Have You Ever Read Ephesians?

I am not sure what you mean here.The belief that Christ is Son of God no longer exists?
The belief that He died and rose for the redemption of sinners no longer exists?Do you mean the belief in the resurrection no longer exists?
Do you mean the hope of His second coming no longer exists?Do you mean receiving Him and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit no longer exists? Do you mean these things are no longer taught?Do you mean persecution for being a Christian no longer exists?
Times have changed no doubt. I do not see the Christian Gospel as no longer in existence.I would not deny that there are some apostasies from the faith. I would agree that there is some degradation and some corruption. I would not say that matter is absolutely new. Nor would I say that the Christian faith no longer exists or Christianity no longer is exists as it did 1800 years ago.At best you have some kind of exaggeration there.

No! You are not right! I only said that after YOU claimed that the only reason I am criticizing Ephesians is because I have a problem with God!Look, in message 121 you said: I should have noticed your tactic right there and then. I should have noticed how dismissing you were starting to be but I was eager for the discussion and I though I could get throught that point to a fruitful discussion on the other side. If I would have known that this was going to throw you off on a tirade against my motives I would have avoided saying anything about this at all, it is irrelevant what my personal feelings about Paul and God are. You are still addressing me and not my argument!My original reply to you right after that in message 122 (notice that 122 is AFTER 121) was this: I shouldn't have put that last bit in there because you took that one statement and ran with it straight into the gutter.You completely and utterly missed the point that I DO NOT maintain criticism of the authorship of Ephesians due to a "problem with God". My "problems" with God are not a topic for this thread and I shouldn't have let you goad me into talking about that because obviously at that point you were fishing for a way to get out of discussing the issues.This is not about my problems with Paul, or my problems with anything for that matter. My points are about Paul in Ephesians contradicting Paul in the other epistles, Paul in Ephesians contradicting Jesus, and Paul in Ephesians being against modern morality.Are you going to address those points of discussion with more than personal attacks? When are you going to take responsibility for your behavior?

I can see that the sequence of exchanges there have not been accurately remembered by me.So I apologize for any words unfairly critical. But however it came, as who said what first and who said which afterwards, your "evil sadistic dictator" evaluation is a problem with God of the Bible.I am not just going to shrug that off as not a problem with God as the Bible reveals God.But I will try to be careful. And I disagree with any charge of evasion. You have asked for Jesus' support of Paul in Ephesians 5 and 6 and that is what I have been providing you with.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

First of all, you have a MAJOR loose end in this reasoning. Where does Jesus say that the parent/child relationship is equivalent to the husband/wife or master/slave relationship?You are taking one edict, the instruction to children and stretching to absolute absurdity!A wife is not a child. Any notion that a wife should behave to her husband as a child does to a parent is frankly immoral. Jesus most certainly did not saying anything even suggesting of the sort. You are in full on apologetics mode here and it is one of the most unconvincing things I have read in a long time.This is the very definition of scraping the bottom of the barrel.Are you really so enamoured with these letters that you would go so far as to reduce the stature of a wife to that of a child in order to save Ephesians? Why not just take an open eyed look at the evidence and put Ephesians rightly in its place, an at best questionable piece of purely human writing.

And I think that is a matter in your imagination, the real Paul verses the latter forged Paul.I think that is your problem with what the same man wrote in each of the letters.The evolution of actual human morality I have to think some more upon.

Fair enough jaywill. If you try to keep it about the issues then I will try to be more cautious around your sensitivities for blasphemy.

You made the claim that Paul and Jesus are on the same page. A point of contention it remains but it is YOUR point.If you happen to somehow show that this is true, it will absolutly follow that Jesus is endorsing an immoral opinion expressed by Paul. How could it not be? The notion of female inferiority is an immoral concept. If you show that Jesus is right behind Paul on this one, then Jesus can expect the same criticism. I was hoping that you would bring up Philemon. Because you see, I cannot fathom how you can use an example of Paul talking about the immorality of slavery in one of his original epistles as evidence that later epistle to the Ephesians is both a legitimate letter of Paul AND is correct in recognizing the authority of slave masters. Philemon and Ephesians are in contradicion.Moving on to you other post. But a husband is NOT an authority to his wife so your point is moot. If Jesus said that husbands were an authority over their wives then you may have a point with this. He doesn't, so you don't.To try and summarize the rest of your post, once again for the sake of avoiding reply explosion, is this notion that the "body of Christ" motif is in support of Paul in Ephesians.Once again I don't see how this is an advantage for your position rather than a disadvantage. Jesus speaks very ephemerally about these things and I don't know you can take interpretations about the equality of people and apply them to Paul expressing a distinct inequality among people. So yes your point about Jesus describing the church as "me" is well taken. But nowhere does he say that some parts of "him" are subordinate to other parts. Its been awhile since I have read the gospels so I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am and I am still eagerly waiting for you to give me more than a hail mary pass in terms of Jesus' support for the Paul of Ephesians.

That is not necessary to find. What is important is that the whole theme of authority and submission to authority is touched by both Paul and his Lord Jesus.The relationships there touch on authority and submission to authority.In the case of slave to master or child to parent there should be no problem to see that that is the whole realm Paul is addressing.In the wife to husband may be some people's problem. Now I am not an anthropologist. But I think that in cultures everywhere usually the marriage relationship begins with the female responding to, in submission, the male's desire that she be his mate.Arranged marriages of India and other places are an exception. But my liberal bent of disposition would not allow me to naively overlook that a woman submits to the man's initial request to be married. And such cooperation of wife towards husband carries through throughout many other areas of their married life.Do you fundamentally disagree with this? No I am not. The realm under which these exhortations are being developed is the realm of submission and authroity. And Jesus had something to say about that. And what He did say and demonstrated is supportive of Paul's ministry.It is not necessary that I find an exact instance of Jesus speaking of children and parents or slaves and masters. It is the matter of not giving rise to insubordination in favor of regard for honoring authority.Jesus marvled as the centurion who realized authority and submission. Jesus told the people to respect the scribes and Pharisees in their authroity but not to imitate their hypocritical behavior.These are teachings about authority and submission and they support rather than contradict Paul's words in Ephesians 5 and 6. The particulars are not exactly the same. The principles are similar with regard to authority and the honoring of it in submission in attitude, if not absolute obedience. Good for you. I stand by what I wrote.The issue is authorities and submission. And I might add that your so called earlier Paul spoke extensively on the matter in Romans 13.Ephesians 5 and 6, in its exhortations of wives / husbands, slaves / masters, children / parents is along the same line.And the point I make is that Jesus' words and actions are supportive of Paul's spirit there in his Ephesian epistle. Showing how Jesus acted towards His parents in Luke's Gospel and Paul's instruction to the churching children towards theirs, is not "scrapping the bottom of the barrel." Oh, I think Ephesians is marvelous completely as all the rest of Paul's letters.I do not think for the husband to love the wife as Christ loved the church - giving up His life for the church, reduces the worth of the wife.I think it enhances her worth, obviously. And the instruction to the children is with a reminder that the Law promised a long and prosperous life to children who honored their parents.So I neither think that Paul's word there undermines young people. Because it is obviously much more than that. And 2,000 some years of regard for its value among Christians argues in agreement with me there.I do not think that there is a person on the earth that likes every single thing written in the Bible with no exceptions. This I think is a unique quality of the word of God - somewhere it steps on somebody's toes.The church, in Ephesians, is only produced by ADDING Christ to man. The church comes out of Christ being wrought into man. The church in Ephesians only comes into existence by God working the living and available Christ into men, women, and children.This is marvelous.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

No they are not. Paul teaches of the "one new man" in Ephesians and Colossians. In Philemon he demonstrates his concept of the one new man where Christ is all and in all.Philemon is a very effective demonstration in real practical life of Paul's teaching that in the "one new man" the old patterns of social oppression are nullified. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The authority is not in the husband himself. Nor is it in the employer himself. The authority is God.God establishes an order. When I submit to my employer as a Christian I do so with a regard for God as the source of order and authority.That's some people's problem. They see the person and say "Why should I have to submit to YOU ??" The Spirit filled wife, child, servant sees that God is the source of all authority.Now isn't that just what Paul (your Paul 1.0) argues in Romans 13?It is not the husband's person which is the issue. He is human. He is faulty. He is error prone. We know that. It is the concept of God as the only authority we see.The axe to insubordination is there in the New Testament. It is the old "QUESTION AUTHORITY" of the natural man which the NT gives little credence to.On the other hand husbands have to obey their wives too. If the husband does not obey his wife he doesn't know how to empathize with her.We might say that though the exhortation is for wives to obey husbands, because of the husband's love he may actually end up being in obedience to the wife more often.I have been married 36 some years. Many times I have to obey my dear wife. If I love her I have to often obey her.I don't choke on Ephesians 5 and 6. I take it in proportion to the plenery revelation of the whole Bible. And I consider my experience in a arguably successful Christian marraige of 36 years having also raised two children who are now adults.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I find it hard to apply these words to the epistle to the Ephesians. I noticed a list of some of the leading words in Ephesians in an introduction to the book:1. Grace - used 13 times
2. Spiritual and spirit - used 13 times
3. Heavenlies - used 13 times
4. Glory - used 9 times
5. Mystery - used 6 times.I don't know of any 'purely human writing' where these are leading words. When I read a statement like that I get the feeling that the person never read the book. It is hard to classify something like that 'purely human' unless the same classification applies to everything writted in any book.The subject of the book is heavenly things. I quote examples of each word.

How does the number of particular words a book uses tell us about its value?How does the words and numbers of them tell us that Paul is actually the author?The gnostic writings have some of the most transcendental and beautiful language you can imagine. If I came into this thread and started proclaiming the virtues of the gnosis based on the fact that the Gospel of Truth uses the words:perfect or pefection 26 times
Father 84 times
truth 16 timesWhat would you think of my argument? Would you be compelled to believe that it was inspired based my analysis?Would you want to look back critically as to why the early church called the people who used this book heritics?Do you think there are other reasons why people had problems with this book and rejected it from orthodox christianity?

I am not sure how important it is that I agree or disagree with this. Let me just see if I understand this and I'll ask you to respond if my characterization is inaccurate. If this is an accurate summary of what you are saying then I may have more to comment on it.1. Both Paul and Jesus, in other places, talk about submission to authority.
2. The husband is an authority to the wife on the basis that SHE accepts his desire for her to be his wife.
3. Because of this acceptance, the edicts about submission from step 1 apply and THAT is what makes Ephesians 5 concordant with Jesus and Paul elsewhere.Did I characterize that appropriatly? I am honestly just trying to reflect this back to make sure we have the same understanding of your point. Well, first of all, that reasoning probably falls into at least one of these:Historian's Fallacy
Argument from Popularity
Appeal to TraditionWho are you trying to impress with that exactly? For most of human history we had value for the idea that the earth was fixed, immobile, flat, and timeless. No matter how many thousands of years and millions of people those ideas are represented by, none of them are true.That being said. I don't recall ever making the claim that Ephesians is totally worthless. Some parts do have value on their own. For example: and Would only more Christians actually live by those words.But my point is, and continues to be, that these words are not holy. Whatever value they have is inherant in their own right. A pagan or atheist or zoroastrian could have said these exact same things couched in different religious and non-religous terms and they would have had the exact same value.The providence of Ephesians shows that it is not from God in the way that believers claim it to be. It is a product of its time, by men, and we have moved on.

Yes! You are right! Paul in Philemon is very effective in his plea to a Christian slave master to accept his slave... Paul prefaces this with a very strong statement. He says that he is EMPOWERED TO COMMAND Philemon to do this for Onesimus but that he would rather Philemon do it of his own accord: This Paul is awesome! This is an enduring example of both morality and effective leadership.How beautiful is his reasoning directed toward trying to convince Philemon to free Onesimus? Paul says he is holding back the hammer and yet he even offers to take Onesimus' debt in order to make it happen without that.How could Paul forget this eloquence when he later wrote to the Ephesians? How do you go from accept them as "no longer as a slave" and as "a beloved brother", to "Stop threatening them". I don't know how you can get more parochial than that. I also don't know how you accept this situation as legitimate LET ALONE CLAIM that Philemon is in support of Ephesians. You have it exactly backwards!Edited by Jazzns, : FormattingEdited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

Don't play stupid. You are demeaning yourself. Strawmen and bullshit. Again with the No True Scotsman fallacy? Really? That is getting really old. Show me a church that is the same as Christianity was 1800 years ago. At best you have got nothing here.