Found, Missing Ark

Revelation 7-11

For centuries, explorers have searched the globe to find the Ark of the Covenant, but they were looking in the wrong place all along. Right there at the end of Revelation 11 it tells us exactly where it is... Then, in heaven, the Temple of God was opened and the Ark of his covenant could be seen inside the Temple. If we want to find the Ark... we just have to look where God put it.

Your Eyes Are Like Doves

Song of Solomon 1-2

There is a lot of scripture that I don't get, but I really don't understand "your eyes are like doves." What is that supposed to mean? How are eyes like doves? Is that good? I don't know.

Perfect?

1 John 4-5

For some time I've been thinking that the church has sold itself short in the area of Christian perfection. Too often I hear teachers of the Word say that we cannot reach perfection this side of heaven, but the underlying insinuation is that we will always sin until we die. I don't think that was the message that John was teaching...

We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

If we are children of God, then we will not continue to sin. There should be an end to our sin, not just a lessening... we should be seeking hard after the Kingdom rather than the World.

One More Reason For Diversity

Nehemiah 5-9

I tire of the seemingly ceaseless fights among some Biblical scholars over which translations are the most anointed or most liberal etc.. I have little room in my faith for their legalistic wrangling partly because each time I read through the Bible, God opens new verses to me that I did not see before, or seeing didn't understand, or even understanding didn't trust. I seriously doubt that a well-intentioned, suitably educated translator of the Word can do harm to the Word... for the Lord directs our ways even now.

I read through today's reading during a break at work today in a compact NIV version I have at work. In that version, Nehemiah 6:15 reads as follows:

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.

It is interesting that it took such a short time span for Nehemiah to rally the troops to repair the breaches in the wall, given how long it had been down and it makes one wonder why anyone else did not have the same success previously, but we can see that the Lord's hand was on Nehemiah and that it was the Lord who got it done, etc., but the verse isn't as readable or personal as it could be, partly because the "25th of Elul" means absolutely nothing to me.

In the New Living Translation, which I presently prefer for general reading, the verse is rendered slightly differently. It goes like this...

So on October 2 the wall was finished—just fifty-two days after we had begun.

Now that makes all the difference in the world to me, because October 2nd is my birthday. Logically I know that I share that same birthday with approximately 1/365th of the world's population, but emotionally it means something that the previous rendering left out. Vive la différence!

His or Their

Deuteronomy 23-25

In general, I'm neither friend or foe of gender neutral translations of the Bible. My tendency is to interpret gender-specific terminology as gender neutral based on the context anyway, so editorial decisions have little real impact on my reading in this regard. However, there are times when the general context would seem to allow for a gender neutral translation, but upon closer examination... I'm not so sure it makes sense. Deuteronomy 23:3 is just such a verse.

The New Living Translation renders the following:

No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants for ten generations may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.

While the New International Version (1984) provides the following rendering:

 No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation.

I do not know how the Hebrew should be translated. In general, however, I would think that a gender neutral rendering would not present any problem with a verse like this. But when I think about Ruth and her great-grandson David, it suddenly makes a big difference. If none of the descendants of male Moabites are allowed in the assembly of the Lord, there is no trespass for David, but if no descendants of any Moabites are allowed, then David, the man after God's own heart, should not have been allowed in the assembly according to a strict legal interpreatation of the law.

Radical Belief

Acts 21-22

When Paul came back to Jerusalem to meet with the traditional believers at First Church of Jerusalem, he met some resistance. He had just given his report on the number of Gentiles being saved, when the leaders of the church at Jerusalem reminded Paul that many Jews had come to believe in Jesus, but they also followed the laws of Moses and would be offended by Paul's teachings. They weren't so much concerned whether Paul was preaching the truth, but rather that he was not preaching the old ways. Thus began the ending of Paul's ministry. However right Paul was... he was too radical for the old church. The establishment church doesn't beat radical preachers anymore, mostly it just hopes they will go away. I wonder how today's radical preachers will fare?

An Honest Prayer

Psalms 140-142

I like the honesty of David's prayer in Psalm 141...

Take control of what I say, O Lord, and guard my lips. Don’t let me drift toward evil or take part in acts of wickedness. Don’t let me share in the delicacies of those who do wrong.

There is no trace of arrogance here, just a desire to do right... to stay on the narrow path... to avoid anything that would even remotely carry him in the wrong direction.