Hey QQ, good to see you here, you look so familiar in your steaming blue cup. Do you ever use the glass of Guinness anymore? And Evan, whoever you are, happy to see you.
I actually posted before I read half of what you guys wrote about Acts. I agree (apologies to my man Rafe, and good to see you too) that this is not an indisputable error, but it's still an interesting error.
I bet there are VERY few Christians on VERY few websites who sit up nights debating whether this verse in Acts is punctuated correctly. I suspect this is a Way-only obsession.
Zixar, of all people, the smartest man I ever met on the Internet, is an expert on a great many things, and ordinarily I would recommend him for answering just about any question correctly. Truly, he is a genius, and I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being truthful. But, having said that, I'm wondering if he slept through his Greek lessons. I think any "expert" could look at that verse, study it from every conceivable angle, and conclude that it's punctuated perfectly.
Oakspear, you slay me with those Greek letters. Where do you get those? I used to know hundreds of Greek words. You and me put together probably know twice as much Greek as V.P. and Martindale multiplied together.
Here, as clearly as I can explain it, is Wierwille's error. "And when he could not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done."
VP says you have to remove the comma between "ceased" and "saying." Why? Well, that's a long story. To find out why you have to sit for 30 minutes listening to VP rave about how it was NOT God's will for Paul to go to Jerusalem.
Wait, wait, wait. Rewind. Reread. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER IT WAS THE WILL OF GOD FOR PAUL TO GO TO JERUSALEM.
VP acts like this verse, as punctuated, suggests it was God's will for Paul to go to Jerusalem. Hello! What was he smoking? In what part of the verse did he read this? It does nothing of the sort.
It was a saying. Paul's pals said "The will of the Lord be done" all the time. It was a much more natural expression in the Aramaic, a Jewish saying. It's a hopeful and pious expression of faith, "The will of the Lord be done." It can be translated into any language, and no expert would dispute that it was badly translated OR punctuated. The disciples said "The will of the Lord be done." It was a saying they had. This is the way they talked.
Even if the will of the Lord was about NOT to be done, Wierwille fans, then the people around Paul STILL said, "The will of the Lord be done."
It's that simple.
THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER GOD WANTED PAUL TO GO TO JERUSALEM.
Okay, I admit it's not indisputable, but to me it's pretty blatant.
While I'm on the line, I'll give you a personal favorite. "A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men."
"This verse is about gift ministries. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. A man's gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men. That's talking about great men of the Word."
Yeah, right, Mr. Flunked Out of Algebra. He went off to college (in Wisconsin) and got his future wife pregnant, a pretty nurse. Then he married her, and while supporting a suckling he managed to get into Princeton, the same Princeton from "A Beautiful Mind," and managed to get a master's degree.
You would think he knew Greek and Hebrew forward and back, but then he went and got a mail-order doctorate. Real colleges would not necessarily have flunked him out, but they would sure as hell not be offering him a doctorate the first summer he showed up. "Doctor" Wierwille. Yeah, right.
If you look this proverb up in any interlinear, commentary or annotated Bible, it will tell you that the word "gift" means "bribe." A man's bribe makes room for him, and brings him before great men. The "great men" are princes, kings, prime ministers, rich men, robbers, mafiosos, etc., etc. They are not "great men of the Word" like V.P. and Craig and Ralph Dubofsky and Johnny Townsend and the rest of the pantheon.
If you hunt down every usage of the word "gift" (I think it's "mattanah") in the OT, you'll find that it never, ever, ever, ever, ever implies the English meaning of "gift" as something that resides inside you. A "gift" in this verse means a wad of money, some jewelry, a present, something physical, something one person hands to another. It NEVER means "gift" as in English, where you can have the gift of gab or the gift of song or the gift of being an apostle, prophet, pastor, evangelist or teacher.
It's like the word "present." "A man's present makes room for him, and brings him before great men." Meaning money opens doors, you grease the hand that feeds you, you visit a big man and you need to bring a big gift. It's inconceivable for this particular word to mean "gift ministries" or spiritual enablements of any kind.
I wrote to the Research Department about this in 1986, I think, the year I graduated from the 14th Corps. I think it was Bruce Mahone who answered me. He said something like, "Every commentary in the world agrees with your observations. But if the commentaries were always right, we wouldn't need PFAL."
Yeah, right. He insisted that the popular Way version of the verse was accurate. Yeah, right. Need a company yes-man who'll consistently give you wrong answers? Just dial The Way International, Research Department.
Oh, but WAIT.
I hope I'm not the first to mention this, but (drum roll please) my all-time favorite candidate for the list of V.P.'s most blatant errors ........
The original sin was masturbation!
Where he got this idea I DON'T, don't, don't want to know.
= )
