Complaining - Too True

"It is my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain."

Lilly Tomlin

Something to Remember

A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him.

He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman hit the roof--and the horn--screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered

her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed and placed in a holding cell.

After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Follow Me to Sunday School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car."

The Sin to Grace

In 1Co.10:12, Paul says, “Let anyone who thinks he stands be careful that he not fall.” This is a foreboding warning. It is one over which all of us have shriveled in fear. This is right and good and one that has kept many from the pride of life and or a pride of grace. The individual who falls is the one who is proud of grace and his enjoyment of it.

But I would want to speak to the other side. I would write it, “Let anyone who has fallen take heed or be careful that he look to grace.” All too often when we fall we look to the cause or consequence rather than the God of grace. God grants humility to the humble and it is given to the one who does not hide from his weakness or obvious pride. There is a wallowing in the shame or condition that even this can be from pride. “How could this happen to me?” “I am so ashamed that people would see it.” Now there is a good humility of repentance but it is not from the fleshly disbelief of the fall, as much as it is in the acknowledgement of God’s grace even in the pit of pride’s sorrow. Pride is not just the thinking of how great we are or even how low we are. It is simply the thinking of ourselves. Humility is just not thinking of ourselves.

When we fall we must not be shocked at our fall. That is human sin. We must be shocked that God would know the fall we will take, give permission to the evil one to give the temptation that will lead to the fall and then when we fall touch us with grace. It is in the fall that we know more of grace. It is the dirt on the knees and hands that reminds us that we are dirt, awaiting the transformation into delight. When we fall, look to Jesus and enjoy the grace. Don’t look at the sin and the dirt as much as looking at the Washer of the soul with the water of the washing of the Word.

Intense and Quiet Prayer

Every true prayer has its background and its foreground. The foreground of prayer is the intense, immediate desire for a certain blessing which seems to be absolutely necessary for the soul to have; the background of prayer is the quiet, earnest desire that the will of God, whatever it may be, should be done.
Phillips Brooks

Victory in Christ Demands Vigilance

The victory of Christ does not remove the necessity for vigilance and soberness. While on the one hand Satan and his whole power have been subjected to the power of Christ, and the church is comforted with the knowledge that God will shortly crush Satan under its feet (Rom. 16:20), on the other hand his power and influence continue in the temptation of men, also believers (1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 2:11; 11:14; 1 Thess. 3:5).
Herman Ridderbos

A Test of Maturity

"You can tell a person's level of maturity by the way they handle criticism and reproof."
Chuck Swindoll

Tongue Tamed by...

Richard Baxter had good words for a controlled tongue.

The most necessary direction for a fruitful tongue is to get a well-furnished mind, and a holy heart, and to walk with God in holiness yourselves: for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. That which you are fullest of, is readiest to come forth.

Evaluation of the ESV

A friend of mine sent me this evaluation of the ESV:

While no translation of the Bible is flawless, the ESV is the preferred choice at LHEF. Why? I don't see how I could improve on Dr. Poythress' explanation...


The English Standard Version: Explanation by Dr. Vern S. Poythress

The English Standard Version is an essentially literal translation. It
strives to preserve the actual wording of the original whenever this
accurately conveys the meaning, but also strives to preserve the literary
excellence and readability associated with the historic English Bible
tradition represented by the KJV and RSV.

1. Accuracy

Every verse has been checked for accuracy to the original languages by
evangelical scholars with special expertise in each book.

Inerrantist evangelicals make up the translation team.

The ESV is a conservative revision of the RSV that fixes the theological
problems associated with the latter.

Theological vocabulary and complexity of thought follow the original, rather
than being artificially limited in order to make it easy for beginning
readers.

Where more than one reasonable interpretive option exists, the ESV has tried
to preserve the options by an English rendering that allows for them all;
or, where this is not possible, has put the more probable option in the text
and included the other option(s) in a footnote.

ESV endeavors to represent the autographic text as accurately as can be
determined by textual criticism. It usually follows the MT in the OT and the
standard Greek text of UBS in the NT, but there are a few exceptions in
difficult cases.

Footnotes are added in cases where textual variations create significant
uncertainty and affect meaning.

Key thematic words that reoccur throughout a book or a number of books have,
where feasible, been translated consistently, so that concordant relations
and thematic relations between passages are more evident in English. NT
quotations from the OT have been checked to make sure that the
correspondence is as clear in English as in the original.

2. Literary excellence
The ESV preserves cadences and poetic diction of poetic portions, such as
characterized the KJV and the RSV.

It preserves where feasible the familiarity of the historic English Bible
tradition from Tyndale, Geneva, KJV, RV, ASV, and RSV.

3. Contemporary English
Obsolete English has been replaced (for example, no "thee" or "thou" is
left).

English words that have changed meaning over time have been inspected to see
whether they need replacement.

Male meanings in the original have been preserved in translation, but the
expression "any man" has been replaced by "anyone" when the latter is the
meaning of the original. The ESV is not "gender-neutral," but conforms to
the Colorado Springs Guidelines on the issue of gender in English.
********

A. For further reading on the ESV...

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/2004/1534_Good_English_With_Minimal_Translation_Why_Bethlehem_Uses_the_ESV/

B. Reading ESV Bible online...

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/

C. English word search of ESV Bible online (open studylight page; switch to
ESV Bible in the drop-down menu; type English term in the search bar;
search)...

http://www.studylight.org/

Slander and Gossip

Interesting to me that often we look at sin in a level. We see some sin as being worse than others. Gossip and slander are often overlooked.

Whispers (psithuristes; a secret calumniator). The word means “secret slander” or “to speak in one's ear.” In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, “The serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better (10:11)”. God Almighty has stamped gossip with the nature of a snakebite. Chrysostom said, “slander is worse than cannibalism."
Jeremy Taylor, in one of his sermons said, "Slander rends in pieces the very heart and vital parts of charity: it makes an evil man part and witness, and judge, and executioner of the innocent.”