Acts 13:48 (Periphrastic Construction)

[_darin-houston]

What follows is more of a rhetorical question since I don't want to detract from the present discussion. Though I would love to discuss it if you want to start a new thread.

I have often wanted a Calvinist to explain to me how a believer has more power to resist the Holy Spirit's leading in my walk of Holiness in trying to walk in the Spirit than does a non-believer who is responding to the gospel. Shouldn't I be in a better position with a softer heart to hear and respond to the Spirit than the unregenerate ? Why would regeneration be the only place where the Spirit can "fail" (to use a Calvinistic disparagement).

Sorry, I don't understand the question at all. Maybe you can rephrase it?

Hmm -- the Calvinist suggests that the unregenerate is totally incapable of responding to or rejecting the Gospel. In this query, I'm not really discussing the capability to respond (Total Depravity) but instead the ability to reject (Irresistable Grace). I am ashamed to say I am consciously aware of times far too frequent to confess that I am not always walking in the Spirit and make decisions that upon reflection were against the influence of the Spirit in my life. Unless I am unique in this respect, then this is either evidence of a lack of regeneration (which I refuse to accept) or is evidence that even the regenerate is "capable" of rejecting the influence of the Holy Spirit. If a regenerated (though not completely sanctified) believer can reject the Spirit, then why is it that one would deny the ability of an unregenerate person to reject the Spirit's leading towards salvation.

In other words, is the Spirit only irresistable in "saving" a person than in leading a person to holiness / sanctification? Which would you say the bible would indicate God was more interested in doing for His glory? (making sure some elect group of unregenerate live in eternity? or helping the regenerated to live a life that is holy and reflects positively as a witness for Him ?)

Another personal experience that informs my theology is the reality that virtually every time God has done a great work in my life besides regeneration He has seemed to "WAIT" for me to surrender to Him and He has let my poor choices and the consequences inform my surrender. Once I do surrender, in virtually every area of my life He has been there to supernaturally take over, but He does seem to wait for me (though certainly exerting pressure and leading). It's not that He waits for me to "DO THE THING," but He does seem to wait for me to "TURN TO HIM" in my heart and will in the doing. As a strictly practical matter, why do you think God would work differently in regeneration ?

I have started a new thread for this question.

http://www.wvss.com/forumc/viewtopic.php?p=31127

[Guest]

It was quite a blessing. The discussions were good, but the most amazing part was the fact that we had a household full of otherwise strangers who were united in their love for Christ and His body. It was like a family reunion and I hope we do it again before too very long.

We agree!!

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Darin, that is an awesome question! I have never thought about it like that before.

[Josephmers]

The problem with that is you are the one "deciding" to go somewhere. Luke in the paraphrastic pluperfect uses the word τεταγμένοι that HE never uses anywhere else to convey a reflexive understanding without the reflexive pronoun.

You have to use the word the way the author intended it, and the way to see how he intended it is to look how he uses it everywhere else. First in the book where the verse is in question and then other books that the author also wrote, then how it is used by other authors.

Nowhere is τεταγμένοι used in the paraphrastic pluperfect construction in the whole Bible.

They where ordained, it is in the passive. The ordination was done to them and the text is restricted by "WHEN they heard THIS" and can not refer back to any previous action.

[Guest]

J.Edwards,

You wrote:

They where (sic) ordained, it is in the passive. The ordination was done to them and the text is restricted by "WHEN they heard THIS" and can not refer back to any previous action.

So you are saying they were ordained/appointed/disposed when they heard Paul say that his message of salvation was for them? So they passively listened to Paul's preaching and the power of the gospel opened their hearts to believe? This is what I have contended for all along: the Spirit works with the word.

[Josephmers]

You are using incorrect syntax. The listening is active. They were the ones listening. The one who DID the ordination was God. There isn't anything about the "spirit working the word". It is simply saying that as many as were "ordained" to eternal life believed. The exegesis is quite clear, it says what it means, as many as (a certain number) were ordained (they were set in place, with the pluperfect a better translation is 'preordained' because it was BEFORE the believing) and the goal or purpose for that ordaining was eternal life (thus salvation). All of this is an embedded clause which QUALIFIES the believing not hearing.

The English translation loses the emphasis of the Greek. The word order in the Greek goes like this (in it's most wooden form)

"And trusted as many as were having been set in order to life eternal."

If you know grammar it is quite easy to understand that those who trusted (at the front of the sentence) were qualified or "described" by the embedded following clauses "as many as were ordained"; and then the word TO which in the Greek is VERY important. it is εἰς which denotes a "goal or purpose", the goal of the ordaining was eternal life.

In a laymans translation it would go like this

"The ones who believed were the ones already appointed to eternal life"

[Guest]

The exegesis is quite clear, it says what it means, as many as (a certain number) were ordained (they were set in place, with the pluperfect a better translation is 'preordained' because it was BEFORE the believing) and the goal or purpose for that ordaining was eternal life (thus salvation).

That's fine. Again I ask, show me from the text that this ordaining/appointing/disposing did not occur at Paul's preaching at the synagogue the previous Sabbath.[/u]

[Guest]

If you know grammar it is quite easy to understand that those who trusted (at the front of the sentence) were qualified or "described" by the embedded following clauses "as many as were ordained"; and then the word TO which in the Greek is VERY important. it is εἰς which denotes a "goal or purpose", the goal of the ordaining was eternal life.

In a laymans translation it would go like this

"The ones who believed were the ones already appointed to eternal life"

JE, are you an expert in Greek grammar? Or are you making these affirmations as a disciple of Mr. White? I have studied Greek for several years, and I do not see that the text necessitates your "layman's translation".

Here is what Greek expert Henry Alford D.D., wrote about the passage in his great work Alford's Greek Testament Volume II, pp. 153,154. [Note: I have transliterated the Greek words]:

tetragmenoi
The meaning of this word must be determined by the context. The Jews had judged themselves unworthy of eternal life : the Gentiles, as many as were disposed to eternal life, believed. By whom so disposed is not here declared : nor need the word in this place be further particularized. We know, that it is GOD who worketh in us the will to believe, and that the preparation of the heart is of Him : but to find in this text pre-ordination to life asserted, is to force both the word and the context to a meaning which they do not contain. The key to the word here is the comparison of ref. I Cor [16:15] eis diakonian tois hagiois etaxan heautous with ref. Rom [13:1] hai ousai (exousai) hupo tou theou tetagmenai eisin : in both of which places the agents are expressed, whereas here the word is absolute.......

Wordsworth well observes that it would be interesting to enquire what influence renderings as this of prœordinati in the Vulgate version had on the minds of men like St. Augustine and his followers in the Western Church in treating the great questions of free will, election, reprobation, and final perseverence : and on some writers in the reformed churches who, though rejecting the authority of that version, were yet swayed by it away from the sense of the orignial here and in ch. ii. 47. The tendency of the Eastern Fathers, who read the original Greek, was, he remarks, in a different direction from that of the Western School.

[Josephmers]

This is an illegitimate and deceiving at best commentary. Many in the scholarly realm see Alford as sub-par and this is just one of the reasons why.

If you know Greek (by the way I'm in my 5th year of formal Greek training) you should know that rules apply for translation; grammar, syntax, and the AUTHORS use of such in the immediate context, then in the book, then the authors use in his other books, THEN other authors use of the construct with the EXACT same word with the exact same construct. Then if necessary go to the Septuagint.

First and most importantly the word τάσσω is only used in the NT 8 times. The passive is the default and the burden of proof to use a middle must be without a doubt and backed up by substantial evidence.

Where is the evidence in the Lukan usage? Acts 1:2 "appointed"
Acts 28:23 is a middle, "When they 'disposed' a day for him?... NO.
Act 22:10 is close, it is a perfect passive yet not a participle "And there you will be told all that 'you have disposed' yourself to do? .... NOT CLOSE
Luke 7:8 "For I too am a man "who has disposed myself under authority"?

The weight is VERY HEAVY alright.... Even in just the "close" and not perfect constructs by Luke, they ALL are properly interpreted ordained, appointed, set.

It's sad that Alford conveniently passes over LUKE himself to interpret what Luke said! Alford goes away from Luke (which shows an agenda) and uses a totally different author, namely Paul.

Romans 13:1 Paul uses "direct agency" by stating that God has "instituted" those that exist. If the divine "direct agency" wasn't stated would you have interpreted it as "Those that exist have disposed themselves"? No.

Paul then uses the ONLY verse in the New Testament where "devoted themselves" is used in 1 Cor. 16:15. But here even Paul uses the word in conjunction with the reflexive pronoun ἑαυτούς· Thus being properly understood and devoting themselves, you have to translate the word.

Luke even in the immediate context (which Alford again conveniently dismisses) shows that when he wanted to describe a reflexive he uses a reflexive pronoun just 2 verses before.

The evidence in the "complete" study of how LUKE uses the word is overwhelmingly in the translation of ordained.

Also if you want to take it one step further, if you go into the Septuagint it is used as a reflexive twice and both times it uses the reflexive pronoun.

The strongest argument for translation sides with the passive with the understanding of a "divine passive".

As for James White, I know of him, but do not follow him. Though I heard he is a scholar, and am looking forward in what he has to say on this issue.

[Guest]

I continue to observe with amusement how the "non-Calvinists" (a big tent, to be sure) alternately fire their missiles at the translation, and in the next breath sweep away all dispute over the translation and attack instead the interpretation. On the one hand Homer demands to know why we shoudn't consider the appointment to eternal life to have taken place a few days earlier (how that would advance Homer's cause if true remains unexplained), while Paidion and others (including Homer, covering all bases) continue to toss out Alford, the apocryphal "Bob Anderson" (whoever that is), et al with clever "theories" to show why the translation found in *every* major translation is somehow defective.

Cheers,
Bob

[Guest]

Hi Bob,

Homer demands to know why we shoudn't consider the appointment to eternal life to have taken place a few days earlier (how that would advance Homer's cause if true remains unexplained)

Answer the question and I will explain why.