I am preaching from the Psalms now.  I have been since before Easter.  One of the things I like to do is research the words and phrases in the original languages.  Of course, Psalms were written in Hebrew; but, about 400 years before Christ the Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew into Greek.

The translation was necessary because Alexander the Great conquered the then known world and mandated that Greek be used everywhere. Letters, contracts, and laws, everything was to be in Greek.  As a result, the Jews were losing their ability to read the Scriptures.  The Rabbi’s decided to give the people the Scriptures in the language they spoke, thus we have the Septuagint (LXX).   This gives us light on their understanding of the Old Testament as we compare the Hebrew with the Greek.

The Psalm I used Last Sunday was Psalm 113:

        [1] Praise the LORD!

        Praise, O servants of the Lord,

        Praise the name of the Lord.

        [2] Blessed be the name of the Lord

        From this time forth and forever.

        [3] From the rising of the sun to its setting

        The name of the Lord is to be praised.

        [4] The Lord is high above all nations;

        His glory is above the heavens.

 

        [5] Who is like the Lord our God,

        Who is enthroned on high,

        [6] Who humbles Himself to behold

        The things that are in heaven and in the earth?

        [7] He raises the poor from the dust

        And lifts the needy from the ash heap,

        [8] To make them sit with princes,

        With the princes of His people.

        [9] He makes the barren woman abide in the house

        As a joyful mother of children.

        Praise the LORD!

The opening and closing phrases of the Psalm are the same: “Praise the LORD!”  I’ve blogged before about the all caps “LORD” being the Divine Name, this time I want to focus on the phrase “Praise the LORD.”

In the Hebrew (without vowel points) Praise the LORD is הללו יה.   The KJV, the NIV, and the NASB all translate the phrase accurately as “Praise the LORD.”  The Divine Name is represented in the phrase in its ending; the phrase ends with the ending of the Tetragrammaton; יה.  The entire name is not there, but it is represented in the ending.

I mentioned the Greek LXX in order to bring a different slant on the phrase.  Our modern translations correctly translate the words as Praise the LORD.  But that is not what the Jewish scholars did with their translation into Greek; let me show you the Greek: αλληλουια.  You can read that word if you don’t let yourself be intimidated by the Greek; and if you just anglicize the letters, its “Hallelujah!”

The Hebrew says “Hallelujah!”  The Jewish scholars that translated the LXX from the Hebrew did not translate the words, but chose to transliterate them so the Hebrew sounds were brought over into the Greek text phonetically.  The Greek language gained a new word!  The meaning is the same, but the Hebrew pronunciation is the preserved.

Well that made me curious, so using BibleWorks8, I did a search on the word “Hallelujah.”  It’s a common enough word in our hymns and praise songs, I figured the word would be all over the place in the Bible, especially the Old Testament and even more so in the Psalms and Proverbs.  Not so!  In the English translations, Hallelujah occurs four times, all in Revelation chapter 4 (verses 1, 3, 4, & 6).  But even a search of the Hebrew only produced 23 hits in 23 verses, and ALL of those were limited to the Psalms.  None in any of the recorded prayers of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samuel, Eli, Hannah, Ruth, Esther, David (except the Psalms) or any of the Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, or any of the others!  I was shocked.

Are there worship words and phrases that God intended for worship alone?

As I age, I find more and more things that move me deeply.

Today it was this video about wedding vows, and I thought ya'll would enjoy this too.

This Random Masterpiece video illustrates the illogic of evolution, without proving creation.

http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=16bfb07c7f3bf96d8854&utm_source=newsletter0722&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=weeklytopvideos

Of the 16 occurrences of “tradition” or “traditions” in the NASB Bible, all but three of them are negative in tone or meaning.  The three that are positive point to the tradition received from the Apostles by word of mouth (orally) or in writing (Scripture).  Just in case you are interested, here are those verses. If not, please skip below them to read the rest of this posting.

Isa 29:13 NASB - "Then the Lord said, "Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned {by rote,}"

Mat 15:2 NASB - ""Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.""

Mat 15:3 NASB - "And He answered and said to them, "Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?"

Mat 15:6 NASB - "he is not to honor his father or his mother.' And {by this} you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition."

Mar 7:3 NASB - "(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, {thus} observing the traditions of the elders;"

Mar 7:5 NASB - "The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?""

Mar 7:8 NASB - ""Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.""

Mar 7:9 NASB - "He was also saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition."

Mar 7:13 NASB - "{thus} invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.""

1Cr 11:2 NASB - "Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you."

Gal 1:14 NASB - "and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions."

Col 2:8 NASB - "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ."

2Th 2:15 NASB - "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word {of mouth} or by letter from us."

2Th 3:6 NASB - "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us."

What tradition did Paul advocate?  That which he passed on to the churches verbally in person, or in his absence in writing.  Sadly, we have very little of Paul’s oral “tradition,” but we have a great deal of his written tradition: most of the NT epistles.  Paul summarized that tradition in this: 1 Cor 15:1-5 NASB - Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, ² by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. ³ For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

In 1 Cor 11, Paul also says that he received the instruction for the Lord’s Supper (Communion, Eucharist, whatever your tradition calls it), from the Lord Jesus; but even the details for that are sparse enough to accommodate most forms observed by the church catholic (small “c” on purpose).

The problem with tradition comes in the changing of times.  For instance, once upon a time an American woman would never allow her ankles to show below her dress; now, even 'Christian' women think nothing of flashing their cleavage about to anyone willing to look (contra 1 Tim 2:9 NASB - "Likewise, {I want} women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, … ,").  Among Roman Catholics it has been in my lifetime (Vatican II, 1962 - 1965) that the tradition of the Latin Mass was replaced with the vernacular mass, among other things.  Then, the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Assumption of Mary became elevated from long held informal tradition to official Church dogma by a Papal Bull.  This doctrine was dogmatically and infallibly defined by Pope Pius XII on November 1, 1950, in his Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus.   I have also heard some Roman Catholics argue that we would not even have a canon of Scripture if it were not for the bishops of the Church getting together to hash out the content of the canon, thus the Scriptures as we know them would not exist if not for the work of the traditions of the church.  I also have heard that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the blood of Jesus which washes away the sins of the world flows through the fingers of Mary; can anyone verify that for me?

In my own denomination (SBC) the tradition of not ordaining women is being challenged; partly by liberal feminism (boo - hiss) and partly because the teaching of Paul in the NT, especially 1 Tim 2:12  "But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet," is not in line with the practices described in the NT, especially Acts 21:9 where the four daughters of Philip the evangelist are described as "prophetesses," προφητεύουσαι.  This "Philip the Evangelist" was the deacon that had lead the Ethiopian eunich to the Lord and baptized him along the Gaza road, (BTW, without specific authority from any church).  By the time Paul wrote Romans, the office of ‘Deacon’ was an established office of the church; Paul described Phoebe with that title in Romans 16:2, διάκονον.  We Baptists must be careful to not allow liberal readings and exegesis of the Bible to infiltrate through this argument into the hermeneutics we practice, even though that would make it easier to make the case for ordaining women.  There is work yet to be done in the exegesis of the passages, and we must be careful not to practice eisegesis, in support of traditions either new or old.

The elder’s tradition was condemned by Jesus because it negated God’s Law; God condemned the traditions of Isaiah’s time because the tradition had become rote, and the rote tradition had become traditional ritual; and, Paul condemned the traditions of men because they negated the Gospel he had received from Jesus and had passed on to the churches.  So we see the problem with tradition as a source of authority.

In matters of faith, the only reliable remaining source of authority in the faith once received is Scripture, thus Sola Scriptura.  Scripture does not change.  We need to compare Scripture with Scripture, and be informed by the best and the brightest scholars and holy men of God from the Scriptures.   In this we need to be like the noble Bereans: Acts 17:10-11 - The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. ¹¹ Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily {to see} whether these things were so.