Okay, I have posted more today than I have in a very long time.  I hope those of you who read my posts will put up with one more.

While I was looking for a Greek text to use in my other posts, texts that would not require special fonts, I found the Greek Bible Study website.  It has the KJV, NASB, ESV, and Greek text side-by-side, with loads of tools for the Greek.  Pick an OT passage and the LXX appears for the Greek, along side the other translations you chose.  It  also has the Spanish Reina Valera edition.  Learn to read the Bible in Spanish & Greek!! 

You do have to have a membership, but that's free.  There is also supposed to be a link to allow you to hear the text read, but I think the Vista system is gobbling that up and I can't hear it just now.  Try it, you'll like it!

Greek Bible Study

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

This goes well with the video I put up a few days ago.

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.

I like Philip Yancy books, and I especially like books that deal with the problem of pain, sin, and evil in the world (theodocy).  This is one of the emails I received this morning by subscription to Zondervon Books; it's an excerpt from Yancy's "Where is God when it Hurts?".  This particular book is seven years old, so it came out of the post 9-11 furnace.

Throughout the Bible, an analogy that illustrates the relationship between God and his people keeps surfacing. God, the husband, is pictured as wooing the bride to himself. He wants her love. If the world were constructed so that every sin earned a punishment and every good deed a reward, the parallel would not hold. The closest analogue to that relationship would be a kept woman, who is pampered and bribed and locked away in a room so that the lover can be sure of her faithfulness. God does not "keep" his people. He loves us, gives himself to us, and eagerly awaits our free response.

God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly. That, I believe, is the central message of Job. Satan had taunted God with the accusation that humans are not truly free. Was Job being faithful simply because God had allowed him a prosperous life? Job's fiery trials proved the answer beyond doubt. Job clung to God's justice when he was the best example in history of God's apparent injustice. He did not seek the Giver because of his gifts; when all gifts were removed he still sought the Giver.

From the Philip Yancy book "Where is God when it Hurts?"

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What is there about safety that is so attractive?

Benjamin Franklin was a through Deist, and not a Christian; but he said something like this: "Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

James 1:25 tells Christians "But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the {law} of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does."

As a Christian, there is no place more safe than in the center of the will of God.  That may put me in a place the world does not consider "safe," but rather

Jesus said:

¹⁸ If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.  John 15:18-21 (KJV)

Paul taught us:

 ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. ³⁷ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ³⁸ For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, ³⁹ Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:35-39 (KJV)

If we are “saved,” are we then “safe?”  Defining safety in a way that makes us draw back from engaging evil means that evil wins, because the Evil One never draws back, unless we resist him.  Defining safety in as being in the center of God’s will means that no one and no thing can separate us from the love of God.  That does not mean that I do not suffer pain or persecution, it means that when the world, and the Evil One, has done all that it can, I am still loved by God and that I remain safe and saved.

 I did some more research into the Lucifer thing in Isaiah 14:12.

Just as a refresher, here is the verse in the KJV, NASB, ESV, and Hebrew:

Isaiah 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! KJV

Isaiah 14:12 "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! NASB

Isaiah 14:12 "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!  ESV

Isaiah 14:12 יב איך נפלת משמים הילל בן־שחר נגדעת לארץ חולש על־גוים׃

There are 32 occurrences of the word הילל in the Hebrew text, translated as “Lucifer” in the KJV, and as “Star of the morning” in the NASB and ESV.  But it’s only in the singular nominative masculine in the Isaiah passage, the 31 other passages such as Zechariah 11:2 have it in the imperative or imperfect, and it is translated as “Howl,” or “Wail.” 

I took Pendragon and SonnetJoy to the airport to put them on their flight to Honduras this morning.  We got there in plenty of time, and there are stories to be told about all that, but I will let them tell their own stories.  But …

There was a family right behind us as we went through the check-in point, mom & dad and a teen and a boy about eight years old.  The two brothers had obviously been “into it” with each other all morning already.  The older boy said something like “Well, I don’t have any metal on me;” and the little brother replied “I don’t have any metal either, not even any money.”

Well, here was a chance that was too good to be missed!  I said to the boy, “Here, let me check you out;” and a opened my cell phone and began waiving it around his head, pushing the side buttons as fast as I could, making the phone beep.  “Well,” I said, “I’m not so sure about that, maybe you do have something there in your head!”  The kid stood real still and started looking around for support from his family.  When they said nothing, I told the kid, “You know I’m just messing with you, don’t you?”  “Yeah! Yeah, I knew that,” he replied with a relieved sigh.

Not satisfied to let it go at that, I said, “When you get back home, if you’ll get some of your Mom’s aluminium foil and make a hat out of it, and wear it all the time, no one will be able to read your mind any more!”   His mom & dad giggled, and his brother gaped.  Pendragon started muttering, “I don’t know this guy, I never saw him before in my life.”

It provided some much needed comic relief.

I was leading the Sunday night Bible study, Angels part 6, on Satan featuring the famous passages in Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:11-19.  I began looking for the name Lucifer, and could not find it.  I was sure that it was in one of these two passages, and I could even remember the phrasing I was looking for, but alas, no “Lucifer” in the text, or in the concordance!

When I got home I searched for it in Bibleworks 8, to no avail; until I switched my search to the KJV, and compared that with the NASB and the ESV:

Isaiah 14:12 (ESV) "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!

Isaiah 14:12 (NASB) "How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations!

Isaiah 14:12 (KJV) How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

Amazingly, that is the only passage in the KJV that uses “Lucifer” as a name for Satan; “Lucifer” does not appear at all in the NASB or in the ESV.  I am very disappointed that the ESV and the NASB went for the adjectival meaning of the words בבל ואמרת איך instead of taking them in their nominative form to give the name Lucifer, Son of the Morning.

 Then as we discussed the idea of a powerful angel named Lucifer, or Satan, we considered that all angles are powerful agents of God to do the work of God that they do.  We often attribute power to Satan because of what we read about him in 1 Peter 5:8 “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 

Then I mentioned the power of Satan in opposing Gabriel for two weeks as he came with the answer to Daniel’s prayer in Daniel chapter 10.  Well, I had those facts wrong; it was 21 days, not 14 days.  But I also had the identity of the One who came to Daniel’s aid wrong; I had said that it was Gabriel, and that Michael had come to his aid.  I had the Michael part right, but not the Gabriel part.  Gabriel is not named, but the person that responded to Daniel’s plea is described in Daniel 10:1-6.

Daniel 10:1-6 ¹ In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar; and the message was true and one of great conflict, but he understood the message and had an understanding of the vision. ² In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks. ³ I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any ointment at all until the entire three weeks were completed. ⁴ On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, while I was by the bank of the great river, that is, the Tigris, ⁵ I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, there was a certain man dressed in linen, whose waist was girded with a belt of pure gold of Uphaz. ⁶ His body also was like beryl, his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and feet like the gleam of polished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a tumult.

Who does that description sound like?  Where else have we read those words to describe someone in the Bible?

Revelation 1:12-15 ¹² Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; ¹³ and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. ¹⁴ His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters.

If the person described in Daniel 10 is the same person described in Revelation 1; then the person who came to Daniel’s aid, in response to his prayer, was the “son of man;” Jesus.  I am amazed that Jesus Himself would show up in response to the prayer of Daniel.

But that is not my point.  This person so gloriously described in Daniel, and apparently repeated in Revelation, also says this:

Daniel 10:11-13 ¹¹ He said to me, "O Daniel, man of high esteem, understand the words that I am about to tell you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you." And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. ¹² Then he said to me, "Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. ¹³ "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia,” (emphasis added).

Now we need to understand “the prince of the kingdom of Persia.”  The first thing to decide is “Could a mere mortal man have withstood the Angel of the Lord for 21 seconds, much less 21 days?”  That answer has to be “No.”  So, who then is this prince?  The kingdom of Persia was an evil empire at the time of Daniel, and its prince had no power because all power was concentrated into the hands of the king.  This prince would have been the power behind the throne, the source of the evil: Satan.  This is the pattern of all evil in the world, Satan is behind it.  In the book of Job, the man Job is opposed by Satan; even though he never meets him, it is the dragon and leviathan that emerge from time-to-time in the background of the events of the book of Job.

Do you get it?  If both descriptions are the “son of man,” and if “the prince of the kingdom of Persia” is Satan, as we think, then Satan was able to withstand the son of man for three weeks, and “Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia,” (Dan 10:13 NAS).

Satan was powerful enough to hold up the son of man for three weeks from His mission of answering Daniel’s prayer!  And yet Satan is a defeated foe.  Jesus defeated him once in the temptation in the desert, and again in the resurrection; ultimately Satan will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev 20:10) to be tormented forever and ever.  In fact, in every encounter with Satan it is Jesus who wins.

And we can have victory over him also: James 4:7 “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

So we had some Xanga friends that came to take Sonnetjoy's dog, Rhombus, to live with them.  When they were here, they asked about the Noren curtains we have up in our hallways.  So, here is a link to the store where we found our Noren.

  http://www.jun-gifts.com/

This store is in Japan, and the items are authenticly Japanese, not knock-off items.  When we want new Noren, this is where we buy them.  It take just a few days for the items to come to us by USPS.