ruling over is part of God’s original design. I hope this isn’t too much of a curve ball question!”

A friend of mine asked the question above. Foh’s interpretation of Gen. 3:16 in 1975 was a break with the traditional understanding of “Your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you.” It seems that the majority view down through history was that the woman would desire her husband to an unhealthy extent, supplanting her desire for God with her desire for her husband. Since this sentence appears in the curse, whatever the desire is or how it manifests, it cannot be good or healthy. Foh looked at the only other two verses in the OT that used the same word for “desire,” which in Hebrew is teshokah: Gen. 4:7 and Song of Solomon 7:10. We may dispense with Song 7:10 because the supercharged sexual talk just before it all but guarantees a translation of the word to bring out this heated passion: “I am my beloved and his passion is for me.” The underlying meaning of the Hebrew word is “urge,” obviously denoting a certain “forcefulness” as illustrated in Song 7:10. This is not to say that the Beloved was domineering in his “urge,” but the potency of sexual desire with two willing partners (as in Song 7:10) is plainly an “inexorable drive.”

More important is the Septuagint’s (Greek OT) translation of the Hebrew term into Greek because obviously Hebrew scholars around 200 B. C., still speaking Hebrew and fluent in Greek, would know better than us — in most cases — what the meaning was. It is apostrofe, and roughly is the idea of turning aside, turning back, or turning against someone. I have to opt for a negative meaning for Gen. 3:16 since it is a curse, and so “turning against” fits nicely. Further, the same negative meaning fits the context of Gen. 4:7 as well, where God says that sin lies at Cain’s door. “It turns against you, but you must rule over it” (trans. mine from Greek).

Even if the Christian church has traditionally not understood Gen. 3:16 to have the meaning of “your desire (forceful urge) will be for/against your husband,” the earlier Hebrew translators and interpreters of the Septuagint’s Gen. 3:16 opted for a Greek term that, taken negatively, displays hostility and dominance. What cannot be missed is the contrastive and hostile aversion man has to woman and woman to man: “Her domineering urge will be against him, but he will rule over her” (Gen. 3:16, trans. mine from Hebrew). With this preface, I am ready to answer the above question.

What enters at the fall and is enforced by God’s curse is the manner of male and female relations. When God says that “he will rule over her,” the Hebrew term is the verbal form of king (Mashal), but it is neither of the terms God used in the original mandate to man and woman to “subdue” the earth and have “dominion over it” in Gen. 1:28. Something has changed; now woman wants to lead, taking the dominant role, and, it seems, that man is equally as hostile in return, reigning like a monarch over her. They have turned on one another. What was an original peace, that is, a co-rulership as both man and woman were given God’s command to subdue and have dominance (Gen. 1:28), has now become a perpetual vying for position. All this to say that Foh’s insights largely stand. The only nuance I am adding is the fact that man’s “ruling like a monarch,” which is to say, in an autocratic fashion, is the outcome of the fall and God’s spoken curse. Woman was created for man’s assistance, but there is little doubt, from a high view of God’s image in both man and woman alike in Gen. 1:27 – 28, that man and woman were to rule together, in harmony. There was a order to the rule, man then woman, but not a superiority or dominance just as there is an order to the Trinity, Father then Son, but not inequality among any of the Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit.

For my questioner, if you have a specific contemporary interpretation of the text you’d like me to take a look at, post it on my wall, and I will revisit this topic again.

Dr. Scalise

Why Matthew Vines’ Video on “God and the Gay Christian” is Applaudable but ultimately Unconvincing

27 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Biblical Interpretation, Christ and Culture, Christian Ministry, Difficult Questions, Gay marriage, Homosexuality, Homosexuals

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Matthew Vines’ video aims to persuade a revisitation to the biblical texts that deal with homosexuality. This, to my mind, is laudable precisely because it points us back to the biblical text itself. There are other ways Vines could argue to make his point; indeed, many postmodern theologians and interpreters of the Bible are content to make the community they represent the authoritative touchstone for judging the biblical text itself. They ask what ways the current situation today acts as a check on the Bible to bring its undesirable aspects into view and, then, to extract them so that what is left is God’s unpolluted message. Probably the best known example of this comes from the feminist theologians, who claim that the Bible upholds patriarchalism, and, by extension, male hegemony. These feminist theologians have offered a helpful renewal of interest on how the Bible presents women. I am persuaded by a number of their points, particularly on the interpretation of the woman at the well (John 4), who is often treated as little more than a immoral confuse woman, who Jesus enlightens and fixes. A close look at this text shows that such an interpretation likely owes more to male bias than to the logic of the text: Jn. 4:12 shows the woman is following Jesus’ discussion, discerning how powerful Jesus’ claim is about living water by comparing Him with Jacob, the namesake of Israel. Verse 15 shows the woman’s acceptance of Jesus’ claim and her openness to receiving it after only a few difficult to understand statements by Jesus. Then, she goes on to tell Jesus that He is a Prophet (v. 19), and a number of sophisticated religious issues in her culture (v. 20). After Jesus unpacks what she has stated, she gives a basic but correct statement about theology, that is, that the Messiah is coming to reveal all things (v. 25). All this to say that the woman at the well is a far more complex character than simply a immoral confused woman. Certainly, she was living immorally, but she is religiously and culturally astute, as seen from her comments. Now, why do I spend time on this point. I do so because some of these “alternative interpretative communities” offer valuable insight, so we ought to carefully consider their points before we “throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Vines’ work with the biblical text in an attempt to reconcile the homosexual lifestyle with God’s word shows genuine humility. It would be much easier for him to just dismiss those parts of the Bible as outright wrong, judged so by the contemporary situation. Ultimately, though, his discussion is unconvincing. There are a number of ways to show how it is unpersuasive, but I want to offer a novel way of putting an old point, indeed it is the point Jesus Himself makes when dealing with a question about male-female relationship and what the husbands were doing to their wives (Matt. 19:1 – 9). Vines’ presentation — and let me offer the segment from 2:55 – 3:05 as an example — shifts the focus from the “what of love” to the “manner of love.” The three words he uses, “faithfulness, commitment, love,” from what I can tell, all focus on the manner in which we are to related.  Few, I suppose, would object to this definition of a “good manner of relating.” This, however, is only part of the issue because it has long been known, especially since St. Augustine’s point in Enchiridion, that goodness and love have both ontological aspects and modal aspects (Augustine comments on Gen. 1:31). Ontological refers to the “nature of things” and modal refers to the “manner of things.” Vines’ focus on the “manner of good relating” is praiseworthy, but goodness and love cannot be reduced to just the manner, dismissing the “nature of things.” The Genesis text Jesus cites, Gen. 2:24, is richly focused on the “nature of things” as is Genesis 1:31: Jesus states, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Love, as I’ve pinned to my twitter account, is always as much about form (manner) as about content (what). What God made was male and female; what man and woman became was one flesh. God’s declaration that all was “very good” in Gen. 1:31, including what God has fashioned in Adam and Eve, is an overarching statement that is as much ontological (nature of things) as modal (manner of things). Arguing that homosexual relations are good based on the manner of relating misses the issue of what. Vines’ idea of a good or loving relationship is on the mark, but the manner of relating argument cannot answer the what of relation issue. Both what a relationship is and how it is to transpire cannot be reduced into one or the other without a severe diminution of what it means to be human in relationships. It is, to my mind, somewhat shocking that Vines doesn’t consider the creation account as relevant to the question he was seeking to answer. For a good debate on the matter, see 

Dr. Scalise

Battling Depression and Suicide: God’s Will and Desire for You can help

20 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Biblical Application, Christian Ministry, Human Experience and Theology, Spiritual Warfare

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Recently, in our house church meetings, we have been discussing what God’s will is for us. There are a number of things that we could say on this subject, yet one thing God wants you to know is that He desires you, wanted you, and values you. Before I get into this, first let me say that I don’t want to create any cheap myth that just believing one thing, even when it comes from God’s very will, will solve depression or suicidal tendencies. This surely is not the case as the professional health-fields devoted to treating these issues show. God might be able to do a miraculous fix in independent cases: granted. Much of life, infected by sin, disbelief, and hostile spiritual powers, does not play-out in unending miracles; we indeed should pray for them while availing ourselves to the other sources God has lovingly provided in health, prolonging life, and mental wholeness practices.

What we do know about ourselves as humans is that our overall health owes to a myriad of reasons, influences, and practices. Correct belief, and trust in that belief, is one reason or influence that God has given of which we must integrate into our daily thinking habits. With these things said, let’s look at my translation of Revelation 4:11.

“Worthy you are our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power because You Yourself created all things and because of Your will they exist and were created.”

If your in a bad bout with depression or fighting suicidal thoughts, Rev. 4:11 is a rescue rope. First, notice the “You Yourself created . . . .” This, seen clearly in the Greek, emphasizes God involvement in the creation process. It is not that God was hesitant or had to create you as though He were motivated by something other than Himself. No, indeed, the “You Yourself” shows us that not only was He involved in creating you, but He was heavily invested in creating you. Let your heart and mind drink deeply from this truth, and believe it, and go on believing it. Your worth is deeply important to God, enough for Him to be involved in a particularly attentive way in creating you. Second, God’s will is sometimes understand in a distant or unaffectionate way; the Greek term, thelēma, however, shows great affection, and can be translated as “want” or “desire” to illustrate this warmth. God desires that you “exist” and “were created.” In the instant you became alive, God’s desire was for you. You were “born” from God’s desire. The horrors we see and experience in this world as a result of man’s malice against man and demons’ malice against both man and Creator has infected all things with corruption, but God the Redeemer and Physician desired you be created. We must battle in this war torn world, both spiritually and physically, but the rescue rope of God’s desire for you sings and dances over you (Zeph. 3:17) a never-ending melody of God’s affectionate want to create you and His current desire He has in you because He wills that you exist. With God, good desire precedes our life, is in our life, and is with us after this life. God desires you live, so turn to this rescue rope and live. There is much more work to do towards holistic mental health thereafter, but God is the Rescuer, whose ability never falters.

Dr. Scalise

Appearances of Evil: Ephesians 5:3 & 1 Thessalonians 5:22

19 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by in Biblical Interpretation, Christian Ministry, Exegesis and Interpretation, Human Experience and Theology

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Appearances of Evil

Ephesians 5:3 &1 Thessalonians 5:22

I think Eph. 5:3, “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” (all Translations are mine unless otherwise indicated), could be one of the texts for the cliché about Christians not have an “appearance of evil.” The phrases, “or any” is literally from the Greek, “and all impurity.” I suppose, then, the question becomes named by whom? Of course, “immorality” and “greed” are quite narrow in their meaning but “all impurity” does look to be a catch all “heart” category in terms of the corruption found therein. The term, “impurity” is akatharsia (ακαθαρσια) meaning “uncleanliness” but can be translated as “immorality” but here, since a more specific term for immorality is on the list, it is more likely, especially with “all” attached to the front (all impurity), emphasizing the preconditions for an actual action of immorality. It is the filth, “uncleanliness,” in a man that is the problem. This term is used by Jesus in the Gospels in an interesting comparative text, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Mt. 23:27: Italics and Bold mine). Now that I see this comparison and notice that the Eph. 5:3 list does include a non-sexual sin, namely, “greed,” I doubt if the emphasis is on “uncleanliness” as sexual immorality and, instead, emphasizing more broadly, like Jesus, the state of corruption in a man, likely pointing to what both greed and sexual sin have in common, namely, covetousness. In both Matt. 23:27 and Eph 5:3 the phrases are the same in the connection between “all” (Gr.: pas) plus “uncleanliness”. Therefore, greed and sexual immorality are concrete “fruit” of the inner corruption of “all uncleanliness.” This text is not so much concerned with the worry of looking like we are doing evil so much as it is concerned with the heart-mind condition leading to actual acts of evil. This teaching has as a long and abiding foundation in the 10th commandment: “You will not covet . . .” which centers on the the inner attitude of coveting rather than “just anything evil.”

The other text that could be translated as the “appearance of evil” is 1 Thess. 5:22: “Abstain from every appearance/form of evil.” Most modern translations opt for “form” because the word itself has as its central meaning, “that which is seen,” i.e., “from every seen form of evil.” In other words, we have here a confusion of different English meanings for the word “appear,” that is, there is more than one way to understand it: the word is equivocal, having more than one meaning. What the Greek text has clearly in mind is not “what might appear evil” in the sense of “appear” meaning “what might suggest evil” or “what might be confused with evil” or “what might look like evil.” The Greek word, eidos, means what is concretely seen: a clear form, and in this case, a notable form or concrete practice of evil. This is especially clear when compared to some other places in the NT this term appear. Luke 9:29 is the narrative about Jesus’ transfiguration, “As he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became very bright, a brilliant white” (Bold and italics mine). This text is not using the term eidos (appearance) to say that Jesus’ face “might suggest transformation” or “might be confused with transforming” or “might look like it transformed.” Indeed, for something “to transfigure” is precisely for it (Him, in Jesus’ case) to change. Literally from the Greek, its says, ” . . . the form of his face became different (or “another”).” In another text after

Jesus is resurrected, it states, “And his appearance was like lightning . . .” (Bold and italics mine). I think this text is noteworthy because Matthew felt the need to add that little word “like.” If “appearance” were to mean “what might look like evil,” in the sense of “what might be confused with evil” or “what might suggest evil,” as noted formerly, then why would Matthew feel the need to add that little word “like” to clarify that Jesus was not made (in the form of) of lightning? The addition of “like” moves “appearance” away from its typical meaning of “what is concretely seen” towards a metaphorical meaning: “what is seen looks like lightning.” In the same way, then, in 1 Thess. 5:22, if the meaning was abstaining “from everything that looks like evil” would we not expect, then, the addition of the word “like” (Greek: hōs)? For further verification of this usage of the word, that is, having the meaning of “what is concretely and clearly seen,” also confer John 5:37, Luke 3:22 (another example of “like” added), & 2 Cor. 5:7. This is every example of the word in the NT, all meaning, “what is concretely seen” with two examples of “like” having to be added to move its meaning towards “looks like” and away from “what is concretely and clearly seen.” Finally for a comparison and to answer a discernible objection, 2 Tim. 3:5 says, “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (Bold and italics mine). “Appearance” here is morfōsis, not eidos.

B. T. Scalise
Copyright, Wild-Theology, © Brian Scalise 2014

The Church’s Rushed Openness in the Way of Intimacy

22 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Christ and Culture, Christian Ministry, Human Experience and Theology

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Pastors, Christian Leaders, Professors,

We must stop rushing openness and intimacy in the church.  Human relationships go through a natural process during which we reveal ourselves more and more to those we know.  God does this too.  He did it over centuries and millenia during the writing of the Scriptures; God was slowing revealing Himself incrementally.  Jesus, too, revealed Himself to His disciples slowly over three years.  Why, then, do we promise people openness and transparency as an almost immediate expectation if people will visit our church? Why do we push those in our churches to feel as though they should be the warmest and most open people when visitors meet them? Or like the first night of the small group, each one in the group is expected to share their life story. We promise those who are visiting our churches that they will be greeted in warmth, in openness, and in love, to paraphrase one recent church advertisement I heard. I like these and think these sound wonderful, at least in theory.  But relationships don’t work like this and if we consider how Yahweh and Jesus incrementally revealed themselves in their relationships to those closest to them we will find that we are not mimicking either Jesus or Yahweh by rushing openness.  A large aspect of relating is gradual revealing and it is by this revealing that we cultivate intimacy.  But why is it that it feels so artificial when there is no gradual revealing but just a rushed open box? That rushed openness we expect out of our people creates the artificiality.  Friendship is childlike, it just happens organically and certain persons gravitate more towards some than others, but this “natural gravitation” does not prevent the general cultivation of love towards those who are not naturally attracted to one another.  Instead there is a particular love to those we reveal ourselves to and a general love in the Spirit for those who worship the Lord Jesus: we are one with them even if I don’t know them personally.

So this is the irony, in the church’s hasty desire to cultivate intimacy and openness among its members, the church is undermining the very foundation of that priceless intimacy: that is, a gradual process of persons coming to know one another through gradual revealing to one another.

Our churches should have authentic persons.  Forcing openness too quickly creates artificiality.  We must be true to Christ and true to one another.  God revealed Himself to us gradually and we are knowing Him more and more gradually through time as we relate to Him.  Rushing openness in those we oversee is intuitively unnatural, unlike how God revealed Himself, and stands in the way of intimacy.  Let us put on Christ and follow in His example, knowing we have come to know Him but that we incrementally know Him more, and so reveal ourselves as others reveal themselves to us, naturally, discerningly, and in its own time, not forced, not out of season.

B. T. Scalise

What’s Wrong with the Way Christian Ministries’ Leaders often Treat their Workers?

15 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Christian Ministry, Economics

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What’s wrong with Christian Ministry’s “Employee/Employer” relationships. Have you every wondered why it is okay for Christian ministries to “employ” people without paying those people? This question should raise some eyebrows and maybe even more objections so some clarifying comments need laid out. First, the question above does not impugn genuine volunteer work. Any organization, church, institution, business, or government can ask for volunteers—no objection to that. But asking for volunteers for iterative or non-regular activities is quite different from structuring an entire institution around free labor as regular practice (volunteer work). Essential to recognize is that hoping for volunteers is very different than expecting volunteers by the framework of the organization.

For instance, imagine a ministry, Christians for God: This ministry runs its day-in, day-out activities by paid employees but also by non-paid occasional volunteers. Sometimes this ministry needs more work done after hours and so opens up extra work to the paid employees by offering both paid hours and accepting volunteer hours for the work. In this way, whether the workers get paid or volunteer is decided upon by the one who works, not by the one asking for the work. This is all well and good and might be the best situation. However, if the ministry cannot afford to pay these after hours of work, it could still ask for volunteers to get the work done so long as it is occasional, not obligatory, and not presented through manipulative “guilt-tripping.” Most people readily understand “volunteer work” as supererogatory—i.e., beyond the call of duty—but why is it that many Christian organizations turn what should be supererogatory (working without pay) into what is obligatory?

When a Christian institute makes working for free obligatory to work for them at all, the question all Christians must ask is, “How are you Christians, who run that institute, submitting to Christ by establishing a work setting that requires free labor you leading Christians?” No one is calling into question the nature of volunteer work or the hearts of the ones who volunteer. We are asking, “Is there something immoral and indicating non-submission to Christ for Christian leaders to expect free labor for themselves?” In most of these cases, how these Christians who work for such an institute get paid is by raising support. So others, not the leaders of the institute, fund these Christians. What is obvious is that those funding and those being funded are submitting to Christ; what is not obvious is how the leaders are submitting to Christ. These leaders get free labor for themselves, have authority over those working for free for them, and establish a non-prosperous business/institute that is not self-sustaining.

These leaders do not have the right to say that they pay their employees because using the language of “pay” implies producing a product or service from which income is collected in excess to the cost of running the institute/business. Further, really it is those are voluntarily funding the employees that could claim to “pay” these employees. It is better to say that these volunteer funders are simply funding these employees since they are not “paying” them as compensation for some service or product they’ve consumed.

Let’s pull this all together:

1) The volunteers (volunteer employees) for the institute are clearly submitting to Christ because they are freely willing to take on the hardship by raising support.

2) Those funding these volunteer employees are submitting to Christ because they are freely funding and not receiving a product or service in return.

3) Those leaders of the institute’s receive free labor because they are not paying the volunteer employees; these leaders receive free income from the produce of the volunteer workers (and amazingly, these leaders sometimes take salaries); these leaders get to have authority over the volunteer workers although not compensating these workers; and these leaders use their authority to continue to propagate an unsustainable and non-prosperous ministry model built on the back of “free labor” of willing devote Christians.

The Christian leaders get to tell the volunteer employees what to do, expect them to work for free for them, get to benefit from the produce (fruit) and money the volunteer employees produce meanwhile the volunteer employees do not share in those benefits, and perpetually uphold and so perpetually benefit from this non-prosperous and unsustainable model.

I might be confused but didn’t Jesus say, “The kings of the Gentiles domineer over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves (Luke 22:25 – 26) . . . and I am among you as One who serves (Lk. 22:27).

Next time I’ll unpack this in view of what I’ve said above.

B. T. Scalise