Theophonics

The Standard, Not the Exception

I was watching a TV show the other day where a character was discussing how horrible his marriage had been. He started by commenting on how he and his ex-wife had never seen eye to eye, and he proceeded to list out a whole plethora of reasons why marriage itself was a trap made by the devil. This made me think about the state of marriage in America today. This isn’t a blog about same-sex marriage, so don’t get all flustered up quite yet. Several questions came to my mind that too me some fairly serious thinking to answer. I’d like to discuss this so-called “trap” today and explain why we as Christians are not doing our jobs as well as we should.

I’m sure everyone has heard the sad statistic that somewhere around fifty percent of current marriages end in divorce. It blows my mind that people might be looking at my, or their own, marriage and wondering which side of the fence it will end up on. I don’t want to get too deep into the Biblical stance on divorce, because I don’t think that’s the issue. I think that our focus as individuals is the problem.  Now before you people who aren’t married yet surf to another site, let me assure you that this issue extends beyond the marital unit.

I have distilled my original three or four questions down to one main question. If Christian couples are made with God’s will in mind and sustained under God’s will, why are so many failing? I would like to give two reasons. The first is that Christians make selfish decisions on who to marry. The second is that Christian couples leave behind God’s will once married.

When the bond of matrimony is entered, vows are made to each other in the sight of God. The reason God presides over this in a spiritual manner is because He came up with the idea to begin with. Marriage is a gift from God to us. And since He is the originator, He should also be the motivator. If we decide on our own behalf that we should marry someone, it is not a given fact that God agrees. God wants us to be generally pleased, but He does want us to act outside of His plan for our lives. It is no small wonder that so many people within the church fall prey to the same problems that non-Christians do.  If we make our own decisions on partners just like a non-Christian would, is it so strange that the outcome is the same?

So let us say that we have prayerfully sought God’s will, and He has lead us to the person He wants us to marry. His job doesn’t end there. God should not leave the picture just because you now have another person with whom to decide. Two heads are not always better than one. God should still have the final say in anything we do as a couple. If we leave Him behind, we also leave behind the wisdom, patience, strength, and fortitude that He offers to us. These things are essential to lasting marriage relationships. We as humans are incapable of making correct decisions all the time with no guidance. This leads down the same road mentioned before.

What then is my responsibility as a Christian married under God’s will and in a Godly relationship? The answer is simple. Live out loud. Loving, healthy, and Christ-centered homes should be the standard amongst married couples and not the exception. We have to work to be living examples of what God can do with the lives of two people joined in His presence.  This doesn’t mean that we should act as if nothing ever goes wrong, we never fight or disagree, and it is always easy. It does mean that we should be open with these things and show other people how God can fix any situation or heal any wound when both partners in a marriage are truly devoted to Him and each other.

I will leave you with a verse, as always, but I would like you to look at it in a way that you might not have before. Focus on the number of people mentioned at the beginning. Then think of the verse’s application to marriage.

Matthew 18:20- For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

A topic that is bound to come up at one point or another is the issue on Bible translation. This is an inevitable topic, since the foundation of our Christian faith comes from the Bible. I am going to tackle this subject up front in this blog to not only get it out of the way, but to form a solid foundation.

I will hold off until my next blog to bring up the KJV. There is a lot to say about the issue. I’m going to at least preface that entry by saying that while I am more for the KJV than against it, there are more readable translations out there for a modern audience.

So, let’s look at Bible translations. First off, let me point out that the term “translation” is completely accurate. I know this will come as a shock to most of you, but Jesus didn’t preach in 1611 British English, nor did Paul write in modern American English. Jesus would have preached in a Middle Eastern dialect called Aramaic, a language common in most of the Middle East during Christ’s time on Earth. Paul, along with the rest of the New Testament writers, wrote his letters in what is called koine (common) Greek. For the record, with the exception of parts of the book of Daniel, the Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew.

What a good Bible translation should be:
1) It should be based on the best available copies of the Greek or Hebrew base-text. This is usually more affected by the time of the translation than anything else. I put this first because I know Theophonic Polycarp and I disagree on what defines “Best base-text,” but we should both agree on this conceptually.
2) It should be translated by a committee of people, not just one or two people. This is simply because humans make mistakes, and no one knows everything. A group of people is more likely to have a broader knowledge base and be able to edit and correct for each other.
3) It should be readable to you, the person studying it. It doesn’t matter how “good” a translation is; if you can’t read Spanish, don’t buy a Spanish Bible.
4) Finally, it should have an impact on your life.

There are Bibles that are designed for beginners. The New Living Translation (NLT), and the New International Versions (NIV) are both great for new Christians trying to wrap their heads around the Scriptures. If you want something a little meatier, I recommend the New American Standard (NASB), the English Standard (ESV), the Holman Christian Standard (HCSB), and even the New King James Versions (NKJV). Once you really want to go hardcore, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) or the Novum Testamentum Graece (GNT) are the ways to go. But, they require a few years of advanced Hebrew and Greek study to actually get some use out of them. Finally, if you are trying to get a good, modern translation that is not expensive, I highly recommend the New English Translation (NET). The acronym NET is actually rather accurate, since it is available for free online at http://www.bible.org. You can either view it at will on the website, or download the complete version to your computer, and even buy a print copy for a small printing fee.

What I’m ultimately trying to say is this: the “Best” Bible translation for you is the one that you can sit down, read, understand, study, and apply to your life in a way that leads you closer and closer to being like Christ. No matter how good the translation is, if you can’t apply it to your life, you need to find a new one. Alternatively, you need to find a true relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where’s Mine?

I was in a barbeque restaurant recently when I witnessed something that really disturbed me. My wife and I were sitting, we had already received our food from the waiter, and we were having a discussion about the Theophonics. A fairly large group of people, there were about nine, came in and sat at the booth behind my wife. They were followed by a gentleman that ordered something to-go. There weren’t tall backs on the booths so we were able to overhear everything the people were saying. The matriarch of the group became immediately flustered when the to-go gentleman received his food before her spread of family. She got up and stalked over to the area coming out of the kitchen with intent to way-lay the waiter. At that exact moment, he just happened to have a large tray containing most of her family’s food on it. She hassled him all the way back to the booth. After finding that he did not have her plate right that moment, she became visibly agitated. In a very loud and angry voice she demanded, “Where’s mine?” Before the words could even clear her mouth, a second waiter carrying the second half of her family’s food arrived.

Aren’t we that way with God? We picture Him as the provider of a service, and then we gripe at Him when he doesn’t get right to it. I’ve done it myself. I’d like to talk today about where that urge comes from.

We, as humans living in an age of rapid change, have grown accustomed to having things at our fingertips. When you looked up this blog, your computer interfaced with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other computers spread across the world. And it did this in a few seconds. If we don’t feel like cooking, we can drive through the window of a restaurant and pick up food ready to go. And as we have become more and more conditioned to this immediate response, we expect that from everything we contact. God isn’t like the internet or a fast-food diner. God is God. That is a rather obvious and simple way to explain something that is beyond our ability to comprehend.

God’s time-table stretches from the beginning of creation to whenever he decides to come back to get His children. This is a difficult concept to understand, and it has several side effects that a world in a hurry will not always like to understand. When we pray asking God for something in particular, we are to expect an answer in God’s time, not our own. To Him, seconds are virtually nothing. Minutes are barely registered on a timeline that big. That means that we should not push our culturally acclimated timetable on a God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I know that understanding these ideas is unsettling for some people. Let us remember though, God is not the one that is supposed to render the service in the relationship. We are his children, and we are to do the service towards Him. We are to use our lives to work and minister in His kingdom. The more we work for Him, and the closer we get to Him spiritually, the more we should realize what we need to ask for in prayer. This should also give us the patience to wait on God’s timing. We shouldn’t look at the blessings of others and demand God for our own. We should diligently work in His kingdom for His sake, not our own.

Instead of having a, “Where’s mine?” attitude, try to realize that the scope of the world is bigger than you or me. When combined with the understanding that God’s plan is perfect, and the understanding that His timing has to subsequently be perfect, we should be faced with overwhelming proof that we don’t know how things should turn out. This is not an excuse to become complacent with Christianity, but it is a healthy dose of reality that is intended to remove the anger, stress, and fear from our lives. We might demand an immediate response from a waiter or from a fast-food chain, but we cannot expect God to snap into action on every request we make. He’s got things in much better control than we do. So how should we expect our decisions to line up with His, especially when we want it in our time?

Psalms 46:10- Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth

(All scripture references come from the New English Translation, http://www.bible.org)

The other day, a co-worker and I got into a discussion. He begins by showing me a picture of this relatively cute girl that appears to be in her early teens. He asks me what I think, and respond with the idea that she is cute for her age. He proceeds to scroll up to the headline of the article which reads something like, “Twelve year-old undergoes youngest gender-change surgery.” That fairly cute girl was really a boy who had trans-gender surgeries. The significance was that he/she was the youngest known recipient of this in the world.

This sparked a discussion on the nature of man. He argued that people had to be born gay, because who would choose to, well I’m not going to repeat his exact words, but homosexual intercourse wasn’t that pleasant a concept to him. That particular topic is for another day, and one I will address in the future. What I want to discuss is the role of gender and the role of parents.

First, God created people the way they are. This is established back in Genesis when the author states, “Genesis 1:27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” Of course this also leads to quoting from Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you.” While some attempts to change the body are rather benign, such as getting braces to correct bad tooth alignment or wearing glasses or contacts to improve vision. Others are necessary; instances where the spinal cord is exposed, or other life threatening conditions can be surgically corrected are definitely worth undergoing. But the idea of changing one’s gender is beyond the level of what scripture considers appropriate. God created people to be who they are, not who they themselves want to be. God didn’t go through the trouble of making someone a man or a woman only to have them say to God, “I know better than you!” I’m sorry folks, God is God. He does know better.

The other topic I want to discuss is the role of parents. The child previously referenced had to have encouragement to undergo this surgery. For starters there are not many legitimate, Hippocratic Oath swearing doctors that will perform such major surgery on a pre-teen without mountains of parental consent paper-work. Even if the doctor wanted to perform the surgery, he has to follow legal protocol. I will not go into some of the arguments surrounding this case, such as the mother brain-washed the kid. That is not my call to make. But, I can say within reason that the mother had to have consented to this. I don’t know the religious background of the mother, but I doubt there is any strong faith.

We as Christians have to get out and spread the Gospel, because little boys and little girls are being allowed to make life-changing decisions before they are teenagers. There are so many hormones flowing through a child that age that they can’t reason that 2+2=4, let alone that they are supposed to be the opposite sex. In a world that more or less doesn’t care what someone’s sexual orientation is anymore, this article sparked a great deal of controversy. That means that C. S. Lewis’ idea of a Godly moral standard hasn’t been whittled away just yet. To change the world, we have to do something about it.