In the last week I’ve had a couple of distinct conversations with individuals about the Christian understanding of “salvation” and the idea of losing it and/or needing to be saved again.
Salvation is the Christian concept that deals with human brokenness. We are broken people in a broken world and, left to ourselves, we get worse – not better. That’s why we can do some pretty crappy things to each other. We’re all broken in some way. Like all broken things, there’s a cost to fix what is broken. The cost to fix human brokenness and return to a right standing before God is a higher price than we could EVER pay.
Enter Jesus.
He comes along and says, “Your brokenness comes with a steep price tag. You can’t afford to pay for it, so I’ll pay it instead.”
That’s what the cross is all about.
Saint Peter once preached:
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)
One time when the Apostle Paul and his ministry sidekick Silas were in prison, God shook the foundation of the earth and flung the doors open. The jailer, fearing his own punishment (death) and family shame, was about to kill himself when he thought the prisoners escaped. Paul cries out, “Don’t harm yourself, we’re all here!” The jailer realizes that their God is the true God and asks, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul answers:
Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. (Acts 16:31)
No special incantation. No hoops to jump through. Just a belief in the one true God and what He is doing through Jesus.
I don’t want to launch a debate with the once saved always saved crowd, but I don’t think people can “lose” salvation. Salvation is a free gift of God. You can’t lose what he keeps giving. I do believe people can turn their backs and stomp on God’s gift, but you can’t lose it.
If you care about your relationship with God to the point where you ever worry about losing salvation that would indicate to me that you’re not turning your back on him, so I wouldn’t be concerned about “losing” anything. 🙂
God loves you more than you can fathom, and he will not turn his back on you. Even when we go through the darkest parts of life and we FEEL abandoned He still cares. He still walks beside us. You’ve lost nothing, and you can rest easy knowing that He continues to hold you close.
When you title a post “The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn” you get some people who are convinced you’ve lost your mind. Perhaps they think you’ve just succumbed to a massive ego trip.
But last week my wife and I were listening to Nat King Cole and one of his classics called “Nature Boy” came on. Nat sings of meeting an enchanted boy who tells him, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
And this isn’t a new concept. It’s actually biblical.
From the beginning of Creation to the coming end of the world (no predictions – Jesus says quite clearly that no one knows) – God is all about love. His love for humanity is the driving force behind everything He does. The whole story of redemption is about God’s incredible love for us.
And our response to a loving Creator is a response of love. In the Jewish community, the driving theme is the Shema – the central prayer of the Jewish prayer book. Many Jews recite it twice daily.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
In the New Testament, Jesus reinforces this idea when someone asks him, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus answers, “The greatest is to love the Lord your God and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.”
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is love.
And love isn’t a schmaltzy feel-good kind of thing. It’s easy to love someone when there is a warm fuzzy feeling. But that’s not love. In the Bible love is not lip-service and fuzzies. Love is active behavior.
One verse of the Bible many non-believers have heard is John 3:16 ~
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
And in our culture we hear that phrase “so loved the world” and interpret to mean the quantity of God’s love. We read it, “God loved the world SO much…”. but that’s a poor understanding of the word. It’s not about quantity – it’s about action. A better way of phrasing it would be:
This is how God loved the world – that he gave is only Son…
God’s love is something that is demonstrated in a very palpable way.
At one point Jesus tells his disciples:
By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)
But we miss the mark, don’t we? We often decided that we’ll just tolerate (at best) others. We don’t actually LOVE. We don’t sacrifice for others. We give out of our surplus, but not out of our scarcity.
When someone really LOVES something they’re willing to get stupid about it.
But when it comes to loving others we’re not willing to get stupid about it. We’re reserved. In John’s 1st letter he tells people, “How can you not help someone in need if you have the ability? Where’s the love?”
God’s love in us compels us to be people of love towards others.
In the end, Nat King Cole had it right. The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return. It’s the way of Jesus.
In the way we talk to people.
In the way we talk about people.
In the way we treat people.
Someone once asked me if I could describe the Gospel in just two minutes.
Yes. You see it all comes down brokenness. We are broken people and we live in a broken world. But brokenness isn’t God’s design or intention. It’s the same when it comes to marriage. N.T. Wright notes that anyone who even reads the words of Jesus out loud will most likely be called mean, unforgiving, Pharisaical, or worse. Jesus said:
“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Many people swing into two camps that are polar opposites: on the one side you have people who say, “I can be a good Christian and pursue divorce and get remarried.” On the other side you have people who stick to a very literal and rigid reading of Jesus’ words.
And we cannot deny the words of Jesus. He clearly says in Mark 10:
Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
At this point everyone who is divorced or who has been affected by divorce in some way shuts down, turns off their ears, and stops listening to the message.
That’s what often happens.
But that’s because preachers who read the words of Jesus in this case never go all the way with the Gospel. Hear me out.
And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
These guys have no real concern about understanding God’s truth about marriage and divorce. Jesus is now in the area that John the Baptist had been when John condemned the behavior of Herod marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias. John told Herod, “This is not right!” But that’s just John. He tended to get emotional.
In fact, you could say he lost his head.
When the Pharisees approach Jesus they’re trying to put in in a tough spot on Herod’s turf – wanting him to make a declaration about marriage and divorce that will get him killed. But Jesus doesn’t fall for it.
He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”
In the ancient world the certificate of divorce was a way of saying that the husband gives up his right and claim on the woman. Another man can have her without fear of the husband coming after him. There’s only one passage in the Torah that explicitly addresses divorce. Deuteronomy 24:1 says,
“If a man marries a woman, but she has become displeasing to him because he finds something improper about her, he may write her a divorce certificate, hand it to her, and send her on her way from his house.”
And Jews fought about what this passage meant. A hundred years before Jesus was born there were two major schools of thought. Those who followed Rabbi Shammai said that “something improper” meant infidelity. Those who followed Rabbi Hillel said it could be anything that displeases the husband – even burning the soup.
They missed the bigger picture.
And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
The law passed down from Moses doesn’t declare divorce right or wrong – it simply assumes that divorce is a fact of life and seeks to protect the wife. The certificate of divorce meant when she remarried she would not be accused of adultery. But Jesus tells them that this was not God’s original design and intent.
But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
The problem is not with God’s ideal or the Law – the problem is with people and their hardened hearts. We are broken people who live in a broken world. That means we will do broken things to each other. This is not the way God designed it to be – it’s a sad fact of brokenness.
And Jesus does an amazing thing here. Instead of simply ruling out divorce he elevates the idea of marriage. It’s not about how and when you can split. Jesus says that the way God designed human marriage to work is for two to lose their individual identities and understand that they are now part of the same person. Jesus puts marriage on a whole new level.
If this is God’s design and intention, who is man that we should split it up?
And that’s where most preachers stop. And people listening who have suffered through a divorce shrink lower and lower into their seats. But that’s not the end of the Gospel.
You see, the Gospel is about restoration and reconciliation. The Gospel says, “You matter enough to God that He paid the price to fix your brokenness – a price you could never afford.”
The Gospel says, “The only thing that is unforgivable is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.”
That means that divorce, though not God’s design and desire,
is not an unforgivable sin.
That means that, as a divorcee, you can rest assured that God still loves you and that you are not separated from Him because of your marital status.
That means that, as Christians, we can treat friends and family with love and respect even when they have gone through divorce and remarriage.
The Gospel is bigger than all of us, and God’s grace reaches farther than we could ever imagine. We are called to be people of reconciliation and restoration. When we deal with people who are divorced or going through a divorce. When we live the life of a divorcee. God’s grace reaches to us all and calls us to act towards each other with that same grace.
‘Cause it’s only when we’re acting with this kind of grace
that we’ll see true reconciliation and restoration happen.
I wrote about abortion once, when I was involved in a disagreement with someone who made a comment along the lines of, “A REAL Christian can’t support abortion.”
Christianity is about faith, and personal positions on ethics and morality are not a great litmus test for faith. There are people who believe in the deity of Jesus and that the only way to life in the presence of God is through faith in Jesus yet still have differing views on issues of politics and ethics. There is no monolithic voice that says, “IF CHRISTIANS DON’T BELIEVE XYZ THEY ARE NOT REAL CHRISTIANS!”
That being said, I do believe that life in the womb is a precious thing.
I do believe that life in the womb is a person.
I do believe that life in the womb ought to be protected and not disposed of.
First – an atheist talking about morality. That makes me laugh. Without a higher power as the foundation for all morality and ethics all we’re left with is, “I’ll do what seems right until it no longer seems right. Then I’ll do what suits me best.”
Second – in Dawkins skewed idea of morality he feels it is better to dispose of the fetus that tests positive for Down Syndrome rather than make the human suffer as he or she grows.
Dawkins said:
I think abortion is right if the woman wants an abortion. Down syndrome is one very good, and extremely common reason, to want it.
He is asserting his own opinion of what is “good” and, as a little slight of hand argumentation, mentions that it is an extremely common reason to abort. He claims that he is not trying to use the majority opinion as an argument. If he does not intend to use it as an argument then he has no need to say it. My kids commonly have reasons for all sorts of stuff. As responsible parents, we will often tell them, “You shouldn’t do that.” Even if many women choose to abort babies who have been identified as DS babies, it does not suddenly make it right.
The weight of opinion does not change the rightness of the action. This is true for any behavior that is contrary to God’s design.
I don’t expect a blog post like this to change opinions on abortion. Those who agree with me will continue to do so. Those who disagree will continue to do so. But I would be remiss if I didn’t point out some biblical reasons why I believe life in utero is precious life.
Samson was dedicated to God before he was even born:
So [Samson] told her everything. “No razor has ever been used on my head,” he said, “because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother’s womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” (Judges 16:7)
Job talks about God’s hand at work in creating life in the womb:
Did not he who made me in the womb make them? (Job 31:15)
The obvious pro-life favorite:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13)
In the prophets:
This is what the Lord says— he who made you, who formed you in the womb, and who will help you: Do not be afraid, Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. (Isaiah 44:2)
Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. (Isaiah 49:1)
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)
I won’t beleaguer the point – but I think there is plenty of biblical cause to understand that life as we know it doesn’t begin and end with breath.
I am saddened that people like Dawkins think it is morally right to abort babies who test positive for problems. But when you’re an atheist, there’s really nothing stopping you from saying, “I’m going to choose whatever I want for my own ease and happiness – whatever the consequences might be for others.”
And that’s tragic.
** For the record, please recall that I acknowledge that this post won’t sway opinions. And if you differ, you won’t sway mine. For that reason I will not be entertaining comments from anyone who wants to argue. There’s another time and place for that. 🙂
People get really passionate about some things, don’t they?
I’m talking about C.R.A.Z.Y. passionate.
Like these guys…
Or this guy…
And, just so you don’t think it’s only foreigners who are crazy, what about this guy?
When we are really and truly passionate about something we go to great lengths to embrace that passion. We don’t care what others say. We don’t care what others think. All we know is, “This is my passion and nothing will stand in my way.”
This is the kind of thing Jesus is talking about in Mark 9. When you’re passionate and dedicated to something, you will go to any length to support it.
Jesus said:
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where “‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’
How aggressively do you attack the obstacles that stand in your way? When a person is diagnosed with cancer, doctors sometimes have what they call “aggressive treatment.” They hit the cancer hard and fast and with everything they’ve got. This is the very attitude Jesus talks about here. How hard and fast will you hit the sin areas in your life? What will you chop off so that you can avoid the danger of eternal separation from God?
I’m not sure how many of us even think about our eternal destiny. We go through life and can get so bogged down in the daily grind that we take our eyes off of eternity. One of my favorite movies is the movie Gladiator. There’s a scene where the Roman general Maximus is inspiring his soldiers to fight well and he tells them, “What we do in life echoes in eternity.”
Do you hear what Jesus is saying? What we do in life echoes in eternity. So make sure that your behavior here is not creating echoes you never want to hear in the next life. Because separation from God is no joke. Many people have been caught up in the book and movie, “Heaven is for Real.” But God is clear that hell is for real, too. The image Jesus uses for hell is Gehenna.
Gehenna was a real place, a valley south of Jerusalem. In the ancient days of Israel, Gehenna was the location of a wicked cult that practiced passing children through fire. It came to be a metaphor, to represent the Jewish idea of hell. Jesus is not trying to give us a literal vision of hell but trying to help us understand how bad it is to be eternally separated from God. The worms that eat them do not die means that the flesh is forever rotting. Once the flesh is all gone from a corpse there is nothing left there for maggots. They die. But these maggots feed eternally, and the flames burn forever. Not a place you want to go. What’s it worth to you to be in the presence of God? Jesus says, it should be worth giving up your very limbs. Whatever in your life tempts you to drift away from God, discard it decisively – aggressively.
My hand is causing me to sin. Whack! My eye is causing me to sin. Spoink! My television is causing me to sin. Whoosh! My tongue is causing me to sin. Cu I ou! My mind is causing me to sin. Lobotomy!
Get the picture?
Jesus isn’t really telling us to mutilate ourselves. He’s using vivid imagery to make a point. Our eternal destiny is so important that we ought to be aggressive and intentional about making sure we stay away from the things that separate us from God. Take a moment and reflect. Let me ask you to think on this: What is something you did this week you know God wouldn’t want you to do? You can’t help it – almost all of us thought of something. There are no perfect people on earth. 🙂
Now – to what lengths will you go to get that out of your life?
Today we continue in the series on preventing extramarital affairs. Remember, this is not about picking on men. Infidelity is a problem that both men and women need to get a hold of. God wants us to thrive in healthy and happy marriages, and we do great damage to that His design when we let infidelity creep into the relationship. Over the next few months I’ll be sharing some practical tips on how we can actively work to prevent affairs in our marriages. This topic can get a little blunt – obviously it’s not for kids… 🙂
So, tip #2 for preventing infidelity – Keep all sexual fantasies that you intentionally create focused on your partner.
Dr. Douglas Rosenau says:
Your sexual thought life needs to be carefully disciplined. Sinful lust and acting out sexually are encouraged by obsessively making people sexual objects or continually fantasizing about a person…outside your marriage.
Within the boundaries of marriage, just about anything goes between willing partners. I’ve talked to people who believe that it’s morally wrong for a married couple to do anything other than basic baby-making. But there’s nothing in the Bible that condemns a man and woman in a married relationship from exploration and variation. As long as both partners are willing and the sexuality stays within the marriage.
The moment things move beyond the married couple it becomes wrong.
Jesus talked about the matters of the heart and fantasy/lust:
You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28)
While adultery is often seen as a sin of ACTION, Jesus changes things and now makes it a sin of the mind and heart. Dang – He ain’t playin’!
If we want to maintain healthy marriages that are free from infidelity we need to be intentional about not letting our minds wander and think about people who are not our spouses. This includes pornography (men, listen up) and some romance novels (ladies, do you hear me?). It can include television shows, movies, magazines, and music. It can include the people you encounter in the store or people you see while driving down the street.
Keep your mind to your partner and you’re a big step to preventing infidelity in your marriage.
As young as I am, I’ve been in church ministry for 17 years. I’ve been a worship leader, a youth pastor, an associate pastor, a preaching pastor, and a lead/senior pastor. In all that time I’ve said some dumb stuff. I’ve put my foot in my mouth plenty of times. If you were to tell me 17 years ago that one of the brouhahas I would start would be because I led my church in the Apostles’ Creed I would have thought you nuts.
Yet here we are. A couple weeks ago I led my church in saying the Apostles’ Creed. It was only the 2nd time in 2 years we had ever done it, but I was preaching on faith in Jesus and standing firm in one’s faith, so we closed the service by saying the Creed as one church.
I heard from several who were opposed to the Creed and thought it had no place in our church. So let’s talk about it.
The Creed first came on the scene in the 4th century. That’s about 1200 years before the Protestant/Catholic split. And about 600 years before the Eastern Orthodox/Catholic split. At the time there was only one Church – the Christian Church. It was referred to as catholic (little c) which meant “universal” – but we’ll talk about that more in a bit.
The Church put together the teaching of the Apostles in a simple, succinct form that could be learned by every Christian. In a time where literacy levels were low, a Creed that could be memorized was a big bonus in teaching people the core elements of faith.
Here are the elements and the Bible verses that spawned the Apostles’ teaching:
~ I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. (Psalm 103:13)
Throughout the Bible believers affirm that God is the source of everything, the magnificent creator of all things. Both Old and New Testaments refer to God as Father. God is neither male nor female, so Father isn’t a perfect metaphor for God, but in our limited language and human understanding it is how the Bible refers to God.
~ I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Mark 1:1)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Jesus was not merely a good man or a wise teacher – he was unique. He was one of a kind. He was God in the flesh.
~ who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:26-37)
We don’t even have to get into Protestant/Catholic debates on the immaculate conception or perpetual virginity of Mary or any of the other stuff we like to fight over. We agree on this basic element: Jesus was a supernaturally born child born of a young girl who didn’t get pregnant by any man.
~ He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried;
And they bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate. (Mark 15:1)
So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. (Mark 15:15)
And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. (Mark 15:37)
And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut from the rock. (Mark 15:46)
Jesus was an historical figure that actually lived, breathed, was betrayed, killed, and buried. Believe it or not, I’ve had conversations with atheists who genuinely believe that Jesus is a fictional character. They are blown away when I show them that Jesus was written about by secular Roman historians as well as the Bible and Christian historians.
~ he descended to hell.
Here it is. This is the kicker – the one that throws a lot of people for a loop. What?!? Jesus went to hell?
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah…. (1 Peter 3:18-20)
There are several other passages used when talking about this element of the Creed.
…he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. (Acts 2:31.)
The Greek use of Hades is not the same as our English understanding of Hell as place of torment. Originally it was a holding place between life and death. Even the Jews had a concept of Abraham’s Bosom, and Jesus used it in a parable (see Luke 16:19-31). The Bible isn’t saying that Jesus spent time in eternal judgment, but that he departed from this world and went to the afterlife, which could not contain him!
~ The third day he rose again from the dead.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” (Luke 24:1-7)
Unlike leaders/founders of other religions, we affirm that Jesus is NOT dead. He is alive after a physical and bodily resurrection.
~ He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:6-11)
~ From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word…. (2 Timothy 4:1)
This world is not the end of existence. The afterlife awaits us all, and we will all be judged. The old-fashioned expression is “the quick and the dead.” When I was a kid I always wondered what that meant. What’s gonna happen to the slow people? But quick is an old way of saying “alive.” Those who are living and those who have already passed will face a final judgment before Jesus.
~ I believe in the Holy Spirit,
And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “You heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:4-5)
The Spirit of God is active in the lives of believers. The Spirit leads us, guides us, convicts us.
~ the holy catholic church,
…the sake of [Jesus’] body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister…. (Colossians 1:24-25)
Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… (Ephesians 5:25)
Here’s another one that bugs Protestants. Remember, catholic means “universal.” They weren’t trying to promote the Roman Catholic organization but saying that all Christians around the world are united in Christ. In the Bible, the word for church is ekklesia and literally means “called out.” We are different from the world. We are an assembly of people called together through our common faith in Jesus. It’s not the buildings but the believers who ARE the Church!
~ the communion of saints,
…that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us… (1 John 1:3)
The Apostle Paul frequently refers to all Christians as holy ones or “saints.” Again, this isn’t about any Roman Catholic doctrine but about the bond and unity that all believers have in Christ Jesus.
~ the forgiveness of sins,
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:14)
In actuality, the Bible talks a lot about forgiveness of our sins because of the work of Jesus on the cross. It’s the whole point of the cross. So I think we can move on from this one.
~ the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:49)
The Apostle Paul says, if there is no resurrection of the dead then we’re all screwed. Why bother being faithful? We can live and let live. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. But no – there is more to this life than the here and now. We live in temporary bodies but are eternal beings. Thank God one day we will shed these messes!
There, in a nutshell, is some of the biblical foundation for the Apostles’ Creed. While not appearing word for word in the Bible, the Creed has elements that do come from the Bible. It is not a Roman Catholic thing. It is a Christian thing that has been part of Christian worship services for 2000 years. Catholics use it, Anglicans, Orthodox Christians, Lutherans, Methodists, non-denominational churches, and on and on.
The purpose of reciting and using the Creed is to stand in solidarity with thousands of years of Christian faithful who declare, “We believe.” Every element of the Creed is biblical and represents the faith that has been passed down to us from the beginning of Christianity.
In a modern context, think about it like a contemporary church website. Every church website I’ve ever seen has a statement of faith/beliefs. The Apostles’ Creed is the statement of faith for the Worldwide Church website.
If you want to hear some version of the Creed put to music you should check out these:
No, I’m not talking about LeBron James. I really have no opinion on basketball players and team rosters.
When it comes to Bible issues, though, I tend to be very opinionated. 😉
And, quite simply, it’s time to fire King James.
I know that this issue tends to be very heated among some Christians. Some live and die by their King James Version (KJV). Before you get out your pitchforks and torches, let me give a caveat:
Ultimately, I believe that you should use whatever Bible version you will actually read and apply to your life. God cares more about that than he cares about the translation you use. From my own childhood I have also memorized verses from the KJV and I have difficulty thinking about those verses in any other way than the version I memorized. 🙂
Having said that, let’s talk about the KJV as opposed to other versions in two specific areas.
The Text:
In a nutshell, since there were no copy machines in the ancient world, all Bibles were copied by hand. It was quite laborious, the the human factor involved in copying meant that human goofs eventually worked their way in to the text. Sometimes a copy would accidentally add or omit a word, phrase or sentence. Sometimes a copy accidentally repeated an entire line of text. Sometimes one scribe’s marginal notes were accidentally written into the text by another scribe.
All said and done, there is a process by which men and women familiar with the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek (the languages of the Bible) sift through all of the manuscripts and work their way back to the form closest to the original text of the Bible. Along the way of the thousands of copies that exist we start to see trends and we can group the different manuscripts into textual “families.” The KJV is based on one of these families.
There is a school of thought that says the family upon which the KJV is based is not the oldest and most authentic family – that other manuscripts reflect an older and closer-to-the-original tradition. Those of us who hold to this school of thought prefer to use Bibles based on examining multiple manuscripts rather than a single family. Such Bibles are “eclectic” and are represented by the ESV, NIV, NLT, NASB, and many other fine translations.
The Translation & Language:
There are several areas to consider when looking at the KJV vs. other versions.
– word count: I have heard KVJ advocates blast “corrupt versions” for not having nearly the same word count as the KJV. The idea is that the KJV is closer in word count to the original languages. But this is a false dilemma. There is no translation of any work that has identical word count to the original language. Anyone who has studied a foreign language understands this simple fact. There is ALWAYS something a little different when you translate from one language to another.
Thus we hold that the original manuscripts, those originally penned by the original authors, are the inspired Bible and Word of God. All other translations are faithful attempts at taking those ancient languages and transporting them to other languages, but the KJV is a translation just like any other. The originals are superior to any translation.
– out of date language: The KJV uses vocabulary, grammar, and syntax that are simply out of date. Because language is fluid and ever-changing, the way we spoke 400 years ago is radically different from how we speak today. Some words have fallen out of use. Some words have actually CHANGED meanings in the last 400 years. For a silly example, the KJV regularly uses words like ass and piss. One of my favorite KJV jokes is:
Q: Who is the stretchiest man in the Bible? A: Abraham, because he tied his ass to a tree and walked up a mountain.
It’s not foul – it’s biblical…if you’re reading the King James Version. While I want my kids reading the Bible, I don’t really want them running around using Bible words that now have different meanings and usage.
One of the founders of the Reformation movement that broke away from the Catholic Church and birthed the Protestant movement (Lutherans, Baptists, Charismatics, etc.) was Martin Luther. In his lifetime, the Bible was only for use by the trained clergy because it was only available in Latin. Only priests could read it! He was a big believer that all people should have the Bible accessible in their own native language. Thus he began work to translate the Bible from Latin into his native German.
17th century English is not the native language of 21st century English speakers. In the spirit of the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther, Christians should be leading the way in making sure contemporary people have a Bible accessible to them in their own language and vernacular. It is possible to retain the meaning of the original text while making the vocabulary and style contemporary. There are several versions that accomplish this well.
I want to end by reiterating this important point:
The best Bible for you to use is the one you will actually read and apply to your life.
If that’s the KJV for you – more power to you! If it’s not, there’s nothing wrong with other translations.
God’s Word has been impacting people’s lives for thousands of years – even before the King James Version was around. It will continue to impact lives long into the future, even when our contemporary versions become the outdated versions. 🙂
I recently officiated a wedding. Part of my wedding message was about God’s design that marriage be a permanent covenant, not merely a part-time gig to try out until you get unhappy or something else comes along.
At the reception a gentleman who attended the wedding was talking to my wife and me and thanked me for including that part in my message. He commented that many people seem to think marriage is something you stick with while it is convenient then bail when the going gets tough. He said in the decades he and his wife and had been married there was a time when they thought they weren’t going to make it. My wife and I looked at each other and I said, “We had a time like that, too.” To which this gentleman replied, “Most couples go through something like that, I think.”
And it’s true. Any long-term relationship will have rough patches (some rougher than others). There will be times when we want to call it quits. But marriages can survive even the tough times – if we’re smart about it. And nothing is stupider or more difficult to overcome than an extra-marital affair.
Before you start accusing me of bashing men, research shows that infidelity is not limited to men. The Journal of Marital and Family Therapy released some startling numbers.
Percent of men who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had 57% Percentage of women who admit to committing infidelity in any relationship they’ve had 54%
This is a problem that both men and women need to get a hold of. So over the next few months I’ll be sharing some practical tips on how we can actively work to prevent affairs in our marriages.
So, the #1 tip to preventing affairs – Make a decision and commit to the idea that you will never have an affair. No circumstance can justify infidelity, so simply decide that an affair is never an option, no matter what happens in the marriage. The Bible indicates that there is something powerful in putting our minds to something.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:1-5)
I have friends who are hard-core road bikers.
No. Not
I’m talking
They tell me that the racer’s vision is HIGHLY important to the direction of the bike. Where your vision goes your bike will start to move in that direction. Where our brains our bodies will follow. If we take the Apostle seriously then we need to keep “our minds on things that are above.” Decide that infidelity is not an option in your life. Stay tuned throughout the series as we cover more tips for preventing affairs.
1611 is the year the King James Version of the Bible was produced. This nifty mathematical formula has randomly taken the year, split it up and multiplied it together to create a fictitious link to Psalm 119.
While not stated, the implication is that the 1611 King James Version is the true Word of God and all other Bibles are frauds.
This kind of math seriously aggravates me. There is nothing logical about it. I might as well say something like:
1611 KJV. 1+6+1+1=9. Genesis 9 is all about God making a covenant never protect and never destroy all humanity again.
It’s bogus. It’s assigning meaning to random numbers. There is nothing biblical about it. I’ve seen quite a few people talk about Bible codes and secret messages and meanings in the Bible. If you count every seventh letter (in the original Hebrew, of course) in the Book of ______ you’ll see a secret message from God…
Barf.
Here’s the thing – the Bible is special enough without secret codes and hidden meanings. The Bible is difficult enough without secret codes and meanings. Rather than making up bogus connections based on wonky math, let’s work on reading, interpreting, and applying the Bible to our daily lives.
How about that, huh? Let’s start there.
So next time you see someone posting about numbers in the Bible and making random connections, politely point out that such “interpretation” is full of…garbage.
Chris Linzey 