R
RachelKH
Guest
my friend on facebook has been asking some difficult questions and sking for answers – i thought maybe some of you here could help me and him think this out. thanks for reading and any insight you can give.
original post:
If government provides for your needs, who do you pray to? Who do you worship?
comments:
Everyone must submit himself to the government authority for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against God.
(Talk about a conversation stopper. Guess I’m not the only one struggling with Romans 13.)
comments:
1.Ok, I’ll bite. Generally, I believe that to pull a single verse out of context is to invite ambiguity or repurposing. That said, I wonder about the source you quoted. The message sounded funny, so I looked up the king James, which supports the idea that there is only one law, which is god’s law. The English Standard is more or less the same. Yours … looks like it may have come from the Contemporary English version, created by the American Bible Society—the same people that brought you the liberally translated Good News Bible, which was wrought in simple language so to be more easily understood by the subjects of missionaries. (If you’re interested, out the methodologies of the dynamic equivalence model of translation.) I wonder if the translators may have woven a message of obedience to govt into the verse. Anyway, have I avoided the question yet?
2. You are correct it wasn… See More’t the KJ version. The version I am reading right now is the NIV. It isn’t a word for word translation like KJ but it isn’t as thought for thought as the “Living”, if that makes sense. There are a lot of people that don’t like the Living Bible translation, I am not a big fan myself, but I haven’t read it in a long time. The NIV is a new translation that has used manuscripts much closer in date to the original text than KJ. If I remember right KJ was translated in 1600? A lot of discoveries have been found in time since its translation. Also KJ is just hard to read.
The problem I have with the passage is that if Paul was teaching submission to government why did the Romans imprison him twice and finally execute him? It doesn’t make sense that a government would kill someone teaching submission to their rule. His first imprisonment was more house arrest than a prison but the second imprisonment was no picnic. The execution wasn’t either.
3. I don’t know about any advancements in the translating of Greek to Latin to English over the past 400 years or that the texts that are the basis of recent translations are more or less literal than those used for the King James. We do know some of the translation strategies are more lenient than others, and what is interesting to me is how some of … the more other translations----both newer and older----choose to expound when others, like the King James, demand inference. For example, the comparatively vague “powers that be” in the King James are more explicitly identified as governors or authorities in other translations. For me, that’s a big part of why the King James is hard to read: It can be like lots of pronouns with unclear antecedents. My suggestion that translations like the Living Bible may subvert the gospel as it was intended may not be idiotic; on the other hand, it’s not unheard of that verses are plucked from their contexts and “interpreted” or even misquoted to serve an ulterior agenda.
All that aside, and in regard to your problem, how can we be sure his actions were interpreted by the Romans as teachings of submission to their authority when it could just as well appear that he was shoving it in their faces that they were puppets of a particular god? Leaders might be insulted by a guy who comes to town to tell them they are, in effect, powerless. They may be inclined to prove otherwise. Just a wild guess.
original post:
If government provides for your needs, who do you pray to? Who do you worship?
comments:
- i worship God and tolerate government, vote for the wisest rulers and pray earnestly for them.
- Ahh, Rach you missed the question. You have a beleif that there are needs that government can’t fill. Therefore, you are praying to someone that fills a need most important to you. However, assume government could fill all your needs. In your case you have to pretend that your needs are only earthly. Now what is the answer?
- Great question! But does that mean prayer and worship are a result of need and not love and faith? Then what about the passage “we live by faith and not by sight”? Just asking.
- no way am i worshiping the jerks in office – um, just sayin
- I think that is part of the question. Where have you put your faith & love? If not God then who or what?
Everyone must submit himself to the government authority for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against God.
(Talk about a conversation stopper. Guess I’m not the only one struggling with Romans 13.)
comments:
1.Ok, I’ll bite. Generally, I believe that to pull a single verse out of context is to invite ambiguity or repurposing. That said, I wonder about the source you quoted. The message sounded funny, so I looked up the king James, which supports the idea that there is only one law, which is god’s law. The English Standard is more or less the same. Yours … looks like it may have come from the Contemporary English version, created by the American Bible Society—the same people that brought you the liberally translated Good News Bible, which was wrought in simple language so to be more easily understood by the subjects of missionaries. (If you’re interested, out the methodologies of the dynamic equivalence model of translation.) I wonder if the translators may have woven a message of obedience to govt into the verse. Anyway, have I avoided the question yet?
2. You are correct it wasn… See More’t the KJ version. The version I am reading right now is the NIV. It isn’t a word for word translation like KJ but it isn’t as thought for thought as the “Living”, if that makes sense. There are a lot of people that don’t like the Living Bible translation, I am not a big fan myself, but I haven’t read it in a long time. The NIV is a new translation that has used manuscripts much closer in date to the original text than KJ. If I remember right KJ was translated in 1600? A lot of discoveries have been found in time since its translation. Also KJ is just hard to read.
The problem I have with the passage is that if Paul was teaching submission to government why did the Romans imprison him twice and finally execute him? It doesn’t make sense that a government would kill someone teaching submission to their rule. His first imprisonment was more house arrest than a prison but the second imprisonment was no picnic. The execution wasn’t either.
3. I don’t know about any advancements in the translating of Greek to Latin to English over the past 400 years or that the texts that are the basis of recent translations are more or less literal than those used for the King James. We do know some of the translation strategies are more lenient than others, and what is interesting to me is how some of … the more other translations----both newer and older----choose to expound when others, like the King James, demand inference. For example, the comparatively vague “powers that be” in the King James are more explicitly identified as governors or authorities in other translations. For me, that’s a big part of why the King James is hard to read: It can be like lots of pronouns with unclear antecedents. My suggestion that translations like the Living Bible may subvert the gospel as it was intended may not be idiotic; on the other hand, it’s not unheard of that verses are plucked from their contexts and “interpreted” or even misquoted to serve an ulterior agenda.
All that aside, and in regard to your problem, how can we be sure his actions were interpreted by the Romans as teachings of submission to their authority when it could just as well appear that he was shoving it in their faces that they were puppets of a particular god? Leaders might be insulted by a guy who comes to town to tell them they are, in effect, powerless. They may be inclined to prove otherwise. Just a wild guess.
