Wading through the wedding rings

[Evang.Benincasa]

PART 1

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

First of all, I am not presenting any "ringless unwed doctrine".

By saying that if a woman doesn't wear the ring she looks like a unwed mother, what other choice would you give? TB, you need to think before you print.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

What I am saying as simply as I know how is that throughout the Bible, where there are covenants made, it was common for there to be a token or symbol of that covenant.

Like an anaconda bone through the nose? Scarification on a teenage boy's arms and legs to prove he entered into a covenant as a right of passage?
Young girls are circumcised in other cultures. Should we also adopt these practices into Christianity? These cultures also see them as symbols of covenants, and rights of passages, sacraments.

They're tokens within these cultures and from the 4th century AD and onward the Roman Catholic Church had adopted and baptized pagan practices into their organization to help those tribes and peoples to be absorbed into their Roman church.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

We all know that Scripture doesn't teach that we must wear a wedding ring to indicate we are married.

BIG AMEN! So would you agree that you must call the ring cultural and NOT a Christian practice. It also doesn't say in the Bible that you should wear a cross around your neck to indicate you're a Christian. Or a Christmas Tree to show that a Saviour was born into the world. Extra Biblical practices that have been handed down from the Roman Catholic Church.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

On the other hand there is no Scripture forbidding the wearing of a ring to indicate we have entered into a marriage covenant.

See what you're doing here is creating a sacrement by which you end up claiming it to be Christian in the long run. TB, you lose the right to ever make a comment against any Ultra Conservative for any pratices they may perform.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

God seems to place great emphasis upon covenants and the providing of tokens of those covenants. If as you have admitted in another post, Paul is addressing "adornments" when making reference to wearing of gold, then I don't see what your problem is with a wedding ring, which isn't being worn as an adornment, but for a purpose, in the same way one wears a watch.

The wedding ring is being chosen by some to be a religious symbol, the same as vestments of a priest, his collar, his robes, candle sticks, crosses, pine trees with jewelry on them, etc, etc.

TB, you're correct God places great emphasis upon covenants but not on traditions of men. Again you're trying to bring a wedding ring and God into the same sentence. God doesn't condone a piece of jewelry whether it is a rosary, or a cross on a chain to have anything to do with Him. Remember that He is the God that HATES Idolatry. God doesn't need idolatrous symbols; those symbols were adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, which is rife with idolatry.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

I wrote, "To me..." You highlighted the "me" and thus your quote.

I did that because it's your opinion, and therefore a judgement on your part that a wedding ring indicates marriage, when it was never part of Paul's or the early church’s vocabulary. You see TB, the wedding ring is a piece of jewelry that is used by your religion not there's.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

Yet, you choose to ignore the fact that Paul repeatedly throughout his epistles to the churches expressed "To Me" type of viewpoints. Let's examine 1Timothy 2 for example;

Verse1 "I urge......"

1Ti 2:1-2 "I EXHORT therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."

Verb: exhort ig'zort

Force or impel in an indicated direction
- urge, urge on, press

Stongs #3870

παρακαλέω

parakaleō
par-ak-al-eh'-o
From G3844 and G2564; to call near, that is, invite, invoke (by imploration, hortation or consolation): - beseech, call for, (be of good) comfort, desire, (give) exhort (-ation), intreat, pray.

Paul is NOT making suggestions to the young Evangelist Timothy, the Apostle Paul is invoking him to offer supplication and prayers for those Timothy is working and with and those in goverment.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

Verse 8 "I want...."

1Ti 2:8

"I WILL THEREFORE that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting."

In verse 8 of 1st Timothy two Greek words give you the meaning of what Paul is telling Timothy.

Strongs #1014

βούλομαι

boulomai
Thayer Definition:
1) to will deliberately, have a purpose, be minded
2) of willing as an affection, to desire
Part of Speech: verb
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: middle voice of a primary verb
Citing in TDNT: 1:629, 108

Strongs#3767
oun
oon
Apparently a primary word; (adverbially) certainly, or (conjugationally) accordingly: - and (so, truly), but, now (then), so (likewise then), then, therefore, verily, wherefore.

Again Paul is not making suggestions on what Paul feels is his opinion, but is telling the young Evangelist deliberate information that he wants the Evangelist to do and teach. Paul wasn't making this stuff up as he went along. Paul was presenting Timothy with scriptural council from the only scripture they were ever taught with and that’s the Torah. All that Jesus and His apostles taught can be traced back to Torah not Talmud (traditions of the Jews).

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

Verse 9 "I also want...."

1Ti 2:9

"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;"

I see you have been using more modern versions of the scripture to help prove your point. I would've stayed with the more traditional if I was you.
TB, you used the translation that says, "I WANT" now that is definitely not a suggestion of Paul's opinion, but it a command word. Now lets see how this sounds in the Greek.

The Textus Receptus starts this verse out with the Greek word "hōsautōs" which means to do something in the same manner, or to do it the same way.

In your Modern English translation they cut through the mustard by telling the reader that the apostle is commanding the women to keep in mind their appearance in a moderate way. They are also to be in separation unto the Lord (holiness) and that is the same as men in praise and prayer without anger in their hearts.

In Jesus Name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

[Evang.Benincasa]

PART 2

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

Verse 12 "I do not permit...."

1Ti 2:12 But I SUFFER NOT a woman to teach, NOR to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

There's is no way around this scripture Hoss, again this is not a mere suggestion from a fatherly mentor lying on a couch watching a football game. This is the apostle giving a young evangelist BIBLICAL instruction.

We know it's not Paul's own opinion because he places Biblical theroy right after his statement.

1Ti 2:13

"For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

Paul wasn't being mysigonistic in his view of church goverment. Nor was he giving his opion due to his realtionship with his mother. Paul was pulling from Torah.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

Paul is being a spiritual father and mentor and sharing his heart with Timothy on a number of issues. He is not saying God commands this or that.

TB, that's not what is happening is the letter to Timothy. Paul is an Apostle and is giving Apostolic instruction that is backed up by scriptures, and not Talmudic opinion. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because of their opinions of the scriptures and that they taught them as oracles of God.

Mat 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Paul is instructing Timothy the same way he did the Bereans.

Act 17:10-11

"And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."

You see in the first century Roman Empire teaching wasn't sitting on a chair while someone fills your head with what they felt and believed. The teaching practice was to cause the student to ask questions and through that method of searching out the truth through questioning the teacher was the student to find knowledge. Paul could not be inventing a new religion on what he felt was good behavior or practical. The apostle was giving instruction that would be able to stop the mouths of those who subverted whole houses. The apostle was taking what he learned from scripture and teaching it through the New Testament revelation.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

I am simply saying that the teaching concerning propriety in worship in 1Cor.11 was offfered up in the context of historical and traditional/cultural norms. I believe wedding rings fall into the same context. In 2007, it is the traditional/cultural reality that wedding rings are a recognized token of the marriage covenant, so why wouldn't we as Christians want to support something that has such deep meaning for married Christian couples?

Maybe you're not taking into effect what your above teaching will cause as time rolls on. This is why I brought up the agnostic Carlton Pearson in to this discussion. The agnostic Carlton Pearson presents in his book that the Bible is a history book that is filled with the writings of immature men living in an immature age. The agnostic Carlton Pearson is not teaching anything new but what he is taking his thought from is the Charismatic movement in which he was raised around. The movement that held to opinions that the apostles were only instructing the men and women who lived in the era and that modesty and issue on behavior was only for their time and culture. You see TB; there is no end to what can be speculated from that kind of liberal teaching. The Charismatic movement has shown us the new apostles and prophets, and SET MEN, who preach "fresh bread", "NEW WINE" doctrines and fill mouths of the people with fillings of gold while the preachers fill their pockets with green paper. The apostles and prophets are the foundation and Jesus is the head of the corner where the courses are measured. To say that those apostles were only throwing around their opinions to a dead far-gone culture is make the word of God of non-effect.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

Having lived in other religious cultures and seen firsthand how Roman Catholicism has incorporated paganistic practices and traditions from other religions into their faith, I fully understand what you are saying here and concur with it. However, you have chosen to interpret Paul's statement expressing his desire that Christian women not wear gold to be a command from God against wearing a wedding ring. I don't share your interpretation.

It was more than just a desire TB.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

I'm not implying that Scriptures change, but I am saying that Paul expressed his views in an historical/cultural context that is different from the historical/cultural context of 21st Century North America.

But you're implying that scriptures change. In fact that is what your students hear when you teach the above from a pulpit. It's a problematic teaching and will cause more Carlton Pearsons, Kelly Varners, Franklin Halls, and the Dr. Peter Wagners to be produced.

Originally Posted by Truly Blessed

I doubt very much that you fully embrace and practice all that Paul taught in the epistles. Like the rest of us I imagine you have chosen what you want to practice and for the rest you probably have a good discourse on why that wouldn't be relevent to you today.

TB, it sounds like you have less to embrace, but just those things that are moral and to be applied to make one a good citizen.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

[RandyWayne]

Heh. Being coronated Mr. to my Mrs. is promotion to high office!

Actually, it is all a clever ruse by the "weaker sex" to make us THINK we are being promoted....

And sorry for the "sarcasm" statement. I don't even think sarcasm is bad, but can be just so hard to tell here sometimes.... lol

[OP_Carl]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

Like an anaconda bone through the nose? Scarification on a teenage boy's arms and legs to prove he entered into a covenant as a right of passage?
Young girls are circumcised in other cultures. Should we also adopt these practices into Christianity? These cultures also see them as symbols of covenants, and rights of passages, sacraments.

They're tokens within these cultures and from the 4th century AD and onward the Roman Catholic Church had adopted and baptized pagan practices into their organization to help those tribes and peoples to be absorbed into their Roman church.

So you're saying that it is pagan to wear a wedding ring, but it isn't pagan, or even particularly religious to me! It's merely part and parcel of the civil affair of marriage.

In I Corinthians 8 Paul essentially says that pagan and idolatrous practices do not affect our relationships with inanimate objects. Titus 1:15 says
Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Somebody a long time ago may have intended wedding rings to invoke aspects of their pagan religion, but that does not make my use of one today into a pagan practice. I'm a practicing Christian! (If I practice enough, I might make rank amateur Christian!) I don't consider my ring to have any religious meaning or context at all. If I eat a BK chicken sandwich that was chanted over by a Rastafarian cook in the back, that has zero effect on me or my religious affiliation or practices.

See what you're doing here is creating a sacrement by which you end up claiming it to be Christian in the long run. TB, you lose the right to ever make a comment against any Ultra Conservative for any pratices they may perform.

I'm not sure I saw where he is doing this. I thought he was just making the claim that it is morally more proper to wear one.

The wedding ring is being chosen by some to be a religious symbol, the same as vestments of a priest, his collar, his robes, candle sticks, crosses, pine trees with jewelry on them, etc, etc.

Who uses it as a religous symbol, and in what way?

TB, you're correct God places great emphasis upon covenants but not on traditions of men. Again you're trying to bring a wedding ring and God into the same sentence. God doesn't condone a piece of jewelry whether it is a rosary, or a cross on a chain to have anything to do with Him. Remember that He is the God that HATES Idolatry. God doesn't need idolatrous symbols; those symbols were adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, which is rife with idolatry.

The concession has already been made several times that those who obsess about their jewelry are in jeopardy of practicing idolatry. Please un-leap this leap and come back to function. It's a civic declaration of status, functionally no different from a license plate.

I did that because it's your opinion, and therefore a judgement on your part that a wedding ring indicates marriage, when it was never part of Paul's or the early church’s vocabulary. You see TB, the wedding ring is a piece of jewelry that is used by your religion not there's.

This doesn't work because it's also used by people that have no religion.

Again Paul is not making suggestions on what Paul feels is his opinion, but is telling the young Evangelist deliberate information that he wants the Evangelist to do and teach. Paul wasn't making this stuff up as he went along. Paul was presenting Timothy with scriptural council from the only scripture they were ever taught with and that’s the Torah. All that Jesus and His apostles taught can be traced back to Torah.

To what part of the Torah can a blanket ban on gold wedding rings be traced?

[Truly Blessed]

Originally Posted by Evang.Benincasa

PART 2



1Ti 2:12 But I SUFFER NOT a woman to teach, NOR to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

There's is no way around this scripture Hoss, again this is not a mere suggestion from a fatherly mentor lying on a couch watching a football game. This is the apostle giving a young evangelist BIBLICAL instruction.

We know it's not Paul's own opinion because he places Biblical theroy right after his statement.

1Ti 2:13

"For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."

Paul wasn't being mysigonistic in his view of church goverment. Nor was he giving his opion due to his realtionship with his mother. Paul was pulling from Torah.




TB, that's not what is happening is the letter to Timothy. Paul is an Apostle and is giving Apostolic instruction that is backed up by scriptures, and not Talmudic opinion. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because of their opinions of the scriptures and that they taught them as oracles of God.

Mat 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Paul is instructing Timothy the same way he did the Bereans.

Act 17:10-11

"And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."

You see in the first century Roman Empire teaching wasn't sitting on a chair while someone fills your head with what they felt and believed. The teaching practice was to cause the student to ask questions and through that method of searching out the truth through questioning the teacher was the student to find knowledge. Paul could not be inventing a new religion on what he felt was good behavior or practical. The apostle was giving instruction that would be able to stop the mouths of those who subverted whole houses. The apostle was taking what he learned from scripture and teaching it through the New Testament revelation.





Maybe you're not taking into effect what your above teaching will cause as time rolls on. This is why I brought up the agnostic Carlton Pearson in to this discussion. The agnostic Carlton Pearson presents in his book that the Bible is a history book that is filled with the writings of immature men living in an immature age. The agnostic Carlton Pearson is not teaching anything new but what he is taking his thought from is the Charismatic movement in which he was raised around. The movement that held to opinions that the apostles were only instructing the men and women who lived in the era and that modesty and issue on behavior was only for their time and culture. You see TB; there is no end to what can be speculated from that kind of liberal teaching. The Charismatic movement has shown us the new apostles and prophets, and SET MEN, who preach "fresh bread", "NEW WINE" doctrines and fill mouths of the people with fillings of gold while the preachers fill their pockets with green paper. The apostles and prophets are the foundation and Jesus is the head of the corner where the courses are measured. To say that those apostles were only throwing around their opinions to a dead far-gone culture is make the word of God of non-effect.






It was more than just a desire TB.






But you're implying that scriptures change. In fact that is what your students hear when you teach the above from a pulpit. It's a problematic teaching and will cause more Carlton Pearsons, Kelly Varners, Franklin Halls, and the Dr. Peter Wagners to be produced.



TB, it sounds like you have less to embrace, but just those things that are moral and to be applied to make one a good citizen.

In Jesus name

Brother Benincasa

www.OnTimeJournal.com

I disagree with your interpretation of Scripture and do not agree with your attempt to rule out the historical and cultural context of biblical teaching. I notice that you have avoided responding to my suggestion that it's not likely that you embrace everything that Paul taught, but like everyone else have selective tendencies. You don't embrace anything more than I embrace, you just embrace different things than I embrace. I wish you well.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

Let me see ... The Father rewards the son w/

1. A kiss [not a sin]
2. A hug [not a sin]
3. His best robe [not a sin]
4. Sandals [not a sin]
5. A side a beef [not a sin]
6. A celebration [not a sin]

7. A ring .... [a one way ticket to fire and brimstone]

lol...wow. Dan got logical

[RandyWayne]

1. A kiss [not a sin]
2. A hug [not a sin]
3. His best robe [not a sin]
4. Sandals [not a sin]
5. A side a beef [not a sin]
6. A celebration [not a sin]

7. A ring .... [a one way ticket to fire and brimstone]

Perhaps a new official term needs to be coined to describe a persons tendency to pick and chose scripture to make a case. How about selectavism?

Gen 2:16
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

Gen 3:6
6And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Ex 26:4
4And thou shalt make loops of blue upon the edge of the one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling; and likewise shalt thou make in the uttermost edge of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.

After all, doesn't the above scripture plainly teach us to "Eat Fruit Loops"?

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by OP_Carl

A thousand pardons, bro. I missed your earlier performance. Give me a pointer and I'll peruse it.

This is the thread. We wore this topic out. Epley and I went around a few times
http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com...ighlight=jewel

[OP_Carl]

Not to toss another pork chop into the gator pit, or anything, but:

Which produces the greater "appearance of evil?"

Recognizing that even though the bible says not to adorn ourselves with gold, most sinners are ignorant of this passage, and the wearing of one simple, non-ostentacious, gold wedding ring?

Or allowing the stupid world, which we are theoretically attempting to reach via the gospel we show them through our overcoming lives, to make the assumption that single motherhood is over-represented among "holiness" women?

[Praxeas]

The problem is that the people that use this passage to say no ornaments at all say we must take it literally. But then they hedge on that when you point out a literal interpretation only means no gold or pearls....only women can't and braiding hair is a sin?

So men can wear gold and pearls...women can wear silver and diamonds....and are going to hell if they braid their hair....

On this issue of braiding
Of plaiting (ἐμπλοκῆς)
Only here in New Testament. Compare 1Ti_2:9. The Roman women of the day were addicted to ridiculous extravagance in the adornment of the hair. Juvenal (“Satire,” vi.) satirizes these customs. He says: “The attendants will vote on the dressing of the hair as if a question of reputation or of life were at stake, so great is the trouble she takes in quest of beauty; with so many tiers does she lead, with so many continuous stories does she build up on high her head. She is tall as Andromache in front, behind she is shorter. You would think her another person.” The hair was dyed, and secured with costly pins and with nets of gold thread. False hair and blond wigs were worn.

---------------
So it seems what they were speaking about was the extravagant way these women weaved gold and other items into their hair and piled it on higher and higher....not just to look nice but it was a contest.

Interesting...don't we have some Pentecostal ladies with the same attitude anyways in how long their hair is or how they do their do?

I've seen very conservative women too not only wearing pins in their hair but selling them...they look like ornaments to me. They also wear broaches too.