Someone (i.e., me) once wrote:
What do you reckon: is this a true reading? Does the grammar work?In Hebrews 2:12 it records this of Jesus:
Here it talks as if Jesus is currently doing this — he is currently saying something (‘He says’, not ‘said’). And the thing Jesus is saying is that he will declare God’s name to his spiritual family. He talks about his family being assembled together as a congregation, and he says he will sing God’s praises in front of that congregation.
He says, “I will declare your name to my brothers;
in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.”
I agree with everything everyone has said here, BUT.
Jesus proved the resurrection by quoting the words of God to Moses 'I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob' saying 'God is not a God of the dead, but of the living'. This is using present tense to prove a point, in this case the resurrection from the dead. This was not the intention of the words when they were spoken, this is an example of Jesus using the way something has been recorded to prove a secondary point, isn't it? Is it okay for us to do the same thing? Use an application to prove a point for which it was not necessarily intended?
How that applies to Luke's 'present tense' argument is questionable, however.