Blending

Trapped · 10-06-2018, 10:49 AM

I was thinking about the word "blended" as used by Lee in the recovery version in 1 Cor. 12:24 the other day. ("...But God has blended the body together....")

Does anyone know anything about the Greek word behind it and if there is a solid reason for why Lee chose to use "blended" (besides misapplying it in the churches)? On biblehub.com, it presents a long list of translated versions of that verse, and besides a simple "put", the two most common translations for "blended" are "composed" and "tempered", both of which make way more sense to me since the surrounding verses in that passage are a comparison to a physical body. (How can an individual physical body be "blended"?!)

By contrast, when you "temper" something, you "mix it with some balancing quality or substance so as to avoid anything extreme". This fits in much better with the context of the surrounding verses which talk about comely members having no need, and less honorable, uncomely members being given more abundant honor.....this is the "tempering" (rather than a "blending") so that the lacking uncomely members are made less extreme and are brought in balance with the comely members.

Obviously the LC's fly the blending banner pretty high, "it's good to get blended with you brothers", "we are going to blend with another locality next week", "blend all our differences away", "blend all our peculiarities away", etc.... but to use the word in that way is much, much different than what is described in 1 Cor. 12:23-25, which is much more about the care and lovingkindness toward uncomely members than anything about just gathering together with people you don't normally see, or about removing individual differences.

On the other hand, is there the genuine thought of "blending" elsewhere in the Bible when talking about the many grains becoming one loaf? Or 1 Cor. 5:7a "...that you may be a new lump", Lee uses that verse to say that the grains have to be ground into fine flour (i.e. broken, i.e. blended) before we can become a loaf, etc.... Is the thought of "blending" here legit, or is the metaphor just taken too far?

I want to throw out any misapplication of the word (as I think occurred in 1 Cor. 12:24), but don't want to throw it out where it may be legitimate.

10-06-2018, 10:49 AM	#1
Trapped Member Join Date: Mar 2018 Posts: 1,523	Blending I was thinking about the word "blended" as used by Lee in the recovery version in 1 Cor. 12:24 the other day. ("...But God has blended the body together....") Does anyone know anything about the Greek word behind it and if there is a solid reason for why Lee chose to use "blended" (besides misapplying it in the churches)? On biblehub.com, it presents a long list of translated versions of that verse, and besides a simple "put", the two most common translations for "blended" are "composed" and "tempered", both of which make way more sense to me since the surrounding verses in that passage are a comparison to a physical body. (How can an individual physical body be "blended"?!) By contrast, when you "temper" something, you "mix it with some balancing quality or substance so as to avoid anything extreme". This fits in much better with the context of the surrounding verses which talk about comely members having no need, and less honorable, uncomely members being given more abundant honor.....this is the "tempering" (rather than a "blending") so that the lacking uncomely members are made less extreme and are brought in balance with the comely members. Obviously the LC's fly the blending banner pretty high, "it's good to get blended with you brothers", "we are going to blend with another locality next week", "blend all our differences away", "blend all our peculiarities away", etc.... but to use the word in that way is much, much different than what is described in 1 Cor. 12:23-25, which is much more about the care and lovingkindness toward uncomely members than anything about just gathering together with people you don't normally see, or about removing individual differences. On the other hand, is there the genuine thought of "blending" elsewhere in the Bible when talking about the many grains becoming one loaf? Or 1 Cor. 5:7a "...that you may be a new lump", Lee uses that verse to say that the grains have to be ground into fine flour (i.e. broken, i.e. blended) before we can become a loaf, etc.... Is the thought of "blending" here legit, or is the metaphor just taken too far? I want to throw out any misapplication of the word (as I think occurred in 1 Cor. 12:24), but don't want to throw it out where it may be legitimate.