Not Like the Others

“One of these things is not like the others
 One of these things just doesn’t belong.”

— Sesame Street, before its writers went woke

One of the great privileges of celebrating the Lord’s Supper is that any male believer is welcome to participate vocally. That principle draws its authority from 1 Corinthians 14:31, which says concerning church meetings, “You can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged.” The “all” in that verse means “all you men who are gifted prophets”.

We know that because the word Paul uses for “prophets” in the passage is masculine. The Greek language has a separate word for female prophets that we translate into English as “prophetesses”. That’s not the word Paul used in this chapter.

Somebody Else’s Mail (21)

“Sing praises to the Lord, who sits enthroned in Zion! Tell among the peoples his deeds! For he who avenges blood is mindful of them; he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.”

If you read this verse in the NASB, you may be forgiven for thinking David was name-checking a cheesy vampire flick. There, it reads, “He who requires blood”, a statement which sounds odd to modern ears but is nonetheless the most ruthlessly literal of all translations.

The author of Psalm 9 made no such silly Hollywood associations and neither did his original readers. The subject was deadly serious. The ESV rendering above is less literal but a little easier to process. So let’s talk about this title of YHWH, or maybe of Christ, if the distinction is worth considering.

Too Hot to Handle: How Do You Read It? (5)

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Tom: We’re in the middle of batting around commonly misunderstood Bible verses. Here’s another frequently-quoted line for you, IC, this one from Proverbs:

“As he thinks within himself, so he is.”

I mentioned in another post a few weeks ago that I’ve often found other people understand individual proverbs very differently from the way I understand them. This one is no exception.

Sailing the High Seas

An old friend sent me an email a while ago. He was concerned:

“My daughter is going off to university next year, and she wants to take English Literature as her major! I’m worried about her: could you talk to her?”

I had to smile. Sure, I could talk to her. After all, I had been through all that, and I had survived just fine, thank you.

But why the panic?

I recalled that he is university educated himself, but in mathematical subjects. I suppose that somewhere along the line he’d picked up the idea that while maths might be a safe study for a Christian, the humanities might be unusually hostile to faith. I wondered what he thought of anthropology or the life sciences.

Those Negative Influences

I’ve been reading a few comments online from Christian parents wondering how much contact they should allow their children with unsaved relatives expressing convictions or modeling lifestyles antithetical to their values. I mean homosexuals, alcoholics, atheists, practitioners of false religions or woke ideology, career criminals, and so on. The concern is that a friendly, affectionate uncle, aunt or older cousin who takes an interest in one’s child may become, for a time at least, a more appealing role model than the parent who cares for them every day.

Children may be insufficiently discerning, some fear, to appreciate an unsaved relative’s value to God and family while categorically rejecting his bad example.

The Way of Man

“I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.”

Perhaps the prophet Jeremiah had been reading the book of Proverbs when he made this statement. There, Solomon wrote these words: “A man’s steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way?” Solomon wondered about it. Jeremiah simply asserted it.

Either way, left to our own devices, we are blind men groping in the dark. In this life, the word of God is our only unerring guide.