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Responsible & Accountable

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mannonthecross:
Hi you guys,

I have a question on the LOF, all the way back to Part 2.

Ray writes that God is RESPONSIBLE & we are ACCOUNTABLE. Even so, upon looking up both of these words in Webster's Dictionary & Thesaurus, I found that those two words are actually synonyms of each other-they actually mean the same thing.

Even though I believe that I understand what Ray is conveying, is there a better way to clarify God's being responsible & us being accountable?

Thanx

Daniel:
Never thought of it that way.

I would "suppose" Him being True to His own word, making "us" answerable to Him for every idle word... Would be like His own word judging us (by our own words). Seems twofold to me.

I might not have said that the way I would have liked to (although today I truly have an excuse, trust me :lol: )

Peace

Daniel

Gill:
Hi Mannonthecross,

forgive me, i know this is over-simplified, but this is the way i look at it:

I have two sons.  I feel ultimately responsible for how they will turn out.  I brought them into this world; they didn't choose to be born (bear with me, i know all is of God, but for the sake of this example).
 
Part of my job in raising them to be good and decent adults is to make them accountable for the things they do.  How else will they know and learn right from wrong?

Accountability for sin is there for humanity's sake, so that we all will learn right from wrong.  And God won't shirk His responsibility to us all in bringing us through that learning process.

TimothyVI:
Let me over simplify  it even more.
If I asked your two boys to play baseball with me in your front yard, and one of them hit a ball and broke your window, I would be responsible for the action that caused the window to be broken, but the boy that broke it would be held accountable for the broken window.

I don't know, maybe that is too overly simplified, but it does show that the two words are not exactly synonymous.

Tim

Andy_MI:
I don't know if this will help. I looked up the word responsible on dictionary.com and scrolled about half way down and it had this usage note:

Usage Note: Some critics have maintained that responsible should not be used to describe things, since only persons can be held accountable. The application to things is justifiable, however, when responsible is used to mean “being the source or cause of.� In an earlier survey, a majority of the Usage Panel accepted the sentence Faulty construction was responsible for the crash.

I also found the use of the word account in the new testament interesting.

Mat 12:36  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account (gk 3056 logos) thereof in the day of judgment.
Mat 12:37  For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

G3056
λόγος
logos
Thayer Definition:
1) of speech
1a) a word, uttered by a living voice, embodies a conception or idea
1b) what someone has said
1b1) a word
1b2) the sayings of God
1b3) decree, mandate or order
1b4) of the moral precepts given by God
1b5) Old Testament prophecy given by the prophets
1b6) what is declared, a thought, declaration, aphorism, a weighty saying, a dictum, a maxim
1c) discourse
1c1) the act of speaking, speech
1c2) the faculty of speech, skill and practice in speaking
1c3) a kind or style of speaking
1c4) a continuous speaking discourse - instruction
1d) doctrine, teaching
1e) anything reported in speech; a narration, narrative
1f) matter under discussion, thing spoken of, affair, a matter in dispute, case, suit at law
1g) the thing spoken of or talked about; event, deed
2) its use as respect to the MIND alone
2a) reason, the mental faculty of thinking, meditating, reasoning, calculating
2b) account, i.e. regard, consideration
2c) account, i.e. reckoning, score
2d) account, i.e. answer or explanation in reference to judgment
2e) relation, i.e. with whom as judge we stand in relation
2e1) reason would
2f) reason, cause, ground
3) In John, denotes the essential Word of God, Jesus Christ, the personal wisdom and power in union with God, his minister in creation and government of the universe, the cause of all the world’s life both physical and ethical, which for the procurement of man’s salvation put on human nature in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the second person in the Godhead, and shone forth conspicuously from His words and deeds.
Part of Speech: noun masculine
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: from G3004
Citing in TDNT: 4:69, 505

It's the same word used in John1:1

Joh 1:1  In the beginning was the Word (gk 3056 logos), and the Word(gk3056 logos) was with God, and the Word was God.

I hope this helps,

Andy

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