Ain't No Grave

The posthumously released sixth volume of Johnny Cash's American Recordings series has been reviewed widely, and I've no intention of attempting my own critique. However, I do want to mention something I find extremely odd. Every review I've heard or read, including this sympathetically Christian one at the First Things website, has been compelled to pick and choose among the tracks, evaluating some as more wanting than others. This, I believe, misses the point entirely.

Of all the American Recordings, Aint' No Grave is most obviously to be listened to as an album. Taken in isolation, several of the songs are rather weak, and one might argue they should never have been released. But that's only if they are taken in isolation. Listened to as a whole, each track is a piece of a larger artistic statement about death and the inevitability of resurrection. While there is no "When the Man Comes Around" on this one, it may be the best album of the entire series.

Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: page 40

Footnote 1 offers this definition of the fear of God from Calvin's 1537 Instruction in Faith: "The gist of true piety does not consist in a fear which would gladly flee the judgment of God, but… rather in a pure and true zeal which loves God althogether as Father, and reveres him truly as Lord, embraces his justice and dreads to offend him more than to die."

Calvin's Institutes, Battles edition: pages 37-38

"Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self," especially spritually. "For, because all of us are inclined by nature to hypocrisy, a kind of empty image of righteousness in place of righteousness itself abundantly satisfies us." That is, without God as our straightedge, we cannot properly measure or evaluate ourselves or our holiness.

I am not making this up

I just moments ago received an unsolicited e-mail from "Leadership Nexus," promoting its "Workable Evangelism." It cited this testimonial from a Lutheran (!) pastor:

The theological premise is simply that if we are made in the image of God, and God is first attested as creator, then part of our image must be creativity. The pragmatic premise is something that I have been talking about since even before coming to Florida: why can’t we in the church be as welcoming as Mickey Mouse?

Speakers at this event included those theologians and church growth experts that you might expect, even a former pastor from the Crystal Cathedral. But most interestingly, it included professionals from the theme park industry from right next door in Orlando.

At first, I wondered whether the sender knew he was e-mailing the Presbyterian Curmudgeon. But then I realized the sender was likely one of you who have been complaining that I haven't posted much of late.

Translating the end of 1 Corinthians 7

My most recent post was written a number of years ago as an appendix to a larger work on the emancipation of minors. I posted it here because I'm preaching 1 Corinthians 7:31-40 this coming Sunday evening (April 25, 2010, in case my biographers were wondering). Thus, I should say that my preferred English version for the whole of 1 Corinthians 7:25-40 is the New International Version because the translators clearly favor the exegetical view I set forth in said most recent post (which, for the sake of those biographers, I note is heavily influenced by Gordon Fee's New International Commentary), although it thinks the virgin is getting too old. Of even greater interest is that the NIV consistently translates "virgin" as "virgin," unlike any other modern translation I can find. (They do paraphrase "his" as "engaged," but that's because they're trying to make an obscure meaning clear). So, for once, the NIV is the most literal translation available in English.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, all you "essentially literal" versions.

The Relevance of 1 Corinthians 7:36-38 to Requiring a Woman to Always Be Under Visible Male Headship

For 1 Corinthians 7:36-38, the New American Standard Bible has

But if any man thinks that he is acting unbecomingly toward his virgin daughter, if she is past her youth, and if it must be so, let him do what he wishes, he does not sin; let her marry. But he who stands firm in his heart, being under no constraint, but has authority over his own will, and has decided this in his own heart, to keep his own virgin daughter, he will do well. So then both he who gives his own virgin daughter in marriage does well, and he who does not give her in marriage will do better.

It is not uncommon to see this passage cited by those who wish to argue a woman ought never live independently, under her own authority, but must always be under the headship of a husband or a father.

Unfortunately, the NASB translation here is probably not the best. Those familiar with its presentation style know italicized words have been inserted into the text to “smooth it out.” The word “daughter” does not appear in 1 Corinthians 7:36-38, and so one need not necessarily conclude the “man” under discussion is the virgin’s father. Consequently, the Apostle Paul may very well not be discussing the question of when to give one’s daughter in marriage.1 Instead, he is probably addressing the situation of a man who is deciding whether to marry the woman to whom he is engaged.

An extremely literal rendering of the first half of verse 36 would read, “But if someone thinks he is behaving indecently concerning his virgin, if hyperakmos....” Hyperakmos is a compound word, an adjective found only here in all of ancient literature. Grammatically, it could be describing either the man or his virgin. Akme refers to the highest point of something, and in reference to women often meant sexual maturity. Hyper has either a temporal (“beyond”) or an intensive meaning (“exceedingly”). Thus, if this passage was addressed to a father, hyperakmos would be describing his daughter as “getting along in years.” If it were describing a young man contemplating marriage, it would mean “having strong passion.”

The latter understanding is favored by the phrase at the end of verse 36, “Let them marry.” Though the NASB has the singular “Let her marry,” this option has weak support in the Greek manuscripts. The “father interpretation” leans almost entirely on the verb gamizo in verse 38, which elsewhere in the New Testament means “to give in marriage,” as distinguished from gameo, “to marry.” In classical Greek, -izo and -eo verbs were distinctly either transitive or intransitive. By Paul’s day, however, that distinction had broken down, and gameo and gamizo may very well have been synonyms for “to marry.”

The question then becomes which of the two scenarios (father allowing his daughter to marry or a man contemplating marrying his fiancee) Paul was most likely to address. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul is speaking to married and single persons about their marriages and whether they should marry. Leaving aside the verses we are examining, he throughout addresses the actual or prospective husbands and wives directly, always assuming they are immediately responsible for their decisions and conduct. He also very strongly states that those with strong sexual desire ought to marry (1 Cor 7:1-9). Therefore, it would be very strange for him to begin addressing the fathers of virgins when he has previously only addressed the parties to be married themselves. Moreover, he would be contradicting his previous statement in 1 Corinthians 7:9 if he were to say a father has the right to deny marriage to his daughter when she desires to marry and has reached sexual maturity.

Therefore, the English Standard Version seems to have the better translation of 1 Corinthians 7:36-38.

If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes; let them marry- it is no sin. But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.

If the English Standard Version is correct, then 1 Corinthians 7:36-38 has nothing to say about the headship of fathers over daughters. Even were one to prefer the NASB translation, our text proves only that a woman is under her father’s authority until she marries. It does not prove marriage is the only way by which she may leave her father’s authority.

Given that the evidence for the NASB translation is less than compelling, one cannot from this one text build a conclusive argument that a woman must always be under the headship of either a father or a husband. As no other text or compilation of texts proves the case, one must ultimately conclude Scripture does not require that position.

A father's cruciform manifesto: 10 (conclusion)

“Do you think that your fathers are watching? That they weigh you in their ledgerbook? Against what?”

I do think that. I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, by my fathers and their fathers. I am burdened by their example and witness and standard they set. But they cannot weigh me in their ledgerbook.

Instead, I must reckon with God. And “who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Therefore, “as it is written, ‘For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’” (Romans 8:33-34, 36)

Christ, who condemns me and so was condemned for me, has invited me to make up in my flesh that which is yet lacking in his sufferings for the sake of a few of his sheep. For his sake, and not to satisfy the law of my fathers’ example or, worse, one of my own devising, I am killed all day long and my sinful flesh is put to death. Because of his grace and compassion, he has begun forming me in the shape of his Cross, granting me a cruciform identity. In my children, I have found my cross, and in my cross I have found the comfort, peace, joy, and inestimably strange and wonderful privilege of the imitation of Christ my Savior.

A father's cruciform manifesto: 9

Along with salvation from sin, the Gospel is the story of how God glorifies himself. We cannot attain glory by pursuing glory, but by dying. Christ died and was raised again in glory. We will die and be raised with Christ into everlasting glory. God grants glory as a free gift to those who have died to self and glory by giving up themselves and, by the Spirit, being entirely identified with Christ. We must be crucified with Christ in order to be raised and glorified with him.

Heresy, no doubt, seems an extreme label. But what label do the perversions we make of the Gospel deserve? And we do pervert the Gospel, bending and twisting it so we can use it to mask our own agendas. What we each are looking for is what Martin Luther called a theology of glory, a way to avoid the Cross we are supposed to be taking up. To refuse the Cross is to pursue glory under a Christian guise, and that is disobedience, sin, doctrinal error, and heresy.

And, like all heresies, it is a self-defeating project. Heresies bloom and flourish for a time, but eventually die away. Without the vivifying presence of the Holy Spirit, they cannot sustain themselves over the long term. The present excitement over “family-integrated” Churches and reclaiming the culture through homeschooling, like other recent theologies of glory such as theonomy or the Moral Majority, will shortly fade away. What will endure is the Church and the Gospel of the Cross she proclaims.

Parenting will also endure, of course, but only for a little while. As an artifact of this present age, it will last just as long as this age does. What each Christian parent must decide is whether their children are to be their legacy or the Church’s, whether they are here for Christ’s glory or their own, whether they will use their time in this present age to serve the age to come. That choice, it seems to me, makes all the difference between whether you put a new law, a law of your own devising, on your children, or open up for them a door to enter into the grace of God made known through God’s crucifixion.

The law kills, and the Gospel gives life. Either your children die for your sake, your glory, or you die for your children’s sake. Either glory or the Cross, the imitation of Christ or the false glory of a world which is passing away. Either you lead them to the city which has foundations, or you try to make them sink foundations into the sand of this world.

We must decrease that Christ might increase, and we decrease just as John the Baptist did: by recognizing the cross which God has set before us and taking it up so Christ might be glorified by our passing away.

A father's cruciform manifesto: 8

Not especially foster parents (although I stand in awe of those who are), but parents. I am angry at those who sign up their children to be culture warriors, and in fact tend to think their world-conquering fantasies aren’t just delusional but heretical. Our children are not our possessions. Like the rest of the creation, they’re God’s possession, and we are not even stewards of their lives. We are their servants. We serve them hand and foot as babies and children, we are at their beck and call throughout adolescence and early adulthood, and we live to hear our masters’ voices every moment thereafter. This is our cross: this is the death to self we gladly embrace.
Count it all joy, my brethren. How could you not?