scholarly journals Macht, onmacht en volmacht in 1 Timoteüs 2:8−15

2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Rob Van Houwelingen

Power, powerlessness and authorised power in 1 Timothy 2:8−15.Thinking in terms of ecclesiastical power has often found a breeding ground in the Pastoral Epistles. To what extent is this justified? This article will examine a passage that always comes up when the position of women in the church is discussed: 1 Timothy 2:8−15. Consecutively, three aspects will be considered: power, powerlessness and authorised power. Power says something about the underlying problem that Timothy faced: the male or female relationships in the church of Ephesus threatened to degenerate into a power struggle. Powerlessness refers to the story of Adam and Eve referred to in verses 13−15. Its focus is the woman, Eve. The book of Genesis tells the story of human weakness, which becomes in the first letter to Timothy a sort of triptych about Eve and the Creation, Eve and the Fall and Eve and the Redemption. Authorised power is the way Paul tries to regulate the problematic situation in the congregation with apostolic rules. Not only because he wants something (βούλομαι) or because he does not allow something (οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω) , but also in particular to create space for the faithful Word.

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-185
Author(s):  
P.H.R Van Houwelingen

Thinking in terms of ecclesiastical power as a negative force has often found a breeding ground in the Pastoral Epistles. To what extent is that justified? This article examines a passage that always comes up when the position of women in the church is discussed: 1 Timothy 2:8−15. Three aspects will be considered consecutively: power, powerlessness, and authorised power. Power says something about the underlying problem that Timothy faced: the male/female relationship in the Ephesian congregation threatened to degenerate into a power struggle. Powerlessness refers to the story of Adam and Eve mentioned in verses 13−15. The Genesis narrative recounts human weakness, which in 1 Timothy becomes a sort of triptych about Eve and creation, Eve and the fall, and Eve and redemption. Authorised power is the way in which the problematic situation in Ephesus was regulated with apostolic authority, to create space for the trustworthy Word. Paul’s instructions about the behaviour of women could nowadays easily be considered a kind of misogynistic power play. However, the apostle should be interpreted on his own terms. This is true both for his social context and for his missionary drive. KEYWORDS: power, man, woman, congregation, Paul


Author(s):  
Johan Buitendag

Marriage, according to Martin Luther, is an institution both secular and sacred. It is secular because it is an order of this earthly life. But its institution goes back to the beginning of the human race and that makes marriage sacred, a divine and holy order. It does not – like the sacraments – nourish and strengthen faith or prepare people for the life to come; but it is a secular order in which people can prove faith and love, even though they are apt to fail without the help of the Word and the sacrament. The author applies this view of Luther in terms of two unacceptable extremes: the creation ordinances of Brunner and the analogy of relation of Barth. The dialectic of Law and Gospel should never be dispensed. Marriage is necessary as a remedy for lust, and through marriage God permits sexual intercourse. Similar is the allegory which Paul employs: that Adam and Eve, or marriage itself, is a type of Christ and the church.


2002 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 13-33
Author(s):  
Carol Harrison

Any description of man’s ideal state tells us a lot about the culture, society, and character of its author. Early Christian writers, as one might expect, tended to turn to Scripture, to the authoritative account in the book of Genesis of God’s creation of man and woman and of their life in the garden of Eden, in order to define their conception of the ideal life. There they discovered what to us, and perhaps to them, seems a rather strange, alien portrait of the life of two celibate naturists, at ease in a luxuriant garden which provided for all their needs. By some obscure and generally unspecified means, the Church fathers thought Adam and Eve were to be the founder members and originators of a society which, on condition it obeyed one simple rule, would become an immortal society.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-472
Author(s):  
Alexandra Palantza

Abstract The Book of Genesis offers not only to Israel but also to its neighbors the reason for their existence1. In western theological thought, W. Eichrodt’s Theology of the Old Testament and Cl. Westermann’s Commentary on Genesis are two of the most important works, which are distinguished because of their method and the expression of their theological perspectives on the topic “creation narratives”. In contrast to Western theologians, Greek-Orthodox Theologians inherited their tradition of interpretation from the Church Fathers. Eastern Theology has seen the topic of interpreting the Bible as an unbreakable whole, containing God’s word and action for the salvation of humankind. Any differences between them are caused by another perspective and ecclesiastical tradition.


2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abiola I. Mbamalu

In 1 Timothy 2:11–15 women are forbidden to teach and have authority over men in the church. The ground for this instruction is the creation account in Genesis 2 that asserts the priority of Adam over Eve in the order of creation. The second reason for the instruction is the deception of Eve according to the account of the Fall in Genesis 3. This pericope has elicited arguments between advocates of egalitarianism and complementarianism revolving over the issues of grammar, the context of the Ephesian church with regard to false teachings and the comparison of this text with the other writings of Paul, for those that subscribe to the authorship of Paul. The contention of this article is that verse 15 provides a major clue as to how this text should be understood. In addition, the author’s rhetoric in this text is interrogated with regard to the text’s own internal literary and theological logic. In this regard, the author is found to be inconsistent in his outlook, for the grace that was poured out abundantly on him: a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man and on account of his ignorance andunbelief (1 Tm 1:12–16) is apparently, being denied women on account of Eve’s deception.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-168
Author(s):  
Andrew Tobolowsky

Scholars are increasingly aware of the dynamic nature of the interaction between the nine-chapter-long genealogy that begins the book of Chronicles and its source material. However, little attention has been paid to the role this interaction might have played in the creation of some key biblical ideas, particularly in the “eponymous imagination” of the tribes as literally the sons of Jacob. Through comparison with scholarly approaches to the pseudo-Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and an investigation into the ramifications for biblical studies of ethnic theory and historical memory on the fluidity of ethnicity and memory over time, this article seeks to reassess the dynamic power of the Chronicles genealogy as an ethnic charter for the elites of Persian Yehud. Focus on the distinctive imagination of Israel in the crucial narratives in the book of Genesis, as compared with narratives elsewhere in the primary history, and the contributions of the Chronicles genealogy to their redefinition, allows us to address the Bible’s dependence upon the lens the Chronicles genealogy imposes upon it.


Author(s):  
Émile Zola

‘I really don't understand how people can blame a priest so much, when he strays from the path.’ The Sin of Abbé Mouret tells the compelling story of the young priest Serge Mouret. Striving after spiritual purity and sanctity, he lives a life of constant prayer, but his neglect of all physical needs leads to serious illness, followed by amnesia. No longer knowing he is a priest, he falls in love with his nurse Albine. Together, like a latter-day Adam and Eve, they roam through an Eden-like garden called the ‘Paradou’, seeking a forbidden tree in whose shade they will make love. Zola memorably shows their gradual awakening to sexuality, and his poetic descriptions of the luxuriant and beautiful Paradou create a lyrical celebration of Nature. When Serge regains his memory and recalls his priestly vows, anguish inevitably follows. The whole story, with its numerous biblical parallels, becomes a poetic reworking of the Fall of Man and a questioning of the very meaning of innocence and sin. Zola explores the conflict between Church and Nature, the sterility of the Church and the fertility of Nature. This new translation includes a wide-ranging and helpful introduction and explanatory notes.


2012 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gopolang H. Sekano ◽  
Maake J. Masango

This article addresses the overwhelmingly negative experience and feeling of some men who serve under female leaders in the church. They claim to feel degraded and traumatised by the experience of being led by women. They also claim that their patriarchal culture and religion is defied by such actions and laws of equality that encourage female leadership. They substantiate their views by quoting 1 Corinthians 14:34−35 and 1 Timothy 2:12−14 in addition to a Setswana proverb, �Tsa etelelwa pele ke e namagadi di wela ka lengope� [those who are led by a female leader fall into dongas]. In the light of this situation an intensive study regarding the need for an egalitarian concept and constructive interpretation of Bible passages, Setswana proverbs and idioms regarding the inevitability of female leadership is paramount to people who have an androcentric concept of religion and culture.


Author(s):  
Adam Mohr

The goal of this chapter is to explain how healing and deliverance practices were instituted in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG). The first half of this chapter examines the PCG’s initial transformation, which was driven by three factors: the decision by the leadership to introduce healing practices into the church, the creation of the Bible Study and Prayer Group to manage the afflicted within congregations, and the influence of two parachurch organizations. The second half of this chapter focuses on Catechist Ebenezer Abboah-Offei, who since 1996 has been leading Grace Presbyterian Church in Akropong, the primary site of healing and deliverance practices within the PCG. With regards to Abboah-Offei, this chapter describes how he came to teach and practise deliverance and the process by which Grace Presbyterian was established. Finally, this chapter describes the various healing and deliverance activities that occur at Grace Presbyterian Church.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Shanthini Pillai ◽  
Bernardo E. Brown

This article examines the emergence of the Catholic Church in Malaysia and Singapore in the modern period through an exploration of the Apostolic Vicariate of Western Siam (1841–1888). The establishment of this Catholic institution—a temporary territorial jurisdiction in missionary regions that precedes the creation of new dioceses—was key to advancing the transition of the Church from its older colonial model towards a modern national Church. Focusing on the work conducted by French missionaries of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (mep) over these five decades, we analyze the process of developing a local clergy and setting up the socio-cultural scaffolding of the contemporary Catholic Church in the Malay Peninsula. We pay special attention to howmepmissionaries skilfully navigated their missionary activities through encounters with Malay rulers and British colonial officers to secure the creation of a Catholic elite independent of the PortuguesePadroado. Our argument suggests that the apostolic vicariate and the dynamism of the Frenchmepmissionaries in colonial Malaya opened up the pathway for the rise of the ethnic Catholic elites in modern-day Malaysia and Singapore.


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