The New Pet

I came home top find a new creature living in our home. It is a tadpole. Apparently Scooter’s teacher gave several to various members of the class on the last day of the semester.

Well then.

We were not asked by her teacher, and I’m not sure about the ethics of trafficking in amphibian life. It is slightly aggravating. We cannot return it to her, unless her address can be found at Tadpole Food”. Who knew such a thing existed?!

Fortunately, I do not conceive of this as a long term problem. I give him about another six days. Ten tops.

Natural selection does not favor tadpoles coexisting long with three year olds.

Ministering to Methuselah

I attended another conference all of last week, the details of which will be grist for a future blog entry or two. But in small groups I was paired up with three other gentlemen, ministers in their senior years. One is retiring this fall from several decades of pastoral service to the same church. One is working as an associate pastor at a church, and will likely work until he is seventy because of his financial situation (he is in his early sixties now). The third member of our group is also in his early sixties and ahs had years of foreign and pastoral experience overseas. He is now attending Sunday School in a large Southern Baptist Church, but cannot find a place of service.

Since I was younger than several of these gentlemen’s children, I was sort of the odd man out (although I do now know that yearly colonoscopies are recommended for everyone over the age of fifty). But I was surprised by how much uncertainty expressed by each of these men. They each related honest concern that the demands of contemporary ministry were passing them by. I was struck again by how poorly we as a church handle the aged.

Too often I think that we merely adopt contemporary society’s views on the elderly and consign them to irrelevancy when they hit sixty. (Although there are exceptions) It has to change. Sometimes when I am working with a church I will hear older parishioners say “It’s good to have a young man in here with energy” or “We need someone here with new ideas.” Neither of those concepts specifically excludes the elderly, but they are understood that way.

The church cannot afford to adopt the same attitude as the world toward the elderly. We should instead:

1. Not look down on anyone because of their age (paraphrasing 1 Timothy 4:12). God consistently used the elderly (Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Elizabeth and Zachariah) to accomplish His plan. We need to be aware that God continues to work in our lives, despite our ages. Indeed I would argue that in several cases a younger person could NOT have carried out God's work.

2. Recognize the unique gift that God has given to the old, but not to the young: the gift of experience. Titus 2:2-5 outlines the critical roles that the older men and women are to serve in the church. The church is to draw upon their experience, and not to discard these saints of old. And their numbers are growing.

3. Understand along with Psalm 90 the inevitability of aging. These days are coming to us all. Shortly before she slipped the bonds of sanity, my grandmother told me “Growing old is hell.” We have a duty and a calling to minister to these in the last season of their lives.

Songs of Life

Last weekend I had the incredible joy to return to Waco, Texas. Kadie and I moved away from Waco around six years ago and we loved returning to our old stomping grounds. What brought us back was the opportunity to participate in a joint symposium on the Psalms by Baylor University and Truett Theological seminary. The conference lasted from Thursday through Saturday evening.

The Book of Psalms is the most compelling book in the Bible (and yes I am biased here). I have studied, preached and written on these prayers of the Hebrew community for years. I love them. John Calvin once wrote that “there is not a single emotion known to man that is not somewhere expressed in one of the psalms.” This prayer book offers a voice for all of our experiences in life. The psalms explore the joyful heights of praise to God, the craggy depths of communal lament to the blasphemous questioning times of our lives when we even wonder if God exists at all.

This symposium was a wonderful time of absorbing and discussing papers on the use and importance of psalms in the life of the Christian community today by some of the top scholars from around the world today. The depth of knowledge of these women and men are absolutely amazing. What was refreshing (in a day when Academia is largely unconcerned about anything other than itself) was their passion for the use of this scripture in the church.

Plus we got to eat a lot of great Tex-Mex food that we do not get in our state.

Interspersed into the next few weeks of blogs will be some of my thoughts and opinions triggered by the conference.

It is good to be back!

Out of Town

I am still out of town and will return soon. It has been an eventful (good!) week and I look forward to sharing it with you soon. Unfortunately, my internet connection does not allow me to
post more than this trifle.

May God's grace and peace rest on you.

Going Dark

I will be out of touch for the next few days. I'll fill you in when I return.

God Bless!

Scooter

Since her siblings got their picture in an earlier entry, here is a picture of Scooter. Isn't she cute? What amuses me is that she knows nothing of this blog and I simply said to her "Please let me take a picture of you with the cereal box covering your face." She said "Ok" and asked no further questions. I've encouraged Kadie to emulate Scooter's compliant personality.

(You know, even without trying them, that the Scooter's cereal is a horribly tasting Cheerios knockoff).

Signposts

Two events occurred yesterday, each of them significant and each of them passing by all too quickly. The first event occurred early in the morning as I bade Scooter (10) and Skeeter (7) goodbye. They rode their bikes to school for the first time. School is just under a mile away (too close for a bus ride), but that mile crosses two busy intersections and a major highway. So despite their increased skill at bike riding, Kadie and I were loathe to allow them to travel without adult supervision.

After asking constantly for the last month (like the guy in the Bible knocking on his neighbor's door) we let them go this morning. I waited a good 15 minutes or so before I slowly drove up to the school to check on their progress. When I arrived I immediately checked their bike rack to see that there bikes were there. I couldn’t see anything from the car, so I parked and walked up to the rack where their bikes were safely chained to one another and to the rack, just as I’d showed the girls. When they safely biked home in the afternoon I quizzed them incessantly (but with feigned nonchalance) about their rides to and from school. Their rides were blessedly uneventful.

The second event was even more insubstantial, but no less significant. I removed all the child locks from the cabinets in the kitchen. Squealer is 3 ½ now and is not quite so destructive (or at least, his destruction is more likely to be controlled, at least when cheese is not involved). Child locks are a pain, and we had been looking forward to getting rid of them. So I quickly removed them all. Later this evening I found myself, out of habit, reaching for the lock as I opened a cabinet door. It wasn’t there of course and I immediately felt a twinge of sadness. I miss it already. Squealer is (Lord willing) our last child, and I can now put away these locks for good.

I don’t want to get too maudlin or anything. In fact, with each of the kiddos I have consistently enjoyed them more and more each year. As they get older, you can relate to them mroe and more as miniature adults, little people instead of infants. While I miss some of the earlier days, I wouldn’t turn back the clock if I could. I love them more as they are than as they were.

But I also don’t want to let these little events pass by unnoticed. I would like to hammer down a little signpost here and there on this blog to note their passing. And maybe to speculate on what may be coming ahead. After all, don't signposts point to where you're going as well as where you've been?

Mother's Day Post Script

Note to self (and perhaps other fathers)

When your wife mentions to you a slight disappointment with the quality of her Mother’s day, DO NOT respond with the statement “But you are not MY mother. Why are you telling me?”

I now know from experience that this is not wise.

More Valuable Than Answers

It has been an article of faith since my earliest days that you do not question God. God is God and you are not, so keep quiet and unquestioningly accept whatever happens. But there has always been a nagging feeling in my spirit that this statement is unacceptable. This feeling was confirmed when I had children of my own and I looked at this issue from a father’s perspective. If my kids have a question, then they are free to ask it. I may choose not to answer it. I may not be able to communicate the answer to them. But I do not punish them for asking. (Although I do still expect obedience).

Those who say that we must not question God cite several concerns. There is an assumption that asking God questions infringes on His sovereignty and is in some way disrespectful. Or there is a concern that to ask questions of God shows a lack of faith or trust in His all sufficiency. Surely it is a sign of arrogance to ask questions of God?

I respectfully disagree. In fact, I am convinced we must ask God our questions for at least three reasons:

1) It puts us in a position of humility. When I ask a question, it is a tacit confession that I am unable to get the answers myself. It is not arrogance to ask a question, it is putting yourself in a position of dependency. Asking a question implies humility and a trust from the petitioner to the petitioned.

2) Asking questions about the conditions of this world implies a rejection of living in a sinful world. If we ask no questions, then we tacitly accept the injustice and the misfortune of this world. We should rage against the poverty and the oppression and ask God why this goes on. The satisfied ask no questions.

3) I believe that the biblical point of asking questions is not to get answers, but to see God.

Consider three brief examples from the biblical narrative.

Habakkuk asked God how he could use the Babylonians to punish Judah. God met him at the watchtower and told him to sit back and be amazed.

Job asked God a series of questions and then God appears in Chapter 38 and returns the favor. Job concludes in 42:5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.”

On the cross Jesus quotes Psalm 22 which asks God why he has been forsaken. God does not answer him, but Jesus perfectly fulfills his atoning sacrifice.

God never promises answers to our questions. But answers are not the point of biblical questions. He gives us something infinitely more valuable than answers: He gives us His presence.

Fleeing to Mystery

Partly this is a follow up to Bobby's statement that "Sometimes our education can come between us and a meaningful experience with our greatest loves."

In the philosophy survey class that I inflict on unfortunate undergrads every semester, I put off talking about God until the last third of the semester. He never waits his turn however and pops up earlier as we look at issues like determinism, epistemology and ethics. But I work hard to defer as many questions as possible until we get to the final section of the class dealing with philosophy of Religion.

I put this section last so that we have time to build a sense of community in the class. By the 11th week of the semester or so, the students have hammered out a sense of trust with one another. They realize that they will not get pummeled by me for discussing their non-beliefs or beliefs in class.

We look at several traditional arguments for the existence of God. Specifically we cover the ontological, teleological, and the cosmological. We conclude with the cosmetological argument (the existence of God is definitively proven by the invention of women’s make-up—truly a glorious manifestation of His grace).

Then we look at the most powerful argument AGAINST the existence of God: the presence of evil and suffering.

It is here that I encounter the greatest sense of frustration from Christian students. Very quickly they want to emphasize that God’s ways are not our ways Is 55:8-9. While I don’t want to get into dueling scriptures with them, I do want to point out a few things:

1) in context it does say seek the Lord. While God is obviously busy at work with plans and approaches beyond our ken, this should be our last statement, not our first.

2) If we are commanded to love God with all our mind (Mark 12:30), then we should...you know, use it.

3) While we may be content to shrug off questions and trust in God, nonbelievers aren't. We should be prepared "to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15).

After we negotiate these verses, many times students will argue that we should simply not question God at all. They then do what I call “fleeing to God’s mystery”. They state that we should not be asking God these types of questions. God does not answer to us, what does the flea have to say to the elephant, etc. Tomorrow we will finish this thread with a look at the legitimacy of asking God questions...

Jehovah and Unicorns

BH had a great comment on my last post, so I wanted to repost it here:

"I don't know, Taran. I've read your multiple-entry treatise and found it fascinating. But your final push for striking the word altogether seems a little extreme. I think people using a word ignorantly but honestly and with the same intensity of worship as they use other (correct) words does God no ill service. He sees our hearts, and he can see we are honoring Him. To call for a ban on the word is to tempt a rift. I say the following advisedly, and with no malice: Sometimes our education can come between us and a meaningful experience with our greatest loves."

Thank you for reading the posts. My fear in blogging, as in F2F conversations, is that at best, I often communicate only narcolepsy. I am pleased that you shrugged off the effects of extended exposure to my writing style.

My concern in even raising the misuse of Jehovah is that it is a bit pedantic for this lite little blog and even the risk that it seems condescending. To advocate education cuts a bit against the grain of evangelical thinking. Part of this comes from our Protestant forefathers. Luther said that reason was a whore that will serve any master. Of course, as one of my profs once said…Luther turned around and slept with her. Luther (for whom I literally thank God) was a skilled polemicist, who often powerfully utilized reason, but I disagree with him on this point.

Reason is fallible and flawed, as are everything else in this fallen world. But the alternative is obscurantism. While there are many problems with the development of biblical studies over the last 300 years, I believe that it has greatly increased our understanding of the biblical world and the biblical text. If impassioned ignorance is equal to piety, then cheeziness and empty words will overtake our churches and our pulpits. Indeed I fear they already are gaining ground.


Let me put it another way: Do you believe in unicorns?



How is this tangential and rather silly question revevant? Did you know that the interpreters of the KJV in 1611 not only believed in them but translated unicorns into the biblical text? I own a facsimile of the 1611 and this webpage is correct.

Why do the modern translations not mention unicorns? What could cause them to break the traditional rendering of this word?

Simply because subsequent linguistic study demonstrated that the English understanding of the Hebrew was incorrect. Should unicorns be kept out of their rightful place in worship merely because of our "education"? ;)


Yes they should. So should the term Jehovah.


Your final sentence is important and I will respond to it in my next post. Thank you for the conversation.

Final Thoughts (IV)

So what to do? I think that there are at least four areas of concern about the use of Jehovah in worship.

1) The importance of names. Throughout the Old Testament there is an emphasis on names and the meaning of names. E.g. Laughter (Isaac), He struggles with God (Israel), Abraham (Father of Nations) , The Glory has Departed (Ichabod), etc. God was very precise in how he revealed his name to Moses. We need to reflect that precision. Given all of the scriptures that emphasize the importance of calling on the name of God, we need to try to honor them.

2) Ignorance of the church. As an evangelical community, we latch onto fads and the success of others. A herd instinct develops and we tend to follow the lead of others rather uncritically. One of these is the uncritical acceptance of Hebrew words in our worship. We use words with which we are unfamiliar. As the great Inigo Montoya once said “I do not think it means what you think it means.” We should educate our congregations on the importance of worship.

3) Since it is a term most closely associated with a cult, I think that we should rethink our use of it in the context of worship. If we were using a term like “Latter Day Saints” in worship, I would recommend restricting its use as well. (The LDS has its own problems with the Old Testament). I am not sure that it is possible to use the term Jehovah without lending credibility to the Jehovah’s Witnesses group.

4) Jesus commands us to worship him “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). The use of Jehovah is inconsistent with worshipping God in truth. Jehovah is not nor has ever been a true name of God.

For these reasons, I believe that the church should eliminate references in choruses and on banners and certainly in sermons to Jehovah. We should know better.

Your Thoughts??

(I know what you're thinking: "The next thing he will tell us is that the Chinese character for crisis isn't really a combination of danger and opportunity.")

A-E-I-O-U and Sometimes Adonai (III)

There are three Hebrew words used to refer to God in the Old Testament: Elohim, Adonai and Yahweh.

Elohim means simply “God” and is found in Gen 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Sometimes it is shortened to “El” and put next to a verbal form. E.g. El Shaddai (God our nourisher) or El Elyon (God the most High). It appears around 2,800 times in the Old Testament.

Adonai is used 439 times in the Old Testament and means Lord. It is a word applied to both human leaders and to God, just like in English.

The most important divine name for God is Yahweh. This is the name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush. It is a form of the verb “to be” and is translated as I AM. In many contemporary translations it is rendered into English in all capital letters (LORD) in order to distinguish it from Adonai (Lord). It is used around 6,800 times in the Bible and it the most common name attributed to God.

In order to avoid misusing the name of the Lord (and shattering the third commandment), observant Jews decided that it was easier to simply not speak the revealed name of the Lord at all. So instead of saying the word Yahweh, they would replace it with the word Adonai (also translated Lord). That way they could never misuse the name of the Lord because they never used it.

But they soon had a problem. As noted above, the Old Testament includes frequent references to Yahweh. So how could they read the biblical text aloud without pronouncing the most divine name of God?

In order to continue to read the text aloud, they would simply substitute the term Adonai (Lord) for Yahweh (LORD) as they read. In order to remind themselves to say “Adonai” as they read “Yahweh” they altered the vowels of the text. THey changed the vowels to provide a visual triggere to remind them not to speak the name of Yahweh.

Specifically, they would take the consonants of Yahweh (YHWH) and combine it with the vowels of Adonai (a-o-a). This resulting Frankenstein of a word would read “Yahovah” or Jahovah. When transliterated into English, the result is Jehovah—again, a misreading of the text. The point was simply to remind them to read Adonai.

But later translators did not pick up on this nuance and simply read Jehovah instead.

And tomorrow --> Does it really matter?

A Hebrew Sojourn (Part II)

This entry grew in the blogging. I will break it into two parts.

First, the Hebrew language is consonantal in nature. By that I mean that there are no written vowels in it. It is constructed entirely of consonants in its written form. There are vowels, but they are only expressed when the Hebrew is spoken, not when written. Part of the beauty of the Hebrew language is that it is inherently more poetic than most because words can have several meanings.

For example, cat, acute, cut, cite, act would all be acceptable renderings of “ct” if English operated in the same way as Hebrew. Since the vowel(s) do not appear, we would have to look at the overall context of the sentence to determine which of those meanings that "ct" has. Now, context will dictate the meaning of Hebrew words and provide the reader with a high degree of precision in correctly understanding the meaning of the text.

Around the ninth century a group of scholars called the Masoretes became worried that the Hebrew language would die out and that no one would remember how to pronounce it. So they invented a vowel system that could be written underneath the consonantal text. Thus their text is referred to as the Masoretic Text. This text is the basis for all major translations today (NKJV, NIV, HSB, etc). (BTW most Jewish scholars do not use the text with the vowels written in. They refer to the vowels as “training wheels”).

This page illustrates the difference between a text with vowels and a text without vowels. Scroll about half way down to see a line of Hebrew without vowels. Then scroll down a bit further to see a line with vowels. The vowels are a series of dots and dashes underneath the Hebrew words.

(Just to throw a little controversy into this entry, most who read this blog would concur that the consonants (written from around 2000 to 100 BC) are inspired, but what about the vowels (added to the text 8 centuries after Christ)? Are the vowels, added centuries after the writing of even the New Testament inspired in the same way as the original text?? Just thinking aloud).

But here is the key point of this entry: The Hebrew language is composed of consonants with vowels added at a later time.

SO WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!

(Tomorrow we will look at the names of God in Hebrew.)

I Say Potato, You say Jehovah (Part I)

Part of the problem with becoming specialized in any field is that it makes you more rigorous than others in your approach to that field. Normally this has little downside. If I am a medical doctor I may lament the ignorance in common sayings like carrots are good for eyesight or cracking your knuckles is bad for them, but at the end of the day it doesn't much matter.

But when your field is Religious Studies, then you are constantly confronted with many popular fads that I have trouble stomaching. Most of the time I keep my mouth shut. (Maybe I need to vent my spleen). Kadie chides me for being over critical. Few sermons (most emphatically INCLUDING my own) escape my evaluation completely. Most of the time I mutter to myself and chalk it down to academic pride/arrogance.

But what if people are continually misusing the name of the Lord? Or what if they are using a name that appears nowhere in scripture? Of course, the name to which I refer is Jehovah. The term Jehovah appears in numerous praise choruses e.g. In the Presence of Jehovah and Days of Elijah and even an old Amy Grant tune. Rarely a day goes by in my church that it is not used in the worship service.

Of course, the great problem with all of this is that the name Jehovah appears nowhere in the Hebrew text. Remarkably, in a fact overlooked/ignored by most everyone, it doesn't even appear in any modern translation of the bible either (uhhh....except one.)


So where does it come from????

(Tune in tomorrow for part II, same Bat time......)