Opening a Can of Worms

I am sorry this is so long.

I am printing Gary’s comment to a previous post http://johnsgracewalk.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-must-i-do-to-be-saved.html in its entirety here, and I am starting a new post for clarity.

John,
Not to be too long (or boring) on this subject but my conviction is based on the manuscripts used (Masoretic Text for the Old Testament and Textus Receptus for the New Testament). Also the form of translation, formal equivalency as opposed to dynamic equivalency used in the newer translations.

I'm not trying to change anybodies mind, the version of the Bible you use is between you and God, that is just my conviction. There are differences in the versions however and it makes for an interesting study.

As far as the languages go the KJV is for English speaking people. There are many ministries that are translating Bibles into other languages using the KJV and some that are going back to the 2 manuscripts I mentioned to translate into other languages.

I have seen Bible version discussions get contentious but that really just makes Christians look bad and I don't think it changes anybodies mind. Just something we all have to decide for ourselves.

Yes Gary, sadly, this debate can get contentious. It won’t here.

A few counter points.

- Not ALL modern translations use dynamic equivalency.

- MY mind WAS changed about this. I used to believe that the KJV was the best translation.

I’ve read books on both sides of the argument – Gary Zeolla’s Difference Between Bible Versions and Philip Comfort’s Essential Guide to Bible Versions.

I believe Comfort has the best and most reasoned argument for using the newer (older!) texts.

Here is an excerpt from Comfort’s book:

“The New Testament of the King James Version is slightly bigger than most modern translations of the Bible. I am not speaking of the trim size or a larger black leather cover. I am speaking of the content. The New Testament of the King James Version has fifty more verses than do most modern versions. This is because the King James Version is based on an edition of the Greek New Testament known as the Textus Receptus, which has about fifty more verses than do other modern critical editions of the Greek New Testament, such as the text of Westcott and Hort, or the Nestle-Aland text.

The way it stands today is that there are two distinctly different texts of the Greek New Testament – that printed in the Textus Receptus (followed by the KJV and the NKJV) and that printed in modern versions such as Westcott and Hort’s or the Nestle-Aland. The text of the TR has about one thousand more words than that of the Westcott and Hort, and about fifty more verses. Several of these verses have become so much a part of the biblical tradition and church liturgy that is has been excruciatingly painful for modern translators to wrench them from the text and place them in the marginal note, even when scholars have known that they were not originally in the text. The pain comes from knowing that most people expect to see these words in the Bible.

…Most contemporary scholars contend that a minority of manuscripts – primarily the earliest ones – preserve the earliest, most authentic wording of the text. Those who defend the TR and the KJV would have to prove that earlier manuscripts or the originals themselves must have had these words and that the earlier manuscripts are textually corrupt.

…The Nestle-Aland edition is a far better representation of the original text than is the TR or the Majority Text. This does not mean, however, that those who read the TR and/or the KJV are receiving a “different Gospel” or a different theology than what is found in the Nestle-Aland text. What it does mean is that they are reading a text that – for the most part – was not read in the first three centuries of the church. They are reading a text that is heavily edited with interpolations and harmonizations, and they are reading a text that is somewhat misrepresentative in Christology.

Most of the significant theological differences between the TR and modern critical editions of the Greek text pertain to issues of Christology, especially as reflected in titles or descriptions of Christ. (See Matt. 24:36, Luke 9:35, John 1:18, John 6:69, Acts 3:20, Acts 16:7, Colossians 2:2, 1 Timothy 3:16, 1 Peter 3:15, Jude 4).

Readers of the TR and KJV miss out on some significant statements about Christ: He is “the Chosen One”; “the only begotten, God”; “the Holy One of God”; the One “preordained for us”; “the mystery of God”; “the mystery of godliness”; the One whom we sanctify our hearts; and “our only Master and Lord”. There are far more examples than these, but these are enough to show that the difference between the two texts is theologically significant. I must emphasize, however, this does not mean that the TR and KJV are “wrong.” This text presents the same basic truth about the Trinity as do modern versions, which are based on better Greek texts. What is problematic about the TR and KJV is that they obscure some significant titles of Christ. “

Remember, we can disagree without getting personal.

What Must I Do to Be Saved?

I’m probably going to be considered heretical by some with this post.

I went to a funeral for the relative of a friend yesterday. It was held at a large, fundamental Independent Baptist Church - one where the women are not allowed to wear pants.

There was something the preacher said that reinforced what I have been thinking lately. He said that (paraphrasing) one cannot be saved unless one is shown from the Bible HOW to be saved. (my mother said she knew people who taught that one had to have a salvation VERSE in order to be saved). He gave the testimony of the woman being eulogized that she believed she was saved as a young child, but since no one had taken her through the Word of God, she was never sure she was saved. She later got it “settled” from the Bible.

My former pastor has said recently that the Bible is the only Jesus we now have.

He used tell the story (to illustrate how wrongheaded people can be (!)) about how a visiting Korean pastor was told by the hosting pastor that since he didn’t get saved out of the King James Bible that He couldn’t be saved!

After reading Bruchko, it struck me how the Moltilone didn’t HAVE a Bible to get saved from – much less the KJV!

What arrogance of some people!

Here is the heresy….I believe that some are worshipping the Book more than the Person – Jesus Christ! Where is the belief formulated that the Bible is the only Jesus that we now have? Hasn’t He told us that He is in us and us in Him? That we are hidden with Christ in God?

Don’t get me wrong, I believe the Bible IS the Word of God, but maybe that’s why we think that God is far away – because we believe the only part we have of Him is a book….

God Speaks How He Chooses, Part II

Excerpt from Bruchko



"In 1967, about a year after the first Motilones had become Christians, Arabadoyca and a small group of other men came to talk to me. They had decided that they wanted to tell the Yuko Indians about Jesus. I had had the same desire earlier and had made a trip back to the Yuko village where I had spent nearly a year.

I hadn't been there for more than an hour before I saw that something had changed. I soon discovered what it was. One of the women whom I had tried to tell about Jesus when I was there the first time had had a vision. As a result, most of the village had accepted Jesus."



I dare say that most Fundamentalists would say that this was demonic - that God doesn't work that way.

God Speaks How He Chooses

I am reading "Bruchko" - an autobiography by an American, Bruce Olson. As a young man Olson went as a missionary to Colombia. Circumstances separated him from the other missionaries he had originally come to join, and he found himself alone, deep in the jungle, living among the Motilones - a murderous tribe of stone-age people. Traditional missionary methods proved of absolutely no avail, and for years he had to content himself with simply being a contributing member of the community. He engaged in the same necessary work as everyone else, but he also tried to introduce better agricultural techniques and healthier ways of doing things, without in any way destroying their unique culture. Life was very harsh, and it is difficult to imagine how he could have lasted the pace, had God not intervened supernaturally to heal him and to help him.

The years passed. Occasionally "Bruchko" (i.e. Bruce - as pronounced by the Indians) had opportunities, in the course of conversation, to explain some of the things he believed - but nobody acted on what he said about Christ. Then one day Bobarishora, his closest friend among the tribesmen, following yet another conversation on the deepest things of life, told him that he had "tied his hammock strings into Jesus". It was clear as they talked further that the tribesman had genuinely turned to the Lord. Bruchko was very excited. "I wanted him to call a meeting and tell the rest about Jesus...He could do it more effectively than I... I wanted him to do it the way things would have been done in North America... I wanted to squeeze him into the mold."

But Bobarishora (Bruce nicknamed him Bobby) would have none of it! He couldn't set up something which the rest of the community would recognize as artificial. He did admit in conversation that he had become a Christian, but he wouldn't hold any meetings or do anything publicly.

Time passed. "Bobby" married and became one of the respected younger leaders among the tribesmen. Then one day an older chief invited him to take part in the traditional "Festival of Arrows", which meant singing a Saga-Song to everyone. Bruchko writes: 'Bobby's song was about the way the Motilones had been deceived and had lost God's trail. Then he began to sing about Jesus... Everyone became quiet in order to listen. The song continued for ten hours (!!!)...That night a spiritual revolution swept over the people. No one rejected the news about Jesus. Everyone wanted Him. There was tremendous jubilation. God had spoken.

He had spoken through the Motilone culture'. After that there was great progress - such progress that Bruce Olsen has several times been asked to address the United Nations on how it was that helpful methods of hygiene and farming, and Christianity, were introduced into a primitive culture, without effacing that culture, or turning it into a pale reflection of the United States!"

What can I add?

Doctrine has Become Head of the Church

This says what I have been thinking better than I can. This is from Jim Cymbala’s book, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.

“In too many churches today, people don’t see manifestations of God’s power in answer to fervent praying. Instead, they hear arguments about theological issues that few people care about. On Christian radio and television, we are often merely talking to ourselves.

What we are dealing with today is an Old Testament ‘vow religion’ comprised of endless repetitions and commands to do all the right things. Modern preachers, like Moses, come down from the mount calling for commitment. Everyone says yes but then promptly breaks the vow within two days. There is little dependence on God’s power to make an ongoing difference. There is little calling upon God to revolutionize us in a supernatural way.

Jesus is saying today, as He said to the church at Sardis, ‘You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God…But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief…He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches’ (Rev. 3:1-3,6)

Isn’t it remarkable that only two of the seven churches of Revelation (Pergamum and Thyatira) were scolded for false doctrine? Far more common was lack of spiritual vitality, of fervency, of closeness to the Lord. These are what the glorified Christ wanted to talk about most.

I am not advocating melodrama or theatrics that work up emotion. But I am in favor, as were the apostles, of asking God to stretch out His hand and manifest himself.

(He goes on) If we do not yearn and pray and expect God to stretch out his hand and do the supernatural, it will not happen. That is the simple truth of the matter. We must give him room to operate. If we go on, week after week, filling the time with religious lectures and nothing more, God has little opportunity in which to move.

So as long as we are busy polishing our oratory, the stage is entirely ours. Listen to the reproof of the great prophet of prayer E.M. Bounds more than a hundred years ago:

'Among things that hinder spiritual results, fine preaching must have place among the first. Fine preaching is that kind of preaching where the force of the preacher is expended to make the sermon great in thought, tasteful as a work of art, perfect as a scholarly production, complete in rhetorical finish, and fine in its pleasing and popular force.

In true preaching, the sermon proceeds out of the man. It is part of him, flowing out of his life. Fine preaching separates between the man and the sermon. Such sermons will make an impression, but it is not the impression that the Holy Ghost makes. Influence it may have, but the influence is not distinctly spiritual, if spiritual at all. These sermons do not reach the conscience, are not even aimed at it.'"

I have come to believe that the sermon has wrongly taken preeminence in the modern church. Why do we think that we must hear a lecture 3 times a week in order to grow? Not only that, but we only get one man's opinion on Biblical interpretation.

I can no longer go to a Sunday morning church service without being troubled by the impression that is given that we are doing something spiritual merely by attending. Where is the one-anothering in that?

Bake Sale, A Parable

BAKE SALE

By Wes Seeliger

"Bake sale" said the sign over the door. Joe's mouth watered.

He could imagine all the treats inside. He opened the door and walked in. Joe couldn't believe his eyes.

As far as he could see in the building there were rows of tables with signs over each table to describe its specialty. Cakes, Cookies, Muffins, pies, tarts.

Except ... there were no cakes, cookies, muffins, pies or tarts.

You see, this was a "recipe" bake sale.

Someone grabbed Joe's arm. "Coconut macaroons. Get the original!"

"Not so. Our recipe is older than theirs," another table shouted.

"Devil 's food cake. Accept no substitutes," a shifty hustler whispered in his ear.

"Angel food cake! Just like grandmother made."

"Who's grandmother?"

A lady began to shove him toward a table of fruit tarts while another yanked on his arm to try a roll.

Yelling arose from every table as red-faced salesmen hawked their recipes.

Confusion ruled and brawls broke out between tables.

Joe had taken all he could. He tore himself away and ran outside as fast as he could.

As he breathed in the fresh air and walked away, he said, "That was no place for a hungry man."

Adapted by Gayle Erwin

To me, this is exactly what I think Christianity is like today. Everybody has the "recipe" for a true relationship with God, but nobody has the real thing.

How did you take this parable?

Genuine Truth is Grounded in God's Reality

I've been thinking a lot lately about "feeling" close to God. Aida had a great discussion about it here: http://forgettingtheformerthings.blogspot.com/2008/10/seeking-god.html.

I thought that I had left my old religious baggage behind until this week, and I've realized that it is still hiding in the corners. I picked up one of McVey's books that I had in my car and read this:

"Having been born into a world system in which every religion known to man stresses his responsibility to stay in favor with his god through specifically defined behavior, it requires a radical paradigm shift for most Christians to move into a mind-set that embraces the idea that our behavior has absolutely nothing to do with gaining or STAYING IN God's favor. To suggest that there is nothing the believer can do that would put him out of favor with God sounds almost blasphemous to the religious mind. Most of us who grew up in church KNOW BETTER than that, do we? Therein lies the problem. Often as much must be UNLEARNED as is learned about walking in grace as a believer. Theologian Krister Stendahl astutely observed that 'it is not so much what we don't know, but what we think we know that obstructs our vision.'

One significant barrier that prevents many people in the modern church from enjoying a life in grace is what they THINK they know. They are firmly entrenched in a paradigm of spiritual reality that to them is self-evident, however imaginary it may actually be. Without divine intervention, the religionist will never experience grace to its fullest extent. Recipients of grace must have a heart and mind that are open toward God, and nothing so decidedly shuts down one's capacity to receive as empty religion."

Excerpt from Grace Land by Steve McVey