The Narrow Gate: Day 47 - The Sexual Nature of the Church

The Narrow Gate

Welcome to the continuation of my blog, post-seminary. Ministry and evangelism have brought me back home to Chattanooga. I welcome your company on my journey.

The original blog, Down In Mississippi, shared stories from 2008 and 2009 of the hope and determination of people in the face of disaster wrought by the hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, of work done primarily by volunteers from churches across America and with financial support of many aid agencies and private donations and the Church. My Mississippi posts really ended with the post of August 16, 2009. Much work, especially for the neediest, remained undone after the denominational church pulled out. Such is the nature of institutions. The world still needs your hands for a hand up. I commend to you my seven stories, Down in Mississippi I -VII, at the bottom of this page and the blog posts. They describe an experience of grace.

Friday, January 25, 2013

Day 47 - The Sexual Nature of the Church

This is actually yesterday's (Thursday) post.

In day 36, "Val" posted a comment quoting various parts of the Revelation according to John that claims that the church is a woman (see Revelation 12 ) although Val may object to my reading since this is the NRSV translation not the KJV translation.

I will ignore the fact that the KJV is an English translation of original and secondary language sources and the translation reflects in many places a poorly rendered translation of Greek and Hebrew. What I mean to say is the KJV is a novel and useful translation that reveals quite erroneous rendition of certain Greek descriptions of the Biblical circumstances when good Greek and Hebrew scholarship is applied.

Val also seems not to appreciate how the symbolic and metaphoric language interplays with the literal.

This passage (Rev 12) describes a woman giving birth to a son who was snatched away and taken to God. While Val suggests this passage indicates the "church" gave birth (a symbolic interpretation); it is a more reasonable reading to conclude the woman is a personification of Israel, especially if we read Isaiah 62 where Israel is personified as a woman taken as God's bride.

Thus it is more reasonable to conclude that the passage in question refers to Israel from whom Christ is born (literally, he was a Jew). Of course this does require a figurative reading of both citations, something our more conservative friends might be loathe to do. Nevertheless, Val seems to be making a point about the prominence of women in our religious history and future. I would whole-heartedly agree that women are an essential focus or part of the Church in both ministry, teaching and pastoral care, but Val seems to be confusing a symbolic analogy of the relationship of the Church to God as a man to a woman, with a literal one.

I would think that any of us who experience a deep, loving relationship with a spouse would appreciate this powerfully exquisite metaphor of the relationship of God to humanity.

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Gates

The gate pervades the Good News. Peter entered the temple gate after the Jesus’ arrest to deny him. Poor Lazarus lay at the rich man's gate, longing for the crumb's from the table, while dogs licked his sores. The blind, lame and paralyzed lay at the Sheep Gate at the Jerusalem temple waiting at the pool with five porticoes for healing water. Jesus warned of the easy road and wide gate to material ease and spiritual destruction and calls us to the hard road and narrow gate to the waters of life.

necessary disclaimer

This blog is created solely to communicate to my brothers and sisters how one person sees adversity bringing out the greater character of humanity. It's early part relating connection to the volunteer relief effort in Mississippi after Katrina and later work with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Program and the Presbyterian Church(USA) is solely through my participation in them; this blog does not carry any sponsorship from these fine organizations or purport to speak for them. All original content is that of the writer who holds the copyright to all original writings and art or other works (See Creative Commons License above). Every effort is made to identify content from other sources which have been obtained from open internet sources. It's more recent content contains sermons and lessons used in preaching and teaching. The url to scripture are obtained via http://bible.oremus.org unless otherwise indicated.

Texts quoted from oremus bible viewer are from "New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved." and "New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved."