Evening Thoughts on Scripture

Could it be that the more we know about Jesus the less we know him?

While not a KJV-only guy in any sense, I'm not convinced the Bible-publishing explosion of our day is a net good. The mind-boggling variety of translations, paraphrases, and specialty Bibles is...waaay over the top, the most egregious being the ones with a slick mag-cover look. If you don't believe me peruse the Bible section at Books-a-Million or in the CBD sales paper.

The late radio extraordinaire, Paul Harvey, once said "if the devil wanted to reduce the power of the Bible he wouldn't have to destroy it, just dilute it." Reminds me of the Neil Postman line that with the extreme over-publishing of our day, "truth will be lost in a sea of irrelevance".

In light of those considerations, I loved it when I ran across this from the late, inimitable Malcolm Muggeridge in his book Jesus: The Man Who Lives.

"Meaning is often the enemy of truth, and in re-translating more exactly the words of the Gospels what they say so splendidly can easily be lost. [It may well be] that the more we knew about Jesus the less we knew him, and the more precisely his words were translated the less we understood or heeded them."

This, I think, critiques modernity and its love of all things exact. Of course we need accurate translations and of course the KJV is not the autographs in English form. I love the Message, JB Phillips, NLT, RSV, NASB, NKJV. They are all very helpful...and bewildering, too. But in a very real sense, I want my old Bible back. It simply is the mother tongue of English Scripture, and amazingly integral to the Anglo/American culture.

It is easy enough to observe that multiple translations have deeply wounded trans-generational Biblical literacy and memory. Multiple translations to choose from and which will you memorize? Which is used in the pulpit, at school, for personal devotions, at Bible club, youth group, summer camp? Several translations means the phraseology of that understanding gets fractured and never really settles into a collective awareness.

For the scholars, it is different -- they relish it all, understandably. The vast majority of us, though, need to be able to share the same words together. And when we can't, it is much easier to give up that Bible thing altogether. The Scriptures have lost their punch because we are not sure what the punch exactly is anymore -- it is lost in dilution: study notes, celebrity testimonials, glossy covers, 11 possible translations, and on and on.

I gladly repent of negative criticism -- this is not that. I ruminate for love of thoughts expressed, a happy love for God, and a desire to 'lean' into discussions that matter. In the end, for me, Paul Harvey's folksy observation proves true. Had I only one Bible, I would value it more. As I have way-too-many, not as much. Economics 101: High supply, low value.

That said, Muggeridge's further comments have spurred me on to read the Gospels again...and again. I want to hear the message clearly, worship Jesus more truly, follow Him more faithfully. And I honor those who labored through the centuries to pass along the scriptures with integrity. Truly they reveal the Word of life, full of grace and truth. And, as Muggeridge says, if the Gospels have survived their most recent commentators [and varied translations?] "then surely they must be considered immortal."

Indeed, immortal they are and tonight I gladly worship the One of whom they speak.

Yancey on Prayer

Yancey on Prayer: Adjusting our Point of Reference

“We must stop setting our sights by the light of each passing ship; 

instead we must set our course by the stars.” (George Marshall)

“Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view.”

Prayer adjusts our point of reference. With David we ask: “When I consider the heavens, the work of your hands, what is man that you are mindful of him?” Our approach to prayer is our approach to God, and approaching Him requires a massive adjustment of scale. Why would He even know we are here, much less be mindful.

“How odd that prayer seems foolish to some people who base their lives on media trends, superstition, instinct, hormones, social propriety, or even astrology," Yancey observes. Indeed, in our sophistication we reject the unknown of prayer and embrace countless other unknowns all the same. Forgetting God, we create Him elsewhere.

In prayer, Yancey says, we usually get the direction wrong. We start with out own concerns and bring them to God. We inform God as if He did not already know. Instead, we should start 'upstream' – start with God Himself.

The world obscures the view from above. Prayer and only prayer helps us see things as God see them.

• “Prayer allows me to admit my failures, weaknesses, and limitations to One who responds to human vulnerability with infinite mercy.”

• Prayer helps us “un-create the world we have fashioned” with out own ends in mind; it helps us quit playing God.

• Prayer has become “a realignment of everything. I pray to restore the truth...to gain a glimpse of the world, of me, through the eyes of God.”

• “Prayer is the act of seeing reality from God's point of view.”

Ministry Remnants: Gifts in Darkness

 When we are in the darkness, we see nothing;

for once our experience is true.

To preach as a calling is a thing beyond words.
It calls us to use words.
And we leave words unsaid while saying too many.

This is about words unsaid. Or more specifically, some particular words left unsaid. There is no room to list the too many said.

In speaking of trials I spoke of Jesus in the desert, tempted of Satan. Considered broadly I tried to understand how our trials develop us; how God can speak even in darkest place; how God is best heard in the darkest place, for reasons.

Reason one, perhaps: in the dark place we feel our need most keenly and best receive help.

There are other reasons to be sure.

The one I stretch to grasp goes something like this: When we are in the darkness, we see nothing and for once our experience is true. For often we think we see when, in truth, we do not. It is the human condition to know what we don't know. Better to know we do not see and cry out for sight. Dark times help us do that. Much as we hate them, they are a way of hope and help.

These are remnants, left unsaid but wept over. There is more purpose in our trials than we can know. Even the inexplicable details, the faults, the impossible wait. The trial is a gift that helps us open our heart to God. When we push the trial away, it is God we lose.

As my friend, Loy, has it so often, echoing the Psalmist: Selah.

- - -

Next time I will morsel some crumbs about how it can be that these trials prepared Jesus for his ministry.  

Jesus needed preparation? How can that be?

On Prayer

Concerning prayer: "I try to err on the side of honesty and not pretense." (Philip Yancey)

Not much of length or strength here, but some musings as I peruse the master-writer, Philip Yancey, and his 2002 book on prayer.

"When it comes to prayer," he says, "we are all beginners."

He discovers we value prayer highly but practice it little.

   
And he sees how prayer is tied to need. "I noticed that Christians in developing countries spend less time pondering the effectiveness of praying and more time actually praying." Need trumps talk.

He admits an imbalance in approach, a reaction to an approach that "promised too much and pondered too little." As a result, he tries "to err on the side of honesty and not pretense."

Finally, hear these closing comments from chapter one:

• "I have come to see prayer as a privilege, not a duty. Like all good things, prayer requires some discipline. Yet I believe that life with God should seem more like friendship than duty."

• "If prayer stands in the place where God and humans meet, then I must learn about prayer."

• Most of our struggles converge on this point: "why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to? Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge."

Yancey gets it. I look forward to learning about prayer with a fellow traveler like him.

On Blogging and Blessing

It is a wonder and a weariness. A great many have first-rate blog sites. Far more have fun blogs. All the ordinary blogs -- stuff like this where we say this and that now and then? All but infinite.

I guess it matters because it gives expression. I love to write and hope to be read. What is that? Natural and human, I suppose. Overly-serious? Maybe.

Probably not. Just human.

Countless blogs? Mind-numbing.

Reminder to enjoy my own front porch, be glad if I can speak and be spoken to by those close at hand, pray to be free of the seductive pull to be out there and be known.

I never cared about that anyway. Not me!

So I end with a warm smile, relishing the human heart that yearns to matter in spite of its frailty. And with joy for being able to express the heart and speak to any who venture by.

Did I mention what matters? "Significance is a gift," someone said. If I listen well enough I will know I matter because I am made. The Maker sees and cares and calls me to receive His blessing. He says I matter and I am learning that is enough.

Do I even have to write about it?

I smile again, and leave off.

On not Speaking Up

On not Speaking Up

(on the theory that learning to hold my peace will 

atone for the myriad times I should have and didn't!)

If you speak up, you're wrong.
If you don't speak up, you're wrong.
If you speak up because you don't like being wrong for speaking up or not speaking up, you're wrong for speaking up about that!
What about the ones who say "I'm wrong"? Can they be wrong for speaking up, too?

I give up. Is that wrong?

    

The moral umbrage is poly-directional. Could it be that Jesus was right after all, that we should give greater weight to the simple “Do not judge?” Of course someone's wrong, and maybe more someones and different someones than any of the other someones can tell. 

Indeed, we are better to keep our opinions to ourselves for the most part, humble in prayer, aware that our weakness is greater than we can know, remembering the parable about glass houses. 

Why exactly was it our business in the first place? Because Facebook and constant news made it possible to hear and be heard? 

Since when is constant literal hearsay – news in most forms now-days – a viable, noble and moral enterprise? Since never, I'm thinking. It entangles mind and imagination in farflung bits and events framed for titillation, gone before they can be remembered, and for which we can do virtually nothing. Help, Lord!

So there. I've made a statement. I'm sure I am wrong to someone. I hope I'm okay with Someone. Whatever the case, I'm hedging my bets by staying far away from Facebook! 😊

Humility: Objective Distance Easily Attained

I am working through an excellent book on humility: Humilitas by one John Dickson. As you would expect, his first discussion deals with how one can even talk about humility. If you're really humble you won't pretend to know anything about humility and so you certainly won't write a book about it! Or so it seems at a glance.

John is known for being, in his words, "dominance-leaning, achievement-focused, driven". So when he told his long-time friend he was writing a book on "the origins of humility in western ethical thought" his friend quipped:

"Well, at least you have the objective distance from the subject."

Zing! And so might be said of us all. Of course, John makes the reasonable case for trying to learn about this classic virtue. And right off he reminds us that one of the more remarkable sociological studies of recent years, the book Good to Great, identifies humility as one of two key ingredients in the extraordinary success he documented.

I'll hope to finish the book soon, and may share a bit as I go along.