Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome to this assembly, both those present in MLT and those listening to our live broadcast.

Today is also Sweden's National Day and as an immigrant resident here I want to publically thank Yahweh for bringing me to this beautiful country and to thank the Swedish people for making me welcome. If you are an immigrant, as I am, it is only right to express appreciation for the country that has opened its doors to you and for sharing its resources for which it has striven to make available after centuries of labour. I take nothing for granted because I know the sweat and toil that the fathers and mothers of this country were prepared to go through in order to make it as prosperous as it is today. All the good things we enjoy depend, in large part, to the labour of others. That is what sacrificial living is all about.

Everyone in this assembly has been down with a gastric virus now for, it seems, weeks. Many of you fear this illness more than others precisely because it brings you down low. And though I would rather Yahweh used other means, I have to confess, once again, that this has been a wonderful prod for me to seek His face as never before.

Last week, because I was too ill to preach, we listened to David Wilkerson, a man of great humility and passion for Elohim (God), and I believe we were richly blessed. I know I was. His work on the streets of New York is a perfect illustration of living in dependancy on Elohim (God) and because of his emunah (faith), Yahweh used him mightily. We stopped watching about three-quarters through the presentation, after he had given his main speech, because that's when the congregation started kicking into false tonuge-speaking. You have to bear in mind that Wilkerson was from an Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, background and know where and when to draw the lines when you're listening to him. It goes to show that our Heavenly Father uses men and women of emunah (faith) in spite of some of their false beliefs and practices.

In actual fact I was listening to quite a few Davild Wilkerson speeches last week, amongst others, as there wasn't much I else I could do while I was recouperating from the virus. As long as he stuck to his main calling, which was to preach holiness and emunah (faith) in Yah'shua (Jesus), Yahweh used him mightily. Once he started deviating into pet Pentecostal themes, at once I sensed the Ruach (Spirit) taking a back seat. We need to remember that lesson.

I don't know what all of your individual pet doctrinal hobby-horses are, though I do know you all struggle with certain doctrines which either create controversy when we discuss them or which, like me, you put on the backburner hoping for a brighter day when things will become clearer. We have had struggles with various brethren and sisters over the tongues controversy over the years and there has always been pressure on me to yield to various interpretations, which I have had to emphatically resist. And, yes, I do absolutely maintain I have received an apostolic and prophetic commission to put this issue right, which is why I am not liberal about it. And I am sure that some of you have that issue on the backburner too, as one or two of you have told me that you could speak in Pentecostal-type 'tongues' at any time you wanted but choose not to because of what you believe Scripture says about the subject. Then there are one or two of you who speak tongues in private, so as not to cause controversy in public.

I am also a great follower of the teachings of the late Leonard Ravenhill who was without a doubt a navi (prophet) whom Yahweh sent to the Evangelical Churches to wake them up. He died a very sad and broken man, and understandably so, because his message was not widely received. Yahweh raises prophetic voices within every community naming the Name of Christ or Messiah and then, if that fails, He raises prophetic voices outside that community and calls the faithful out. I call them 'insider prophets' and 'outsider prophets' - John the Baptist was an example of an 'outsider prophet'.

The two sets of nevi'im (prophets) don't usually have much to do with one another because, like all of us, nevi'im (prophets) have doctrinal issues of their own because of their traditions. What we are brought up in shapes us more than we care to imagine, and it's very, very hard leaving familiar traditions behind. Why? Because they provided us with 'solid ground' as we grew up, points of reference, if you will. A navi (prophet) operating outside denominations or traditions has a much lonelier walk than the one raised in a Baptist or a Pentecostal Church, for example, because he doesn't have broad denominational backing.

Leonard Ravenhill was brought up in England around Pentecostals, Methodists, Baptists and Anglicans - they were his chief 'fare', as it were, and being as it was the 1920's and 30's, his entire exposure to the Bible was, of course, to the almost universally accepted King James Version (KJV). And even though the 1885 Revised Version (RV) was around, plus quite a few lesser known ones, few were using them, and Ravenhill had no time for it himself. He wasn't a KJV-Onlyer but did consider it the KJV the best. And it was certainly the best known and so the most obvious choice for preaching. I get that. And of course hundreds of translations come out during his lifetime but he stuck with what he knew. In a way I envy him - we don't need these dozens of new translations. Most of them are just money-making ventures or ways to get around copyright limitations.

We have what we have and people are familiar with different versions which we prefer. Getting upset with that is pointless. In every age we have to reach people where they are and with what they have in terms of Bibles. That is why I familiarise myself with so many of them. I don't care what Bible versions preach from - I'll happily preach from most if I am asked to - Protestant, Catholic or Messianic.

It causes no small amount of amusement - and sometimes, I would imagine, irritation - when I read my Bible in bed. I lie there looking for spiritual nourishment, a just-before-sleeping devotional, and will be reading a particular passage when I will read something that seems so obviously wrong to me. Siome part of my inner man gets offended, then I'll grunt, and then there will be three of four versions lying open spread out on the bed, and maybe a pet dog will have to move aside a bit to make space for more. If I can't get satisfaction from that then I will head off to another room where other Bible versions are sitting together, bring them in, until the bed is covered with them.

And if that doesn't work, I'll head off to one of my offices to make an even deeper study, digging into concordances, or Gerhard Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament or Ernest Klein's A Compehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language. And though I have about half-a-dozen Bible translations on my bedside table, sometimes they're all wrong...or maybe I just think they are. Sometimes I have to be corrected, and sometimes I'm right and a project is born.

I know, I know, most of you would consider this to be something exceedingly tedious, and it can be, but we are all called to do different things. Some of us are scriptural beachcombers, and while the sifting can be crushingly boring, as any sweaty, exhausted miner will tell you who has to hammer away underground, the exegetical, historical, and linguistic diamonds we dig out are precious beyond comparison, and then the labour becomes so very worth it!

Some great spiritual truths have come forth through painstaking mining operations like this which will be a lasting legacy to the Body of Messiah, we believe. All we know about divine tavnith (pattern), for example, came about in this way, and through direct revelation (in visions and so forth) - so a mixture of both. You can't do anything useful without revelation - without the Ruach (Spirit) - impossible! I know Brother Gabriel understands exactly what I am talking about. He has fed me so many of his own sifted diamonds over the years which, when assembled and set in in a ring of eternity, reveal more of the glory of our Elohim (God)!

"But surely," some have argued over the years, "it would be better to have direct revelation?" Yes, certainly, this is a lot easier to be sure but with so many false revelations circulating these days, there is great advantages to being able to extract the same emet (truth) directly from the Scriptures that everybody accepts, and which people can check up themselves. It's a kind of marriage between the 'inspirational' or 'arty' side of the Besorah (Gospel) and the 'exegetical' or 'scientific' side. It provides balance, plus the investment of hard labour always produce its own dividend. I like to think of it as a combination of having your feet planted firmly on the ground while your head up in the sky. I think this is a safest way to 'do Bible'.

If you're wondering why I am spending so much time this morning on our methodology, I have an important reason. You can be full of the Ruach (Spirit) but your own false doctrinal beliefs will not necessarily be changed. I meet really Ruach-filled people from all sorts of denominations - Baptist, Pentecostal and Messianic but their contrary doctrines remain. Does this mean that the doctrinal differences are unimportant? Is this Yahweh's way of overlooking these things? No. We are emphatically taught many times in the Scriptures to emphatically oppose "whatever ... is contrary to the sound doctrine" (1.Tim 1:10, NIV), to "watch []our life and doctrine closely" (1 Tim.4:16, NIV) and to "encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it" (Titus 1:9, NIV), to name but three passages.

The doctrinal teachers and apologists are here given their clear commission. Not everyone is called to be a teacher or an apologist but neither are we to scorn such activity in the Body because we don't feel very skilled. Apostles, Evangelists, Pastors, and Elders all hold offices that require teaching and apologetic skills. Even those who do not feel very skilled or knowledgeable in these things are commanded to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15, NIV) which will include personal testimony which comes through a relationship with Messiah plus a certain amount of Bible knowledge, however elementary.

People will ask you questions like, 'why do you believe such-and-such a passage in the Bible?' To say that 'the Spirit testifies to me that the passage is true' is all well and good, but ours is also a reasonable emunah (faith). Ours is a personal witness that requires a certain amount of effect to put self out of the picture and to rather silently involke a supernatural agent - the Ruach (Spirit) - that alone can connect people. If someone asks me why I believe in certain biblical doctrines (like divine creation, for example, and not evolution) an answer I sometimes give is this:

I believe because there is explanatory power in the Scriptures.

Our testimony is a combination of mind (intellect), feelings (heart) and Ruach (spirit) because that is who we are...and maybe a bit of physical gesticulating! People will respect a rounded, fully human testimony far more than someone just saying blithely 'God told me so', however true that may be. Such an approach does not create connectivity, bonds are not formed by it, and people will get the idea that you are putting on a 'holier-than-thou' attitude. Such an answer can come across as arrogant because it is arrogant sometimes, because it is haughty, or it may just be plain crazy. Those who are not spiritually regenerated (not born-again) cannot possibly understand what you are talking about if all you do is make an appeal to the supernatural. Being down-to-earth is far more important because we are dealing with spiritual beings - humans - we live in earthenware vessels (2 Cor.4:8). The way we testify therefore becomes very important indeed, which is why Peter added these words to the last passage I read from:

"But do this with gentleness and respect..." (Ibid, NIV).

Your delivery is every bit as important as the content of your witness because it is in the delivery - the means by which we seek to connect to others - that the Ruach (Spirit) dwells in, and may very well be the most important part of, your witness. You cannot convert someone by your brain and heart alone because conversion has to be supernatural, by the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). You can be doctrinally correct - 100 per cent right - but be upset and impatient and the latter will destroy your witness. Our you can be the opposite, a sickly-sweet cold and impervious. Then it will be you talking, as a representative of yourself, instead of Yah'shua (Jesus), whose representative you are called to be.

Let me give you one example of an experience I had with the KJV the other night, as this is a version I still love reading. I had opened up on Psalm 100 and this is what I read in the fifth and last verse:

"For the LORD (Yahweh) is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations" (Ps.100:5, KJV).

Wonderful. Amen! I said in my heart. And then, as sometimes I do, I decided I would carry on reading with another two Bible versions next to my KJV, just to make sure I don't miss anything - a nuance or shade made clearer in another translation - because different traslations tend to bring out senses which the others may miss. So I had a New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and an English Standard Version (ESV), the first a scholars' version, if somewhat liberal-leaving, and the second supposedly conservative (the ESV is actually more liberal than you might believe), and then I noted a discrepancy. For no other version uses "truth" in the verse, and all that I know of (and that's quite a few) use "faithfulness":

"For the LORD (Yahweh) is good; His steadfast love (chesed = mercy, grace) endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations" (Ps.100:5, ESV).

The statements in all three versions - the KJV, NRSV and ESV - are doctrinally true, of course, since both Yahweh's truth and faithfulness endure to all generations, but that isn't the point: the point is that the King James translators rendered the Hebrew word emunah as "truth" when in fact, as we all know, it means "faith" or "faithfulness". It doesn't even sound like the Hebrew for 'truth' which is emet. How did that committee of learned men make such a blunder?

Well, mistakes do get made in translations because no translation is inspired in the same way as the original autographs were. Now I give this by way of an illustration only to point out that translators have biases, and modern translators have modern biases, often culturally influenced - there is nothing quite as dangerous as the culture when you view the Bible through that culture's lenses. For instance, it's only in modern times that the secular idea of "rights" start appearing in English Bible versions - 18 times in the NIV, 10 times in the New American Standard Bible (NASB), zero times in the KJV and American Standard Version (ASV), and only once in the NKJV (Ex.21:10). The original gets seriously distorted when we allow such words and the thoughts behind them in, because we have no need of 'rights' when everyone is carrying out their Torah 'obligations' the Scriptural way. 'Rights' makes things about you, 'obligations' or 'responsibilities' about others and ultimately about Elohim (God).

Do we know why the KJV translators made that mistake? We can't obviously question KJV translators, since they are long dead, but by doing some historical analysis we can be pretty sure, based on the fact that these learnèd men didn't put aside all earlier translations and make a fresh translation from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts they had available. They actually used older English Bible translations which they copied. Most KJV-Onlyers don't realise that as much as 84 per cent of the 1611 KJV is in actual fact copied verbatim from the renowned 1535 Tyndale & Coverdale version (a version which I sometimes use, as Peter Hitchens does) and, lo and behold, what do we find in Psalm 100 there? 'Truth' instead of 'faithfulness'! So where did Coverdale et al get 'truth' from sintead of 'faithfulness'? From Jerome's Catholic Latin Vulgate:

"Et in generationem et generationem fidelitas eius" (Ps.XCIX/90.5, Vulg. [1]).

Thank you Mum and Dad for sending me to a school where I learned Latin, and thank you, Yahweh, for leading me to buy a Latin Vulgate in 1978 when I was at Oxford, which I went to my office to collect, blew the dust off it, and opened up a couple of days ago! 'Fidelitas' is the same as our English 'fidelity' which means 'truthfulness' or 'reliability'. i.e. 'faithfulness', or as the New English Bible (NEB) says, 'constancy'. That is where the KJV translators got 'truth', viâ Coverdale and others, who got it from the Latin Vulgate which they translated into English. Go and check old English Catholic versions of the Bible, like the Douay, and you'll find 'truth' instead of 'faithfulness'. (Modern Catholic Bibles, like the Jerusalem Bible (JB) and Revised New American Bible (RNAB) not only now use the Protestant numbering system but have corrected the Vulgate's error too.)

So you see, that's what happens when you put Scripture through the sieve of multiple languages - translations of translations inevitably lead to error. The KJV was never fully de-Latinised, never fully de-Catholicised. Now I know the error is really very minor - if not trivial - and I am not at all using it to attack the KJV or Vulgate; all I want to do is point out the difficulties in making a good translation, and show why we must be careful and diligent in our Scripture study. We have exactly the same problem in dealing with the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament), most of which which was originally in Aramaic and Hebrew (Matthew), and then translated into Greek before being translated into Latin and then English.

You know, when you've heard a scripture recited in a certain way all your life, like Acts 12:4 which in the KJV speaks of "Easter" [2] instead of "Passover", and have maybe memorised it and even used it in witnessing, or at Eastertide, it's a tough order to accept you were wrong. When new Bible translations started appearing, there was an outcry in Evangelical circles - some changes were justified but some were not. That risk is inherent in all new translations. One reason I love the KJV so much is that it has a majestic and reverential style which no other translation has ever matched since (with perhaps the exception of the Coverdale) but it is hard to understand sometimes (because the English is so antiquated) and it's not always accurate. It's what I grew up with, it was what was familiar to me.

Those of you who are 40 or younger probably, if you weren't from the KJV-using congregations (like the Southern Baptists) probably grew up using the Revised Standard Version (RSV) or New International Version (NIV). They're not too bad, actually, even if they do have their undoubted faults. The RSV was the scholars' preferred version when I was younger and was the one I had to teach from in the public scholl system. But if you're 30 or younger you're probably using something like the 2001 English Standard Version (ESV), supposedly a 'conservative' version but, as I have said, when you start comparing it with avowedly liberal versions like the scholarly New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), you'd be shocked to see how similar they are. Both, to different degrees, are 'politically correct' and both mutilate gender distinctives in places, sometimes quite badly, even to distorting messianic prophecy. I mention that because you need to be aware if you're an ESV user.

I want to end today by looking at one of the most mutilated and misunderstood scriptures in the New Testament, but one which is critically important doctrinally. One of the worst renditions is the much beloved (by some of you) Amplified Version (AmpV) which is a perfect example of a 'paraphrase', which is a roundabout way of saying it's not a translation but someone's commentary:

"Nevertheless (the sentence put upon women [of pain in motherhood] does not hinder their [souls'] salvation, and they will be saved [eternally] if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control; [saved indeed] through the Child-bearing, that is, by the birth of the [divine] Child" (1 Tim.2:15, AmpV).

If your eyeballs are spinning in their sockets after hearing that bizzare translation, I don't blame you. That is probably one of the most awful translations of any Bible passage ever, equalling some of the worst twisting by the Jehovah's Witness in their New World Translation (NWT). By the way, if you ever read a translation like that and it sounds weird, don't blame the Bible - somewhere along the line the translators have got their neurones in a twist. What the Amplified Version of 1 Timothy 2:15 is, is a case of 'damage control' inflicted on a passage that has either been totally misunderstood or totally contradicts some pet doctrine or cherished political belief, and has therefore been squeezed to fit into a preconceived doctrinal mould.

As most of you use the New King James Version (NKJV), let's quote the same passage from there, though most other versions roughly agree, and then I'll explain why this scripture is so important and why Yahweh wanted me to share it with you all today. Maybe you could follow with me and keep it open:

"Nevertheless [a woman] will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control" (1 Tim 2:15, NKJV).

If you feel something is a bit 'off' with that translation too, you'd be right, but unfortunately nearly all modern translations say much the same thing, even scholarly ones like the NRSV and ESV. The problem actually lies with a single word, "saved", which implies that either women have a different route to salvation to men or that her salvation includes having children. We all know that isn't true, of course, because salvation for both genders is through emunah (faith) in the atoning work of Messiah Yah'shua (Jesus) which has nothing to do with anything we can, or would like, to do. That doesn't, of course, mean that we don't have 'works' that we are expected to do, but it does mean they don't factor into the equation of the salvation transaction. Can you understand why the Amplified Version translators got their neurones-in-a-twist? What they did was understandable but entirely wrong and unnecessary. They mutilated the Davar Elohim (Word of God) to supposedly save the face of Christianity before the assault of the critics.

I want to do two things as we finish today. The first is to correct the translation error and the second - the real reason I have been working may way up to this over the last half-an-hour or so - is because contained within this passage and the preceeding verses, is a deep, beautiful mystery. I want to show you what Yahweh revealed to me and show you how it fits into the wonder of divine tavnith (pattern). But first, let's correct the English translation from the Greek, then I am going to say something nice about the Jehovah's Witnesses so that people know that we don't paint anyone with a broad brush but give credit where credit is due, and then see what the original Aramaic reads.

It is true that the Greek word here, sozo, can mean "will be saved" but it can also mean "will be preserved". It can also mean "will be rescued" or "will be preserved safe and unharmed", "will be healed", "will be made whole", or "will be delivered from". In fact, the word appears in several places in our common Greek translations of the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) where it never means 'salvation' [3] in the soterological sense. Paul is not saying that women are saved from sin through child-bearing or that in some way they maintain their salvation by having babies, both of which would totally contradict everything else the Sciptures say about salvation, which is by grace (undeserved loving kindness, unmerited favour) alone through emunah (faith) alone (Rom.3:19-20).

I am sure you are relieved to hear that but there is more mystery tied into this passage so be patient with me as I slowly unpack it for you. First, let me keep my promise to the Jehovah's Witnesses who have translated this passage correctly in their 2013 revised edition of the NWT:

"However, she will be kept safe through childbearing, provided she continues in faith and love and holiness along with soundness of mind" (1 Tim.2:15, NTW 2013).

When the Greek translator got hold of the Aramaic, he used a word that had a two or more meanings, as is common in most languages, one that could mean either "saved" or "kept safe" and one or two other meanings too. He didn't make a mistake. The mistake has come in translating from the Greek, starting with the Latin Vulgate, which then became standard for over a thousand years. What word does the Latin use? "Salvabitur" which means ... "will be saved"! So guess how the Coverdale Bible translated it? "...through bearing of children they shall be saved..." (Cov.) which the KJV then rendered, "...she shall be saved in childbearing..." (KJV). That, brethren and sisters, is how errors get transmitted in translating by the best intentioned of men and women.

Before we read the Aramaic, grab hold of your seats, because you are going to be in for a small shock. The Greek translator got the right verb, which at least had a dual meaning, and then went on and attributed the woman's 'preservation' to her own faith, love, holiness and wisdom. Oh my, did he get that wrong because he too was undoubtedly thinking along the lines of 'salvation through child-bearing' too because he went on to place conditions on the mother. You'll see what I mean.

So, as promised, let's see what Paul actually said to Timothy in the the Aramaic - follow me with your NKJV or other Protestant version as I quote two Aramaic-based translations:

"Yet she will live by means of her children, if they (the children) continue in the faith and in love, and in being Set Apart (Holy), and in wisdom" (1 Tim.2:15, AENT).

"But she has life by the hand of her children, if they remain in faith and in love and in sanctification and in sobriety" (1 Tim.2:15, HRV).

In other words, she will have fulfilled a major part of her purpose in life, that which gives her 'life', that which gives her something to 'live for', if her children turn out right, as faithful, loving, holy (set-apart), sober and wise... which they can only be if she is herself these things, so the Greek translation is partially right, by demanding these attributes of the mother too.

There is no greater joy for a woman, other than having a close and meaningful relationship with her husband in Messiah, than to produce godly offspring, a sentiment very much shared by a godly husband, because it is for these she was created. And even if she does not have physical children of her own, for whatever reason, she can get the same satisfaction and 'life' in raising up 'spiritual children' by the witness of her own life as a wife, a witness which will encourage others to continue in emunah (faith), ahavah (love), become qadosh (holy, set-apart) and be wise. In other words, her second greatest mission in life is to be a divine imager to her physical children and/or spiritual children, reflecting, by her sanctified influence, the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), our Heavenly Mother.

I realise this may take a while to sink in precisely because it's unfamiliar - because of your exposure to, and familiarity with, the inaccurate translations. A saved woman in Messiah has two primary rôles in this life:

• 1. She is called to be echad, or one, with her husband in Messiah, and be his helpmeet in whatever it is Yahweh has called him to do; and
• 2. She is called to raise a generation of godly children under her husband's leadership and tutelage (1 Tim.5:10).

Because mothers have a unique bond and intimacy with their children, and spend far more time with them than their fathers do, they have far greater influence in their lives and thus a unique responsibility and opportunity for rearing godly children to present to their husbands so that he, in his turn, may present them, together with his wife, to Yah'shua (Jesus). And as we shall see now, while a woman (Eve) may have led the human race into sin, women have the privilege of leading many out of sin to godliness through child-rearing, physical and spiritual. The godly appearance, demeanour, and behaviour commanded of believing women in the messianic community (church) is motivated by the promise of deliverance from any inferior status and the simcha (jot) of raising godly offspring.

Our last task is the place this verse, properly translated, into context, with every nuance, which we will now do:

"I desire therefore. that men pray in every place, lifting up their hands with purity, without wrath and without disputation. So also, women should dress in a modest, chaste style of garment. Their adornment should be with reverence, chastity and modesty; not with plaited (braided) hair or gold or pearls or costly clothes, but - as befits a woman who professes reverence for Elohim (God) - with the ornament of good works. Let a wife learn in quietness (silence), with entire submissiveness. For I do not allow a wife to teach nor to be presumptuous (have authority) over her husband, but she should remain silent (in shalom/peace). For Adam was formed first, and then Eve. And Adam was not seduced or deceived, but his wife was thoroughly seduced and deceived and transgressed the mitzvah (commandment) [not to eat the flesh-pleasing fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil]. Yet she will live - she will have life - by means, and at the hand, of her children, if they continue in the emunah (faith) and ahavah (love) and as quadosh ones (set-apart, in holiness), and with self-restraint (self-control), in sobriety, with modesty, with propriety, with sensible behaviour, and in wisdom" (1 Tim.2:8-15, author's translation and commentary, based principally on the AENT, HRV & Richard F.Weymouth, but also with KJV, NRSV, ESV, NIV, NLT, NASB, RSTNE, etc.).

This, says Paul, is the key to a "peaceful and tranquil" life (1 Tim.2:2, Weymouth) that believers may live:

"...with all godliness and in good repute" for "this is right and pleasing in the sight of Elohim (God) our Saviour, who wishes all mankind to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the emet (truth). For there is one Elohim (God) and one Mediator between Elohim (God) and men - Messiah Yah'shua (Jesus), Himself man; who gave Himself as a ransom for all - a fact testified to at its own appointed time. Of this fact I (Paul) have been made a herald and an apostle (I speak the emet (truth): it is not fiction), a teacher of the Gentiles in emunah (faith) and emet (truth)" (vv.2-7, Weymouth).

That is the apostle's preface to the section we have been studying. "So then" - "I desire, therefore..." and then he introduces the text about men praying in holiness and the proper relationship between wives and their husbands in verses 8-15. Our testimony of the salvation of Messiah depends on the way men pray without "anger or strife" and wives submit to their husbands according to the tavnith (pattern) he carefully details, giving his reasons. Adam was not deceived by the devil, Eve was, but he had a weakness - and his weakness was that he was afraid to be alone without Eve again, therefore he deliberately, and consciously, in the full knowledge of what he was doing, rebelled against his Heavenly Father's mitzvah (commandment), which he was supposed to guard and teach his wife, so as not to be separated from her, because he loved her so much.

We may wonder what might have happened had Adam refused the fruit which Eve offered him. Eve would have been cast out of Eden and Adam, remaining behind, would have been alone again with the animals. The Bible does not tell us the struggle he went through, if indeed there was one, though I cannot imagine there was not, before he yielded to his own wife's seduction, which spirit she had acquired from the serpent. Paul says Adam was not beguiled at all, at least not in the way Scripture records that Eve was, for he was beguiled indirectly. He was willing to throw away everything - His intimacy and relationship with Yahweh - for this woman whom he adored from the moment he first laid eyes on her.

How many men have followed fallen women in history, shipwrecked their faith, and lost everything? Samson did, with a Philistine woman. But as believers we cannot afford to do this. Men and women must resist the temptations of the evil one and walk in divine tavnith (pattern) because any other way is an invitation to calamity. I don't pretend this is easy, for either gender, but we absolutely must follow the divine Derech (Way) and not go out of it to follow any other which leads to a dead-end, however promising the false way may seem at first.

We will probably never understand why we were created the genders we were, we can only accept that this was wisdom and ahavah (love) in Yahweh. We cannot complain and make excuses, not try to be what we are not by either running away from our responsibilities or seizing ones that have not be given to us. It's a strait and narrow way, not a broad one, and that necessarily means limitations which built character and take us safely home. All of us fail in our gender rôles at times but we cannot remain failed - we must repent, get up, start again, and do things Elohim's (God's) way.

To say that we are fallible because we are 'human' is also a lie, and a trap the devil sets for us. To sin is not to be human - to be in Messiah's image is to be human, to sin through rebellion is to be anti-human and to acquire the image of the Evil one.

So there it is, and we can only know what is true by digging deep into Scriptrue and being obedient to it. We have seen the problem with some translations and why it is the Yahweh sends us teachers and apologists to ensure that no one tampers with divine tavnith (pattern). I hope this has been a blessing to you all in some small way and that it will encourage you to do what is right and so find the way to "live peaceful and tranquil lives", at the very least at home, because a broken home is hell, "with all godliness and in good repute" because "this is right and pleasing in the sight of Elohim (God)" (1 Tim.2:2-3, Weymouth). Amen.

Endnotes