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Aaron Hann's avatar

Re v 15 and your comment that it “tells us what Paul meant by “God’s household”: “the church of the living God.” It’s the people, wherever they go, not a building on a specific day of the week.” I don’t know if this is relevant, or discussed in your sources, but “place” in v. 8 (topos) is repeatedly used in the LXX to refer to the tabernacle and temple. Which, if Paul picked up on that, could imply sacred physical space, ie, Sunday gathered worship. Interesting to me, John takes topos and transfers it to sacred *spiritual* space, referring to the family/household of God. Just like Paul talks about the church in v. 15.

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Bobby Gilles's avatar

Yeah, I talked with an egalitarian man once who believed the passage must refer to a church service because of this. It seemed like an awfully small hook to hang that hat on to me, but I looked into it. Paul uses it nine times, none of which to unambiguously (or in my opinion, even ambiguously) mean the temple, tabernacle, a synagogue, or a house church. He does use other language to unambiguously refer to those places, though.

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