All those versions

So I met a guy the other day while working.  After he heard  I went to bible college got a degree in theology and had a master's from seminary he informed me that while he wasn't spiritual he did take some philosophy from different religions such as Buddhism and from Christianity and even some from satanism. He had told me that he came from a very strict southern baptist church that wanted to control everything.   He was an interesting guy.  Later I don't if he was trying to poke me a bit or what but we asked me what my specialization was and i told him New Testament and he proceeded to ask of which version of the bible.

Now I have seen this question and seen this statement to mean there are many bibles out there and they keep changing over time because it is just a man made book. I was happy to explain to him that I studied the original Greek and that our translations were actually quite accurate, but it reminded me of this common objection to the bible itself.

It is actually a good objection in the sense that if you can undermine the Word than you can dismiss the content and the religion tied to it. If that were the case.  So let's look at this objection, let's do some apologetics.

Aren't all the different versions a testimony that the Bible is unreliable?

Well a similar questions could be don't all those different denominations mean the Bible isn't clear or maybe even they are all serving a different God?  The denominations questions first because it is really quite simple. This has to do with flavor. Some like their bodies to be traditional with hymns and deeply exegetical preaching and some like the worship to be more contemporary and the message to contain smaller words easier to digest. Some like to baptize after conversion with immersion and some prefer simply sprinkling or baby baptism. But these are all preferences that allow us to worship together without always breaking off to have a debate. Some like Calvin a lot and some like Arminius. We can agree to disagree on certain things and thus continue in unity in Christ. This is why Christianity can have many denominations.

So is that how the Bible versions work? Well yes and no. Yes in that they do meet people where they are and no because they do not give different doctrine. The different versions are actually about readability not content. When a Bible does change core doctrine it absolutely does become just another book written by man. This is why the Jehovah's Witness for example are not considered Christian.  They tamper with key passages and make them out to say something completely different, they specifically undermine the deity of Christ.

Other religions such as Islam and Mormonism borrow a lot of ideas from the Bible but in the end their message contradicts, which is why they have they own books. By the way, both of these religions pay lip-service to the Bible while undermining it, they both were delivered to them by "angels".  This is specifically pointed out by Paul in Galatians 1 as something that would still not validate the message as it undermines Christ.

⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! ⁹ As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

Paul again reminds that Satan deceives in 2 Corinthians 11.

¹² And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. ¹³ For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. ¹⁵ So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

So Yes there are some bad books out there but the various versions of the Bible are different. They are written in such a way as to grant access to the reader's understanding. The NIV for example is what is called a dynamic equivalent to the original Greek. In other words it gives the thought for thought account of the Greek and Hebrew and communicates in a more understandable fashion to our post modern world. An ASV in a more direct translation a formal equivalence it focuses on word for word translations, it keeps all the difficult phrasing and abruptness in the language and is this more of a challenge to read but highly accurate. But these are examples of communicating mostly for accessibility not content. They will not be at odds in reflection to the original Greek. 

This is the point: we have so many of the original Greek papyrus that we can simply go back and check if our translations are reliable or not.  This is why I studied Greek in seminary to be able to work out the original text and see for myself. And our translations are quite good. I personally use the ESV as it combines the most current Greek manuscripts with an nice sounding verbiage similar to the NKJV.  So Thees and Thous aside, this is not something that the church needs to divide over and certainly no reason to decide that one version is the only one to read.  The Message and the New Living are more of a paraphrase than a true version for the purpose of putting it into the modern day vernacular. I feel that because of this we may miss out on the nuance of the 1st century message because of language barrier and cultural differences. I have a preference but I would want anyone to read what actually gets you into the Word. 

I would also add the more accurate translation the better simply to be as close to the original intent as possible, but that may be something that one needs to work up to.  If an ASV is too difficult then start with an NIV if that is too difficult start with the Living. I would hope we would work towards the ones that have the closest to the original as possible so as to not have the challenge be in our wording but in the actual commands of God. 

Here are some useful testimonies:
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

2 Tim 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work

Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

So to answer this line of attack one simple says "I have all the reasons I need to believe the reliability of the scriptures, but good sir, have you exhausted all the reasons to simply not engage? It seems to me that you run the bigger risk at being wrong among the two options. To accidentally attempt to live a life of virtue is better than to accidentally live a life that ends in hell."

thanks 

Changing Dirty Filters

I recently was working a job where I did maintenance. A common problem was with our air movers. Air returns have filters. Our houses have filters. Filters grab the particles of dirt and dust out of the air so we do not breathe them.  But when our filters get dirty and need change they can shut down the clean air.

In the same way we have filters in the way we hear a messages. I hinted at this a little while back when talking about the church.  Different people have different backgrounds. We see, we hear, we feel differently.  If we have a background of works and pain then we are sensitive when a message has this sound to it so we shut down. Or perhaps we have a background of license and then we are sensitive to a message that has a lot of grace talk. Or perhaps we have a background with the Word being misrepresenting and so we are sensitive to when this happens etc. 

A problem occurs over time when the filter is spent. In other words I have put up filters and rightfully so in order to filter the garbage. But, over time if we do not clean out the filter or simply change it, it starts to malfunction and starts to prevent clear passage. This is a problem in HVAC and it is a problem in communication. If we always bring our hurts and pasts to the table and never clean out the filters then we will always hear what we fear. What happens if we loose the ability to hear outside of our experience?

We can see how our own culture has changed into the kind of people who cannot hear beyond its filters/pain/experience. We do this and we refrain from entering into any kind of useful dialog because our offense siren will not turn off.  In other words we assume.

I don't need to tell you what happens when we do that. The bigger problem is however overtime we do not simply not hear, we can't hear. The actual message is gone and instead what we see is enemies and offenses all around and we do not engage. We do not hear the encouragement that was there. We do not hear the life that was there. We most certainly do not hear the exhortation that was there. Our filter is clogged and over time we begin to think that the it's air that is dirty.

I am sure at some point something I have written has pricked someone the wrong way. Perhaps I wasn't clear or I was insensitive. This is something for me to work on for sure. But what all of us can work on is how we filter information. This is a problem of our culture for sure, but again this is not a blog for the world to fix itself with, this is for the church. If as Christians we do this then we risk missing out on something God may have for us.

I think we get a picture of this from the story Joseph and his brothers.

Joseph has these awesome dreams about what God was going to do his life. Joseph perhaps naively thought that his brother would rejoice with him over the revelation from God.  His brothers misunderstood his excitement for pride and wanting to rule over them. Their filters of jealousy and competition for their father's love ended up with them selling him into slavery. A misunderstanding perhaps?

Another example is David and Saul.

David only ever wanted to serve the King and God but his deeds continually out paced the King's. Unfortunately all Saul could feel was jealousy over loosing his throne and kingdom.  He could not see the ally that God had brought him because of his filter of fear of loosing what he had and jealousy of a more popular man among the people. He was blinded to the relationship that God put in his life and would not heed what God was doing. A misunderstanding perhaps?

Another example is our course Jesus and his disciples with even the pharisees.

On many occasions Jesus was simply misunderstood from the people he was speaking to. Jesus had to stop and clarify many times to the disciples because they were not tracking with him. They had their natural filters out and could not see the spiritual things he was communicating. Perhaps rightly so, in this case, but then even Jesus had to take the time to make his message known. Even Jesus with all his communication gifts had to take the time to clarify himself with the people he wanted relationship with.

I understand that Jesus is perhaps in a different category from the rest, but he still gives us the example of needing to clarify. This is especially true when communicating with the world. They may hear certain things we are not saying. We may however also be saying things we are not meaning. So clarify, understand, listen, we may yet be able to communicate the gospel to a dying world, but we will never do it we can't first communicate to one another well.  Misunderstandings are going to happen, from a writer's/speaker's perspective we need to take the time to clarify the message. From a reader/listener perspective we need to take the time to clean or change our filters.

Talking past each other is a real shame, in the church and outside. This inability to communicate well has led our country collectively to become the "walking wounded". If we do not work through our pain filled filters or tear down our sharpened tongues we will no longer communicate anything other than hurt. When everyone is a victim, nobody has a problem to work on. When we foster a society of blame, nobody grows. As Christians we should want to change this.

Why? Because we want to hear God when he speaks, Don't we?

thanks

A re-New Hope

Writing straight theology is easy for me, but returning to my personal walk is a challenge. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, sometimes I have to be honest about where I am. These words from the Cure's song Maybe Someday sometimes haunt me.

No I won't do it again, I don't want to pretend
If it can't be like before, I've got to let it end
I don't want what I want, I've had a change of head

I got to let it go and leave it gone,
just walk away, stop it going on
Get to scared to jump if I want too long

Being hopeless is not a place that a Christian should be, but I have to admit sometimes I feel this temptation. I have been tired of being without hope for awhile. So I have to come back and ask God where is the hope? I read 1 Corinthians 2 where it says:

 

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”

I read this and I say "well my eye has certainly not seen nor has my ear heard."  But Paul reminds the Corinthians that he came to them and he decided to know nothing among them except Christ and him crucified. I can write good theology but it means nothing if I can't stop resting my faith in the wisdom of men and instead find solace in the power of God. The power of God. What power of God? 

We don't always experience the power of God the way the disciples did. I know that God gives different gifts to different people. I don't have to worry about not having the gift of healing or of the prophetic. This is not about answering the why's of those questions but instead reflecting on the power that is readily available to us. There is power in simply knowing God. As much as we may want Jesus to be present with us, he said that it was to our benefit for him to go away. He said this because he would send the comforter, the counselor, the companion, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seems to impart the power for our gifts, but for this discussion he grants access to the very person of God. Jesus was the human God with us, and the Spirit is God with us now. Until we stand in his presence physically again.

The power that is readily available to us is in his resurrection. The other is the power of prayer. He rose from the dead. That means his words are true. Two powers available to me. He is near and he listens. He has risen and my sins are forgiven, not just forgiven but the power of sin that used to enslave my soul has been broken. My soul is free from the bondage that made sin not only my master but my only option. I was an enemy of God condemned to live apart from him. My life was on a track with a one way ticket to hell where I would experience some form of wrath from a Holy God.

The power of God however broke those chains and now I can draw near to him. I am a new creature. I am a new person. I need to learn how to live as this new being, with plenty of old baggage to still sift through. But he has broken my shackles. Because I am no longer a slave to the sin, I am now a son of God. The writer of Hebrews reminds us:

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Because Jesus came as a man and experienced temptations and yet remained without sin he is able to sympathize with us even in our weakness. He understands...

Dear God I need your mercy and grace, help me in my time of need. I am failing in my challenge of belief.

I think of the song from the Cure and how often my thoughts are similar and then I think of a bit of Psalm 42.

 I say to God, my rock:

“Why have you forgotten me?

Why do I go mourning

because of the oppression of the enemy?”

10  As with a deadly wound in my bones,

my adversaries taunt me,

while they say to me all the day long,

“Where is your God?”

11  Why are you cast down, O my soul,

and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

my salvation and my God.

There is real power in God, but then I realize where my eyes have been looking.

And then I remember another Cure song, Trust, and I can hear God's voice echo.

Still the hardest part for you, to put your trust in me

I love you more than I can say, why won't you just believe?

I know that I no longer want to just say that maybe someday it will be different. I know that it won't happen if I leave my hope to my feelings. I have to renew it.

thanks  

Upon the Bible can I only claim

I was hoping to mop up all the messiness from the last entry in a self contained blog. But this problem is so big that it could not all fit in one entry.  I hope I made the case that our current problem is our need to be accepted on both sides of the debate. It was inevitable that Christians would be outed as having issue with sin. But Christians have fallen for the very thing that homosexuals want: cultural acceptance. 

This blog is for Christians to understand the Biblical view of this, if this was for homosexuals the conversation would be very different. Not in truth but in presentation. The Gospel trumps discussion of mastering personal sin. 

This was never supposed to be about this specific sin but the way the cultural war has gone we cannot but comment at this point because we will inadvertently being backing a specific world view. At this point if we do not stand on the Bible on this issue we will be backing the worldview that makes it out to be not that big of a deal. This is about acceptance, if it would stay there that would be one thing but it will not and has not. It is coming to the point where Christians either cave or are bigots, as if honest communication is not an option anymore. Well it will not be if we continue to only capitulate or say nothing. 

As I mentioned we all want to be accepted and all want to fit in. That is normal. And the Christian job is not to make people feel uncomfortable, however it may be that we are being called to that discomfort ourselves. If we stand for something that the culture does not like we should expect blow-back. The way we know this is because the Bible calls for us to be humble on what it teaches. It says we will suffer as he did. We are not free to seek comfort over what God asks of us. So let's look at why we are not free to capitulate on a topic that is so culturally hot that we would want to.

1 Thessalonians 2:4
But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.

Proverbs 29:25
The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

John 12:43
For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

Homosexuality is a hot topic not just because it is current but it affects the very lives of people, the very lives of people in a very intimate way.  As I said before it also speaks to where we are culturally. This is something that the church has failed to recognize. We think it is a simple sin issue but it affects the way people view themselves and the way they find intimacy.  It also is indicative that the culture is already in quite a different place. This is why we need to be clear on why we believe what we do, because it has such impact. And when we communicate it to non-believers we have to understand the sub-text of what we are saying and the depth that is affects people.

It is difficult, yes. It was a thing in the nineties to say that Christianity was counter cultural. It was fun and almost cool to say that, but well, it finally is.

But God doesn't ask people to combat sin, that is why he conquered sin in death himself. The Gospel is not "Straighten out your life and then come to me!" The message is "You can't straighten out yourself so you need to come to me." It does involve addressing the sin for sure but if we tell people about their sin problem as if it is something they need to fix without presenting it humbly within the context of the Gospel we leave people in a feeling of helplessness. If this is something that someone identifies with an identity then they are going to feel doubly lost aren't they? In order to present the Gospel to homosexuals or anyone really we have to understand what the Bible says about it. Why they need the Gospel.

So what does it say, is it really a sin?

Now a common objection is that the command against homosexual activity is given in the Old Testament. The Old Testament! case closed, right? Why aren't we more upset about all those other silly laws?  This objection is not the smoking gun that is assumed. A lot of Americas saw the program West Wing when the fictional president gave this very objection to the fictional conservative talk show host condemning her to also focus on pigskins and mixing fabrics, oh my! So unless we want to impose all those other uncomfortable laws we are out of luck, or at least hypocrites?

Well the issue is this, not only does the New Testament reiterate this specific command, but the very issue of what Old Testament laws gentiles-Christians needed to follow was addressed in the Jerusalem council in the book of Acts chapter 15. Also Paul also wrote a book about it called Galatians because this was a big topic in the first century.  The conclusion of the council was this:
Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.

The apostles teach that new converts still must uphold and continue to avoid idolatry, sexual immorality, and food that was strangled and from blood. Idolatry is continued to be avoided by the church and rightfully so.  As far as strangulation and blood, the issue was a strangled animal would not have been drained of blood. So drain the blood and then cook it, we pretty much already do this. But Paul speaks to this as well, if we do not know about the food preparation do not make inquiry unless a weaker brother is conflicted.  In order for unity and love to continue. 

But the central issue here is the gentile Christians are still to hold to the rules of sexual immorality. The question is where do rules for sexual immorality come from? Well rules for immoral sexual practice come from Leviticus 18 and 20 and there are rules for marriage covenants as well, which is always between a man and a woman. This is where the Jewish person is going to go for these instructions, this is where the Jewish person would point the Gentile wondering what defines sexual immorality. The Law does inform these practices. This is why Paul reiterates homosexuality, and why Jesus repeats adultery, and why Paul gets mad at the Corinthian church for allowing a man to have his Father's wife. Why not simply allow this if they are loving consenting adults? Why not let grace abound on this Paul? Paul knows that this act is specifically mentioned in this list. This is also why incest and bestiality is also still prohibited, despite what interests our culture.

To argue that this list is not still in vogue is to tell Paul he can't be mad about adultery, incest, bestiality, and specifically this episode from first Corinthians. This is to tell Paul that when he mentions homosexuality many times that he doesn't understand grace and certainly not love. Jesus furthers clarifies this list when speaking to the underlining problem of lust. Lust makes them all out of bounds, this is why pornography is also a problem. Lust makes sex about us. Lust means we throw off the commands of love and sex and demand our own ways. Lust says "This is how I feel", not what is right. Lust means we want it our way and we do not care about what the creator of our bodies and of sex says. In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul further tells us that sexual sin seems to have a special problem for all people:

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

This type of sin, sins against the temple of the Lord. The questions is are you a temple of the Lord or not? If so then you should avoid sexual immoral practices all the more. The non-Christian doesn't believe they are a temple so why belabor the point? Paul even mentions homosexuality specifically in the lists of sins that people who practice them will not inherit the kingdom of God. This should be scary enough to avoid. But if a homosexual does not believe in God or the Bible then they should simply say "Well I don't believe that." But instead what we get is reasons why it should be OK. Well to a Christian I have all the reasons I need. Just as I have all the reasons to believe that Jesus is Lord. If God created us then he gets to set the standard. If he is Lord then he gets to tell me "Yes" or "No" . Again these are Christian truths based on a Christian worldview.

As a Christian I have to agree with what God says about the way he designed sex to work. As I Christian I am not allowed to practice homosexual sex. As a Christian I am not allowed to practice adultery. As a Christian I am not supposed to have sex outside of the marital covenant. As a Christian I am not allowed to have sex with animals. As a Christian I am not allowed to have incestuous sex. If any of these pose a temptation, we have to recognize that and give it to God to be nailed to the cross, not identify with it.

 ¹³ No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

This doesn't mean you will not fail but that there is a way out, if you are interested. And we remember...

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. 14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

There it is! The problem is that the wadges of sin is death. So the answer to our why question is that sin distances us from God and leaves us in eternal separation form him. The message here is not "God hates Fags!" It is that God hates people to die without relationship to him. He desires that none should perish. The reason that God has such strong language against sin is because it robs people of relationship with him. 

If people are unwilling to even acknowledge sin, then they aren't going to be interested in the savior from it.

If homosexual sin is enticing to you, then that is your temptation, but you have to face it the same way a heterosexual man or woman faces their own sexual temptations: in obedience or rebellion, in humility or pride. As a Christian I have a responsibility of obedience because I am not the King, and the good news is when I fail there is a God who forgives. But a Christian needs to hold to what the Bible teaches on such matters. A non-Christian does not, that is their choice.

But our sinful proclivities do not excuse our acquiescence to them. God is inviting us all to himself if we will only come.

thanks