Extending my plan for Bible reading, I now include the OT in my fast reading (that is, read like its a regular book, in large chunks at a sitting).
After I've finished the NT in Phillips and the NEB, I plan to read the Sexateuch (Pentateuch plus Joshua and Judges) in NEB.
Following that I will do the NT in the NASB, then the NT in the NRSV (my second least favourite contemporary translation).
After that, the OT history books in the NEB, then NASB, to follow in that order the rest of the OT.
Interesting parallel between the OT and the NT: both start with a theological ground-setting of four books: the pentateuch in the OT and the gospels in the NT, capping this off with the establishment of the 'church': Joshua on taking Israel into the Promised Land, and Luke on the first years of the church.
The greatest parallel between the OT and the NT is lost on we English readers, with Yeshua translated Joshua in the OT, and Jesus in the NT following the 'Greek-isation' of the Hebrew. The parallel is 'Joshua/Yeshua' both take their people into the promised land: Joshua into the Promised Land, and Yeshua into the Kingdom of God!
Thursday, August 29, 2019
Sunday, August 18, 2019
The medium is the message
Mcluhan didn't know how right he was. How something is conveyed can be more persuasive than what is sought to be conveyed.
Take the evangelical urge for us to tell others of faith in Christ.
Most evangelical church contact is passive. We sit in an auditorium (jokingly called a 'sanctuary' in parts of the USA) and watch and hear others do things to us. The message of the medium is that the experts are active, we are passive.
Then these same experts tells us the very opposite of that which their behaviour teaches: they say, go and tell; but provide no example, no life-experience, no church enaction of the significance of the ordinary parishionner's ability to tell!
Thus, almost no one goes and tells, because this has not been lived in the closest church contact they have.
Take the evangelical urge for us to tell others of faith in Christ.
Most evangelical church contact is passive. We sit in an auditorium (jokingly called a 'sanctuary' in parts of the USA) and watch and hear others do things to us. The message of the medium is that the experts are active, we are passive.
Then these same experts tells us the very opposite of that which their behaviour teaches: they say, go and tell; but provide no example, no life-experience, no church enaction of the significance of the ordinary parishionner's ability to tell!
Thus, almost no one goes and tells, because this has not been lived in the closest church contact they have.
Friday, August 2, 2019
At a funeral
Part of me likes the Anglican funeral service. Particularly the commital.
I was at a friend's funeral today.
It was related that a couple of his close friends visited him a few days ago, and while he said that he could see Yeshua on the horizon (I wonder if it was metaphorical or a real perception), a friend replied 'I expect you will be in glory before me'.
I think that sort of naff-ness is out of place, and in a way disrespectful of the dying and of our Saviour. Being with him forever is not a holiday destination, but part of God's glorious transition of us into his people by the victory of Christ.
Particularly as I've felt the emotion of the looming shadow of death, in recent times (I mean impending death as a possibility, not just 'theoretically') there is no room for the glib. It is the most gripping and awefilling experience. It is being on the threshold of a great unknown so unkown and so beyond us that Paul tells us we cannot even start to imagine it!
Christ's victory through death and resurrection bought us to this possibility...he paid the biggest price. It is not like a trip to the theme park.
I was at a friend's funeral today.
It was related that a couple of his close friends visited him a few days ago, and while he said that he could see Yeshua on the horizon (I wonder if it was metaphorical or a real perception), a friend replied 'I expect you will be in glory before me'.
I think that sort of naff-ness is out of place, and in a way disrespectful of the dying and of our Saviour. Being with him forever is not a holiday destination, but part of God's glorious transition of us into his people by the victory of Christ.
Particularly as I've felt the emotion of the looming shadow of death, in recent times (I mean impending death as a possibility, not just 'theoretically') there is no room for the glib. It is the most gripping and awefilling experience. It is being on the threshold of a great unknown so unkown and so beyond us that Paul tells us we cannot even start to imagine it!
Christ's victory through death and resurrection bought us to this possibility...he paid the biggest price. It is not like a trip to the theme park.
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