Use of γηˆ in The New Testament


Another Greek word used in the New Testament that needs to be kept in mind when discussing the use of “aion” and “kosmos” is the word “ge”. The word “ge” is used approximately 252 times in the New Testament and is most often translated “earth”, but depending on context is also translated “ground” or “land”.

The following is a sampling of passages using the word “ge”:

Matthew 5:5 “…the meek shall inherit the “ge”…

Matthew 5:13 “...you are the salt of the “ge”…

Matthew 6:10, 19

“….Thy will be done on “ge” as it is in heaven...” “…Lay not up treasures on “ge”…”

Matthew 28:18 “All authority in heaven and on “ge” has been given to me.”

Matthew 13:8, Mark 4:8, and Luke 8:8 (Parable of the sower.)

The seed “…falls on the good “ge”…’ and in this context is correctly translated “ground”.

Acts 7 Stephan’s Speech – “ge” is used 8 times and in context is correctly translated “land”. For example”

“…the “ge” of the Chaldeans…” “…the “ge” of Egypt…” “…the “ge” of Midean…”

For Future Study: The Use of “Kosmos” and “Ge” in the book of Revelations

Of the approximately 252 times “ge” is used in the NT, about 77 of those times are in the book of Revelation. That is more then any other NT book, and accounts for over 30% of the use of “ge” in the NT.

Of the approximately 189 times “Kosmos” is used in the NT, only 3 of those are in the book of Revelation. That is less then 2% of the NT use of “kosmos”.

The extensive and almost exclusive use of the word “ge” in the book of Revelation is very important when considering the structure and meaning of that NT book, especially as “ge” carries an almost exclusive ontological meaning in contrast to the moral meanings associated with “kosmos” and “aion”.

References:

Young's Analytical Concordence
Greek/English Interliner NT (Nestle/Aland Text.)

For His glory,

The use of Greek Words Translated “world” in Selected NT Passages

This list of verses is from a SS handout our Pastor gave to us. I used my interliner Greek/English NT to identify the Greek words used.

Romans 1:20 - Kosmos is translated as “world”

Romans 12:2 – Aion - has the basic meaning of “age”. Here it is translated as “world”

I Corinthians 1:20-21; 3:19

“…debater of this “aion”...God made foolish the wisdom of this “kosmos”…the “kosmos” did not know God… 3:19 “…the wisdom of this “kosmos”..


Galatians 6:14 – “..the”kosmos” has been crucified to me, and I to the “kosmos”…

Colossians 2:20-23 – “…you died to the elementary principles of the “kosmos”…

I Timothy 6:7 – “…we brought nothing into the “kosmos”…”

James 4:4 – “…friendship with the “kosmos”…”

I John 2:15-17 – “Do not love the “kosmos”….”
(Kosmos translated “world” 4 times in this passage.)

I John 3:13 – “…the “kosmos” hates you…”

I John 4:4-5 – (Kosmos is used 4 times and translated “world”.)

I John 5:19 – “…the whole “kosmos” lies in the power of the evil one…”

Matthew 28:19-20 – “…I am with you always, to the end of the “aion”…”

(Another important passage for understanding “aion” is Galatians 1:4 “…the present evil “aion”…”)

In His grace,

~ The Billy Goat ~

What is "Total Depravity"?

“There have been those who have wished to deny the doctrine of total depravity on the grounds that it failed to recognize any good in man. The presence of all this evil does not deny the existence of a natural goodness in varying degrees. All that such goodness can do is to make it possible for men to live together with men. What the doctrine of total depravity means is that there is no good in man that can satisfy God, and that, therefore, all the help that man receives must originate in God and come to man by the grace of God. And it is the grace of God that brings salvation that has appeared to all men in Jesus Christ.”

(Donald Grey Barnhouse, Exposition of Romans, Vol. I, (1952), Romans 1:28-31)

Evangelical Perspectives: Toward a Biblical Balance
by Ronald B. Mayers (1987)

Evangelical Perspectives fills something of a unique role in evangelical theological literature. It is not primarily a summary theological survey, though Ronald Mayers, professor of philosophy and religion at Cornerstone University, (formerly Grand Rapids Baptist College), does survey a number of basic theological issues. Nor obviously is such a relatively short volume intended to be a systematic theology such as Hodge, Strong, or Chafer have written, though Mayers' discussion of theological issues is much deeper then a cursory summary overview.

Mayers sets forth his purpose in writing Evangelical Perspectives in the first chapter titled "Necessity of Doctrinal Balance".

"It is the contention of this book that established doctrine, or orthodoxy, has usually been, and should always be, determined by the balance that the Bible indicates in the various doctrinal issues that the church must explain and elucidate to her members. This has not always been the case in American evangelicalism and fundamentalism..."

In the following three chapters, Mayers illustrates the concept of Biblical doctrinal balance by review of three fundamental issues the early church had to wrestle with in coming to grips with basic Biblical orthodox Christian belief.

The first issue was the definition of reality. Mayers lays out how the early church proclaimed a God who is reality, and in His reality totally independent. On the other hand, creation was also proclaimed as a reality, but a reality that is separate from, but totally dependent on God. This is in contrast to pantheistic thought that makes God and creation equal in a way that creation is also God, and as well refutes gnosticism which denied the reality of creation. The Christian view of reality is not either/or, but that both God and creation comprise reality.

The second issue the early church wrestled with is God as the one and the many; the trinitarian being of God as the one and the three. God as one and many defies our rational logical mind set. The early church arrived at the position where both concepts were to be held to, tensions not withstanding.

The same may be said for the issues of the deity and humanity of Christ. Is Christ fully man, or is He fully God? Biblical balance demands we affirm that He is both fully God and fully man, and that we live with the tensions that balance brings.

Having set forth the Biblical balance and tensions that mark these basic orthodox doctrines of Christian faith, Mayers takes the lessons learned and seeks to apply them to a number of theological and doctrinal issues that the Evangelical church at large has in the past wrestled and in our day continues to wrestle with. A survey of the chapter headings gives a good snapshot of those issues:

General Revelation: Both Within and Without
Special Revelation: Both Event and Word
Inspiration: Both Holy Spirit and Human Authors
Testaments: Both Continuity and Discontinuity
Salvation: Both Provision and Response
Holy Spirit: Both Holiness and Eternal Security
Church: Both Proclamation and Charity
Last Things: Both Already and Not Yet

There is much that could be said about the issues under discussion in each of these chapters that would take up way to much space and time in this review. I found Mayers' discussion on these topics to be challenging and mind stretching. Be ready to have some of your theological bubbles popped, and some of your dogmatic assumptions challenged. There is enough in these chapters to annoy and irritate those on both sides of the issues discussed, but that is precisely where the real value of this book is to be found, and that is why I recommend this book to Pastors, theology students, and others with an interest in Evangelical theology.

For some time I have had a suspicion that much of traditional Evangelical and Reformed systematic theology was influenced by rationalistic Enlightenment methodology much more then we perhaps want to admit. As a result, in some areas of Evangelicalism the mystery and tension has been stripped from the faith, leaving a sterile dogmatic "orthodoxy" that far to often claims to have "all the answers". Evangelical Perspectives presents an approach to theology that allows us to be rational, but in a way that preserves Biblical tension and mystery; an approach that also calls for the exercise of the Christian virtue of humility.

Soli Deo Gloria!

~ The Billy Goat ~

BIBLIA THEOLOGICA: Evangelical but Not a Cultural Evangelical

"Yes, I am an evangelical without shame, but I am not a "cultural evangelical." Cultural evangelicals are individuals whose evangelicalism is culturally oriented and linked, much like that of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, on one end of the spectrum, or much like that of Jim Wallis and Randall Balmer, on the other end of the spectrum. Both Fundamentalism and Liberalism are culturally originated and linked worldviews. For both, their worldiews too uncritically merge Christian beliefs and cultural mores into a unitary whole that is more American than Christian... "

Good stuff here. What is at stake is the meaning of "Evangelical" and the question of what really is the Gospel in contrast to cultural accrurtments that get in the Gospel's way...

Sola Deo Gloria!

~ The Billy Goat ~

From the Pew: If Iron Sharpens Iron, Then Why Is The Reformed Drawer So Full of Dull, Rusty Knives?

A good question.... My own observation is that insistence on so called "doctrinal percison" is by nature a seperatist movement sowing the seeds of it's own fragmentation. The favorite thological argument is the ad hominimn one.

Shalom, ~ The Billy Goat ~

Hither to has the Lord Helped Us...

It is approaching a fifth anniversary of sorts. Five years ago on the first Sunday in November, 2001, a Communion Sunday. I reached a breaking point. That breaking point led to a decision which to some may have seemed abrupt and sudden, but was actually the culmination of a process that had been going on for at least five years before if not even earlier.

The decision made was to have significant impact on my wife and daughters, especially the younger daughter that was still at home. At the time my wife and younger daughter were really tore up by that decision, but it was hardly a year latter they both were thanking me, and thanking God for directing the course of action I had taken at that time.

I know there were those who did not understand that decision, who questioned the wisdom of it and even thought it folly. What they didn't realize is that I no longer respected their "wisdom" or judgment in matters of that nature. Over the previous years they had forfeited my respect. They had become like the Emperor who had no clothes. There comes a point where conscience can no longer be held hostage to friendship.

There are situations where bad things happen that are of such a nature that their badness overshadows and taints any good things that happened. You know intellectually and rationally there were some good things there, but just as ink put into a clear glass of water colors the whole glass, so the bad things color any good that may have been there.

We had been in that church for a little over 25 years. That's a lot of time and emotional investment. Sadly, our only regret about leaving is that we did not leave much earlier. We don't miss the abusive language from the pulpit and the arm twisting tactics and manipulation of the business meetings. We don't miss the shoddy and mediocre preaching, or the inept counseling. Those emperors proved to us they had no clothes. On that November Communion Sunday five years ago, I realized I could no longer as a matter of conscience take communion in that church. All the rationalizations I had used for the better part of a year to justify doing so fell broken to the ground.

After our leaving, there were those who had left years earlier who I, as opportunity was given, asked for forgiveness for any part I had in their mistreating at the time they had left. They graciously gave me that forgiveness and now my conscience is clear towards them.

We have gone on with our lives. We came to WCBC as refugees and found a home. As we watched the congregational life of WCBC, we found ourselves in place where we were no longer constantly swimming against the tide. We have been free to grow in our understanding of God and His Word unhindered by the scholastic chains of a so called "Puritanism" that presumed way to much and whose understanding was a distortion that sucked the vitality out of any vibrant Biblical Theology.

God has been VERY good to us. He has more then abundantly vindicated the rightness of that decision made those five years ago. To Him alone be the glory, honor, and praise!!!

Sola Deo Gloria!

~ The Billy Goat ~

The Anomaly of the Lone Ranger Local Church

A local Orthodox Evangelical Christian church dose not exist in isolation from other Orthodox Evangelical Christian churches any more then individual Christians exist in isolation without reference to other Christians. There is no place in the New Testament that gives an example of such a church.

Now it is possible a local church may exist in a remote area, and under primitive conditions that hinder that local church from having vital contact with other churches. But for a healthy church that isolation is not something deliberately chosen as matter of policy or church culture.

The universal ("catholic" small "c") church is a body. Nothing happens in one area of the universal Christian church that does not in some way, large or small, impact other parts of the universal body.

The New Testament picture of relationships between local Christian Churches is one of sharing mutual concerns and mutual accountability. We may argue if that accountability is ecclesiastical or only moral, but that there is mutual accountability can not be escaped.

By the way, did I mention it's very possible for a denomination or association, or movement to have a "Lone Ranger" mentality also? Over the years I've seen that mentality both in local churches, and in groups and movements at large.

The Law of Love demands that one part of the Body of Christ not hold itself aloof from the other parts of the Body of Christ. For example, when was the last time we as regular Baptists, or Reformed whatever's, or Wesleyan Methodists, or "Non-Denominationl" Evangelicals prayed for our Evangelical Episcopal brethren caught up in the Civil War that is ripping apart the North American Anglican community?

We can not totally isolate ourselves from issues in other denominations or associations or movements. What happens in the Southern Baptist Convention, or the General Baptist Association, or the GARBC, or the various Presbyterian and Reformed Synods is happening to the Body of Christ. As such we are to weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice.

Do you have a vision for the whole Body of Christ, or are you so focused on your particular part that you can not see the forest for the trees? Does your vision of that Body include all whom Christ has included? Why not? What are the demands of the Law of Love?

Shalom,

~ The Billy Goat ~

An Uneasy Association

From a recent Christianity Today article Two Degrees of Separation we read:

The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC) voted in June to sever ties with Cedarville University. GARBC said the school's "public relationship with Southern Baptists was not considered to be in harmony with the GARBC purpose statement.

Earlier this year, the Council of Eighteen, the GARBC governing body, adopted a statement on why the association should separate from the Ohio school. At the 2006 annual conference in June, GARBC messengers ratified the statement 311 to 283. They concluded that "Southern Baptists are inclusivists and permit the presence and ministry of liberals within the convention."

When you do the math, the percentages run 52% for, and 48% against this resolution. By any reasonable calculation it can not at all be said there was any great degree of unanimity in the GARBC regarding its relationship with Cedarville. On the contrary, there is a clear division. The GARBC itself is an uneasy association.

"John Greening, GARBC national representative, said during the June conference that Cedarville's relationship with the SBC would change the association's boundaries. The GARBC has 1,359 churches in the United States, Canada, and overseas. Greening declined to speak to CT, saying the decision was a "family matter."

John Greening's use of the term "family matter" underlines the nature of the issue that faces the GARBC. Is or is not the GARBC a part of a much wider family, the Evangelical family, the family of God encompassing all who love and embrace fundamental orthodox Christian truth? If so, it is to that broader Evangelical family that the GARBC owes, if not ecclesiastical accountability, at least a moral accountability.

David Warren, a Council of Eighteen member and Cedarville trustee, said council members disagreed on the issue of second-degree separation. "The other side—the side I took—was that Cedarville was not associating with or assisting liberals in the convention," Warren told CT. "Rather, they were helping conservatives."

Craig Miller, senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cedarville, said the decision will make his and other local churches' affiliation with the GARBC problematic. "It is difficult for us to maintain membership in an organization that has broken its ties with the alma mater and employer of half the congregation," Miller said. "The issues discussed [during the conference] sounded ludicrous. Second-degree separation isn't biblically warranted."

"Second-degree separation isn't biblically warranted." The operating term here is "Biblically". It is not an issue of what the GARBC has or has not done historically in the past. The issue is faithfulness to what the Bible says about separation, and not making the principle of separation any more or any less then what the Bible itself makes it.

The local church I go to happens to be associated with the GARBC. For myself, my church's association with the GARBC is an incidental, though not unimportant, matter.

It remains to be seen what the long range impact of this decision will be on the GARBC itself as well as the state associations and individual congregations. Whatever the case, at this time the GARBC is an uneasy association.

Sola Gloria Deo!

~ The Billy Goat ~ Ecclesiology

A Little Taste of Heaven

" The nations of the world, including America, continue to struggle with political and social strife over who should be allowed to live within their borders. But the church should never be divided over who is allowed through its doors. In fact I believe that God is presently giving an unprecedented opportunity to churches around the United States and Canada to become living illustrations of what heaven looks like.

I also believe that many, if not most, of the petty disagreements that cause division in churches around the nation would become completely irrelevant if our pews were filled with Africans, Asians, Europeans, Central and South Americans, as well as North Americans. Can you imagine having a serious discussion over which instruments to use in worship Jesus Christ before people that have never seen an organ?

As this issue goes to press, there are over 400 distinct people groups living in the United States. This means that at any given time, there are scores of opportunities for believers to touch these peoples of the earth with the faith, hope, love, and family relationship that only exists in the body of Christ. They are out there in our neighborhoods, lonely, uncertain, needing a friend, and wanting to belong in their newly adopted nation. Some have come to escape difficult circumstances, and some to improve their lifestyle; but is the earthly reason they came really that important to the family of God?"

Michael Loftis, President of ABWE, "ABWE Messenger", Vol. 54, No. 2, Summer 2006 (Used with permission.)