Paul and the apostles of note.

Galatians 2.6-10 KWL

6 As for the apostles of note:

Being “someone,” whatever one might be, doesn’t matter to me.

God doesn’t regard a person’s appearance.

The apostles of note contribute nothing to me—

7 on the contrary.

They were merely observing I had been entrusted

with the gospel to “foreskins,”

just as Simon Peter to the circumcised.

7 For the power granted to Peter

as apostle to the circumcised

empowers me as well towards the gentiles.

8 Recognizing the grace given to me,

James, Peter, and John, the “pillars” of note,

placed their hands on me and Barnabas in fellowship,

so we would go to the gentiles,

and they to the circumcised.

9 They only asked that we remember the poor,

which I myself also do my best to do.

Previously:

“The Council of Jerusalem.” Ac 15.1-12

“The former persecutor turned evangelist.” Ga 1.13-24

“How Paul remembered the Council of Jerusalem.” Ga 2.1-5

At the time of the Council of Jerusalem, the Jerusalem church was no longer being run by the Twelve. (Nor, as Roman Catholics like to imagine, Simon Peter.) It was run by Jesus’s brother James, and apparently the apostles Peter and John were still there; Peter hadn’t yet gone to Rome, and John hadn’t yet gone to Ephesus. John’s brother James had died, and the other nine guys in the Twelve had moved on to other parts of the world—to start churches and spread the gospel.

These were “the apostles of note” Paul referred to in Galatians 2.2. Different translations render the phrase different ways: “Them which were of reputation” in the KJV, “those esteemed as leaders” in the NIV, “the acknowledged leaders” in the NRSV, “those who seemed influential” in the ESV, “the influential people” in the NET. All of these are ways of translating τοῖς δοκοῦσιν/tis dokúsin, “to the thought-of.” In other words, if someone said “the apostles,” these would be the apostles you first thought of. The top apostles. The guys who personally knew Jesus best: His brother, his cousin, and his best student.

And Paul shrugged at them: “Being ‘someone,’ whatever one might be, doesn’t matter to me. God doesn’t regard a person’s appearance.”

Which is entirely true. It’s exactly what the LORD told Samuel when the prophet was picking kings.

1 Samuel 16.7 KJV

But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.

Not that the LORD rejected his apostles! Too many Christians, projecting their own anti-authoritarian attitudes, interpret Paul’s statement as if he’s trying to slap down the other apostles, or knock ’em down a few notches. He’s not. He is trying to knock down the unhealthy attitude, all too common among Christians, of turning our leaders into idols, and treating them as if they’re infallible holy beings. To be fair, all these guys did write infallible books of the New Testament. But apart from that, these were just men. Human beings, same as us—who had the privilege of knowing Jesus in the flesh, but otherwise same as us.

This, Paul recognized. They were apostles… but he and Barnabas were also apostles, personally selected by the Holy Spirit for a mission to preach the gospel. Ac 13.2 They weren’t made apostles by the other apostles; they were made apostles by God Himself. The notable apostles only recognized their appointment by God. When they laid hands on them, it wasn’t to pass along God’s commission, nor empower them themselves; that’s not what laying hands is about, even though plenty of Christians certainly treat it that way. Laying hands is only to acknowledge something God has already done, and show our support of it.

So yeah, if you’re reading any level of sarcasm into Paul’s description of these notable apostles (“whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me,” as one might read the KJV) you’re doing it wrong. Hero-worship among Christians is wholly inappropriate. We have one hero, Christ. Everybody else is just trying to follow him… and sometimes makes mistakes. Peter’s gonna make a doozy later in this very chapter.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

How Paul remembered the Council of Jerusalem.

Galatians 2.1-5 KWL

1 Afterwards, after 14 years,

I went to Jerusalem again with Joseph Barnabas,

taking along Titus as well.

2 I went, according to a revelation.

I presented to them the gospel which I preach to the gentiles

—in private, and to those apostles of note—

lest somehow I might run, or was running, in vain.

3 But neither Titus, nor the Greeks with me,

were forced to be circumcised

4 because of the infiltrating fake “fellow Christians”

who snuck in amongst us to spy on our freedom we have in Christ Jesus,

so they would enslave us.

5 We don’t yield to their position for even an hour,

so that the gospel’s truth might continue among you all.

Previously:

“The Council of Jerusalem.” Ac 15.1-12

“The former persecutor turned evangelist.” Ga 1.13-24

I gave kind of a timeline of Paul’s life in my first article on Galatians. After Jesus appeared to him round the year 35, he visited the apostles three years later (38CE), and soon after they sent him home to Cilicia. Ac 9.30 But a few years later Barnabas, the man who’d first brought him to the apostles, Ac 9.27 came to get him.

Barnabas had been sent by the apostles to check out a church in Antioch, Syria, where Syrian Greeks—who were gentiles, i.e. non-Israelis—had been led to Jesus. Enthused, Barnabas went to Tarsus and got Paul to join him. Antioch became where Jesus’s followers were first called Χριστιανούς/Hristianús, Christians. Ac 11.19-25

I figure the year Paul moved to Antioch was anywhere between 38 and 41. See, at some point while they ministered in Antioch, the prophet Agabus said there’d be a famine, Ac 11.28 and Barnabas and Paul were sent to Jerusalem with money. The famine didn’t take place till Claudius became emperor in 41CE, so naturally these events had to happen before 41. As for Barnabas and Paul’s missionary trip, Luke referred to the death of Agrippa Herod 1 in 44CE before he got to their trip… so there, loosely, is when these events took place.

Okay. So after their missionary trip, Luke told of the events which triggered the Council of Jerusalem:

Acts 15.1-2 KJV

1 And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. 2 When therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

The apostles did try to sort it out themselves, but the visitors from Judea weren’t at all willing to accept Barnabas and Paul’s view, nor authority. So the church leadership decided they’d better hear it from the Jerusalem church. We Christians recognize this as the first of the ancient church councils, where major theological issues were hashed out between all the leading Christians in the world… and of course after the Orthodox and Roman Catholics split, we can’t do these councils anymore. (Not that Catholics don’t claim their councils still count for all Christendom—but nope; they’re only internal church councils now.)

In today’s passage, Paul only loosely refers to this. This text mainly refers to four things:

1. He, Barnabas, Titus, and some other “Greeks” (really Greek-speaking Syrians) went to Jerusalem.
2. He went “according to a revelation,” meaning the Holy Spirit told him to go. (He probably didn’t wanna!)
3. He privately confirmed the gospel he was preaching with the top apostles, lest he was getting it wrong. (And he’s not. Ga 1.8)
4. Those apostles never required Titus and the Greeks to be circumcised.

So basically Paul’s in the right. He made sure of it.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

The prayer of faith will raise him up.

James 5.15.

I once had a classmate who had to use a wheelchair. I don’t know all the details as to why he was in that chair—whether his legs didn’t work, or he couldn’t stay upright. Doesn’t matter. The point is he was in that chair… and it was really hard to talk about Jesus with him, ’cause he was really annoyed with Christians.

Y’see, those of us who believe God still cures people, tried to get God to cure him. “Can I pray for you?” is how it usually starts—although too often they never bothered to ask, and just started praying. And touched his legs uninvited. And exhibited other demonstrative, uncomfortable behaviors; uncomfortable for him, though they certainly didn’t hold back.

He was still in that chair though. The prayers didn’t work.

Of course when things don’t turn out the way we expect, people wanna know why, and some of these wannabe faith-healers claimed to know why: He lacked faith. He didn’t believe God would heal him. He was the problem. Blame the victim.

You can kinda see why he was really annoyed with Christians. I get annoyed by such Christians. They make my job harder. Now I gotta be twice as gracious, twice as nice, just to make up for their dick moves. (And back at this point in my life I wasn’t all that nice.)

“Which goes to show these guys don’t know their bible,” I told my classmate, “because the bible actually says it’s their fault you weren’t healed.”

“How’s that now?” he said. I didn’t have a bible on me, so I loosely told him this story. One day Jesus walks in on a debate his students are having with some scribes, Mk 9.14 and wants to know what’s up. I’ll continue with Matthew’s version of events.

Mark 9.17-19 NLT

14 At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.”

17 Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

19 Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?”

20 “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”

“The boy didn’t need to have faith,” I pointed out; “I don’t know if he had any idea what was going on; if he was in any position to even have faith. His faith didn’t matter. Your faith didn’t matter. The faith-healer’s faith is what matters, and Jesus’s disciples didn’t have it. So that’s why nothing happened.”

“So those people praying for me are the problem,” he said. “Well I already knew that.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but now you know why. And the next time they wanna blame you for lacking faith, remind ’em of when Jesus raised people from the dead, and ask them how much faith those dead people needed to have.”

Now yeah, there are gonna be Christians who insist the victims do need to have faith before God can heal them; that even Jesus himself can be hindered when people refuse to have it. Mk 6.5, Mt 13.58 I agree people’s faithlessness can get in the way… but I still think the burden is 99.9999 percent on the faith-healer. We mustn’t offer to cure the sick and unwell and infirm, unless we’ve first asked the Holy Spirit, and he’s told us to pray for them. If we’re stepping out ahead of the Spirit, we have no guarantee he’s gonna do a thing. He might! And he might not.

Christians who don’t understand this, regularly have the bad habit of blaming the victim—and quoting today’s out-of-context verse to defend themselves. Not that the verse says what they claim it does. I’ll switch to the KJV to quote it, since that’s the version Christians quote most:

James 5.15 KJV

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

“The prayer of faith shall save the sick,” and their argument is that if the prayer doesn’t save the sick person, it’s because somebody lacked faith. It’s kinda obvious from the text that James means the prayer has to be of faith; the person doing the praying has to have faith; it’s not the sick person!

But wannabe faith healers are gonna insist they totally do have faith, so they can’t be to blame. So it’s gotta be someone else. The sick person, likely.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Receiving not our witness.

John 3.11.

Sometimes you share the gospel with someone… and they’re not interested.

To be fair, sometimes they didn’t ask you to share the gospel: You just kinda imposed it on them. “Lemme tell you about Jesus,” and before they could agree or say “No thank you,” off you went. Or you presented the gospel as, “If you were to die this very minute, do you know whether you’d be in heaven?”—as if that’s the only thing the gospel is: Afterlife insurance.

Whether you did it right, or did it intrusively, or emphasized popular dark Christian fears instead of good news: They’re not interested. You offer to lead ’em in the sinner’s prayer; they don’t care to pray that. You invite ’em to church; they’re not coming. No thank you. Pass. I’m happy with how things are.

Some Christians take this rejection kinda hard. Especially when, for various reasons, they were sure they were gonna lead this person to Jesus. Or really wanted to. Or thought they heard the Holy Spirit tell them to share Jesus. Others of them take every rejection hard, as if every no is a personal defeat in spiritual hand-to-hand combat with Satan itself.

And when they take it hard, they tend to get petty about it. And quote today’s out-of-context scripture to justify themselves: “We shared the gospel, but they didn’t wanna hear it. They wouldn’t receive our witness.” Sometimes they straight-up quote the entire verse.

John 3.11 KJV

Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.

The verse isn’t about evangelism. It’s about Jesus teaching the Galileans and Judeans about himself and God, but the Judeans—particularly the Judean leadership—didn’t care to hear him, because they had their own ideas about how Messiah and God work. There was one Judean senator who wanted to hear him out, and he’s the guy to whom Jesus said this. The rest weren’t receptive.

True, when we talk about Jesus with other people, a number of ’em likewise have their own ideas about who Jesus is, and don’t wanna hear our views because they “don’t follow organized religion.” They prefer how they organized things. Only in these cases are we even approaching the same thing Jesus is speaking of in John 3.11.

The rest of the time, it’s just people who dismissed the gospel. And in quoting this scripture, we’re being such drama queens about it. Calm down, little snowflake. You need to learn to deal with rejection better.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Lifting Jesus up—in worship, or in crucifixion?

John 12.32.

When I first wrote about out-of-context scriptures, I dealt with the misquotes I heard most often. Like taking the Lord’s name in vain, or God’s word not returning void, or when two or three gather in Jesus’s name, or God making all things work for our good. There are dozens.

I don’t hear any of them misquoting today’s verse.

I have no reason to believe people don’t do it; people will misquote anything. It’s just I haven’t caught ’em doing it. I got the verse from an internet search I did years ago for “Most common verses Christians take out of context.” It turned up a bunch of listicles, and John 12.32 shows up in a number of them. (I kinda wonder whether the people who write these listicles aren’t just swiping ideas from one another. “Um… I can only think of nine out-of-context scriptures; what’s a tenth? Better Google it.”)

But it’s not been on my radar. Here it is though.

John 12.32 KJV

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.

Okay. I have heard plenty of Christians, including myself, talk about “lifting up the name of Jesus.” We’re talking about exalting Jesus—giving him honor, worshiping him, praising him, spreading the good news about him, treating him with respect, and so forth. Exalting Jesus is what we Christians do. We praise him ’cause he’s awesome. We hope our praises—multiplied by our good deeds—might get pagans to give Jesus a second look, and maybe come to exalt him themselves.

But we don’t use John 12.32 as our proof text. Well I don’t, anyway.

Here’s what I suspect: People assume that’s our proof text, because our “lifting up” language sounds an awful lot like a reference John 12.32. So every time someone speaks of lifting up the name of Jesus, we’re indirectly quoting that verse.

Nope. I’m not. I don’t have that verse in mind at all. Pretty sure no one does.

But let’s not rule out the possibility. Maybe someone, when they read John 12.32, think the scripture is about praising Jesus: If we lift him up—in praise—it’ll draw people to Jesus. I’ve never heard anyone preach this, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if someone did preach this. It’s not at all what the verse is about, but since when has that stopped anyone?

If you know of anyone misquoting the verse to mean something else, by all means let me know. The listicles were no help.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

James’s ruling at the Council of Jerusalem.

Acts 15.12-21 KWL

12 All the crowd was silent.

They’d heard Barnabas and Paul explain all the miracles God did,

and wonders among the gentiles because of them.

13 After their silence James answered, saying,

“Men, fellow Christians, hear me.

14 Simon Peter explained just how God first chose

to take a people for his name out of the gentiles.

15 The prophets’ words harmonize with this,

just as it’s written:

16 ‘After this, I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent.

I will rebuild its ruins. I will lift it up.

17 Thus whenever the remnant of the Lord’s people might earnestly search,

and all the gentiles who had been called by my name…

says the Lord who does these things,’ Am 9.11-12

18 well-known in that age.

19 So I judge to not further trouble

those of the gentiles who repent to God.

20 Instead we’re to write them about abstaining

from the contamination of idolatry—

porn, strangled idolatrous sacrifices, and blood.

21 From the earliest generations, the Law of Moses

has been read in synagogue every Sabbath

in the cities which proclaim him.”

Previously:

“The Council of Jerusalem.” Ac 15.1-12

To recap: Certain Christians from Jerusalem had gone to Syria, to Barnabas and Paul’s church in Antioch, and were teaching gentile Christians they needed to first become Jews before they could be saved. This was after all what Jews believed and taught: Messiah is king of Israel, king of the Jews—not the world. So if any non-Jews wanna be included in his kingdom, they needed Jewish citizenship. They had to become Jews. Starting with ritual circumcision. Whip it out; we’re gonna cut you!

Barnabas and Paul objected: Messiah is king of Israel and king of the world. Becoming Jews isn’t necessary. And in fact, requiring it has the side effect of telling people our works save us; not God’s grace. We’re not saved by jumping through hoops. We’re saved only by turning to Jesus.

Simon Peter pointed out God himself confirmed this by granting the Holy Spirit to Cornelius and the first gentiles he ever preached the gospel to. If God didn’t require ritual circumcision before gentiles could become Christian, why should Christians? What business do we have in adding any prerequisites to salvation?

As I said before, Roman Catholics like to imagine Peter led the church back then, as its first pope; later as the first bishop of Rome (notwithstanding the leaders of any other churches in the city of Rome before Peter eventually moved there). But by this point he had stepped back from leading the Jerusalem church, to concentrate on other ministry. So Jesus’s brother James had stepped up, and in his capacity as the Jerusalem church’s supervisor (Greek ἐπίσκοπος/epískopos, “bishop”) presided over this council. As president, same as the president of a synagogue, his job was to moderate: Recognize the speakers, stop discussion when it turned into bickering, and make the final ruling. It’s exactly like being a judge.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

The Council of Jerusalem.

Acts 15.1-12 KWL

1 Certain people, coming down from Judea to Antioch,

were teaching the fellow Christians this:

“Unless you’ve been circumcised in the manner of Moses,

you are not able to be saved.”

2 It became no small standing controversy and debate

between Paul and Barnabas and them.

Paul and Barnabas arranged to go up to Judea

with some others of them,

to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem,

to talk about their debate.

3 (By the way, while being sent off by the church,

they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria,

telling the Christians there about converting gentiles in detail,

causing great joy among all their fellow Christians.)

4 Appearing in Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas were received

by the churches, the apostles, and the elders.

5 They brought up certain things

about the heresy the Pharisee believers were speaking of—

that “It is necessary to circumcise yourselves

to keep the command of the Mosaic law.”

6 The apostles and elders gathered together to look at this word.

7 Many debates were coming out of it.

Rising up, Simon Peter told them, “Men, fellow Christians,

you know that in the olden days,

God chose from among you, through my mouth,

for gentiles to hear the word of the good news, and believe.

8 God, the heart-knower, witnessed to them,

giving the Holy Spirit just as he did to us as well.

9 The Spirit never discriminated between us and them,

cleansing their hearts by faith.

10 So why do you now challenge God

to put a yoke on the students’ necks

which neither our parents nor we have to carry?

11 Instead, because of our Master Jesus’s grace,

we trust him to save them in the same way as us.”

12 All the crowd was silent.

They’d heard Barnabas and Paul explain all the miracles God did,

and wonders among the gentiles because of them.

Next:

“James’s ruling at the Council of Jerusalem.” Ac 15.12-21

Whenever I talk about Christian orthodoxy, and whether a Christian doctrine is debatable or not, I define the debatable ones by the ancient Christian councils. If the ancient Christians hashed this out during the first 700 years of Christianity—back before the one church split into the separate Orthodox and Catholic camps—then it’s decided. That’s the orthodox position.

No we don’t get to second-guess the ancient councils and decide they were wrong. We recognize they were still listening to the Holy Spirit at that time, and he led ’em to their theological conclusions. The only reason—the only reason—today’s Christians argue the ancients were wrong (or push the popular conspiracy theory that Emperor Constantine, or “the popes”—which didn’t even exist yet!—hijacked ancient Christianity and turned it heretic), is because those naysaying Christians wanna claim they get to decide these things, and they’re right. And they don’t, and they’re not. (Their bad attitudes and bad fruit kinda give ’em away, too.)

The precedent for these ancient councils is found in the bible, in the very first church council, which we call the Council of Jerusalem. It was presided by Jesus’s brother James, who was the head apostle in Jerusalem at the time. (Roman Catholics like to claim Simon Peter was still in charge, ’cause he’s their favorite. But Peter had stepped down some years before, during one of the persecutions—although you notice in today’s passage he was definitely active among them.) As president, James got the last word, in which he expressed the consensus of the apostles—which appears to be their unanimous conclusion. Later councils also tried for a unanimous conclusion—after all, if they’re all listening to the same Holy Spirit, shouldn’t the conclusion be unanimous?

Because today’s Christians are fragmented into denominations, and some of our denominations refuse to talk to one another, much less come to agreements with one another, we can’t do church councils anymore. We can do denominational councils, and do: Certain church networks can get together and hash out all the divisive debates within their churches. And while they might claim they speak for all Christians everywhere (like the Roman Catholics try to do), they really only speak for themselves. Their regular inability to see outside their own boxes, makes it kinda impossible for the Holy Spirit to speak to every Christian. Hence he frequently doesn’t even try; he just speaks to that denomination. But every so often these denominational councils come up with declarations which every Christian oughta listen to—because they are actually heeding the Spirit. So it’s not a bad idea for the rest of us to pay some attention to what the Spirit’s doing among our fellow Christians. It might profit us.

Anyway, back to this council.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

“Why is God silent?”

One of the more common questions—really, more of a complaint—I hear from pagans is, “Why is God so invisible? Why’s he so impossible to detect? Why’s he so hidden? How come, when I pray, I never hear him talk back? How come, whenever I call on him, I get nothing—no answers, no signs, no miracles, no prophets, no audible voice, no burning bush nor pillar of fire, no thunder and lightning, nothing? Why’s he gotta be so impossible? Why’s he gotta be… well, not there?”

Which is an excellent question.

It’s one more Christians oughta ask. Because for a number of us, we have the very same question. We likewise think God’s playing a cosmic game of hide-and-seek with us, and wanna know why he’s so silent, invisible, and missing.

In fact some of those Christians even teach God chooses to be absent: He turned off his miracles, stopped talking to his kids, withdrew himself as much as possible from the universe, and only answers prayers through natural processes and coincidence. He’s made himself impossible to find.

Why would he do such a thing? Well these cessationists claim it’s ’cause he’s trying to grow our faith. See, if he were visible, and we could see for ourselves he exists… we wouldn’t have to trust him, or the bible, or fellow Christians, when they tell us he exists. We wouldn’t need faith. So we wouldn’t practice it, wouldn’t grow it; it’d be tiny and anemic.

I grew up hearing this explanation. I still think it’s stupid.

And inconsistent with the bible. God wants to be found. 1Ch 28.9, Jr 29.13 Jesus taught us to ask, seek, knock, Mt 7.7 and make our requests known to our Father, who isn’t far away. Nor is he hiding.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Errors in the bible.

Years ago I was asked whether I believe in biblical inerrancy, the idea the bible contains no errors. Nope, I said. It’s got errors. We learned about ’em in bible college.

He was outraged. I learned about them in bible college? What kind of godless so-called “bible college” did I attend? Well it was an Assemblies of God school, which outraged him all the more because that’s his denomination, and he had presumed Assemblies professors would never, ever teach such a thing. (Actually that particular professor was Presbyterian, but I didn’t tell him that.)

I pointed out, same as my professor pointed out, that if he hadn’t told us about the errors, plenty of nonchristian apologists will gleefully tell us about ’em, just to freak us out. Better we learn about them and deal with them, than never learn about them… then have a massive faith crisis when we stumble across them. (Or when some antichrist forces us to look at them for fun.)

It’s for this same reason I’m writing about them here. They exist. Deal with ’em.

’Cause as you know, plenty of Christians refuse to deal with them. In fact this is part of the reason the New International Version is so popular: Its editors have deliberately edited out most of the errors. I’m not kidding. They straight-up changed the text… and now they can claim the NIV is error-free. And anyone who carries an NIV can claim, “I don’t know what you mean about errors in the bible; my bible doesn’t have any such errors.” Well of course.

How can they defend this behavior? Meh; they don’t even try. They just figure it’s their duty as good Christian inerrantists to delete the discrepancies, lest antichrists use the discrepancies against them. How they did it—yet can claim any degree whatsoever of intellectual honesty—is by moving ’em to the footnotes. When 2 Kings 8.26 says Ahaziah ben Jehoshaphat became king at 22 years old, but 2 Chronicles 22.2 says he was 42, the NIV makes ’em both say 22, and include this footnote in 2 Chronicles:

Some Septuagint manuscripts and Syriac (see also 2 Kings 8:26); Hebrew forty-two

My copy of the Septuagint says he was 20, not 22; so that’s an inconsistency as well.

But to be fair it’s not just the NIV which translated this verse this way. The Amplified Bible (current edition), CSB, ESV, ISV, Message, NASB, NET, NLT, and Voice have decided to ignore the original text, and go with a translation consistent with their personal beliefs. I leave it to you as whether it’s truly inerrantist of them to alter it this way. Because changing the verse to read “22” instead of the original text’s אַרְבָּעִ֨ים וּשְׁתַּ֤יִם/arbayím u-settím, “forty and two,” is actually a clear declaration the original text is wrong—and a clear attempt to hide this fact.

And what’s to say 42 is the wrong number, not 22? Maybe Ahaziah was actually 42 years old. You don’t know.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Versions, translations, paraphrases, and padded texts.

Most English-language bibles have the word version in their title: The King James Version, the Revised Version, the American Standard Version, the New International Version, the English Standard Version, and so on.

It’s a popular way to indicate your bible is different from other bibles: You got a different version. Just like the fifth edition of a textbook might be a little different from the fourth edition: Still the same book, but a little different. It doesn’t tell a different story from other bibles, nor communicates different ideas. There should be exactly the same stories and ideas. But the way one bible puts it into English, isn’t gonna phrase it the same way as another bible will. The KJV will use 16th century English, and the NKJV won’t.

More recently, bibles are starting to be titled translations—like the Good News Translation, the New Living Translation, the New English Translation, the God’s Word Translation. It’s a more precise word than version, ’cause “version” can suggest a different point of view, and bible versions had better not present a different point of view from one another. All should be accurate translations of the original text. And all bibles are translations.

Well… unless they’re not. Sometimes they’re paraphrases.

Read the whole thing! ➡️

Blaming the devil for our drama.

Back in college I was one of the organizers for an evangelism project: We were gonna go to downtown Santa Cruz and hand out bibles to passersby.

Yes I know; The Gideons International already do this. Why weren’t we doing this with them? Several reasons:

• They won’t let you hand out bibles with them, or hand out their bibles for them, unless you’re a member—“a Gideon.”
• They won’t let you even be a Gideon unless you’re a man, and have a white-collar job. Seriously. The ministry was founded by businessmen for businessmen, and it’s still kind of a big deal to them that only businessmen be Gideons. (Emphasis on business men.) So, no college students.
• At the time they only handed out KJV New Testaments, and we wanted to give out entire bibles—in an easier-to-understand translation.

I’m not knocking the Gideons; they do good work. Those bibles they put in hotel rooms have been immeasurably useful. But their exclusivity can be a problem. So we did our own thing.

This was a Christian school, so students had to be involved in one ministry a year, and I picked the bible-handout thingy because, honestly, it was gonna be a cakewalk. All you had to do was order bibles, hand them out one Saturday, and you were done. For the year. You could spend all your other Saturdays on intramural sports. Which I did.

My job on this team—my entire job—was ordering the bibles. I told them I could find bibles for cheaper than their usual sources. I did. It took a bit of work (Google wasn’t invented yet; yeah, I know, I’m old) but I found a place which sold NIV bibles for 50 cents each, and bought 200. They were thick, ’cause they were printed in tiny text on newsprint-quality paper, but they were bibles. They took several weeks to deliver, because two-day shipping wasn’t a thing yet, but they arrived when expected, and on time. My role went off without a hitch.

Everybody else’s role? Load the five boxes into a van, take ’em to Pacific Avenue, and hand ’em out. We set up an undecorated plastic table as our home base, carried a handful to different places on the street, and accosted people with, “Would you like a free bible?” Maybe one in five did. But we gave ’em all away. We figured we’d be there for 4 hours, or until all the bibles were gone; they were gone in about an hour, so we went out for coffee.

All in all this was a really easy ministry. Did it have any impact on the people who were given bibles? I hope so; I liked to think so back then. Unless the Holy Spirit tells me any impact it had, I really have no way of knowing.

Okay, now to the point of this story.

Right after we set up the table, our group leader asked to pray for us. So we gathered round the table, joined hands, and he prayed something along the lines of, “Thank you God for letting us do this ministry. Man did Satan come against us. Hard. But thank you for holding him back. Now let people be touched by your word. In Jesus name amen.” And off we went, bibles in hand.

Of course when he prayed this, none of this felt at all hard to me. Like I said, it was a cakewalk. The bibles arrived on schedule, the weather was nice, turnout was decent (slightly lower than expected, but that always happened), and my personal life was running smoothly. Satan came against us hard? When?

Later I found out the details. Satan wasn’t coming after our project all that hard at all, if at all. It’s just our group leader was going through some really intense stuff with his girlfriend. He personally felt like he was under attack by the devil. So he presumed everyone was likewise under some devilish attack; probably because of the massive effect our bible handout might have on the neighborhood, the city, the county, the state, the world.

Yep, projection.

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