Quote:
Originally Posted by Oregon
This statement is simply biased logic by you Igzy. You oppose one church in a city and so you read it this way and present it to us in a way that sounds authoritative.
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Oregon, I really like you. I think you are a good guy. But what is this now, the third time, you've called into question my character?
So I'm biased and you are not? I see. You are purely dividing the word, but I'm applying my own logic because... you say I am? Whatever.
Sorry, but you need to realize that in fact you just
might be as biased as you think I am. And the fact that your first instinct is usually to attack my motives as somehow base is evidence that you are.
If you'd like to continue this discussion, let's do so. But let's respect each other's opinion and not attack each other's motives, okay? I might just have a point that the Lord wants you to hear, you know?
I don't think your explanation of Romans 16:1-5 is anything you came up with on your own. You seem to be simply repeating the standard LC interpretation, right down to the archaic use of the phrase "these dear ones." So, as far as that goes you really didn't have to think much about your reply, you just repeated what you've been told to believe.
I have no problem with your explanation of Paul's reason for greeting Prisca and Aquilla, Oregon, but regardless of how precious they were, the fact is if someone is already greeting the church he wouldn't tell the hearer to greet the church right in the middle of the greeting.
Suppose you were writing to a family gathering and wrote:
"Greet Aunt Suzy and Uncle Joe, and greet Grandpa and Grandma, and greet the family in Grandma's kitchen, and greet Tom and Sally and Cousin Eugene."
Now if would be unreasonable to expect readers to realize that you meant that "family in Grandma's kitchen" includes Suzy, Joe, Grandpa, Grandma, Tom, Sally and Eugene. Yet this is what you expect us to think Paul meant in Romans.
In fact, most readers would think that the "family in the kitchen" was either a subset of the family or a different family. Grandma is pretty precious as well, but it's still unreasonable to think because she's so precious that therefore the family in the kitchen includes the entire family.
You talked about bias, Oregon. But I think interpreting the four mentions of houses churches in the NT, in Romans, 1 Cor, Colossians, and Philemon as necessarily city churches reflects a bias toward city churches so strong that it must subsume all evidence to the contrary.
I say the New Testament authorizes city churches and house churches, and so gives freedom on how to meet. I meet with a group which does not meet on the ground of locality, yet we receive all believers and have Christ as our center, and I know we are a CHURCH. If you don't think so, I think that shows you have a divisive bias, not me.
Ask yourself, if we are not a church, and are divisive, then why is the Lord so much with us. Why is he blessing us so much?