Based on the number of days that this quote has made me smile and think, I'm nominating it for "Quote of the Month". This is Eugene Peterson (the guy who wrote The Message translation/commentary) on the difference between a small group and a Christian community, in an interview with Radix magazine:
"...people say, 'Well, we take care of community by having small groups.' Well, those aren't communities - those are people you like. And, you know, a community has to have people you don't like in it."
How could not liking someone ever be positive? Isn't that a vice rather than a virtue? Maybe not, because I think Peterson means here that if you are in a Christian community with only people you find pleasant, there is definitely a problem. If you like all the Christians you know, that either means 1) you're not really getting to know people, or 2) your church intentionally or unintentionally is repelling people who are different in one way or another.
Having this perspective really takes the pressure off, especially if you're like me and you have to 'get along' with everybody. There is nothing special about loving the kind of people who love you, are similar to you, etc. If you only surround yourself with those people, how will you know that your community is based on Christ? You wouldn't, because you have built-in to your small group alot of other things on which to build community. When you are fellowshiping with people that you ordinarily wouldn't spend time with, then you can be confident that you have a real Christ-centered community. What else would bring you together?
So make sure you church has some really annoying people in it - that way you will know it's a church and not a social club!
3.26.2007
3.19.2007
Homosexuality in the Bible IV: Malakoi
[Rule number one in the blog world: blog often or people will stop reading your blog. Well, I went several weeks without a post, so I probably lost some. I actually just found out last week that people actually read this blog so now I feel bad. Much like JetBlue had to make a "Passenger Bill of Rights" a couple of weeks ago after it screwed up with all those delays, so I make a "Reader Bill of Rights": I'll post something new every week, even if its not profoudly, heretically orthodox. So please read my blog again.]
We are in the midst of searching for the unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible. We had several promising leads, although we are still without a clear text. However, I Corinthians 6:9 seems to be such a text:
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders….” (NIV)
And what could be more clear than that? Well, the picture gets murky when we use the King James Version:
“…Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, not adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind…”
And the story takes yet another twist in the English Standard Version, where the last two groups on the list are combined into one:
“…”Do not be deceived: neither the sexual immoral, not idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality…”
Why is there such intense disagreement between the translations? It is clear that Paul means to condemn some group or groups, but it is not clear which ones. The two controversial Greek words which show up in that list are malakoi and arsenokoitai. The translation difficulty stems from the fact that neither Paul not any other writer of Greek uses the words enough to discern their meaning in context.
This week we examine malakoi, which is variously translated as “the effeminate”, “male prostitutes”, and one-half of “men who practice homosexuality”. The Greeks used malakoi as an adjective to describe an object, meaning that the object was soft. So wax would be malakoi when it was hot but the opposite of malakoi when it was cold. Paul here applies it to people, and the masculine ending probably means he had men in mind. It is difficult to say what a “soft male” is or why such a person would be cast off from heaven, but it is certainly a big jump for the NIV and ESV to assert a connection to homosexuality. The KJV is the most faithful to the Greek to simply translate the word as “effeminate”. Translated this way, we can see that there is no necessary connection between softness and sexuality, as the NIV and ESV have it. “Softness” could mean many things, and I am thinking here of two Christian books I read several years ago that both denounce “soft” males: The Silence of Adam by Larry Crab, and Wild at Heart by John Elderidge. The softness described in males in those two books has no necessary connection with sexuality, and such an interpretation seems as good as any.
The NIV is bad here, but even so, we get no condemnation of homosexuality. Condemning male prostitution is no more to condemn all homosexuality than condemning heterosexual prostitution is to condemn all heterosexuality. But they do make the mysterious jump from “soft male” to “soft male in the area of sexuality”. Given the paucity of the use of this word as applied to people elsewhere in Paul’s writing (or in any Attic or Ionian works), it is hasty at best to say that here in I Corinthians 6:9 Paul is undoubtedly condemning male prostitution. This is God’s Word, and those who don’t know Greek (and that would be the vast majority of us) take a translation at face value. So translating malakoi as male prostitutes without knowing what this word actually refers to is quite dangerous. I’m sure Paul would condemn male prostitution if he had gotten around to it, but we just don’t know if he does so in this passage.
Much more dangerous is the English Standard Version, which claims to know definitively that malakoi refer to “men who practice homosexual acts”. The two words malakoi and arsenokoitai are combined by these translators as two halves of a pair, with the malakoi being the passive partner in the male sex act and arsenokoitai the active partner. It is first of all worth noting that the NIV and the ESV are in conflict on this point, because obviously the group that gets money for gay sex is not the same group as the group that plays the passive partner in the male sex act. Therefore at least one of these translations is in error, and possibly both.
Certainly, the interpretation that the male sex act is described here is possible. But this interpretation must be much more than just possible in order to condemn someone’s lifestyle. It must be definite! The question of whether malakoi are passively gay men may be an interesting dissertation topic for someone in seminary, but it has no place masquerading as Divinely-inspired truth. The truth is that we just don’t know what malakoi means. Paul never tells us, and neither does any other Greek writer. “Softness” as applied to people could mean any number of things, including the passive heterosexual male in Wild at Heart. It is a crime that the ESV should be punished for, as you have to be terribly homophobic to tell the common-folk like ourselves that Paul, in I Corinthians 6:9, condemns all homosexual behavior with malakoi, when a cursory examination of the Greek reveals the truth of our ignorance (However, I won’t be throwing away my copy of the ESV anytime soon as it is otherwise my favorite translation).
We are in the midst of searching for the unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality in the Bible. We had several promising leads, although we are still without a clear text. However, I Corinthians 6:9 seems to be such a text:
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders….” (NIV)
And what could be more clear than that? Well, the picture gets murky when we use the King James Version:
“…Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, not adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind…”
And the story takes yet another twist in the English Standard Version, where the last two groups on the list are combined into one:
“…”Do not be deceived: neither the sexual immoral, not idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality…”
Why is there such intense disagreement between the translations? It is clear that Paul means to condemn some group or groups, but it is not clear which ones. The two controversial Greek words which show up in that list are malakoi and arsenokoitai. The translation difficulty stems from the fact that neither Paul not any other writer of Greek uses the words enough to discern their meaning in context.
This week we examine malakoi, which is variously translated as “the effeminate”, “male prostitutes”, and one-half of “men who practice homosexuality”. The Greeks used malakoi as an adjective to describe an object, meaning that the object was soft. So wax would be malakoi when it was hot but the opposite of malakoi when it was cold. Paul here applies it to people, and the masculine ending probably means he had men in mind. It is difficult to say what a “soft male” is or why such a person would be cast off from heaven, but it is certainly a big jump for the NIV and ESV to assert a connection to homosexuality. The KJV is the most faithful to the Greek to simply translate the word as “effeminate”. Translated this way, we can see that there is no necessary connection between softness and sexuality, as the NIV and ESV have it. “Softness” could mean many things, and I am thinking here of two Christian books I read several years ago that both denounce “soft” males: The Silence of Adam by Larry Crab, and Wild at Heart by John Elderidge. The softness described in males in those two books has no necessary connection with sexuality, and such an interpretation seems as good as any.
The NIV is bad here, but even so, we get no condemnation of homosexuality. Condemning male prostitution is no more to condemn all homosexuality than condemning heterosexual prostitution is to condemn all heterosexuality. But they do make the mysterious jump from “soft male” to “soft male in the area of sexuality”. Given the paucity of the use of this word as applied to people elsewhere in Paul’s writing (or in any Attic or Ionian works), it is hasty at best to say that here in I Corinthians 6:9 Paul is undoubtedly condemning male prostitution. This is God’s Word, and those who don’t know Greek (and that would be the vast majority of us) take a translation at face value. So translating malakoi as male prostitutes without knowing what this word actually refers to is quite dangerous. I’m sure Paul would condemn male prostitution if he had gotten around to it, but we just don’t know if he does so in this passage.
Much more dangerous is the English Standard Version, which claims to know definitively that malakoi refer to “men who practice homosexual acts”. The two words malakoi and arsenokoitai are combined by these translators as two halves of a pair, with the malakoi being the passive partner in the male sex act and arsenokoitai the active partner. It is first of all worth noting that the NIV and the ESV are in conflict on this point, because obviously the group that gets money for gay sex is not the same group as the group that plays the passive partner in the male sex act. Therefore at least one of these translations is in error, and possibly both.
Certainly, the interpretation that the male sex act is described here is possible. But this interpretation must be much more than just possible in order to condemn someone’s lifestyle. It must be definite! The question of whether malakoi are passively gay men may be an interesting dissertation topic for someone in seminary, but it has no place masquerading as Divinely-inspired truth. The truth is that we just don’t know what malakoi means. Paul never tells us, and neither does any other Greek writer. “Softness” as applied to people could mean any number of things, including the passive heterosexual male in Wild at Heart. It is a crime that the ESV should be punished for, as you have to be terribly homophobic to tell the common-folk like ourselves that Paul, in I Corinthians 6:9, condemns all homosexual behavior with malakoi, when a cursory examination of the Greek reveals the truth of our ignorance (However, I won’t be throwing away my copy of the ESV anytime soon as it is otherwise my favorite translation).
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