Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
I'm skeptical, and not because of my LC background.
Gen 4.25 thru chapter 5 is the lineage of Seth in a positive contrast to the lineage of Cain recorded in 4.16-24.
If 4.26 were displaced into the lineage of Cain, I might consider the alternative translation. That's not to say that "calling on Jehovah" is definitive, since another says, "preaching in the name ..."
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I don't take the phrase "
call upon the name of the LORD" to mean anything definitive. What I do think is that this represents point in time where there was a change in people's relationship with God (either for better or worse). Maybe what happened was that people began to take it upon themselves to preach. Maybe there were more public forms of worship. Or the alternative is possibly that people became more bold in profaning the name of the Lord. Although this is probably the least likely, the possibility is worth consideration, especially for a group who has made a practice out of a phrase.
"Calling on the Lord" as it is practiced in the LC is one of those things that was put into practice in a hyper-literal way. I presume at some point that it was claimed that WL was the first one to 'see' the matter of calling on the Lord.
Frankly, I think the main reason that we notice verses like this is because of our background in the LC. Otherwise, we might just read over these verses and think nothing of it. It's not that others didn't notice these verses as well, it's just that the majority of Christians chose to not assume that it meant something more than it did.
It is hard for me to read this verse (and others like it) and think that it is any way related to a specific practice. I'm certain that people didn't all the sudden realized that they needed to start saying "Oh Lord Jesus" three times. It seems like everyone but those in the LC can see this.