Bible Study Archives

Simplicity – It’s Not What You Think

You can simplify your dress, move to a cabin in the woods, and still complicate your life. True simplicity isn’t what you think.

James

James the brother of Jesus was a wordsmith. He coined phrases for Christians that had never appeared in the Greek language before. For example, in chapter two, he introduces us to the rich man who comes to church wearing “a gold ring.” Literally, James says, the man has “golden fingers” (chru-so-daktu-lios, χρυσοδακτύλιος). Talk about bling! He has so many rings, you can’t see his fingers!

A far more important word is coined in chapter one: di-psu-chos (δίψυχος): a man with “two souls.” An early elder of the church picked up that word and used it to describe Lot’s wife (Genesis 19). She had two souls. With one she wanted to be saved and with the other she wanted to live in the city. Because she was divided, she perished.

During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talked about the true meaning of simplicity. It’s singleness of vision.

^{Matthew 6:22}“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ²³but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

So, which is it for you? Is your eye healthy – that is – are you focused on a single vision for your life, or is you eye bad, fliting from one goal to another?

How can I simplify my life? First this observation. We are the ones who make our life complicated. Like someone trying to walk through a Las Vegas casino, we are distracted by all the ringing bells and flashing lights. Focus! In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us we can’t serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Choose! And don’t worry about the “what-ifs” or the “if-onlys.” Remember the lesson of light. By itself, a beam of light is scattered, but when it is focused it can become a laser beam that can cut metal. Let’s be lasers today!

The Joy-Snatcher’s Cousins

Can you be joyful in all circumstances? John in the boatyard

Last week, I wrote an article about Christians and joy. Do you remember how the Apostle Paul encouraged us to “rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4), but that often seems impossible? I said we need to guard against anxiety and fear (Philippians 4:5). However, the Joy-Snatcher has some relatives we need to guard against as well.

Let’s start with Cousin Comparison, nicknamed “Covetousness.” The Hebrew writer encourages us to “Be content with what you have,” (Hebrews 13:5), and Paul reminds us, “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6). It’s not easy! We are constantly bombarded with advertisements designed to make us want more, more, more. Be on guard!

Cynicism is a close cousin. Cynicism throws cold water on the flames of joy: “It won’t last!” “What’s the catch?” Put cynicism back in its place if you want to be happy! Learn to live in the moment. “Yes, the oceans are rising, but, for right now, I’m going to enjoy the beach.” Do you remember Saul’s daughter Michal? David was dancing with joy before the Lord, and joyless Michal could only watch from her window and sneer:

“And as the ark of the covenant of the LORD came to the city of David, Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window and saw King David dancing and celebrating, and she despised him in her heart” (1 Chronicles 15:29).

Contented, joyful Christians have learned to celebrate the little moments of life. Is your grandbaby singing “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” over and over again? Don’t let it drive you to distraction. Join in and sing! Joy celebrates life!

“But John, I don’t have time right now!” Meet the twins: busyness and over-commitment. Do you ever feel like, “It’s all up to me”? Even something as simple as a lack of sleep can rob us of joy. Hurry-sickness is real! Who sits in their rocking chair at the old folks home and laments that they didn’t (fill in the blank)? What do they regret? That they didn’t spend more time with friends and family. That they never learned to do the Lindy. That they didn’t hold hands with their true love and watch the stars come out.

Finally, what is the opposite of joy? Sorrow? No, Paul said he was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,” (2 Corinthians 6:10), and he declared, “I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction,” (2 Corinthians 7:4 NASB). A wise but unknown person observed, “The opposite of joy is not sorrow; it is unbelief.” Satan tempts us into suspecting, “God doesn’t really know what’s best for me or what will make me happy.” But the Apostle wrote:

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13).

One day, I was driving down the street and saw a panel truck with “Maranatha Plumbing” painted on the side. “Maranatha” is an Aramaic phrase (the Jewish people in Jesus’ days spoke Aramaic, the language of the Babylonian Captivity). It probably means “Our Lord, Come!” which would be appropriate for a plumber racing to fix a bathroom emergency; however, I think the man was trying to indicate he was a Christian plumber and so answered to a higher standard.

Even the early Greek-speaking Christians used many Aramaic words such as “amen” and “Abba” (Father). Jesus himself spoke Aramaic (see Matthew 27:46 and Mark 5:41). The phrase “Maranatha” or more appropriately, “marana tha” or “maran atha” was used by the first Christians (See 1 Corinthians 16:22 and Revelation 22:20).

Because Maranatha is simply transliterated from Aramaic into Greek, it isn’t easy to know exactly how to translate it into English. It could be māran(ā’)’ aṯā’, “our Lord has come,” or māran(ā’) (’ ĕ)ṯā’, “our Lord, come!” What difference does it make?

The Didache is an early Christian church manual. It gave instructions about baptism, worship, and church practices. We have many books like that available today that provide suggested talks for weddings, funerals, and speaking at the Lord’s Table. The Didache suggests:

But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist except those who have been baptized into the name of the Lord, for the Lord has also spoken concerning this: “Do not give what is holy to dogs.”

And after you have had enough, give thanks as follows:

(2) We give you thanks, Holy Father,

for your holy name, which you

have caused to dwell in our hearts,

and for the knowledge and faith and immortality

which you have made known to us

through Jesus your servant;

to you be the glory forever.

(3) You, almighty Master, created all things for your name’s sake,

and gave food and drink to men to enjoy,

that they might give you thanks;

but to us, you have graciously given

spiritual food and drink,

and eternal life through your servant.

(4) Above all, we give thanks because you are mighty;

to you be the glory forever.

(5) Remember your church, Lord,

to deliver it from all evil

and to make it perfect in your love;

and gather it, the one that has been sanctified,

from the four winds into your kingdom,

which you have prepared for it;

for yours is the power and the glory forever.

(6) May grace come, and may this world pass away.

Hosanna to the God of David.

If anyone is holy, let him come;

if anyone is not, let him repent.
Maranatha! Amen.[1]

Notice how the suggested prayer ends with two Aramaic words: “Maranatha!” And “Amen.” In this case, it makes good sense to translate Maranatha as “the Lord has come!” and that’s why we can enjoy the communion.

On the other hand, Paul’s conclusion to First Corinthians and the exclamation in Revelation probably mean, “Come! Lord.”

Both translations are blessings: “The Lord has come!” (Hallelujah!) and “Come back soon!”

[1] Holmes, M. W. (1999). The Apostolic Fathers: Greek texts and English translations (Updated ed., pp. 261–263). Baker Books.

Marvin Milquetoast Misses the Mark

Caspar Milquetoast, a weak man for every season. H.T. WEBSTER/PUBLIC DOMAIN

Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5), but we still have problems thinking of meekness as a virtue. In the Atlantic, Rhoda Feng says, “If you overhear people discussing your meek temperament, you’re likely to infer that they don’t think too highly of you (‘spineless’ and ‘lacking in self-respect’ have become near-synonyms for the word).” [1]

The Christian viewpoint is very different. Moses was the “meekest man who ever lived” (Numbers 12:3), yet he confronted Pharaoh! Jesus was meek (2 Corinthians 10:1), but no more powerful man ever lived! The Biblical definition of meekness is “strength under control.” Alexander the Great’s horse, Bucephalus, a powerful warhorse, was described this way. He could carry Alexander into the heat of battle and yet was so “meek” a small child could safely sit on his back.

There is another quality of meekness to focus on today. The lexicon says meekness is “the quality of not being overly impressed by a sense of one’s self-importance, gentleness, humility, courtesy, considerateness, meekness.” [2]

On his way to Rome to face martyrdom, Ignatius of Antioch said of the bishop of Philadelphia: “I am impressed by his forbearance; he accomplishes more through silence than others do by talking.” [3] The bishop didn’t need to command obedience or impress people with his authority. Instead, he understood the value of meekness.

Have you been in a room full of “stuffed shirts”? (Men parading about trying to impress one another.) It’s no wonder this is the fourth of Paul’s Five Virtues that he encourages the Colossians to “put on.” Apostle Paul tells them to “put on the new self” (3:10). That includes: “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (3:12).

Feng summarizes an article by Glen Pettigrove, a lecturer of philosophy at the University of Auckland, entitled “Meekness and Moral Anger.” Pettigrove observes:

Self-control, however, is a necessary but insufficient condition for meekness. Philosophers have distinguished between 1) meekness and servility and 2) meekness and resignation. Those who are truly meek act out of both self-control and benevolence (attentiveness to the wellbeing of others), while those who are servile act out of fear of incurring punishment. We wouldn’t praise someone for merely acting meek when the true cause of his action is despair (e.g. indifference to the welfare of oneself or others). So we arrive at one definition of meekness: “Agent M manifests the virtue of meekness when he or she characteristically responds in a calm and kindly fashion to aggravating treatment.”

If we are going to be genuinely meek, that should describe our Christian behavior this week!

[1] Rhoda Feng, The Atlantic, November 9, 2012

[2] Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). In A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 861). University of Chicago Press.

[3] Ignatius to the Philadelphians. Holmes, M. W. (1999). The Apostolic Fathers: Greek texts and English translations (Updated ed., p. 177). Baker Books.

A Cup of Coffee and Granny’s Bible

I had to get out of the office so I could focus on my class preparation. There were too many distractions and too many people dropping by, but when I settled down in the diner with my hot cup of coffee and my laptop, a young girl in the booth next to me asked, “What are you reading?” I took a deep breath, smiled and answered, “The Bible.”

“Oh, that old book,” she replied. “My grandmother left me her Bible when she died, but I just couldn’t get into it.”

“Did it sound a bit like Shakespeare?” I asked.

“Yeagh,” she smiled. “I guess it did. I just don’t understand what all the fuss is about. Why should I bother reading the Bible anyway?”

“Was it important to your granny? I asked.

“Yes. She read it all the time. Kept it next to her bed in the home,” she answered.

I put down my coffee and looked at her. “It’s a curious book.” I closed my Bible so we could read the cover. “Do you see it’s full name?” I asked. “It’s called the ‘Holy’ Bible because the word ‘Holy” means ‘special.’ It’s a unique book, unlike any other.” She picked up her coffee and came over to my booth and we began to talk. “Let me see if I can give you some reasons to pick your Bible up again,” I said.

“The Bible is a very old book. In fact, some of the oldest parts of the Bible were written over 3,500 years ago and the most recent parts were written nearly 2,000 years ago. The fact that it has survived at all is amazing. It was originally written on perishable material like cured animal skins and a fragile material made from plants called “papyrus.” Many ancient books have perished through benign neglect, but the Bible has even survived determined efforts to destroy it!”

“There are a lot of really old books though aren’t there?” she asked.

“That’s true, but the Bible is different. For example, it doesn’t reflect the common errors of its day,” I answered. “Think about it. Egyptian medical books from the time of Moses prescribe animal feces, crocodile teeth, and other similar remedies for disease.”

“If men had written the Bible from their own unaided wisdom, the same silly ideas we find in other ancient books which treat scientific matters would be found in it. How shall we explain their absence in Scripture?” — Rubel Shelly.

She stopped for a minute to think. “So the Bible doesn’t do that?” she asked. Then she took a sip of her coffee and continued. “But I’ve always heard that the Bible contains a bunch of errors. In fact, I’ve heard it is filled with mistakes.”

Now it was my turn to sip my coffee. “The ‘errors’ of the Bible are a slippery lot. The list keeps changing! Relevant research by historians, archaeologists, and scientists have always settled every dispute. For example, before the 20^th century, scholars thought the book of Acts was full of mistakes. Let’s look at just one. Luke, the author of Acts, called the rulers of the city of Thessalonica in Greece ‘politarchs.’ Scholars said that was an obvious ‘mistake’ since not a single inscription could be produced using this term. Today we can point to nearly 70 inscriptions that use it and over 40 percent of those are from Thessalonica itself!”[1]

“Yes, but I’ve heard that the Bible has been changed through the centuries. Couldn’t people just have edited out embarrassing stuff?”

“A lot of people think that,” I said. “Some people believe the church changed the wording. Others think books were added to it and still others believe things were taken out. What do you think?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, a lot can happen over 4,000 years!”

“William Shakespeare wrote 400 years ago. How can you be sure the Romeo and Juliet we are reading is the same as the one he wrote?” I asked.

“Can’t we just look at his first manuscript?” she asked.

“We don’t have it,” I answered.

Of Shakespeare’s plays, for example, no manuscript in his autograph is known, and much the same is true of the productions of the other playwrights who worked in the great period of drama from 1580 to 1642. …. The facts can be summarized in this way: no play by a professional playwright which was successful on the stage and which was printed before 1642 is known to have come down to our time or near it.[2]

I continued. “So what scholars do is gather up as many copies as they can find from ancient times and compare them. The more copies we have, the more certainty we have about the veracity of a reading.”

“Well that makes sense I suppose.” The waitress refilled our cups.

“With the risk of boring you,” I apologized, “let me share some statistics with you. You’ve heard of Julius Caesar?” I asked.

“Roman Emperor,” she answered.

“A Plus! The Emperor is famous for his book the Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 B.C.). There several manuscripts of it, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Caesar’s day.”

“Okay,” she replied.

“The same is true of most ancient books. There are only a handful of copies and most of those are dated hundreds of years after they were originally written.”

Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy (59 BC-AD 17) only thirty-five survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books iii-vi, is as old as the fourth century. Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. AD 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of has two great historical works depends entirely on two MSS, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. The extant MSS of his minor works (Dialogue dc Oratoribus, Agricola, Germania) all descend from a codex of the tenth century The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) is known to us from eight MSS, the earliest belonging to c. AD 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era. The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c. 488-428 BC). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals. — F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

“Now let’s look at the New Testament written about 2,000 years ago. There are over 5,000 ancient Greek manuscripts and over 20,000 ancient translations so we’re pretty sure we know what it originally said.”

“Okay, okay,” she said moving towards the outside edge of the booth.

“Wait,” I pleaded. “Before you go, let me give you two suggestions that will help you read it and three good reasons why you should.”

“This is beginning to sound like a sermon,” she protested.

I laughed and said, “That’s what you get when you drink coffee with a preacher!”

How to Read the Bible

Use a Good Translation – the Bible was originally written in Hebrew and Greek. Keep Granny’s Bible with your precious keepsakes, but read the Bible in a modern translation.
In the beginning, some parts of the Bible will be more interesting than others. I recommend new readers start with the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Then get involved with a good Bible class to help you read the rest of this amazing book

Reasons to Read the Bible

The Bible has an amazing history – It’s a very old book that is just as popular today as it was thousands of years ago. No other book compares in terms of popularity and circulation. The entire Bible is available in 554 languages. The New Testament is available in 518, and parts of the Bible have been translated into another 2,932 languages and dialects.
No other book has had as much influence on western thought and literature. If you want to understand culture, you need to be familiar with the Bible.
But the most important reason of all is the claim that the Bible makes to be the Word of God. Think about it! If it truly comes from God and not just people thinking about God, then no other book is as important as the Bible. When you read the Bible, God is speaking to you!

[1] Politarch. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

[2] Elizabethan Handwriting, 1500-1650: A Manual, by Giles E. Dawson and Laetitia Kennedy-Skipton (1966)

Heaven, We Have a Problem

According to Pew Research, America has a literacy problem. “When was the last time you read a book? For almost 1 in 4 of us, it was more than a year ago, according to Pew Research. That’s three times the number who didn’t read a book in 1978.” [1] The problem is even worse than that because, although Christians claim to believe the Bible is the Word of God, we aren’t reading it.

“A recent LifeWay Research study found only 45 percent of those who regularly attend church read the Bible more than once a week. Over 40 percent of the people attending read their Bible occasionally, maybe once or twice a month. Almost 1 in 5 churchgoers say they never read the Bible—essentially the same number who read it every day.”

What about in Great Britain? The United Kingdom Bible Society surveyed British children and found many couldn’t identify common Bible stories. When given a list of Bible stories, a staggering 59% didn’t know the story of Jonah came from the Bible and almost 1 in 3 didn’t know the story of the birth of Jesus was in the Bible! Parents didn’t fare much better. Around 30 percent didn’t know the stories of Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, or the Good Samaritan are in the Bible! Worse, 27% think the story of Superman is in the Bible. 1 in 3 believes Harry Potter is a Bible story and more than half (54%) believe The Hunger Games is or might be a story from the Bible!

It shouldn’t be this way! Nine out of ten American homes (Christian or not) have at least one Bible in them. The average American (Christian or not) owns at least three Bibles.

What can we do?

We need to confess our lack of study and ask God for forgiveness.
Set aside a regular time – even five minutes a day – to read the Bible.
Use a Daily Bible Reading plan to guide you. I highly recommend Robert Murray M’Cheyne’s.
Join one a small group to help you study. A recent study “shows that as Christians increase their participation in small groups, their Bible engagement scores go up.”

Where should I start?

In my next blog, I will introduce my favorite Daily Bible Reading plan. It was written by a Church of Scotland minister over 200 years ago and it still blesses my life.

[1] All of the quotations used in this article were downloaded from http://www.smallgroups.com/articles/2015/epidemic-of-bible-illiteracy-in-our-churches.html?paging=off published by Christianity Today.