I spent all morning preparing for the Bible study tonight in Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement, but before going into this I picked up from last week's Leviticus 11 (with all the rules and regulations about what you can and cannot eat) and prepared a few rounding off thoughts about this as related to all the polemics this generated in the early church. I have Gordon Wenham's commentary on this which is excellent and very helpful.
This afternoon I have spent more time in God's Word - mainly in 1 Corinthians - aided by Gordon Fee's brilliant and long commentary which I also have. I am totally convinced, together with Fee, that the key word "head" in 1 Corinthians 11 means "source" and does not have an hierarchical sense. Thus, verse 3, for example, means "The source of every (Christian) man is Christ, and the source of the woman is man (remember Genesis 2), and the source of Christ is God (the incarnate Jesus)". I also understand the "head covering" references to be culturally relevant matters two millenniums ago which are not relevant today. This is an extremely complex text so I refer you to Fee if you have difficulties with it.
I must just say that it is so refreshing to spend a whole day in God's Word and recommend to all young people going into Christian ministry and work that they build up a personal library of at least one good scholarly evangelical commentary for each book of the Bible, as well as having the single volume New Bible Commentary for briefer, but good, quick checks and reference for the entire Bible. If you're going to end up, like us, in the middle of nowhere working for God you will need such reference books.
Now it's time for prayer, a shower, something to eat, and then off to the Bible study.
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