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They are the pillars of the early church, not only the old ones – although they are from the group of the old and experienced.1 According to verse 2a they shall "be shepherds of God's flock". The technical use of the word πρεσβυτέροι for the heads of a community was usual for OT-Jewish region and "understandable" for the hellenistic environment.2 1: ...

Wayne Grudem wrote a rather thorough article on this subject for the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, in 1991. The article can be found online: He Did Not Descend Into Hell: A Plea for Following Scripture Instead of the Apostles' Creed I believe the article is also reproduced as an appendix to his Systematic Theology. The article discusses ...

Yes, that is one interpretation of this text. Another interpretation is that he descended into a temporary holding place for the dead, which was also paradise. This interpretation is a mix of the verse you site above along with this one: Luke 23:43 (KJV) And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. This ...

The phrase "συγκληρονόμοις χάριτος ζωῆς" (fellow heirs of [the] grace of life) in this passage is very interesting. The apostle Paul elsewhere uses συγκληρονόμος to indicate that children of God are "fellow heirs" with Christ (Romans 8:17), so it is certainly possible that eternal life is the meaning here. But I'm leaning towards marriage in this passage. ...

Most every critical text I have (including the NA27, the SBL GNT, UBS4, Westcott/Hort, and the Robinson/Pierpont Byzantine GNT which usually follows the TR) all say εἰς ὑμᾶς, which would support the KJV translation. Metzger and other textual commentators that I have available say nothing about a variant reading. Stephen's 1550 TR reads εἰς ἡμᾶς, as does ...

Dan O'Day gives a good analysis of the Greek in his answer, but I find his conclusion to be quite surprising on the basis of what he said. Life in the New Testament (and in a more hidden way, in the old) overwhelmingly speaks of eternal life; that is, the eternal communion with God into which we enter by grace through Jesus Christ. Where do I even begin to ...

The assumption in the question is that the Ephesians text does not refer to thought and attitude. For sake of this post, I do not believe that this assumption is correct and is perhaps birthed from to great a focus on the allegory of the text and not enough on the substance. The "armor of God" allegory is used to extend the idea of a battle, though not one ...

I am drawing on some portions of notes that I had to present in a class. As such, there are sentence fragments and other oddities in it that I've yet to edit out. There's a lot more information than is required in order to answer your questions, but setting the context is always a default that I have. Ultimately, I don't really believe that there is any ...

There is a running contrast in the NT between the natural/'deadness' of the old (OT) economy, and the spiritual/'living' nature of the new (NT) Christian economy. This can be seen in such passages as 2 Cor. 3:2,3 ("tablets of stone" vs. "tablets of human hearts" [NASB]); in Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well in John 4 (i.e, natural vs "living" ...

The living temple imagery is taken from Isaiah 8:14, 28:16, Psalm 118:22 and is used in both 1 Peter Chapter 2 and Ephesians Chapter 2. Although the Gentile audience of Ephesians might not be acutely aware of the ‘unclean’ stones defiled by Gentiles in the reference you provide to the Maccabean revolt, I do think the Jewish mind reading 1 Peter would ...

The only interpretation that I have been able to accept that makes sense from all angles is that these 'dead' are referring to those who have physically died, especially in reference to the generation under Noah, where only a few were saved through the spirit of Christ's preaching to them by the judgment of the flood and the words of Noah. In other words ...