ESV or NASB Agenda?

For Starters…I am a fan of both Translations. I have been using the New American Standard Bible (NASB) for quite sometime now. Then with the introduction of the English Standard Version (ESV), I was very intrigued and began to see a lot of other people begin to make the switch. I think for some good reasons…It tends to be a a little more readable than the NASB, while still being a word for word translation, as opposed to a thought for thought (NIV) or paraphrase (The Message). Now…I’m not one of those guys who says…you are of the devil if you use the NIV or The Message…I think they still have some value. NIV is great for getting the gist of a passage and The Message is almost like a commentary, which is what I use it for sometimes…but yes..we still need to be discerning.

Discernment is of utmost importance when it comes to any area of Christianity. There are teachers who are famous in some circles and have a mass of followers…who would have been burned alive 200 years ago if they were teaching the same thing as they are now…but that is another conversation.

I have had a problem with the ESV lately. Mainly this. Look at your Bible. Whatever translation you have go grab it and I’ll post the verses here for you as well.

Look at Genesis 17. A very important chapter in the book, as this is the beginning of circumcision and some other details for the Abrahamic Covenant, that are mentioned earlier in the book. Look at verses 1 – 2. I’ll put it here first in the NASB, then ESV and a few others for you.

17:1 Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless. 2″I will establish My covenant between Me and you, And I will multiply you exceedingly.”(NASB)

17: 1When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless,
2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” (ESV)

17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. 2 I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” (NIV)

17: 1-2 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, God showed up and said to him, “I am The Strong God, live entirely before me, live to the hilt! I’ll make a covenant between us and I’ll give you a huge family.” (THE MESSAGE)

17: 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. 2 Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” (TNIV)

Go back and read those passage and notice what has been put in bold and see the differences between the verses.

I really want to draw your attention to the first two verses that were posted and the difference between the NASB and the ESV rendering of that verse.

The NASB says…that God told Abraham to be blameless. Verse 2 then says “I WILL”. Meaning plainly, that God is going to establish His covenant with Abraham. Not a lot of fancy interpretation is needed.

Now..the ESV says in verse 1 the same, a call for Abraham to be blameless. Verse 2, however picks up with a clausal phrase, “that I may.” Very different from the NASB. This rendering brings a totally different meaning to the passage.

The ESV is saying, that God is telling Abraham to live his life a certain way and He has to do it, so God can establish His covenant with Abraham (The Abrahamic Covenant, which consists of Land (Promised Land), Seed (Isaac, eventually Christ), Blessing (Be a blessing to the Nations by Christ, and he will be blessed). By the ESV putting a clausal phrase on the verse, they allowed for some implications. Specifically for a bent towards a certain Theology.

Reformed Theology has many facets to it. I love reformed Theology, I love the Doctrines of Grace…but, I have some issues with Covenant Theology. If you want to know more about Covenant Theology go to monergism.com and begin a search. I don’t have the time to get into it or Dispensational Theology. Basically, Covenant Theology will say that all of the promises to Israel and all of their blessings have been Transferred over to the Church and they are no longer for Israel but the Church. Dispensational Theology says that is not true. Now why is this important you might be thinking??? Well..

Typically reformed theology folks will have a bent towards covenant theology. And I have heard and seen that most of the guys who helped translate the ESV are…reformed.

So as I read the rendering of Genesis 17 in the ESV, I am a little surprised. Because it is an overwhelming difference than that of the NASB…they (ESV translators) have put their theology/belief system/hermeneutic into their translation of that passage.

Which may not seem like a big deal…but as I sat in a bible study that discussed whether or not the Abrhamic Covenant is conditional (able to be broken) or unconditional (nothing can change it)…a lot of the argument came out of this passage…translated by the ESV. And people will point to this passage saying that since Abraham didn’t walk blamelessly before God, these promises to him and the nation of Israel have been transferred to the bride of Christ, the Church.  I believe…that is not true, the Church has been grafted into the promise and has been adopted as sons and brought near to the covenants of the promise by the blood of Chirst, and we are going to make the Jews jealous and they will eventually turn their affections to the one whom they piereced (summary of the end times).

God makes a promise and He doesn’t break it. Ever. The Abrahamic Covenant is of utmost importance in the Bible, it is the main covenant and all of the other covenants are just falling under this one! If the Abrahamic Covenant falls down, they all do. I have heard it be described as the lynch pin for the Old Testament.

I would say that, verse one of Genesis 17 is an exhortation to Abraham to ‘be holy, to live right, to be blameless, to begin to walk as one who is following the one true God..YAHWEH.’ Then verse two follows with God saying, “I am going to keep my promise!” Because back when God made the covenant with Abraham, God put him to sleep and walked through the torn pieces of an animal, a symbol of a covenant of blood. Normally both parties in the agreement would walk through it together, to share the responsibility, but God…walked it by Himself. Declaring that it is He who is upholding this promise/arrangement and now one else. And if the Covenant was up the Abrahams (or our) ability to live a good life that would leave room for bragging or holding hands with God and being able to say, “Look what we did!!” When the reality is…Look what God did.

So all of that to say, that we must always be careful when we are reading and teaching scripture. And to not ever have an agenda. I pray that was not their motive in how they translated this passage, but that they honestly thought that is what the original text looked like. We must never begin to read our beliefs into Scripture, but always let Scripture mold and break what we believe. Even if we don’t like what we see. Let Scripture speak.

I am a little disappointed with the ESV. What do you think????

Gravity of Sin and the Glory of God

“Oh oh….Gravity is working against me…Gravity it wants to bring me down….Gravity….Stay the hell away from me!”

Sin.

I have a good friend named Tim, I love Tim. There is something about the times that we spend together, whether in the car going to the mall or at Starbucks talking at 7 am…its always a sweet time about the Lord.

And I remember Tim talking about that song by John Mayer. I like John Mayer…I like that song..but I never, in a hundred years (I didn’t say million , cause of course I wouldn’t be able to in a million years…but maybe a hundred) would have thought about that song in this way.

“Whenever I listen to that song, it makes me think about sin. And how sin and my flesh just want to bring me down and it feels like there is this force that is keeping…and Im just like (what John Mayer writes)….’stay the hell away from me’.” Profound. Deep.

That should be our desire and our reaction towards sin and our flesh…stay away from me!!!! Stop coming around…Stop bringing me down!!! Sin does carry some gravity. It feels like at times that we cannot beat it. But we can. We can never down play the power and control of the Holy Spirit. Before Christ…the gravity of sin was huge. We couldn’t beat it. In reality, before Christ, you didn’t want to…you had no reason to. Even if you (before Christ) wanted to quit an immoral activity (sin) it was for your own benefit and not the Glory of Christ…hence…you were still sinning.

The Gravity and the Weight of sin is huge. It permeates anything and everything about us. And it’s no wonder that Paul tells in Ephesians to put on the armor of God, because it is a battle. You are fighting a force that’s bigger than your body (John Mayer again). The Evil forces of this world…but…the Spirit is our help.

When we sin…our how world is flipped upside down and a whole slew of sins is committed, not just one. Let’s say a guy looks lustfully at a woman. Did he just lust??? No..follow me here…He committed adultery with her in his heart, he was selfish (seeking after his own desires), he became prideful(selfishness and pride go hand and hand, saying ‘i can do this, she doesn’t matter, I deserve this’ now of course he may not have been thinking those things, but that is what is brewing in his wicked heart), he didn’t love that woman as himself, he began to disobey God, and act out of His will for his life to be sexually pure (1 Thess. 4:3), and worst of all…he communicated to God that he is not pleased with God, that God is not satisfying for him, and that He doesn’t love God (right then) by his disobedience and the selfish pursuit of lust.

The Gravity and Weight of Sin is huge. When one sin is committed…it’s more than one…This is why we have a problem. This is why we are in desperate need of Christ to cleanse us and make us new. To continually confess know sin to our brothers and sisters, and enjoy the community that God has given us…so that..together we can fight the gravity of sin. And we can begin to point everything in our life to the Glory of God…

As Tim and I kept on talking…we began to talk about…how do you begin to live your life for the Glory of God. I mean, we know how to do it on the major things..school, work, ministry, friends etc..etc.. We got that down. But how like Paul says in 1 Cor. 10:31, that in everything you do, whether eating or drinking give glory to God. Is it possible?? I think so…why else would Paul tell us to do that…knowing that we can’t really do it?

We began to talk about how we see in color. We give glory to God that He made it so we can see in color. He made different smells…good and bad. He could have made it to where everything smelled like mint. But He didn’t. Eating is one of my favorite things that God has made. If you have never to Lupe’s (Mexican food), you need to go. So…God could have made it to where we have nothing to eat but lettuce and water, nothing but oatmeal (no raisins or brown sugar to put in, plain oatmeal..gross). And He could have designed to where it would be incredibly painful for us to…that it would be something we hated doing, and never looked forward to. But Praise Him that He didn’t!!!! There is a way to sit in a movie in bring glory to God. “Wow..God gave these me a brilliant mind to think of this script, it reminds me of the Story of Redemption that God has been working on since the Garden of Eden.” Begin to shift your thinking….This is how…make God the subject of your sentence.

There are ways that in everything you do…to bring glory to God.

For the Kingdom of Christ and The Glory of God,

jm

Preaching?

Have you ever thought about just how odd (it appears) some of the stuff that we do in church must look to the outside world?? Think about preaching…A guy standing next to or behind an ugly podium (not all, but some are just funny) and has a really really really old book, written by a bunch of different people and makes some very strong claims about life. And people sit there write down what he says…they have their books to and while he is talking, they say things like ‘amen’ (don’t you say that after you pray for your food?) and ‘that’s right’, ‘come on’ etc..etc.. Now I am not trying to lessen or come down on preaching at all..just think what it must look like to some people. Not that we should change what we are doing…but I do feel there needs to be a change in what we are saying.

What are we talking about? When have 45 minutes of their time a week (up to 1.5 hours, depending on the church). What are pastor’s declaring to their people in the short amount of time that they are sitting there grabbing every word they have to say?

Brothers…nothing…is more important than that we declare Christ and Him Crucified. That we Exalt the Glory of Christ and the Beautiful Treasure that is Jesus Christ, God in flesh. But yet…My heart is troubled as I hear and see what goes on in some churches all across our country. Now…I am not just an irritated guy that is getting on a soapbox about preaching..and I’m not going to start, “this guy is a joke…and he said this..and blah blah etc..etc..etc.” That is not for right now (that might happen later, but not now).

There are sermons/talks/motivational diatribes that have nothing to do with God, where God is not the subject..we are! And what does this accomplish, but make me feel central to my life and put the focus on my life and my problems and my success. Let me be honest here…the problem with a marriage that is getting a divorce…the problem is not the divorce…Now please hear me, I am not saying this is not a problem, of course it is. But it is not the main problem. This is fruit of the main problem..the root that is in their hearts.

Think with me for a second…there is a farmer and he has an apple tree. And this apple tree does nothing but produce rotten apple after rotten apple. Would this farmer be serving his family and farm and the tree justice just by picking the fruit off and throwing it away? What does this farmer need to do? He needs to do something with the tree…either this tree is totally corrupt and needs to be moved to some better soil or the roots are dead/sick and need some nutrients so the tree can begin to produce what it is designed to do.

Now if all we do is continue to pick at all of the bad fruit in people’s lives…are we really helping them?? It would seem to me that we are really hurting them and not only them, but there families, the church (their local body) and those who are closest to them. Cause while they may be good at picking the bad fruit out of their lives, the root (their heart) is still in need of being fixed. The problem with a divorce is Love for God. The problem is love, the problem is selfishness. People who get married for selfish reasons, will get out of it for selfish reasons.

Our preaching and teaching must be centered Christ. We must be about declaring God. Making Him the subject of every sermon. Making sure that people walk away wanting more of Him, giving people a desire to taste and see that the Lord is Good. We don’t have to make God look good. HE IS GOOD!!! You don’t have to make a sunset look appealing…beautiful women (like my wife) don’t really need make up..why!? Cause they are already beautiful. We do not need to dress up God and make Him attractive…He is the author of beauty. He is beyond compare, He is the stunning beauty to the souls of all mankind. No convincing needs to be done, no fancy tricks or fog machines…yet…Only Preaching Christ and Him Crucified (which is the Glory of God) and Prayer that God moves.

For the Kingdom,
jm

EatBible???

What in the world is Eatbible??? What a great question! Chances are you have never heard of that phrase before…neither had I!!! But Welcome!!!!

EatBible is a new project that is under construction. It will be a place full or resources for you on the Scriptures: Papers, Sermons, Articles, Blogs, Message Boards, Commentaries, Podcasts etc..etc..etc..We hope that it will become a place that you can run to when you have a question on a matter contained within the Bible…a place where you will find trustworthy content that you can indulge your mind with and you will be able to feast upon the Bible. HENCE….Eatbible.com

Now who is all involved in this project?? Another great question…wow…you are full of them!!! For now…that information is top secret. For one, people are negotiating their contracts and terms of agreement etc..etc..etc.. But we promise to only bring you excellence.

Tis all for now… God Bless,

In Joint Effort for the Cause of the Kingdom,

Jeff Medders | eatbible.com