Comments on: Sons and Slaves

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 02:29:48 +0000

David, that sounds contrary to what I’ve ever heard, which is that it’s about halfway between formal and informal, something like Dad (rather than Father or Daddy).

By: David Wayne

David Wayne — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:02:15 +0000

Jeremy – do you find anything of value or truth in the notion that even the “Our Fathter” language is royal language. One Old Testament scholar I am aware of affirms our parental relationship with God and the great intimacy we share with Him in a familial sense, but also suggests that the “Our Father” language of the Lord’s Prayer is a more formal, royal form of address. In other words, to use an inadequate analogy the idea of God as Father in the Lord’s Prayer has more in common with our notion of George Washington as a founding “Father” of our nation than with the familial use of the term. Unfortunately, my knowledge of language in general and Greek in particular isn’t sufficient for me to adequately parse all of the nuances of language here. But in context this makes sense – the address of “Our Father” is immediately followed by what we would call national or kingdom type concerns, not family concerns. Thus, even in addressing God as Father, the idea of royalty would take as prominent a place as the idea of family.

By: Jeremy Pierce

Jeremy Pierce — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:04:56 +0000

Jesus does say, though, that God is a Father to us in the sense of giving us bread rather than a stone when we ask for it, whereas a slave is there to do the will of the one the slave serves. We serve Christ as his slaves, and yet God serves us, including through Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. That’s not something we can reduce to cultural differences.

By: Flotsam and jetsam (6/13) « scientia et sapientia

Flotsam and jetsam (6/13) « scientia et sapientia — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:55:43 +0000

[...] Jeremy Pierce suggests that the predominance of son/slave language in the NT can be connected to the Father/Lord – i.e. we relate to the Father as Sons and to the Lord Jesus as slaves. [...]

By: Arthur Sido

Arthur Sido — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 11:55:40 +0000

Is some of this confusion partly because of the casual relationship between fathers and sons that we experience, where dad is someone to buddy around with, chafe under until we turn 18 and then have an uncomfortable relationship with the rest of our lives? The relationship between fathers and sons in the first century was vastly different and the problem may not be a contradiction between being sons/slaves as much as trying to impose the cultural norms of a society 2000 years later onto what Scripture is saying.