God and Women – Both Helpers

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." – Genesis 2:18

Our soul waits for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield. – Psalm 33:20

A lot of people have pointed out that the word used for helper in Genesis 2:18 (ezer) is often used to refer to God. I’ve been really thinking about this today, and was really enjoying what I think this means for our relationships with the opposite sex, but also what it means in our relationship with God.

I’ve got two things to point out:

1. This means we have different roles

This word pops up twenty-one times in the Old Testament. Sixteen times it refers to God. Most importantly, it NEVER calls US God’s helpers.

Such an idea is disgusting. Acts 17:24-25 says,

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything

God DOES NOT NEED help. He can totally do without us. To imagine a God who needs help is to imagine a non-God. Self-sufficiency is essential to the concept of the Biblical God.

God is a helper, we are not. We are different in roles. We dare not be God’s helper, and we dare not deny the Scriptures by saying that we don’t need God’s help. He MUST be helper, we MUST be helped. John Piper likes to say “the giver gets the Glory”. If we try to assert some sort of egalitarianism in our relationship with God, we deny Him Glory.

Men need help. That’s why God made a woman, and then commissioned her to make up for man’s insufficiency. The Reformation Study Bible notes that “The word ‘helper’ entails his inadequacy, not her inferiority”. Imagine a world with only male human beings. That’d be a disaster (uhh, at least more of a disaster).

The word ezer always refers to relationships where there is a difference in roles. The helper does not do the same thing as the helped. If a man tries to impose some sort of egalitarianism in his relationship to his wife, he denies the woman the glory of enjoying God’s assigned role to her. There is a difference between their roles. And this difference is always that the helper acts for the helped. We don’t even need to look at all the examples, since Paul does this interpretation (through the Holy Spirit) for us:

For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man – 1 Cor. 11:8-9

Therefore, women are for men in a way that is different from the way that a man is for a woman. God serves us in a way that is different from the way we serve Him. They are not the same roles. They are very different.

2. This means that being an ezer does not mean a compromise in worth

God is our helper. He is FOR us. As Christ He came to serve, not to be served (Matthew 20:28). And He did this and does this without ever compromising His infinitely superior worth.

In fact, it is part of His Glory that the Almighty King of the Universe would be for His Creation. I will never be for my clothes, my clothes are for me (not that I made my clothes, but you get the idea). It is unthinkable that I would become for my clothes. Yet the potter, in an act of incomparable humility and grace, became for the clay. The giver gets the Glory!

Women get to display a similar beauty when they, despite being co-bearers of God’s Image, submit themselves to the headship of men. And they are able to do this, like God, without ever compromising their worth. And the Glory goes to God!

Oliver, Marriage, and “Me and Fee pt. 4”

a)

Oh man, we went to this international school’s version of Oliver the Musical. It was… really interesting. So, I don’t know if you can picture this, but there were a bunch of Korean students in another country with a different language, who are learning English, but are also attempting to do British accents. I understood approximately 57% of the dialogue, and almost none of the lyrics. Luckily, I had watched the Wishbone episode.

Anyways, maybe that’s mean about the Koreans. Hehe.

b)

Here’s an article I read recently arguing for the idea that relationships should only be initiated with the intention of getting married within a year, saying that this is best to guard the hearts of both parties and the boundaries necessary to be above reproach.

Hmm, the article was actually pretty convincing. I think I need to pray and think this over.

c)
Again, this is mostly a good book (How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth), but I wanna give a fair critique of it. If you think I fail to do so, post a comment:

My third issue is that Fee doesn’t interact with the ESV despite it being available at the time of the third edition. Fee goes out of his way to promote the TNIV but avoids comparison to the ESV. All comparisons are with the more grammatically awkward New American Standard Bible (NASB) and the rarely used Revised Standard Version (RSV). I just can’t rule out the possibility that he does it to falsely strengthen his case.

The fourth thing is with his argument dealing with weights and measurements:

Take, for example, the first occurrences of talanton and denarius in the New Testament (Matt. 18:23-34, the parable of the unmerciful servant)… So what do we do with these words? In the parable they are intentionally not precise amounts but are purposefully hyperbolic contrasts (see ch. 8). The TNIV, therefore rightly translates “ten thousand talents” as “ten thousand bags of gold” and “a hundred denarii” as “a hundred silver coins” and then explains the words in a footnote. (44-45)

If this is a case of intentional hyperbole (I agree with his interpretation, not that I know that much), then it should be the job of the reader to think through this, read it in context, and figure it out (I don’t think it’s hard to figure out: ten thousand talents means what you’d make if you worked for ten thousand years). And if that fails, it is the responsibility of preachers and teachers to provide interpretation for the Church. The purpose of a translation is to translate, not to provide interpretation when unnecessary. Also, he fails to mention that the ESV also explains the words in a footnote, thereby helping the reader who of course would have no idea what a denarii or a talent is. In many cases, footnotes solve the “problem areas” that Fee presents.

There are many other things that I could say, but I’m realizing a complete commentary on this chapter would take too long. I think I have addressed the main issues EXCEPT: A much bigger thing is at state: did the Holy Spirit inspire the words, or just the ideas? If you’re interested in how some people answer that question, check out these talks on Inerrancy:

But one last small thing:

I thought it was a little weird that Fee doesn’t let the reader know that he was on the translation committee for the TNIV and yet gives a glowing review of it:

We would venture to suggest that the TNIV is as good a translation as you will get. (52)

Why does he not let people know his involvement? It’s not even mentioned in the About the Author part at the back of the book. At least he should be worried that people will think he’s hiding it from them. I’ve noticed that Justin Taylor, a guy who works for Crossway Bibles, always discloses his involvement whenever he mentions anything about the ESV on his blog (which is actually quite a popular one in… those circles) Anyways, I don’t want to accuse him of intentionally deceiving people, but the number of misleading comments and ungenerous characterizations of the essentially literal philosophy in this otherwise intelligent and helpful book make me really disappointed with Fee.

Oh, and by the way, I was joking about the marriage thing. I actually think this person puts forth a pretty weak argument. Although he points out good principles, he does not give me any reason to believe his “One Year” rule is anything more than one man’s legalistic opinion.

Objectively Wrong?, AW Tozer, and “Me And Fee pt. 3”

a)

So, in my class there are a total of five regular students. One of them is an Indonesian guy named Jimmy. Jimmy is a large guy – not like John Hagee or Fat Albert fat, but just a little large. Anyways, we were reading sentences in our book and the following was written:

wo tai pang le, zhe jian yifu you dienr shou, bu tai heshi
(trans: I’m too fat, this shirt’s a bit small – its not very comfortable)

Anyways, the mongolian girl read it, and then our teacher said, in good spirit, something to the effect of (in Chinese) “you are not fat, but maybe Jimmy should read this”. At this point, the Israeli girl and I looked at each other in disbelief (and shared laughter haha).

So… is that wrong? We’ve been told to say “it’s not wrong. It’s different”. Does that apply here? I dunno…

b)

Been picking up AW Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy. Good times. He says this:

The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted it for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men… The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us… Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. (vii)

Powerful stuff! Also been listening to a bit of Tozer. He’s a funny guy. Here’s a good talk on the ecumenical movement:

http://sermons.christiansunite.com/A.W._Tozer_2.shtml

One interesting thing he says is the difference between Christendom and the Church. Paul and Jesus say that in the end times there will be many who’s love will be cold and they will gather teachers to tell them what they want to hear (they will be part of Christendom), but the Church are the ones who endure till the end. The Church should be one. But the Church has no obligation to have unity with Christendom.

Tozer also says that Jesus’s prayer that we be one has already been emphatically answered in the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentacost. By the Spirit we are baptized into One Body (Eph. 4:4-6).

That’s pretty thought provoking given that nowadays “unity” is such a high virtue. But, I think if Biblical unity was really valued, there would be more of an effort to seek to understand and discuss doctrinal issues, instead of a desire to minimize them. There would be more of an effort to lift up and proclaim the Gospel, not just have conversations or bbq’s. Friendships are nice, but sweeter when they are based on the enjoyment of the same truths of God and a shared pursuit of His Glory in our lives.

c)

In case you didn’t read my first post, I actually do like this book (How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth). But yeah, if you think I’m unfair, post a comment:

So, the Today’s New International Version (TNIV) made a bunch of changes to the NIV. I’ve heard some of them are good (real important Evangelicals like DA Carson and John Stott really like it). But they also decided to make male-specific words gender-neutral whenever they thought it referred to guys and gals alike. The TNIV (and NIV) also has a philosophy of translation called “dynamic equivalence”, meaning (to maybe oversimplify it) that they do not think preserving the exact wording is as important as preserving the original meaning. I’ll mostly be talking about the latter, cause that’s what the book mostly talks about.

My first issue is that if you are going to fairly argue your point, you should be as generous to your opponent as possible. Fee describes two theories of interpretation: formal equivalence and functional equivalence. He also informs the reader that these both have more common names, which Fee says are “literal” and “dynamic equivalence”. Fee writes, ‘The closer one moves toward the Hebrew or Greek idom, the closer one moves toward a theory of translation often described as “literal”’ (41). But the translators for the English Standard Version (ESV) have always called their theory “essentially literal” (and I’d imagine they weren’t the first to coin this more accurate term). Although this seems like a small point, giving his side a much more intelligent-sounding name and the other side a much less careful name enables Fee to make his later argument appear much more credible.

Of course a completely literal translation of every Greek and Hebrew word would be unhelpful to the average modern reader. That is not the philosophy of the essentially literal translators. They seek to preserve the Holy Spirit inspired wording of the text as best as possible while giving only additional changes when necessary. Calling this theory “literal” is misleading.

On the other hand, functional equivalence is called “dynamic equivalence”. From my experience, your usual conversation with some semi-knowledgeable friends will refer to these theories as “word-for-word” (essentially literal) and “thought-for-thought” (dynamic equivalence). These terms do not capture the complex nature of these two theories. “Dynamic equivalence” does while “literal” does not. I doubt this was an instance of unintentional neglect on the part of the authors, but a choice to serve their own argumentative purposes.

My second thought is that it might have been better in the interest of fairness to provide a summary of the arguments for an essentially literal translation. However, this is nowhere to be found in this chapter. To be fair, I probably wouldn’t have thought this a problem if it were the other way around (though… I think the argument for dynamic equivalence is much more obvious). I think John Piper’s argument for the use of the ESV is pretty convincing.

Anyways, I’ve got more thoughts, but will save them for another time.

A Letter to Jenna, but written here because I thought I should respond to it on my blog, and it would be difficult to read if it was a comment

Hey Jenna,

I’m actually doing real good, thanks for asking. Hope you’re doing well too.

I did read the article – didn’t really peak my interest until I noticed that they responded to Piper. I love controversy.

So, I then did the following things (in this order)

I read the thing on Piper’s blog saying that CT responded to him
I read the original CT article
I read the Piper response
I read the CT response
I wrote my blog post (not right away heh)
I got your message
I read Justin Taylor’s quick summary - http://theologica.blogspot.com/2007/10/divorce-and-remarriage.html
I read what Dr. Kostenberger wrote:
http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/?p=154
http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/?p=155
And then I did some research on the “betrothal view” (Piper’s view), which I think I disagree with, but lost interest when I realized it wasn’t a requirement for answering your question.

And here I am. Here are some thoughts:

Here’s what Kostenberger writes:

“Instone-Brewer’s position as argued in his recent CT essay is only a popularization of the view he has argued for years in his scholarly work and that his position has already been addressed in scholarly treatments such as in God, Marriage & Family.”

I realize I had underestimated how well-thought out the CT article’s position was. Instone-Brewer was writing to a broader audience and so simplified his arguments. So, after reading it, I wasn’t impressed, thinking he thought he was more informed than he was. Which is too bad, because when I write about Biblical stuff on my blog (which I guess is pretty often, since I am in serious lack of other interests haha), I try pretty hard to make things as understandable as possible. To judge someone else for doing the same thing is unfair.

Back to Kostenberger:

“Piper contends that Jesus disagreed with Deut 24:1 rather than merely clarifying the meaning of the passage (as Instone-Brewer contends), citing Mark 10:4–9. Instead, Jesus went all the way back to the beginning and reiterated God’s perfect plan for marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman. I agree with Piper that this is what Jesus does in Matthew 19, except for the one exception Jesus explicitly states in Matt 19:9 (a crucial point), which Piper leaves aside initially.”

And

“Incidentally, I also agree with your comment [slightly edited] that “in Instone-Brewer’s paper … he argues that Jesus only meant to slap down ‘any cause’ divorce, but then Instone-Brewer argues that divorce for a nebulous concept of neglect is legitimate—which is really close to ‘any cause’ divorce”

I think my main problem, as I wrote earlier, is that when I read the original CT article, I was initially worried that I had read those passages completely wrong since I didn’t know all this background info. But in my mind, I thought “wait, this isn’t right. Jesus isn’t just addressing an erroneous interpretation of Mosaic Law, He’s establishing a HIGHER standard in Matthew 19, cause that’s what the text appears to clearly mean”. So, when I went to Piper and found that he said the exact same thing, I felt more at peace, cause I was like “phew, so I can read the Bible and understand the basic meanings without being familiar with 1st Century Jewish Law”.

But then I read Kostenberger and thought “wait, this guy’s disagreeing with Piper too, what’s the deal?” The issue in my mind is that Kostenberger does not answer Piper’s argument. The text sounds really clearly like Piper is NOT merely affirming Mosaic Law, he is raising the bar. If Kostenberger and Instone-Brewer are right, then what appeared to me after reflection and careful reading and hoping for guidance from the Holy Spirit was wrong.

Does Kostenberger have an answer? Am I just completely misreading the text?

Anyways, its actually really late right now, and I had almost zero intention of reading this much about divorce haha. But I guess it’s something I should know about. Thanks, cause what you pointed me to made me about five times more informed than I previously was.

Your brother in Him,
-adam