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You know what I think is amusing is that some of the P/C crowd will be quick to say that it was God who made Michal barren
Is the God of the old covenant different from the God of the new? Did Gods nature change somewhere in the transition?
You may have forgotten that this occurred under the old covenant, and so your attempt to draw a parallel is horribly flawed, since the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ had not yet taken place.
I don't know whether Michal was struck barren or not, since the scripture does not go into detail, but I think it's completely irrelevant and one ginormous red herring, distracting from the fact that Michal was wrong to despise David in her heart.
The only parallel I "attempted" to draw was with Job.
Tamara224 said:You know what I think is amusing is that some of the P/C crowd will be quick to say that it was God who made Michal barren (even though the text doesn't explicitly state that) but jump all over anyone who hints or suggests that God actually causes illness, disease, etc any other time.
Tamara224 said:Well... let's be quite clear here.... Show me in the passage where it explicitly says that "Michal was wrong to despise David in her heart."
Here's the passage.... go ahead and highlight the part that says it was "wrong" for her to feel the way she felt.
Who exactly is saying that?
Now, I've only spent six years in the Assemblies of God and 20 in the Word of Faith as a minister in both.
I don't recall anyone ever saying this, do we have some type of reference for it?
You "attempted" to draw a parallel to "any other time" "anyone" said God causes "illness, disease, etc".
Nope. Don't assume you know my motives. If I want to say that she wasn't wrong, I will explicitly say "she wasn't wrong." I am not the type of person who hints around and implies instead of just saying it straight out.This is what I suspected, and you just confirmed it for me. You appear to be attempting to justify the way Michal felt in her heart.
Nope. Don't assume you know my motives. If I want to say that she wasn't wrong, I will explicitly say "she wasn't wrong." I am not the type of person who hints around and implies instead of just saying it straight out.
I want us to be quite clear about our "assumption theology" here.
To say that God called her attitude wrong is reading into the text something that isn't explicitly there.
That is the only point I'm making.
Now... if you want to go to a different passage of Scripture and establish that it is wrong to despise someone in one's heart and then come back to this portion of Scripture and apply that principle to Michal... fine. I have no problem with that.
But let's be diligent to rightly divide the word of truth here. To do so we must note that the passage we are discussing does not explicitly state that it was wrong for Michal to despise David in her heart. It simply and matter-of-factly states that she despised him.
The passage isn't concerned at all with David's worship style. The purpose of the passage is to be a part of legitimizing David as king. Michal is barren because she (1) curses David and (2) is Saul's daughter. She is not barren because she curses his worship style.
... or (3) because of the context shows the deep rift between David and Michal. If a husband and wife do not live as a husband and wife they will produce no children.
Then why all the detailed explanation of all the woes of Michal in your first post in the thread where you said you felt sorry for her?
From what I've read, you appear to be empathizing with Michal so much that you're willing to entertain the possibility that it was not wrong for her to despise David in her heart, since the scripture doesn't explicitly say it right then and there.
This is a pretty weak argument though. That scripture doesn't need to directly state that it's wrong to despise someone in your heart, because that is made clear through the bulk of scripture. This would be akin to reading about a murder, and claiming that you couldn't decide whether it was wrong or not, since it was not explicitly stated.
Tamara224 said:Now... if you want to go to a different passage of Scripture and establish that it is wrong to despise someone in one's heart and then come back to this portion of Scripture and apply that principle to Michal... fine. I have no problem with that.
Let me ask you directly, do you think it's ever OK to despise someone in your heart?
If not, what bearing does any of this have on the discussion, other than to obfuscate the fact that it was wrong for Michal to despise David in her heart?
Also...Do you remember recently in another thread how I corrected your wrong use of the word "implicitly" when you meant "explicitly"? Funny how it's a "weak argument" for me to point out that Scripture doesn't explicitly state something but not for you to.
http://www.christianforums.com/t7442453-2/#post54174816
The bearing it has on this discussion is this:
Some people believe that God struck Michal with barrenness as a punishment for her making fun of David when he was dancing.
But.... when the passage is looked at and strictly construed it is clear that
1) it doesn't explicitly stated that God made Michal barren; and
2) it doesn't explicitly state that Michal was wrong to despise David in her heart or to chastise David for his behavior.
I am not trying to obfuscate anything. Only to clarify that whatever moral judgments we make about the rightness or wrongness of Michal's (or David's) behavior in this passage of Scripture are based not on the explicit language of this passage but on other sources (albeit possibly other Biblical sources).
People keep throwing around accusations of "assumption theology" and what-not and I just want to point out that we are ALL drawing inferences and applying principles of morality to this passage of Scripture to make our conclusions about who was right and who was wrong here.
There is no explicit statement of right/wrong - it is all based on inference and application of other Scriptural principals to this passage.
The difference is, scripture does explicitly state that it's wrong to despise people in our hearts, just not right here. It is a very weak argument to say that because it's not declared here that makes it an "assumption".
You're drawing really bad parallels today.
I'm with you here. Scripture doesn't state that God made Michal barren. He may have, or maybe Michal never had marital relations with David. I see that as completely inconsequential to the undeniable fact that Michal never had children. So whether she was "barren" in the sense that she was unable to conceive, or simply did not have children, the end result of despising David in her heart was the same; she had no children.
This is what I am calling a "weak argument". The scripture doesn't need to explicitly state that it was wrong for Michal to despise David in her heart because we know from other scripture that it's wrong for ANYONE to despise another person in their heart.
Again, I agree that scripture is not clear if Michal was struck barren or not. However, scripture (albeit not this scripture) is pretty clear, and you even seem to agree, that it is never right to despise someone in your heart. So while it may be an assumption that Michal was made barren, it is not an assumption to state that Michal was wrong to despise David in her heart.
Good research Pete.This is interesting;
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Geneva]And thus she that vilified David brought a reproach upon herself, as barrenness was always reckoned, and no one descending from her arrived to royal dignity, and sat on the throne of David; and so it was ordered in Providence, as Abarbinel observes, that the seed of David and of Saul might not be mixed. [/FONT]So it would seem that upon examining many Bible commentaries, the idea that Michal was struck barren is not just the "P/C spin" that the OP would have us to believe. It's a pretty widely held belief in all of Christianity.
Source: The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible
Michal's barrenness was not necessarily the result of Divine judgment. It may be that David never had marital relations with her again. Nevertheless, the principle stands: there is often barrenness in the life and ministry of the overly critical.
Source: David Guzik's Commentaries on the Bible
David was contented thus to justify himself, and did not any further animadvert upon Michal's insolence; but God punished her for it, writing her for ever childless from this time forward, 2 Samuel 6:23. She unjustly reproached David for his devotion, and therefore God justly put her under the perpetual reproach of barrenness. Those that honour God he will honour; but those that despise him, and his servants and service, shall be lightly esteemed.
Source: Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible
Therefore - Because of her proud and petulant speech and carriage to David, which God justly punished with barrenness. No child - After this time.
Source: John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible
This emphasized sentence is the one statement that summarizes my thoughts on the thread, and on the lessons learned here from Michal's response;
Michal's barrenness was not necessarily the result of Divine judgment. It may be that David never had marital relations with her again. Nevertheless, the principle stands: there is often barrenness in the life and ministry of the overly critical.
This is interesting;
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Geneva]And thus she that vilified David brought a reproach upon herself, as barrenness was always reckoned, and no one descending from her arrived to royal dignity, and sat on the throne of David; and so it was ordered in Providence, as Abarbinel observes, that the seed of David and of Saul might not be mixed. [/FONT]So it would seem that upon examining many Bible commentaries, the idea that Michal was struck barren is not just the "P/C spin" that the OP would have us to believe. It's a pretty widely held belief in all of Christianity.
Source: The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible
Michal's barrenness was not necessarily the result of Divine judgment. It may be that David never had marital relations with her again. Nevertheless, the principle stands: there is often barrenness in the life and ministry of the overly critical.
Source: David Guzik's Commentaries on the Bible
David was contented thus to justify himself, and did not any further animadvert upon Michal's insolence; but God punished her for it, writing her for ever childless from this time forward, 2 Samuel 6:23. She unjustly reproached David for his devotion, and therefore God justly put her under the perpetual reproach of barrenness. Those that honour God he will honour; but those that despise him, and his servants and service, shall be lightly esteemed.
Source: Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible
Therefore - Because of her proud and petulant speech and carriage to David, which God justly punished with barrenness. No child - After this time.
Source: John Wesley's Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible
This emphasized sentence is the one statement that summarizes my thoughts on the thread, and on the lessons learned here from Michal's response;
Michal's barrenness was not necessarily the result of Divine judgment. It may be that David never had marital relations with her again. Nevertheless, the principle stands: there is often barrenness in the life and ministry of the overly critical.
No. Your reading comprehension skills are really poor today. Apparently, you can't tell the difference between the words "inference" and "assumption."
You're calling something an "argument" that I never argued. I just observed, I didn't "argue." You keep trying to make it out that I'm advocating something I'm simply not.
Oh, my goodness....
Do you honestly not realize that there's a difference between an assumption and an inference? Or are you just being obtuse on purpose?
Seriously... if you'd just stop looking for things to argue with me about and read what I'm actually writing, I think you'd see that I'm not saying anything nearly so shocking as you might at first have thought.
Well, I think we woiuld all agree that since none of these commentators spoke in tongues or prayed for the sick that their interpretations of scripture were not always correct.
BTW, who's David Guzik?
The P/C spin on this story is that Michal was struck barren (which the context does not support) because she was critical of Davids wild dance. The usual application being that we are not supposed to criticize wild gyrations in public worship services, a convenient application for those who think Sundays are showtime down at the Pentecostal church.
~Jim
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