When apostle Paul required Christians to disassociate themselves from the so-called Christian "brother" who sins, he gave a list of such sins. One sin listed was "reviler":
9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;What does "reviler" mean? According to standard grammatical authorities:
10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.
11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:9-13 NAU)
BDAG and GINGRICH say it is an "abusive person"
TDNT says:
ἀντιλοιδορέω antiloidoreÃoÒ [to revile in return]DANKER says
This common word group has the secular sense of reproach, insult, calumny, and even blasphemy. In the LXX it carries the nuance of wrangling, angry remonstrance, or chiding as well as the more usual calumny. Philo has it for mockery or invective. In the NT the verb occurs four times and the noun and adjective twice each.
1. loiÃdoros occurs in lists of vices in 1 Cor. 5:11 and 6:10. In Acts 23:4 Paul is asked why he reviles the high priest, and in his reply he recognizes a religious duty not to do so. In Mart. Pol. 9.3 the aged Polycarp cannot revile Christ; to do so would be blasphemy.
2. Christians should try to avoid calumny (1 Tim. 5:14), but when exposed to it (cf. Mt. 5:11) they should follow Christ's example (1 Pet. 2:23; cf. Mt. 26:63; Jn. 18:23), repaying railing with blessing (1 Pet. 3:9). This is the apostolic way of 1 Cor. 4:12: “When reviled, we bless” (cf. Diog. 5.15). By this answer to calumny the reality of the new creation is manifested. [H. HANSE, IV, 293-94]
λοίδορος,ου,ὁ [fr. a source shared by Lat. ludus ‘game’] insolent person 1 Cor 5:11; 6:10."insolent" means:
Showing a rude and arrogant lack of respect (English Oxford);
(of a person or a person’s behavior) intentionally and rudely showing no respect (Cambridge);
insultingly contemptuous in speech or conduct (Merriam-Webster)
So it's pretty safe to say that the standard grammatical authorities tell us that the "reviler" brother that Paul tells Christians to stay away from is the "brother" who is constantly abusive in speech, or insulting, constantly engaging in angry wrangling/mockery, and doing this in a rude disrespectful way, or otherwise engaging in insultingly contemptuous speech.
What we can reasonably thus conclude that the smartest Christian apologist in the world is completely blind to the basic NT ethics taught in this passage.
Or perhaps, being so smart, yes he knew about it, but chose to ignore its obvious meaning, likely because he has a genetic defect that causes him to suppress and excuse away anything that might reveal a character flaw and pretend his own opinion is infallible.
His babies will scream "there's an exception for skeptics who publicly criticize our faith!"
The trouble is that I've already gotten statements from legitimately credentialed scholars, some of whom previously publicly endorsed Holding, who said they see no biblical justification, whatsoever, for today's Christian to be insulting toward anybody, including critics and skeptics. See here.
For example, see my blog piece showing that Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. Gary Habermas likely think James Patrick Holding is a piece of shit scumbag, since even back in 2004 they were jointly insisting that it is biblically unacceptable for a Christian to insult "skeptics". See here.
Gary Habermas once publicly endorsed Holding. Licona's daughter is the wife of Holding's ministry partner Nick Peters. One might reasonably speculate that this family has often had friendly conversations about Holding's infamously foul mouth (I have emails showing Habermas rebuking Holding for it), and not even the world's smartest Christian apologists (Licona and Habermas) can see any biblical justification for, and see only biblical condemnation against, Holding's genetically defective tendency to insult anything he hates.
Holding's babies will scream "we are employing riposte the way Jesus and Paul did", but the clear prohihbition against reviling in 1st Corinthians 5:11 makes it clear that God doesn't want you to do something merely because Jesus and Paul did it. Whatever first-century "riposte" was, its limits are clearly specified in that verse. No, the name-calling nature of ancient agrarian cultures doesn't automatically mean you are justified to imitate it.
For the Holding-babies who continue to support him regardless, you might want to read about God's instituting America's libel-laws in Romans 13, then ask yourself why Holding is unable to escape the current libel lawsuit I've filed against him.
If it is so easy for Holding to prove this current lawsuit to be frivolous or unfounded, why hasn't he prevailed with a motion to dismiss yet? Might it actually be a bit harder to disprove my allegations, than it would be to state the first letter of the English Alphabet?
Could it actually be that the world's biggest scumbag apologist actually did cross the line into legitimately actionable slander? Gee, you've never heard of honest-appearing Christians being exposed as scandalous wolves, have you?
If that is a possibility, then why haven't you given serious consideration to apostle Paul's demand that you dissociate yourself from "brothers" who are "revilers"?
What we can reasonably thus conclude that the smartest Christian apologist in the world is completely blind to the basic NT ethics taught in this passage.
Or perhaps, being so smart, yes he knew about it, but chose to ignore its obvious meaning, likely because he has a genetic defect that causes him to suppress and excuse away anything that might reveal a character flaw and pretend his own opinion is infallible.
His babies will scream "there's an exception for skeptics who publicly criticize our faith!"
The trouble is that I've already gotten statements from legitimately credentialed scholars, some of whom previously publicly endorsed Holding, who said they see no biblical justification, whatsoever, for today's Christian to be insulting toward anybody, including critics and skeptics. See here.
For example, see my blog piece showing that Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. Gary Habermas likely think James Patrick Holding is a piece of shit scumbag, since even back in 2004 they were jointly insisting that it is biblically unacceptable for a Christian to insult "skeptics". See here.
Gary Habermas once publicly endorsed Holding. Licona's daughter is the wife of Holding's ministry partner Nick Peters. One might reasonably speculate that this family has often had friendly conversations about Holding's infamously foul mouth (I have emails showing Habermas rebuking Holding for it), and not even the world's smartest Christian apologists (Licona and Habermas) can see any biblical justification for, and see only biblical condemnation against, Holding's genetically defective tendency to insult anything he hates.
Holding's babies will scream "we are employing riposte the way Jesus and Paul did", but the clear prohihbition against reviling in 1st Corinthians 5:11 makes it clear that God doesn't want you to do something merely because Jesus and Paul did it. Whatever first-century "riposte" was, its limits are clearly specified in that verse. No, the name-calling nature of ancient agrarian cultures doesn't automatically mean you are justified to imitate it.
For the Holding-babies who continue to support him regardless, you might want to read about God's instituting America's libel-laws in Romans 13, then ask yourself why Holding is unable to escape the current libel lawsuit I've filed against him.
If it is so easy for Holding to prove this current lawsuit to be frivolous or unfounded, why hasn't he prevailed with a motion to dismiss yet? Might it actually be a bit harder to disprove my allegations, than it would be to state the first letter of the English Alphabet?
Could it actually be that the world's biggest scumbag apologist actually did cross the line into legitimately actionable slander? Gee, you've never heard of honest-appearing Christians being exposed as scandalous wolves, have you?
If that is a possibility, then why haven't you given serious consideration to apostle Paul's demand that you dissociate yourself from "brothers" who are "revilers"?
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