For some time, 119 Ministries, has been sliding toward compromising positions with their Downy soft approach to some tough Biblical stances. More than once, I have addressed them, both privately and publicly. This is the latter!
Like David Wilber, a contributor for 119 Ministries, the ministry has recently taken a public stance that Yeshua was in submission to the Church when He went to the stake/cross. Here is an image of a public comment recently made by 119Ministries on their facebook page demonstrating that they concur with Wilber (and JK McKee’s) absurd position on mutual submission.
My answer to Wilber, in the videos below, exactly apply to 119 Ministries’ error. In those videos, I even subtly referred to 119 because Wilber contributes to their research and production. Before the videos, though, an illustration demonstrating that Wilber, McKee, and 119 Ministries do not understand ‘submission’ or ‘servanthood.’
Last night, my wife and I had a pleasant dinner at a small local seafood restaurant. The glazed brussels sprouts and blackened Ahi Tuna were amazing, but I digress.. 😉 The waitress took our order then later brought our meal and served it. She was serving us, taking care of our needs. Was she in submission to us? Or… was she in submission to the owner of the restaurant who rewards her with a paycheck for following his order to care for his customers??
Obviously! She is in submission to her boss, her authority, her head!
Yeshua, was in submission to the Father, every step of the way. Every instant of every minute of every hour of every day…. Always has been, always will be. He can’t have two heads any more that we can. He only did the will of the Father. It was the Father’s will to bruise Him. He prayed to the Father in Gethsemane when He said, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”
Yeshua was in submission to the Father!!
Wilber and McKee, and apparently 119 Ministries, now, have to change the meaning of submission and who Yeshua was in submission to so they can slide in their egalitarian/feminist fallacy and Marxist agenda. Think I’m kidding?? The three are most certainly related!!
If they are not intentionally doing so, then they need to take a step back and reevaluate what they are promoting, because it is demonstrably UNscriptural.
My two part video response to Wilber, and now 119 Ministries, as well as a final note…
The final note, since we are talking about 119 Ministries error… Here’s another very challenging rebuttal where, as much as feminized western culture may not like the topic, I demonstrated that 119 Ministries took the ‘man pleasing’ (or, ‘woman pleasing’) way out instead of stiffening their spine and actually answering the topic from Scripture as they used to do… I guess they don’t ‘Test Everything’ anymore.
Sad.
natsab 
There are a few things I have questions too that they have published.
I haven’t watched any of their videos in a while. They have a lot of good information to glean from, but a few things have caught my attention as well.
Great post and thanks for sharing this.
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Yahushua prayed in the garden “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” that sums it up for me, who Yahushua was submitting to.
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If Yeshua submitted to the church then he was doing the will of the church and not the will of the father. It would mean Yehsua obeyed the church and made his will subservient to the churches will, which is an act of worship. To say that Yeshua worshipped the church is to attack his nature and work at all levels.
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To say that Yeshua temporarily changed his allegiance from submitting to the father to submitting to the church is also to say that he changed who he worshipped. We worship who we serve. This is to accuse Yeshua of idolatry. The false teaching at 119 ministries has reached levels where they should be dis-fellowshipped.
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Excellent insightful points!
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What shameful behavior. If an unbeliever were to happen upon this unfortunate thread of comments, surely they would turn away thinking maybe they don’t want anything to do with a faith that causes so much nasty bickering among its followers. It is one thing to disagree and debate, iron sharpens iron, but such contempt? You both just became the subject and focus, not His Word.
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I am so blessed that you can lay it out in such a simple and understandable way….I was a very strong supporter of 119 ministry and only pray they have their eyes opened to this error soon and make it public as many are being led by these men
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Hi Pete. I finally got around to listening to one of your…interesting videos. It seems like your error comes from a lack of understanding regarding the nuances of the word “submission.” I see that you like to quote from Webster’s dictionary to define biblical words. It would help you to know that the Bible wasn’t originally written in English. Paul’s original readers were not relying on Webster’s dictionary to define the words Paul used. What scholars are interested in is what PAUL meant by the term in the context of the passage itself and how his original readers would have understood the term. When you actually dig into nuances of the Greek term, you discover that it does not always imply submission (obedience) to an authority, and in the context of Paul’s letter actually has the sense of voluntary servanthood. Anyway, I explain more in this article if you’re interested in finding out more about why people who take the Bible seriously disagree with you. Hope it helps!
https://davidwilber.com/articles/understanding-submission-in-marriage-ephesians-5
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David Wilber,
Welcome “to this false teacher’s fringy blog” [that you] “do not want to give…credibility with search engines.” (Reader, please, see footnote 14 in his linked article as DW was too much of a coward to link my name or blog or give proper credit. I’ve saved a screenshot!)
David, while your comment is quite snarky, I’ll attempt to overlook your condescension. Simply, the entire flow of Scripture, from Gan Eden, before the fall, until at least the end of the Millennial Kingdom is Patriarchal. God has an authority structure that even He almost never violates. This is why Paul teaches (1 Cor. 11:3) God => Messiah => man => woman. He teaches in multiple places that wives are to submit to their husbands. He NEVER teaches husbands to submit to their wives, though he is clear, ‘love your wife as Messiah loved the ekklesia.’ Paul, further, teaches that elders and ekklesia leaders are to be men (husbands) and that women are not to teach or even speak in the assembly.
Only modern, ‘enlightened’ and quite feminized western Christianity has begun to redefine words like ‘hupotasso’ into a ‘kinder/gentler’ middle voice so that they/you can appease the aspiring queens of heaven.
I explain well in these two videos my response to both you and McKee..
https://youtu.be/4IPwDtLQGF0
https://youtu.be/6sQI0yjm_zQ
Your error is equating caring/loving responsibility with submission to.
Your Torah study should easily inform your understanding. Have you not read that a man can cancel his woman’s vow, but no such corollary exists? Have you not read that a jealous husband can take his woman to the High Priest, but no such corollary exists? Have you never noticed that EVERY house is named after the male head of the house? House of Jacob, Israel, David, Joseph, Judah, etc?
You claim to be a teacher of the Law and know it not?
Finally, your attempt to school me on understanding Paul “in the context of the passage itself and how his original readers would have understood the term” is laughable when you refuse to consider that your fanciful understanding of Lev. 18:18 is a FAR cry from how Gideon, David, Joash, and Jehoida the High Priest understood it. The irony is rich!
Our video on Lev. 18:18 will be out on Friday… Enjoy.
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Wow, thank you for all of that irrelevant nonsense that had nothing to do with my response to you. I’m not going to follow all of your red herrings. The fact remains that you are reading your heretical male supremacist theology INTO the Scriptures instead of taking the Bible for what it clearly says in context. I’m not interested in debating about all of your heresies. I only engage with people who take the Bible seriously and who base their beliefs on sound exegesis. You’ve proven over and over that you don’t care about what the Bible says at all but only want to abuse it to exalt yourself as some creepy male supremacist cult leader. No thanks. This is all you’re getting from me. I’ll go back to ignoring you now.
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Just one last thing: the one relevant thing you said in response to my comment was, “Only modern, ‘enlightened’ and quite feminized western Christianity has begun to redefine words like ‘hupotasso’ into a ‘kinder/gentler’ middle voice so that they/you can appease the aspiring queens of heaven.”
This tells me that you’ve never even considered the lexical data. Do you even know where to look? (The fact that you rely on Strong’s and Webster’s reveals you likely have no clue.) Or do you just automatically dismiss all evidence that disagrees with your Greco-Roman inspired theology as a conspiracy theory of “feminized” Christian scholars purely out of bias? I’m going to be nice and assume that you’re simply ignorant because you don’t know how to engage in serious biblical study instead of assuming that you’re being intentionally dishonest.
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David,
My late father, a wise man, often quoted a saying: “Better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Since you opened your mouth…. Re: Lexical aids. If you had done your homework, you would know that I was using lexical aids such as Bauer, Mounce, Kubo, Armstrong, Busby, and BDB while you were still in middle school or even elementary school. The hardcopies, that I purchased new, date to the previous century.
And, ‘a conspiracy theory of “feminized” Christian scholars’ is a real thing! Maybe you should consider the history of liberal theology and its connection to feminism from Schleiermacher to Fiorenza.
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Well, it appears that you don’t have an excuse to be so ignorant then. You have some adequate resources to help you realize that your simplistic definition is overly narrow. You are CHOOSING to dismiss that evidence based on a conspiracy theory. My initial assumption appears to have been wrong—you are intellectually dishonest and willfully dismissing evidence that goes against your views. Sad. This is why people who take the Bible seriously cannot take YOU seriously, Pete. Your allegiance is not to the Scriptures; it’s to your fringy male supremacist views that you try to force INTO the Scriptures. Arguing with you is like arguing with a Scientologist or any other cult member whose foundation is something other than the Bible. We simply have no common ground upon which to have any kind of discussion. Have a nice life.
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No, David,
It is you who fail to take all of Scripture into account. The whole of Scripture speaks with one voice, man is and always has been more accountable and responsible for the ladies. It is only when men are not leading and being the head, that society collapses.
All of Judaism and Christendom are historically patriarchal. It is this last century’s experiment of allowing women to teach and preach that opens the same door into liberal theology that suffrage and no fault divorce opens into economic and familial collapse. You can laugh, make snide remarks, dismiss with stupid little slams, but it is evident… your millennial, woke, pandering self has sold the farm for a few fawning voices that will OWN you…
You know it, but you’re addicted to softness. Sadly, masculinity is a foreign concept to many males in your generation. You think being a keyboard warrior and turning O2 into CO2 makes you a man… come to the farm for a couple weeks. Learn what work and callouses are all about. Get a taste for the real calling on Adam… then we can talk.
‘Til then, you’re just another feminized waster of what warriors created.
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David,
Your snarky tone to Peter is not appropriate for he is older than you; his hair is grey with the years as you would have observed if you really saw one of his YouTubes in response to your Controversy Corner with John McKee. (Aside: you and John McKee were two young men mocking an elder of the people.) Have you not read the following?
Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:32
Wisdom is with the aged, And with long life comes understanding. (Job 12:12)
Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren (1 Timothy 5:1)
You wrote “[w]hat scholars are interested in” … That’s … interesting. I have noticed that your teaching style involves citing this or that scholar who says something that you agree with. Full disclosure: I do the same at times. That teaching method is not that far from the rabbis who taught in the name of an older rabbi. Yeshua was different – he asked “Have you not read … “.
As I recall, when my co-authors and I wrote our response to your paper arguing that Leviticus 18:18 was the hidden code that only 20th/21st century people finally understood prohibited polygyny, we answered your scholars and upped the bet by citing far more ancient scholars who were actually Jewish rabbis living much closer to Biblical times.
If you need a refresher, here’s the link to it: http://biblelaw101.com/ShouldLeviticus1818BeUnderstoodasProhibitingP-3.html
In that paper, my co-authors cited such Jewish luminaries as the translators of the Septuagint, the writers of the Gemara, Rashi, ibn Ezra, and Maimonides. Your modern scholars aren’t even in the same building, much less the same book as these men. Our paper also pointed out problems with your other three arguments. We sent the paper to you for private review; we were ignored. We published it again, and you ignored us. Then you finally claimed to one of my co-authors some excuse that wasn’t even good enough for me to remember!
By the way, I doubt that the Leviticus 18:18 argument is even original to you. I have seen Nehemiah Gordon make that argument, and to the best of my recall, I do not remember seeing you acknowledge Gordon.
In our paper, we mentioned that you had said you were planning another video on Leviticus 20. Did I miss that video? If so, did you point out that Leviticus 20 lists the penalties for each of the prohibitions of Leviticus 18? Did you happen to also point out that no penalty, much less the death penalty, was assessed for a man who married two sisters at the same time?
Oh, and one more thing… did it escape your notice that God kills men who sin against Him (Leviticus 20 being the most recent example)? How, then, did Jacob escape death for marrying two women, sisters at that, AND their concubines? Rather, it was Rachel who died, when she bore Benjamin, because she stole her father’s teraphim and Jacob pronounced a death sentence on the thief. Isn’t that odd, David? Jacob buried Rachel and Israel stood up from the grave.
Speaking of Israel, despite all the family drama, has it escaped your notice that it was God who took Israel to Egypt and then brought them out to become a nation for Himself?
The problem with Jacob and his wives is yours, not God’s. He was fine with it.
How do I know that? Because He came down HARD on David when that great king committed adultery with Bath-Sheba and had Uriah murdered. But many wives? Not a word.
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“The problem with Jacob and his wives is yours, not God’s.”
Might I just point out: that was a “mic drop” moment.
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At the time of Jacob there was no Torah. Apparently it was permissible. Bathsheba and King David was a different scenario.
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Sorry, but I see absolutely no sound biblical reasons for your objections. It seems emotional and contemptuous? Sometime is off here… Jesus was a servant heart as our example, he washed the feet of his disciples… Yeshua is the church. He was NOT servant of any church, that’s not what they said. I ask the you examine your heart, reread it with scripture and pray about it.
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119 Ministries has fallen so far. I agree with the Revolting Man that he’s an infiltrator and not a brother. He wants traditional values over truth. That’s the problem. They’re traditional.
David will be in the kingdom and liars thrust out.
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I agree that Jesus was only in submission to God. And likewise, per your videos, when my husband is submissive to God our home is in harmony and it is a joy to be submissive to him through my obedience to God. If my husband were to be submissive to me, it would be a backwards mess. I do not understand the motivation to suggest that Jesus is submissive to anyone but the Father, or that somehow He was different on earth than He is now at the right hand of the Father. He is, was and always will be the same.
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I have stopped watching a videos from with Wilber, long before I saw any of your rebuttals. He seems to exude an effeminate spirit just from his speech patterns and inflection, which was a turn-off from getting anything meaningful from his expositions, even if I felt what he was saying was in-line with the Word. The fact that he is always teaching with a hat on has also made me feel as if his Head was covered spiritually. And yes, there is a binding connection between the physical and spiritual head covering. He is the main reason I heavily scrutinize everything that comes from 119 Ministries, before I allow my family to see it. It seems they have forgotten to Test Everything!
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I’ve been listening to 119 ministries for a couple months and haven’t found anything of that nature yet I absolutely agree with you that we are in submission to Yeshua not he to us he is only in submission to the father. He did us a great service and made salvation possible for all at the cross I don’t see how you can get anything else out of that we really have to be careful what and who we listen to
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