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	<title>Modern Pulpit &#187; Random Musings</title>
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	<description>The modern pulpit from a reforming layman&#039;s perspective</description>
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		<title>Called to Believe or Obey?</title>
		<link>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2008/12/17/called-to-believe-or-obey/</link>
		<comments>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2008/12/17/called-to-believe-or-obey/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:25:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>randy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Random Musings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.thlibo.com/2008/12/17/called-to-believe-or-obey/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a cool verse.  I just noticed it today:
John 3:36 (ESV) Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
John 3:36 (NASB) He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is a cool verse.  I just noticed it today:</p>
<p><span>John 3:36</span> (ESV) Whoever <strong>believes</strong> in the Son has eternal life; whoever <strong>does not obey</strong> the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.</p>
<p><span>John 3:36 (NASB) </span>He who <strong>believes</strong> in the Son has eternal life; but he who <strong>does not obey</strong> the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.</p>
<p><span>John 3:36 (KJV) </span>He that <strong>believeth</strong> on the Son hath everlasting life: and he <strong>that believeth not</strong> the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.</p>
<p>In the KJV the second clause of this verse translates, &#8220;that believeth not&#8221; where as ESV and NASB translates &#8220;does not obey&#8221;.  But if you <a href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jhn&amp;c=3&amp;v=1&amp;t=KJV#conc/36" target="_blank">check out this verse in the greek</a> the two mentions of &#8220;believe&#8221; are different Greek words.  The second is actually translated &#8220;disobedience&#8221; and &#8220;obey not&#8221; in other areas of scripture.  This English phrase &#8220;believeth not&#8221; is actually a greek word that coincides with obedience.</p>
<p>The verse is best translated (ESV/NASB) &#8220;Whoever <strong>believes</strong> in the Son has eternal life; whoever <strong>does not obey</strong> the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>The Prince&#8217;s Poison Cup</title>
		<link>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2008/11/22/the-princes-poison-cup/</link>
		<comments>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2008/11/22/the-princes-poison-cup/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:41:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>randy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Random Musings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.thlibo.com/2008/11/22/the-princes-poison-cup/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There is a new children&#8217;s book by R.C Sproul.  Looks pretty good:
 
http://www.christianbook.com/
In an interview he answers:
What is the message that you would like to give to parents who purchase this book to read to their children?
In this day and age, the whole need for atonement is being ridiculed widely, not just in the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>There is a new children&#8217;s book by R.C Sproul.  Looks pretty good:<br />
<a href="http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=691047&amp;netp_id=529432&amp;event=ESRCN&amp;item_code=WW&amp;view=covers#curr"> <img src="http://www.modernpulpit.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/cup-150x150.jpg" alt="Princes Cup" border="0" /></p>
<p>http://www.christianbook.com/</a></p>
<p>In an interview he answers:</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: bold">What is the message that you would like to give to parents who purchase this book to read to their children?</span></p>
<p>In this day and age, the whole need for atonement is being ridiculed widely, not just in the liberal church, but it has made its way into the evangelical community as well. People are saying that satisfaction involves God in cosmic child abuse. They ask why we can’t just rely on the love of God — that there is no need to satisfy His justice and His wrath. Through this story I want people to understand that the wrath of God is real. It was necessary to satisfy God’s righteousness in order for people to be healed. Instead of our receiving the cup of wrath, it was to be drunk by Jesus in His people’s place. That is absolutely central to the gospel.<br />
(<a href="http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/10/princes-poison-cup-interview-with-rc.html" title="http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/10/princes-poison-cup-interview-with-rc.html" target="_blank">http://theologica.blogspot.com/2008/10/princes-poison-cup-interview-with-rc.html</a>)</p>
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		<title>CS Lewis and Embracing the ESV Translation</title>
		<link>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2008/09/29/embracing-the-esv-translation/</link>
		<comments>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2008/09/29/embracing-the-esv-translation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:25:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>randy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Random Musings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.thlibo.com/2008/09/29/embracing-the-esv-translation/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have recently embraced the ESV translation of the bible.  I think it is a GREAT literal translation and have begun to read, memorize, study and teach out of it.  I also found this quote by C.S Lewis in a book I have called &#8220;Letters to Young Churches&#8221; by J.B Phillips.  He answers many of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I have recently embraced the ESV translation of the bible.  I think it is a GREAT literal translation and have begun to read, memorize, study and teach out of it.  I also found this quote by C.S Lewis in a book I have called &#8220;Letters to Young Churches&#8221; by J.B Phillips.  He answers many of the criticisms for using new translations:</p>
<p><strong>Introduction to Letters to Young Churches</strong><br />
It is possible that the reader who opens this volume on the counter of a bookshop may ask himself why we need a new translation of any part of the Bible, and, if of any, why of the Epistles. &#8216;Do we not already possess&#8217;, it may be said, &#8216;in the Authorised Version the most beautiful rendering which any language can boast?&#8217; Some people whom I have met go further and feel that a modern translation is not only unnecessary but even offensive. They cannot bear to see the time-honoured words altered; it seems to them irreverent.</p>
<p>There are several answers to such people. In the first place the kind of objection which they feel to a new translation is very like the objection which was once felt to any English translation at all. Dozens of sincerely pious people in the sixteenth century shuddered at the idea of turning the time-honoured Latin of the Vulgate into our common and (as they thought) &#8216;barbarous&#8217; English. A sacred truth seemed to them to have lost its sanctity when it was stripped of the polysyllabic Latin, long heard at Mass and at Hours, and put into &#8216;language such as men do use&#8217; &#8212; language steeped in all the commonplace associations of the nursery, the inn, the stable, and the street. The answer then was the same as the answer now.</p>
<p>The only kind of sanctity which Scripture can lose (or, at least, New Testament scripture) by being modernized is an accidental kind which it never had for its writers or its earliest readers. The New Testament in the original Greek is not a work of literary art: it is not written in a solemn, ecclesiastical language, it is written in the sort of Greek which was spoken over the Eastern Mediterranean after Greek had become an international language and therefore lost its real beauty and subtlety. In it we see Greek used by people who have no real feeling for Greek words because Greek words are not the words they spoke when they were children. It is sort of &#8216;basic&#8217; Greek; a language without roots in the soil, a utilitarian, commercial and administrative language.</p>
<p>Does this shock us? It ought not to, except as the Incarnation itself ought to shock us. The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-woman&#8217;s breast, and later an arrested field preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that He should be preached in a vulgar, prosaic and unliterary language. If you can stomach the one, you can stomach the other. The Incarnation is in that sense, an incurably irreverent doctrine: Christianity, in that sense, an incurably irreverent religion. When we expect that it should have come before the World in all the beauty that we now feel in the Authorised Version we are as wide of the mark as the Jews were in expecting that the Messiah would come as a great earthly King. The real sanctity, the real beauty and sublimity of the New Testament (as of Christ&#8217;s life) are of a different sort: miles deeper or further in.</p>
<p>In the second place, the Authorised Version has ceased to be a good (that is, a clear) translation. It is no longer modern English: the meanings of words have changed. The same antique glamour which has made it (in the superficial sense) so &#8216;beautiful&#8217;, so &#8217;sacred&#8217;, so &#8216;comforting&#8217;, and so &#8216;inspiring&#8217;, has also made it in many place unintelligible. Thus where St Paul says &#8216;I know nothing against myself,&#8217; it translates &#8216;I know nothing by myself.&#8217; That was a good translation (though even then rather old-fashioned) in the sixteenth century: to the modern reader it means either nothing, or something quite different from what St Paul said. The truth is that if we are to have translation at all we must have periodical re-translation. There is no such thing as translating a book into another language once for all, for a language is a changing thing. If your son is to have clothes it is no good buying him a suit once for all: he will grow out of it and have to be re-clothed.</p>
<p>And finally, though it may seem a sour paradox &#8212; we must sometimes get away from the Authorised Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty so lulls. Early associations endear but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame or struck dumb with terror or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adorations. Does the word &#8217;scourged&#8217; really come home to us like &#8216;flogged&#8217;? Does &#8216;mocked him&#8217; sting like &#8216;jeered at him&#8217;?<br />
We ought therefore to welcome all new translations (when they are made by sound scholars) and most certainly those who are approaching the Bible for the first time will be wise not to begin with the Authorised Version &#8212; except perhaps for the historical books of the Old Testament where its anachronisms suit the saga-like material well enough. &#8230; It would have saved me a great deal of labour if this book had come into my hands when I first seriously began to try to discover what Christianity was.</p>
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		<title>Thanksgiving: Pilgrims and Indians?</title>
		<link>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2007/11/20/thanksgiving-pilgrims-and-indians/</link>
		<comments>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2007/11/20/thanksgiving-pilgrims-and-indians/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:12:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>randy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Random Musings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.thlibo.com/2007/11/20/thanksgiving-pilgrims-and-indians/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Apart from popular belief the tradition of Thanksgiving did NOT start with the Pilgrims and the Indians, though the Pilgrims and Indians did share a thanksgiving meal in 1621 it was not called &#8220;Thanksgiving&#8221; nor was it repeated year after year.
It wasn&#8217;t until 1863 after Abraham Lincoln gave his life to Christ that he set [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Apart from popular belief the tradition of Thanksgiving did NOT start with the Pilgrims and the Indians, though the Pilgrims and Indians did share a thanksgiving meal in 1621 it was not called &#8220;Thanksgiving&#8221; nor was it repeated year after year.</p>
<p>It wasn&#8217;t until 1863 after Abraham Lincoln gave his life to Christ that he set apart the day for giving thanks to none other but The Most High God!  For you history buffs the proclamation is as follows.  I&#8217;ve bolded some of the interesting points with the assumption that very few will take the time to read it.Â   And so as you folks go around the table and spend time meditating on the <span style="font-style: italic;">things</span> that you are thankful for remember <span style="font-style: italic;">Who it is</span> that we should truly be thankful to- most importantly  the provision made possible through His Son.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.modernpulpit.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/proclamation.jpg" alt="Thanksgiving Proclamation" /><br />
by the President of the United States of America</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: bold; font-family: Times New Roman,Times; color: #bf8f00; font-size: x-small;">T</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">he year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget <span style="text-decoration: underline;">the Source</span> from which they come,</span> others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to <span style="font-weight: bold;">the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God</span>. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.</p>
<p>Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.</p>
<p style="font-weight: bold;">No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: bold;"> It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.</span> I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father</span> who dwelleth in the heavens</span>. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, <span style="font-weight: bold;">and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it,</span> as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.</p>
<p>In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.</p>
<p>[Signed]<br />
A. Lincoln</p>
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		<title>Islamic terrorism dates back to America&#8217;s day one</title>
		<link>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2007/09/28/islamic-terrorism-dates-back-to-americas-day-one/</link>
		<comments>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2007/09/28/islamic-terrorism-dates-back-to-americas-day-one/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:02:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>randy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Random Musings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.thlibo.com/2007/09/28/islamic-terrorism-dates-back-to-americas-day-one/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you thought Islamic terrorism was a modern trend and the result of America&#8217;s poking, think again!
America&#8217;s first war against Islamic terrorists began in the days of George Washington and spanned a whopping thirty-two years.  That war, called the Barbary Powers    War, lasted thirty-two years, involved six years of active overseas [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you thought Islamic terrorism was a modern trend and the result of America&#8217;s poking, think again!</p>
<p>America&#8217;s first war against Islamic terrorists began in the days of George Washington and spanned a whopping thirty-two years.  That war, called the Barbary Powers    War, lasted thirty-two years, involved six years of active overseas warfare    against Muslim terrorists, and spanned four U. S. presidencies: those of George    Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. (<a href="http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=374" target="_blank">http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=374</a>)</p>
<p>The    Barbary Powers (called Barbary pirates by most Americans) attacked American    civilian and commercial merchant ships (but not military ships) wherever they    found them.</p>
<p>In 1784, Congress authorized American diplomats John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,    and Thomas Jefferson to negotiate with the Muslim terrorists.  Negotiations proceeded, and in 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson candidly    asked the Ambassador from Tripoli the motivation behind their unprovoked attacks    against Americans. What was the response?</p>
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<p>The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet    [Mohammed] &#8220;that it was written in their Koran that all nations who should    not have acknowledged their authority were sinners; that is was their right    and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found and to make slaves    of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should    be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.&#8221; (<span>Thomas Jefferson, <em>The Papers of      Thomas Jefferson,</em> Julian P. Boyd, editor (Princeton: Princeton University      Press, 1954), Vol. 9, p. 358, Report of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams to      John Jay, March 28, 1786.</span>)</p>
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		<title>Book of Genesis encoded in Chinese language</title>
		<link>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2007/09/13/book-of-genesis-encoded-in-chinese-language/</link>
		<comments>http://www.modernpulpit.com/2007/09/13/book-of-genesis-encoded-in-chinese-language/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:15:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>randy</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Random Musings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.thlibo.com/2007/09/13/book-of-genesis-encoded-in-chinese-language/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The book of Genesis speaks of a world-wide flood (Gen 6:13-22) that destroyed all the inhabitants of the earth except for a man named Noah and his family.  The earth was then re-populated by those sole survivors (Gen 9:1).  Noah was the father of all nations and if this is true- it would [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The book of Genesis speaks of a world-wide flood (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen%206:13-22;&amp;version=50;" target="_blank">Gen 6:13-22</a>) that destroyed all the inhabitants of the earth except for a man named Noah and his family.  The earth was then re-populated by those sole survivors (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen%209:1;&amp;version=50;" target="_blank">Gen 9:1</a>).  Noah was the father of all nations and if this is true- it would only make sense for other cultures to contain an account of the historic flood, the events prior, and any later events the culture shared with the Semite ancestors who wrote the book of Genesis.</p>
<p>Interesting enough there are dozen of cultures that have a flood account in their oral tradition.  There is also an ancient culture that has the events of the book of Genesis encoded into its language, the Chinese.</p>
<p>Ancient Chinese writing consisted of a series of word pictures or pictographs which combined separate features to express a idea or concept.  Look at how these Chinese symbols use biblical references:</p>
<p><img src="http://www.modernpulpit.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/garden.gif" alt="Chinese Character for Garden" height="288" width="223" /></p>
<p>God made man out of the <strong>dust</strong> and <strong>breathed</strong> life into the <strong>two persons </strong>who lived in the <strong>enclosed- Garden</strong>.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.modernpulpit.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/boat.gif" alt="Chinese Character for Boat" height="288" /></p>
<p>The biblical <strong>boat</strong>/ark consisted of a <strong>vessel</strong> of <strong>eight people</strong>.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.modernpulpit.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/tempter.gif" alt="Chinese Character for Temptor" height="288" /></p>
<p>There are many more.  These links may be of use in researching it for yourself:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/388.asp" target="_blank">http://www.answersingenesis.org/Docs/388.asp</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/AnswersBook/global10.asp" target="_blank"> http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/AnswersBook/global10.asp</a></p>
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