As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Reprinted (with permission) from Faith Pulpit, March/April, 2010. See Part 1.
In view of these considerations, what does the phrase “she will be saved in childbearing” mean? Several views have been offered:
Reprinted (with permission) from Faith Pulpit, March/April, 2010.
The topic of a woman’s role in the church has been one of the most heated debates in contemporary Christianity. Moreover, a woman’s role in the home, as a wife and mother, is under attack in our culture. In this article, Mrs. Martha Hartog, adjunct faculty member at Faith Baptist Bible College in Ankeny, Iowa, addresses this issue with a thoughtful examination of the phrase, “she will be saved in childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:15).
In I Timothy 2:8-15 Paul focused on a woman’s role in the church as well as her role as a mother. The passage closes with these words: “Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control” (2:15).1 A brief look at its context and some grammatical matters should help us understand the meaning and importance of this verse.
Should Bible-believing Christians be politically conservative?One of the surprises of my online interactions over the last few years has been the discovery that some who take the Bible very seriously are, nonetheless, leery of political conservatism, especially in its American form.
Reprinted with permission from Doug Kutilek’s As I See It, (May, 2010) with some editing. AISI is sent free to all who request it dkutilek@juno.com.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, and Part 9.
We have seen why the imagination is important. We have also seen how imagination is not always the same thing. The moral imagination functions differently than the idyllic imagination, and both function differently than the demonic imagination.
We have also discussed the various tools that imagination has at its disposal. Memory, simple fantasy, and speculative fantasy are all aspects of recalling and rearranging images that have been stored by the mind. The primary and secondary imaginations are evaluative and expressive.
What difference does this discussion make for Christian life and ministry? I suggest that its implications are far-reaching indeed. Drawing out those implications would take a separate series of essays, but the lessons may be summarized rather briefly.
First, imagination is of paramount importance. It is the mechanism through which we understand the world. Without imagination, we would have only a collection of isolated sensations. We would not be able to correlate those sensations. We would not be able to understand the realities to which they point. Nor would we be able to grasp the order (including the moral order) of the universe.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8.
In the last couple of essays we have distinguished the primary from the secondary imagination. We have also considered one example of the imagination being exercised, William Wordsworth’s “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge.” Now I would like to examine a biblical example of the imagination in action.
The Bible is full of imaginative literature (by imaginative I do not mean “made up,” but rather “literature that makes its appeal to the imagination”). Much of Scripture is cast in the form of stories. Several biblical books are devoted exclusively to poetry, and others employ poetic forms extensively in their composition. Parts of the Bible are apocalyptic, and whatever else apocalypses may do, they appeal to the imagination (specifically, the speculative fantasy).
If we want to discuss the use of the imagination in Scripture, we find ourselves nearly stymied by an embarrassment of riches. Where shall we turn? For the present discussion, I propose to select a work that is widely known and can be easily recalled. We shall discuss the Twenty-Third Psalm.
Originally published as a single article: “Tongues—Are They for Today?,”
Discussion