You mean council as advisory group?
I ask because council can also mean decision making group.
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Meat Mystery behind 1 Corinthians 7:36-37 (virgin, daughter, betrothed or what?)
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I ask because council can also mean decision making group.
I don't know what the person you're asking intended, but I would say both. The Holy Scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments do not speak well of those who are a law unto themselves, who do what is right in their own eyes, who make so much a matter of private interpretation and refuse to be accountable to or under the authority of anyone.
It can.
Or it can simply be a misspelling of counsel when I am overtired.
Authority's root is author which means to originate and increase.
Why would anybody want someone else to decide in which direction he wants your life to go? That's nonsense.
I see so much confusion in your post.
People can decide each for themselves while sharing same moral code. Proffesional associations, fan clubs, heard of them?*
And why to be accountable unless it's in my benefit to be? Society doesn't require accountability, it requires promise keeping which doesn't any explanation to anyone in keeping promises.
In case you haven't noticed, nested decision making council are structure of soviet union. So local council answer to regional council till top. I see no reason for Bible or Lord to require any such structure.
Did you notice you can't make any personal decision inside Soviet Union? Nope, they are group based and everyone is always accountable. As story from Mao China says, peasant is forbidden to pull out his tooth without group permission.
*Shared moral code is domain specific in above cases, but can be general too. Religious groups are example.
As for why anybody would want someone else to decide in which direction they want their life to go, it isn't nonsense, it's the cost of being a Christian.
To be a Christian means to follow and endeavor to be more like Christ. We submit not because another man is infallible, but because God ordained shepherding as protection for the sheep in various spheres (familial, ecclesiastical and civil).
Patriarchs are not infallible.
Pastors are not infallible.
Presidents are not infallible.
Yet submission is commanded regardless, because our Author has delegated authority to others, and we are commanded to honor that.
So, respectfully, what's nonsense is esteeming the authority of one sphere and rejecting the authority of another.
Even Christ submitted to earthly authorities, not because they were perfect, but because the Father ordained it.
If anyone who has ever walked this Earth had the right to make their own choices and be an authority unto themselves, it was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The servants are not greater than their Master.
My friend, I would strongly encourage you to compare everything you think with what is written in the Holy Scriptures. I'm sure you mean well, but in every interaction we've had on these forums I'm noticing that you're not bringing God's Word to bear. Be a Berean (Acts 17:11) and you will be blessed.
I don't know about you, but I didn't come here to share my opinions.
I came here to be pointed to the Word and to point others to it also.
Along those lines, we're not here on Earth to simply 'advise' one another, nor are councils of elders with authority to merely offer suggestions.
Just as authority and submission are biblical concepts, reproof is a biblical command. A curse is promised in Proverbs 1:25-28 to those who will not hear reproof. Our opinions and advice have no basis for reproof because they carry no weight and have no authority.
In order for us to reprove others, we need to have a source of authority: a standard independent of you and I that we can appeal to in order to clarify doctrine, resolve disputes, etc. We do that by comparing spiritual things with spiritual, one prooftext after another, until we've done the hard work of 'seeing if these things are so'.
Same thing with exhorting. Exhorting one another daily is a biblical command. We can't do that when every man's got his own ideas, his own standards, etc., and is content to take his ball and go home whenever he finds someone with whom he disagrees. Doing so puts people on a fast track to finding themselves alone on an island talking to a volleyball.
Grace and peace. <3
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That’s very much a modern, cultural viewpoint.
Traditional cultures (not even necessarily biblical) valued being part of the extended family or tribe. All members submitted to the elders or family patriarch.
Paul’s letters very much mirrored that proposition. He describes the ecclesia as body parts all belonging to a united body. He describes roles of authority in that body akin to an extended patriarchy. The Orthodox churches still refers to their ecclesiastical leaders as patriarchs. To leave or ignore their counsel or councils is permissible, but then you leave the protection and extended fellowship of the assembly. Out of moral and biblical obligation, many Christians all over the world still hold to local, congregational authority. It’s not an alien concept. It’s older than scripture.
Yet, history of Christdom reveals something else too.
Lots of voluntary associations where every member had a veto and could veto any new potential law. Yet, Old Germanic law is that great.
Have you heard of guilds, universities, cooperatives?
Lol, why I need to submit?
I'm heir of West, Christian civilization which favours cooperation over submission.
And for those who consider my altitude Unchristian, well, I have question for you.
Medieval times were way more religious than current. So how could civilization where most people were concerned with getting in Heaven somehow miss mandatory submission for everybody? LOLOLOLOLOL
I don't this they did. I think you have forgotten second law of love. Actually, The most forgetten command.
When human reaches enough maturity, he/she starts becoming actor upon the world. It also brings usage of it's own moral code*.
It brings refusal to accept others domimion over you. So as per 2nd love command, you too have to stop desiring dominion over others.
LOL, I'm certain you didn't expect for me to invoke Jesus's command.
*And this include all of you. When you were young, others told you your moral code. Now you decide you yourself. Acrepting polygyny is deciding for yourself.
Medieval times were way more religious than current. So how could civilization where most people were concerned with getting in Heaven somehow miss mandatory submission for everybody? LOLOLOLOLOL
I don't this they did. I think you have forgotten second law of love. Actually, The most forgetten command.
When human reaches enough maturity, he/she starts becoming actor upon the world. It also brings usage of it's own moral code*.
It brings refusal to accept others domimion over you. So as per 2nd love command, you too have to stop desiring dominion over others.
LOL, I'm certain you didn't expect for me to invoke Jesus's command.
*And this include all of you. When you were young, others told you your moral code. Now you decide you yourself. Acrepting polygyny is deciding for yourself.
If Christ is smart and He is, best solution is to put into heart of person direction when Christ wants that person to go.
Why for every person and every potential issue risk running away as Jonah?
Which requires following Christ, not a man.
But we already decide for ourself. Free will, did you heard of that? Wait, is free will Lord's gift to us?
So we are as Lord able to decide for us own.
And reproof requires person A to be right and person B to be wrong. What if person A is wrong and is trying to reproof person B?
It's not so simple. And you are assuming you are right and you can be my teacher? I didn't put you into that position. Nice try.
No, it's not personal.
I'm using myself to force being concrete over speaking in generalities.
If there is no benefit for doing submission, then doing submission implies doing evil to yourself, which has zero sense.
So if nobody can provide zero benefits, case closed. Submission is nonsense.
And this matters to this forum because Bible says wife is to be submissive to her husband which implies submission must benefits wife.
Which implies good husband will provide those benefits to wife. And if husband doesn't have idea what those benefits are, he can only accidentally provide them.
Which implies good husband will provide those benefits to wife. And if husband doesn't have idea what those benefits are, he can only accidentally provide them.
Of course this all comes from your experience with your own wife right.
So you would know better than most.
I just followed common sense.
If you love someone, you would do only good things to loved ones.
So if Lord loves women, He too would want good stuff for women. And He requires submission, well submission, in general sense, would be good for women.
And good man would give his wife and children good stuff. Or do you too need Biblical qoute for this obviousness:
Luke 11:11-13
If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Even evil people give good stuff to those who love, how much more this applies to good ones?
If people here aren't willing to use common sense and apply logical chains to Biblical ideas, natural consequences are:
1) I will be only ones with interesting ideas
2) Most will feel intellectually inferior. And many will post such comments to soothe their feelings of inferiority.
If your best argument is it’s your common sense.I just followed common sense.
If you love someone, you would do only good things to loved ones.
So if Lord loves women, He too would want good stuff for women. And He requires submission, well submission, in general sense, would be good for women.
And good man would give his wife and children good stuff. Or do you too need Biblical qoute for this obviousness:
Luke 11:11-13
If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Even evil people give good stuff to those who love, how much more this applies to good ones?
If people here aren't willing to use common sense and apply logical chains to Biblical ideas, natural consequences are:
1) I will be only ones with interesting ideas
2) Most will feel intellectually inferior. And many will post such comments to soothe their feelings of inferiority.
You are the only one with interesting ideas
Everyone else is intellectually inferior
That’s not a very convincing argument
I can tell you from 30 years experience in marriage with the same woman that when you are young and have no experience everything seems simple.
In a fantasy land where every choice is either good or bad it is so simple.
However in reality when the choice on offer is bad or worse and there is no good to be seen, to lead down that road or follow in submission is not so simple.
You are not entirely wrong but neither are you right. Your being so sure of your “common sense “ is robbing you a more nuanced view.
You won’t be taken seriously until you can produce results.
In industry we have a saying;
If you can’t produce, you teach. If you can’t teach, you inspect.
As much as I thought I used to hate the debate on the details of this topic, I’d rather we argue over when marriage begins than over a personal clashes over triviality.
So, is the master in a marriage, or is it something else until he does the deed?
I am becoming more convinced that master and one flesh union aka marriage are separate things. Master is not in marriage until he does the deed. And of course a woman's husband is her master as well. Master and husband are two different roles.
I may even say that apart from commitment intercourse is marriage. And I think Tom Shipley and Martin Madan would agree with me. After intercourse failure to provide for that woman would be neglect and abandonment.
Counter to common misunderstanding of the following passage, intercourse is sufficient to establish marriage. Excerpt from Tom Shipley's book Man and Woman: A Patriarchal Manifesto They Shall Be One Flesh Part 2. (Pp 31-32)
16 And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. 17 If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.
This is the passage of Scripture which originally persuaded me of my present viewpoint. This is also a most misunderstood scripture because of the pervasive ignorance of the significance of the dowry in biblical marriages. In a footnote to Jay E. Adams’ statement cited above, Adams cites this verse as - of all things - refutation of the view that sexual relations are constitutive of marriage! Adams says that those who hold this view “study the Bible carelessly.” Apparently, Susan Foh, Gary North, James Jordan and I are all studying the Bible carelessly. Actually, it is Adams’ treatment of this text that is careless. Adams observes, “If they had to be married later, they were not married already; and if the father refused, they never would be.” But the verse does not say that “they had to be married later,” it says “he shall surely endow her to be his wife.”
Adams understands not the meaning and significance of this. This statement has reference to the dowry that ought to have been bestowed to secure the woman as a free wife. Without possessing a dowry coming into the marriage, the woman’s status is that of a servant-wife, a concubine without inheritance rights. With a dowry, she is a free woman with inheritance rights. Adams misses the significance of this stipulation
entirely! The point is that a man who seduces a woman into marriage without her father’s consent is forbidden to make a concubine out of her. She must be provided a dowry by her seducer and granted the status of a free woman. This is the biblical meaning of, “he shall surely endow her to be his wife.” The dichotomy enunciated here is not a dichotomy of “married vs. not married” but “free wife vs. servant wife.” That a marriage took place during the seduction is the very premise of this law.
It is Adams’ failure to understand the patriarchal authority bestowed by biblical law upon a father to ordain marriages for his children which prevents him from grasping this aspect of the biblical text. It is the father’s right and responsibility to arrange a marriage for his daughter. When his authority is bypassed via seduction, he has the legitimate annulment power over the marriage, that is, the right to divorce his daughter from the man who seduced her. The right to annul such a marriage in no way implies that a real marriage did not take place.
Marriage normally carries the obligation to obtain parental permission, and the loss of a daughter compensated for by payment of a bride price. This proves conclusively that the union entered into by the man and the virgin is a legitimate marriage under biblical law. If such a seduction were a sexual violation and not a marriage, then why the stipulation for the dowry? Surely, this proves that the man is to honor his marital responsibilities, something he could not logically be demanded to do if he were not in fact already deemed to be married to the virgin in question. If the father refuses to give her unto him, he still pays money according to the dowry of a virgin. By contrast, other violations under the Law are compensated for by means of “restitution” or “compensation,” but the language employed here is completely marital in nature. This law, then, is sufficient to refute the view that marriage only occurs when a verbal oath is pronounced. Clearly, no such oath occurs is a case of seduction.