Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed
order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name: Jeremiah 31:35
In the verse above and Exodus 15:11, we are reminded of the awesome
power and authority of God. When we understand this, we develop what is
known as "awe" of God. Awe is a reverential fear. This is not fear
that sends us running for a secure place to hide (as if that existed
with God). This is the type of fear that recognizes the power and
majesty of the All Might; the type of fear that produces respect for the
greatest power in the universe that loves us beyond any human
understanding. We see and understand the power of our Creator. This
can be related to the awe we had of our parents when we were young. We
recognized that they had the power to reject, reward, discipline, deny,
give and create the atmosphere of our lives.
Once we reach this
state of "awe", we want to worship and praise in gratitude - just as we
felt about our parents. When young, they controlled our entire world
and we stood in awe of the way they went about the business of work and
providing everything. In Psalm 68:35, we are told of the power of God
that He can give to us. In Isaiah 66:2, we are told of who He favors
among His people.
Our parents were proud of us and bragged on us
when we were respectful. We were rewarded when we obeyed them and did
as we were instructed. I recognized that my mother had all authority
and she demanded respect. We feared what she could do if she did not
get that respect (awe) through our disobedience. At the same time, we
were certain of her love because of the way she commanded right living.
I loved my mother, obeyed her and she returned this with love. I
respected her for her power over me and she loved me for it.
God
bestows good things, blessings, on those who who trust Him. Psalm
31:19. In Luke 1:50, we are told that proper fear of God grants us
mercy from Him. We learn in Psalm 103:11 that God loves those who love
Him. Love comes from respect, a type of awe. Isaiah 33:6 tells us that
through fear/awe of the Lord, we will be given salvation, wisdom and
knowledge as treasure.
The Lord listens to and hears those who
fear Him. Malachi 3:16-17 Proverbs 14:27 tells us we can receive
health and long life through fear of the Lord. Proverbs 19:23 goes
further to add that our life will be content and untouched by trouble
when we fear Him. Finally, we see in Proverbs 22:4 that even riches and
honor are added to our life for fearing the Lord.
How do we
stand in awe and fear the Lord? We accept His unconditional love and
grace imparted to us as a free gift through the sacrifice of His son on
the cross.
We do not have to earn this love from God; His grace is a free gift. Our sins were forgiven on the cross. Hebrews 10:12 Amen
Jesus is our Good Samaritan. The parable in Luke 10 tells of a man in
need after being set upon by robbers. They stripped him, beat him and
left him half dead. In this story, I see people of the world, beaten
down by life, with little or no hope after they have all their needs and
finding they are not happy. Life has a way of beating us down with
trials, disappointments and sorrow. The enemy sets upon those who have
nothing to hold on to beyond physical possessions. We get beaten down
to where there seems to be no way out of our troublesome situations.
Then,
along comes Jesus, our Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were not liked
among the Jewish people just as they did not accept Jesus. Read the
story to see how much He cares for us. He is ready, very willing and
very able to help anyone. There was the untold risk of robbers
returning to finish their job or the risk of other robbers stealing from
and beating the Samaritan - just as Jesus was beaten and robbed of
everything in order to mount the cross for us.
The Samaritan
poured oil and wine on the wounds of the beaten man just as Jesus can
spiritually anoint and heal us of our physical and emotional hurts. He
took him to shelter and cared for him over night like Jesus cares to
bring us close to Him. Could this be the grace of Jesus calling us to a
life of peace in Him?
The next day this Samaritan paid an innkeeper to
continue caring for the man. Do you see how Jesus, after calling us to
a life in Him, turns us over to the church for baptism an receipt of
the Holy Spirit for guidance, teaching and safety? There is also a
promise to return, just as the promise we have that Jesus will return to
claim us to His eternal care and protection. The extra expense mentioned in this parable, refers to that extra mile we are to go for those in need. Complete the task. Take care of every unexpected need.
The Samaritan gave
the innkeeper two denarii for the man's care. That was the equivalent
of two days wage. If a day is as a thousand years to God, could this
represent the 2,000 years, from then until now, before Jesus' return?
What a wonderful thought that we will live and reign with the Savior who
wants to tend all our needs.
Amen
Let's establish right away that the Hebrew language is the official
language of the Old Testament Bible. It was the language God gave to
Adam. It was the language Moses used to write the first five books of
the Bible. It was the language all the Old Testament prophets spoke and
wrote. Hebrew was the language taught to all Hebrew and Jewish
children for reading, writing and study of the law and prophets. It was
the language Jesus was taught and used in the temple. We know this.
So, why do we prefer our English translations over the Hebrew?
Arrogance and familiarity. We prefer what we have been taught and are
comfortable with. Get over it! We are missing so many teachings and
deeper meanings of scripture that can bring us into a more personal
relationship with and understanding of our Heavenly Father..
The
history of Bible translation began with a necessity: people should be
able to read the Bible in their own languages as the gospel was taken
into the world. As familiarity with Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek
declined, Biblical translation was done in new languages.
The
Bible was not translated into English until the fourteenth century.
Latin was the dominant language in the western church. The Bible used in
the church was Jerome's Vulgate (completed in 405) - in Latin.
Sporadic attempts to translate parts of the Bible into Old English
(before 1100) gave limited access to the Bible for those who did not
know Latin (mainly the uneducated). By now, both Greek and Hebrew
(difficult languages to translate), are being interpreted by English
speaking Christians.
We have some manuscripts from the ninth and
tenth centuries that are "interpretations". The most famous is the
Lindisfarne Gospels that are in the British Museum. However, this is
not a complete translation/interpretation.
In the years
1100-1550, John Wycliffe, John Purvey, and Nicholas of Hereford got
together to produce the first complete Bible in English. There were two
editions of the Wycliffe Bible. They were both translations of the Latin
text. The first edition was a literal translation from Latin into
English. There was a second edition completed in 1396. It circulated
more widely, rather than the more literal translation. (?) The focus
was on the meaning of sentences, rather than words. Hebrew is a
difficult language to translate properly into other languages.
Translators were not Hebrew/Jewish so did not always select an English
word that properly translated the Hebrew. Then, there were those times
when personal understanding did the translating.
As a result of
this work, Wycliffe and his followers, "the Lollards" suffered
persecution as heretics. Purvey and Nicholas were forced to recant
their work. In 1408. The Constitutions of Oxford included a prohibition
against Bible translation without approval of church "authorities", who
were English speaking Christians. (Let us not forget it was church
"authorities" that crucified Christ)
By the sixteenth century, a
number of events affected later Bible translations even more. The
Renaissance brought on a recovery of classic learning. Greek scholars
moved westward as Constantinople fell to the Turks (1453). The
invention of the printing press around 1450 was a profound influence on
Bible translation. By 1488, there were printed editions of the Hebrew
Bible into English . The Protestant Reformation in 1517, called for
versions of local dialects. The break with Rome in England also
influenced the course of the English Bible that had already been
translated several times.
More recently, William Tyndale
(1484-1536) was a Greek scholar educated at Oxford with a desire to
provide a readable Bible to the average person. He based his English
New Testament on a Greek text established by Erasmus in 1516. He printed
it in Europe in 1526 and revised it in 1534. Myles Coverdale produced
the first complete English Bible of the sixteenth century in 1535.
Subsequently, in 1611, King James gave his blessing to a new translation, Authorized Version or the King James Bible.
More
recent discoveries of the Codex Sinaiticus (early Greek papyri of New
Testament documents), and the Dead Sea scrolls aided (or affected) new
translations we use today (New English Bible, New International Version,
and the Jerusalem Bible).
So many people are stuck on the King
James as the official translation. I present to you that none are 100%
correct. The Bible was first translated in part and then patched in
pieces to become a complete book to be revised over and over. God
states in the Bible itself not to change a jot or tittle. ("Jot" and
"tittle" are Hebrew words for exclamation and pronunciation marks around
letters.) I further present that our best understanding of God's word
is directly from Hebrew text along with understanding of Hebrew and
Jewish culture. More and more people deny the Jewish right of
translating the Old Testament. I say it is the work of the Enemy to
turn Christianity against God's chosen people. Our enemy is subtly
turning us from the truth more by the day.
God's word tells us to
discern for ourselves. As children of God, we are to "seek" Him
through truth found in original writings. It is to the children (of
God; us) that wisdom may be imparted. Matt. 11:25
In summary:
God's word, in the Hebrew and Greek languages, has been interpreted and
translated through the centuries by English speaking Christian scholars
and patched together after reformations. How dare we resign ourselves
to any one translation and call it "absolute". We need to get back to
real in depth study of original texts. In our modern world, God's
children should not be poo-pooing teachings from original texts.
Amen
