Sunday, August 5, 2018

Reprint of March 17, 2016 - Initiator Versus Responder

I have also decided to reprint the following article as I think it may be worthy of your consideration (and because my time has been so limited by my role as "nanny" to my 2 year old granddaughter and helping her and my daughter move in with us the last few months.  June

Thursday, March 17, 2016

INITIATOR VERSUS RESPONDER

Parenting and Responsibility:
Ephesians 6:1-4 “Children, under-listen (Greek: hupokouete) [pay attention to] your parents in the Master (Greek: Kurios – Owner, Supreme Ruler, Lord), for this is right.  Value/regard as precious your father and your mother…that you may live long on the earth.  And fathers: Do not bring your children towards anger/impulsiveness, but out of [your spiritual] strength/health, give them instruction and place understanding in their minds, of the Master (Greek: Kurios – Owner, Supreme Ruler, Lord).”

Marriage and Responsibility:
Ephesians 5:24, 33 "Wives, hupostassesthe – “arrange/set yourself under”/["reverence"] your husband"..."each one of you [husbands] must love (agape) his wife as he loves (agapes) himself.”

God and Responsibility: 1 John 4:19 “…we love Him [God] since/because He first loved us.”


Parenting
In most translations, the word, hupokouete, (“under-listen”) is translated as “obey” and would make the scripture appear to address children volitionally controlling their behavior.  But looking at the original Greek for a number of key words in the passage, the admonition to the children is more appropriately seen as their having a particular attitude of attentiveness toward their parents (of course, that attitude would undoubtedly ripple out to the child’s behavior).  But as the scripture unfolds, this attitude can be more correctly seen as a response to the instruction from the foundation of the spiritual health/strength of the father.   The father being the first cause, or initiator, the child being the responder.
Marriage
This process is similar to the responsive nature of the wife in relationship to the nature of the husband as initiator. (Ephesians 5: 24) Wives, hupostassesthe – “arrange/set yourself under” your husband and (Ephesians 5:33) “reverence” the husband.  This is a God ordained, natural response in the wife when the husband, as initiator, “must love (agape) his wife as he loves(agapes) himself.” (Ephesians 5:33) 

Unless the husband is acting as a spiritually healthy/strong initiator by fulfilling his role in loving his wife as himself, the wife’s ordained nature as responder is not able to fulfill its ordained function.  So, although there may be superficial “submission” by the wife, there cannot be “reverence” for the husband as the God given response which would be naturally forthcoming if the husband were performing his God-ordained function as the agape initiator.
Loving God - Whose Responsibility?
This process is also mirrored in the responsive nature built into humans by God that we “…love God since He first loved us.”  When God as initiator, persuades (peitho – the Greek root for the word pisteuo that is commonly translated as “faith”), the built-in, God ordained response in the human is to reverence and long for fellowship and life with a Creator.  Once the Creator persuades the human that the human is perfectly loved (agape – cared about and for) and perfectly cared for and about by a Creator who exists, the human has been formed/wired to respond naturally in that way to The Ultimate Initiator.
Initiator and Responder in Bringing the Good News of Salvation for ALL
When each of us who has been persuaded by The Divine Initiator and is matured/refined by Him to come from a place of spiritual health/strength, through the knowledge that He gives us of Himself (absolute sovereignty, love, wisdom, omniscience and omnipotence over all His works with the irresistible plan formed before the beginning of time for all humanity to be with Him in joyful fellowship throughout eternity), other human beings will “respond” to our joy, our priority of God’s eternal destiny for us rather than priorities of this world, and acceptance of all other humans as the work of God’s Hand.  They will not need to be ordered or threatened to be drawn to Him; they will want what we have and want the knowledge of it in order to possess the joy and hope that we have in this painful world.  In other words, the Divine Initiator, working through us as His Initiator Tools/Vehicles here on earth, generates the response of love (agape) of Him in those humans that he has ordained to recognize Him, through His work in us, in this life. 

After death, for those that He has not ordained to "see" Him here, He again is in the role of Direct Initiator, having ordained that they will know Him and respond to Him in that timing. 
Conclusion:

·         It is the responsibility/role of God to initiate; to persuade each and every human that He exists and that He loves (agape) him/her.  Hebrews 12:2 “Jesus, the author/beginner and completer/finisher of our persuasion (faith)”.  Once God fulfills that role in the life of each human being, the human, in natural, God ordained/wired response will desire to return that love (agape), give reverence to the Beloved, and exhibit that love (agape) in his/her life.

·         It is the responsibility/role of the husband to persuade the wife that he loves (agape) her as he loves (agape) himself; once the husband fulfills the role as initiator, the wife, ordained/fashioned/wired as a responder, will desire to place herself under her husband and show reverence of him – there will be no need for her to “submit” as a matter of duty, she has been formed for that to be her pleasure.

·         It is the role of the father (earthly parent) for God to keep him in such a strong/healthy spiritual condition in his relationship to God, that he, as initiator will instruct his children in the nature/character of that Master/Supreme Ruler/Owner/Lord as Absolute Love (Care), Absolute Wisdom, absolute Sovereignty over all that occurs, that responsively, the child’s attitude will be one of “under listening”/paying attention to and regarding the parent as having precious value in helping them to “live long on the earth”.

·         It is the role (and joy) that God has ordained for those of us who have been “persuaded” by Him into the hope and promise of eternal life with Him for ALL humanity, to model that joy and hope and promise to anyone that God brings to us so that He uses us to ordain their response in His way and in His time, including after this life.

But God is The First Cause/Initiator, for all of these results.  When we do not see human responses occurring in the way or the timing that our earthly eyes desire/expect, our peace is dependent on our trust of His Ways and His Timing and His Perfect Irresistible Outcome.


June

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