Congratulations, Matt and Amy Hicks!
Your wedding day was beautiful! Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your ceremony. I wish you every happiness in your new life together. May the blessing of the Lord be upon you always!
Greg
Your wedding day was beautiful! Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your ceremony. I wish you every happiness in your new life together. May the blessing of the Lord be upon you always!
Greg
I enjoy life in Shannon Hills. Being an older subdivision, it's really quiet. We've got good neighbors. Everyone seems willing to help each other out if there's a need.
Lately, I've taken to early morning walks. Wait too late and the summer sun will make you pay! There are only a few "relatively flat" places for a stroll in Shannon Hills. (There's a reason it's called "Shannon Hills.") Walk anywhere else and you're really going to have to "hoof it," as we used to say when I was growing up.
I don't know if you're into early morning walks or not, but I commend the practice to you. It will give you some time to be alone with God and your thoughts; it'll also help you feel better physically.
Greg
PS The only irritant on my beautiful morning walks? Small, yapping dogs that act like they've never seen a human being before! Their noisy and aggressive idiocy reminds me that the world is fallen.
In my previous post on this subject, I cited Dr. Philip Comfort. His book, Essential Guide to Bible Versions, is an excellent resource for learning reliable answers to questions such as:
Here is Dr. Comfort's take on the NLT, which he discusses in chapter six of his book: "More than ninety evangelical scholars from various theological backgrounds and denominations worked for seven years to produce the New Living Translation. As a result, the NLT is a version that is exegetically accurate and idiomatically powerful." In case you might be interested, here's a list of the scholars he refers to (NLT Bible Translation Team). I see the names of at least four that I learned from in the classroom in seminary, along with the names of a bunch of other outstanding scholars whose work I've studied. Trust me on this one: They all know their stuff! It is of paramount importance that the English Bible we read and learn from in our worship gatherings be accurate, clear, and understandable. These qualities have increasingly impressed me with the NLT and why I am using it lately from the pulipit. More to come. Greg PS A second edition of the New Living Translation was released in 2004 and is the edition that I'm using in the pulpit. I got a copy with readable size print (for a 43 year old, that is) at LifeWay Christian Store for only $10.
Already?! (Here) I'm old enough to remember the shock of it starting up before Thanksgiving!
Greg
We live in uncertain times, don't we? One glance at the headlines confirms as much.
What might the Lord want to teach us as we think about our lives and times? This Sunday morning when we gather at 9am for worship, I'll offer a biblical (and therefore, trustworthy) answer from Exodus 16.
What a precious and wonderful opportunity we have to come together! How blessed we are for the freedom of assembly! God is greatly to be praised!
Greg
I know I talk a lot about the place of joy in Christian worship, but I just can't help it -- in part because of moments like this. Just now, I was studying a commentary on Ephesians by the late Dr. Leon Morris, when what did I read?
"It matters to Paul that God acts toward sinners in a joy-bringing way (for that is what 'grace' means)."
What a beautiful expression! So my question is, "What should be the DOMINATE NOTE when those who've experienced God's many acts of grace gather to worship him (not the only note, mind you, but the dominate note)?" Why, JOY, of course!
After all, people who've been saved from death can't help being glad, right?!
Greg
Because I've found it consistently to be exactly what it claims: "The Truth Made CLEAR." When I read the New Living Translation, I "get" it (i.e., I understand what it's saying). Time and again I've studied hard into a literal translation of a verse, and found the NLT accurately rendering the verse in simple, understandable English. That's precisely what I want as a speaker and for those who listen.
Archbishop William Temple was once told that he had made a complex issue very simple. He was hugely delighted, and replied: "Lord, who made me simple, make me simpler yet" (cited in J.I. Packer's, Concise Theology, xii). Bear in mind also that when Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German at the time of the Protestant Reformation, he insisted, "Give us simple words -- not those of the court -- for this book should be famous for its simplicity." He said this because he believed that everyone should be able to read and understand God's word. I believe this too.
Along these lines, I've found the teaching of Dr. Philip Comfort quite helpful:
"The thousands and thousands of papyri that were discovered in Egypt around the turn of the twentieth century displayed a form of Greek called 'koine' Greek. Koine Greek was everyman's Greek; it was the common langauge of almost everyone living in the Greco-Roman world from the second century BC to the thrid century AD ... Koine Greek was not literary Greek (i.e., the kind of Greek written by the Greek poets and tragedians). Instead, it was the kind of Greek used in personal letters, legal documents, and other nonliterary texts."
"After the recovery of so many koine Greek papyri, New Testament scholars began to discover that most of the New Testament was written in koine Greek -- the language of the people. As a result, there began to be a strong prompting for translators to translate the New Testament into the language of the people. Translators began to separate themselves from traditional Elizabethan English, as found in the King James Version ... and to produce fresh renderings of Scripture in the common idiom."
I'll say more about translation in a few days, Lord willing.
Greg
Many moons ago, when I was a seminary student, one of my New Testament professors was Dr. Reggie Kidd. With his beautiful 12-string Taylor guitar, he led worship in our chapel services, which were characteristically wonderful. A few minutes ago, I happened to stumble across a blog of his. In a post describing the people of the church to which he belongs, Dr. Kidd said in part:
"Week after week these folks set up and tear down a gym so it can become a 'sanctinasium' [I think he's referring to a gymnasium that gets transformed into a sanctuary on Sundays.] Week after week they take turns watching each other's little ones so young moms and dads can worship. Week after week they honor each other's wildly different tastes in worship music."
Then he added this strange comment: "We don't do apartheid worship."
"Hmm," I thought to myself, "I wonder what he means by that?" So I got a dictionary and looked up the word, apartheid. I found 3 definitions, the first having to do with racial segregation formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa and the third being "the condition of being separated from others; segregation." But it was definition #2 that unlocked his comment: "a policy or practice of separating or segregating groups."
It'd be so easy to practice apartheid worship at MVB because, like every other local church, we have "wildly different tastes in worship music." (Believe me! I hear about it all the time, from all directions.) And I confess that I've been tempted by the idea -- offer a service with only traditional worship music and another service with only contemporary worship music, so we can all separate according to our personal tastes and get exactly what we want. Tempted.
But only tempted ...
Because the Bible is absolutely clear (as Dr. Kidd acknowledges): We are to HONOR one another in the life of the church (Romans 12:10), not SEPARATE from one another. Can you believe it? God's word actually calls on us to become that mature in our faith! And it just makes sense! I mean, how can we ever announce a unified message of hope and life in Christ to a lost and dying world if we can't even sing songs together about him?
I say (and will as long as I have breath), "NO to apartheid worship!"
Greg
I'm pleased to announce a new series of studies for Sunday evenings at MVB entitled, "The Philippians File Reopened." I want this to be an interactive study (as opposed to a lecture), in which we seek to help each other understand both the ancient text and its contemporary message.
This Sunday night, I'll begin by distributing a "Philippians Fact Sheet" to everyone in attendance. We'll use it to take a thoughtful look at ancient Philippi, how the gospel first arrived there, and what it has to tell us about reaching modern Chattanooga with the message of Christ.
"Please, Lord, bring good to your church through our time with your word, and bring your people out to hear."
As always, Sunday evenings for adult studies gets underway at 6pm and last approximately one hour. (By the way, we sing, pray, and give too.) Hope to see you!
Greg
When I was kid, my home church often sang a hymn by Lowell Mason (1792-1872) called, "Work, for the Night Is Coming." It calls the people of Christ to diligent service in light of the fact that one day we're all going to die. Heavy stuff, this hymn!
Did you know that, according to the apostle Paul and for the right reason, Christians should in fact be the hardest-working, most reliable people on earth? (Colossians 3:23) In an affluent culture like ours, we need to pay special attention to hymns and verses like these.
The ancient Chinese had a saying about the value of working hard: "Man stands for long time with mouth open before roast duck flies in."
Though I doubt the saying was originally intended to motivate lazy Christians, the point is certainly well-taken. Does America's growing infatuation with an "entitlement mentality" concern you as it does me? I'm afraid that the more people embrace the idea that they're "owed" certain things (e.g., from government), the less-motivated and lazier they'll become. It's a matter of simple economics really.
Whatever our vocation, let's put in a good day's work to bring praise to our Lord!
Greg
PS Closer to home, Abe Lincoln once quipped, "Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."
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