3-2-1

Is Faith Merely Assurance? - Heb 11:1

by Bill Mounce

A friend of mine recently pointed out a blog by John Piper on some upcoming changes (more properly, clarifications, precision) to his book, Future Grace, Revised Edition: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God.

One of those clarifications is going to be on the nature of faith in Heb 11:1. As you know, this is one of the more important verses in the Bible as it helps to define what “faith” is. I am always looking for new and clearer ways to define Christian terminology so that people outside the Christian tradition can understand — and for that matter, people within the tradition who tend to repeat words they don’t always understand. That’s what caught my eye.

This passage also points out the challenges of finding just the right English word for a Greek word. Sometimes, there just isn’t a word.

The NIV writes, “Now faith is confidence (ὑπόστασις) in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (also NLT). The problem with “confidence” (other than I always hear Julie Andrews singing when someone says the word) is that it is too weak. I can be confident, and wrong. Other translations speak of “assurance” (ESV, NASB, NRSV). The NET says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for.”
The HCSB is getting much closer to what the word means: “Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for.” The NKJV speaks of “substance.” The NJB has, “Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for.” You can see what they are all struggling to say. Faith is the bedrock, complete and total, conviction of what is true, even though the fulfillment lies in the future. This is the context for John Piper’s statement.

John writes, “The closest thing we have to a definition of faith in the New Testament is in Hebrews 11:1, ‘Faith is the assurance (Greekhypostasis) of things hoped for.’ That word ‘assurance’ can mean ‘substance’ or ‘nature’ as in Hebrews 1:3: ‘[Christ] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (hypostaseos).’ Therefore, it seems to me, that the point of Hebrews 11:1 is this: When faith pictures the future which God promises, it experiences, as it were, a present ‘substantiation’ of the future.

The substance of the future, the nature of it, is, in a way, present in the experience of faith. Faith realizes the future. It has, so to speak, a foretaste of it — as when we are so excited about something and so expectant of it, we say, ‘I can already taste it!’”

I checked with Guthrie’s commentary, and George says much the same thing. “The word hypostasis, translated by the NIV as a participle (‘being sure’), is in fact a noun, which was used variously to communicate the idea of substance, firmness, confidence, a collection of documents establishing ownership, a guarantee, or a proof. It probably should be understood in 11:1, as in 3:14, in the sense of a ‘firm, solid confidence’ or a ‘calm courage’ with reference to things hoped for. Thus, we can translate this part of the verse: ‘Now faith is the resolute confidence….’ The examples that follow demonstrate a posture of firm confidence in the promises of God even though the believers had not yet received the fulfillment of those promises (11:39).”

We know that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb 11:6). The one indispensable quality of a true followers of Jesus is that he or she is completely and totally convinced that Jesus is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do. We trust not in ourselves but him Jesus and what he did, does, and will do for us. In fact, the purest form of faith sees very little difference between looking forward in the present, and what it will be like to actually experience the future when our hope becomes reality.

Perhaps it is better to say that faith sees the future as our present reality, and we do so with resolute confidence.

[my note:  How about smelling the Thanksgiving dinner before you actually get to eat it? Smell is, in a sense, (no pun intended) tasting, and not yet tasting the food that is yet to be fully realized once it hits your tongue. What do you think? Smell is real, but not the fullest experience of the meal.]

C.S. Lewis on Novelty in Worship

C.S. Lewis had a very a different perspective. According to him, worship is like dancing: practice makes perfect. And introducing new elements into the dance simply distracts the dancers and diverts their attention from what they’re supposed to be doing: worship. So here he is warning against novelty and change in worship. 

It looks as if [pastors] believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of the service. And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of his innovations. The majority, I believe, never are. Those who remain — many give up churchgoing altogether — merely endure.

Is this simply because the majority are hidebound? I think not. They have a good reason for their conservatism. Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don’t go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it.

Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best — if you like, it ‘works’ best — when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about the worship is a different thing from worshipping. The important question about the Grail was ‘for what does it serve?’ ‘Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.’

A still worse thing may happen. Novelty may fix our attention not even on the service but on the celebrant. You know what I mean. Try as one may to exclude it, the questions ‘What on earth is he up to now?’ will intrude. It lays one’s devotion waste. There is really some excuse for the man who said, ‘I wish they’d remember that the charge to Peter was Feed my sheep; not Try experiments on my rats, or even, Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’

Thus my whole liturgiological position really boils down to an entreaty for permanence and uniformity. I can make do with almost any kind of service whatever, if only it will stay put. But if each form is snatched away just when I am beginning to feel at home in it, then I can never make any progress in the art of worship. You give me no chance to acquire the trained habit— habito dell’arte.

 C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (Mariner Books, 2002), 4-5.

What Happens When Civilizations Die?

by C. Ben Mitchell

Jonathan Sacks is the erudite chief rabbi of Great Britain. He was educated at Oxford under Bernard Williams, the famous moral philosopher who also happened to be an atheist.  In his recent volume, The Great Partnership: Science, Religion and the Search for Meaning (Schoken, 2012), Rabbi Sacks assesses what happens when religious faith collapses under the weight of secularism.  The impact need not be explosive. In fact, Sacks argues that “civilizations can end not with a bang but with a whimper.” They can die slowly, gradually, almost imperceptibly.  According to the Rabbi, five things happen in a culture when religious faith departs. How many boxes can you tick?

• First, belief in human dignity and the sanctity of life is eroded. “This is not immediately obvious, because the new order announces itself as an enhancement of human dignity. It values autonomy, choice and individual rights . . . But eventually people discover that in the new social order they are more vulnerable and alone. Marriages break up. Communities grow old and weak. They become members of the lonely crowd or the electronic herd.”  Ultimately, Sacks says, “life itself becomes disposable, in the form or abortion and euthanasia.”

• Second, politics loses its covenantal quality where we understand society as a place where we undertake collective responsibility for the common good. Citizenship “involves loyalty and the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others.” But as civilization collapses, individualism trumps covenantal duty. “Society dissolves into a series of pressure groups and no longer deeply enters our identity. Being British or French or Italian comes to seem more like where you are than who you are.”

• Third, morality is lost. “This does not mean that people become immoral. Some people do that, whether they are religious or secular; most do not, whether they are religious or secular . . . What happens, though, is that words that once meant a great deal begin to lose their force—words like duty, obligation, honour, integrity, loyalty and trust.”

• Fourth, when a civilization is dying the institution of marriage dies. “The idea of marriage as a commitment, a loyalty at the deepest level of our being, becomes ever harder to sustain. So fewer people marry, more marriages end in divorce, fewer people—men especially—have a lifelong connection with their children, and the bonds across generations grow thin.”

• Finally, people lose the belief in the possibility of a meaningful life. People see life as a personal project but there is no sense of vocation, calling and mission. “The universe is silent. Nature is dumb. Life makes no demands on us. The concept of ‘being called’ is one of the last relics of religious memory within a secular culture. A totally secular order would not have space for it or find it meaningful.”

It is not partisan politics to believe what the psalmist said in Psalm 33:

The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!

 (Psalm 33:10-12 ESV)

I AM

Heavenly Identity from The Branch Corvallis on Vimeo.

video for the poem below

I AM

by Pastor Stephen Brucker

Popeye said ‘I yam what I yam’

But what did he mean

I mean

Am I time plus matter plus chance

A primordial goo, a universal glue, in a heartless dance

Am I what I do or do not do?

A good boy who cleans his room

Walks in moral purity, disguising ethical hypocrisy, and fancying religious superiority

Am I the clothes I wear, the school I attend

My family heritage or the things I comprehend

All which could go up in a flame

Which begs the question, what would be left of my name

Am I lower-class or upper-class

My favorite sport or my empty flask

Am I a liar a cheat

A clown with big feet.

Am I the collision of decisions

The mixture of personal conditions

Or am I an American, a Democrat, a tree hugger or free thinker

A moralist, a capitalist, a materialist or an individualist

There are endless numbers of ‘I am’ succumbers

Whose identity adapts like freshman newcomers

But what if I am NOT what I think I am

Not as I can

And not where I stand?

What if personal discovery

Doesn’t come from searching me?

What if a Man on transfiguration

Transfers his rights, creating identity from on heights?

What if a Man on the tree

Proclaims that I am free

Setting His identity

On a wretched man like me?

Who am I?

I‘ll tell you who I am

I am who He says I am.

A sinner saved by grace

Ripped away from my idolatrous embrace

I am rinsed by blood

Saved from the flood

Royal by heavenly decree

Chosen by divine mystery

Pardoned as if I always obeyed

Cleared as if I’d always stayed

Dead, killed, delivered, set apart

Regenerate with a new heart

Given a completely new start

I’ve been transferred into a new family

Thanks to the Son who exemplified humility

Being set apart, commissioned with grave responsibility

Proclaiming the gospel to those in need of a new identity

Oh yes I’m still a creature

With all its feature

Vulnerable, dependent and depraved

Ignoring Him most days,

In which I terribly misbehave

But worried I am not

As God the Son on Calvary fought

To justify and adopt

With His own blood he has now bought

And this new vision I now have caught

Though the world may claim my identify

Suggesting their need to clarify me

God has set his affection eternally

Grafting me into the Son’s identity

Christ’s righteousness is transferred to me

When I believed His act on Calvary

I am no longer guilty of sin

Because the Father crushed His own kin

As time passes I understand more fully

That this story, has made me holy

If you’re confused let me simply proclaim

It’s not about you, me, or your self-proclaimed identity

It’s about a person, his work and his fame.

Let us rejoice, for Popeye was in grave error

Our burden is dead, in Christ there is no terror

Because Christ is perfectly our sin bearer

Holy Union, there’s nothing in life more rarer

So Let us swim, basking in God’s glory

Flailing around, as children in the ultimate love story

Breathing in and out his rejuvenating peace

Freedom at last, I am now what I will always be

United to He and blessed with heavenly identity

Fifteen Myths about Bible Translation

Fifteen Myths about Bible Translation --by Daniel B. Wallace, 8 October 2012

1.  Perhaps the number one myth about Bible translation is that a word-for-word translation is the best kind. Jerome argued against this, noting that his translation of the Vulgate was not word-for-word, but sense-for-sense. And that’s as it should be. Anyone who is conversant in more than one language recognizes that a word-for-word translation is simply not possible if one is going to communicate in an understandable way in the receptor language. Yet, ironically, even some biblical scholars who should know better continue to tout word-for-word translations as though they were the best. Perhaps the most word-for-word translation of the Bible in English is Wycliffe’s, done in the 1380s. Although translated from the Latin Vulgate, it was a slavishly literal translation to that text. And precisely because of this, it was hardly English.

2.  Similar to the first point is that a literal translation is the best version. In fact, this is sometimes just a spin on the first notion. For example, the Greek New Testament has about 138,000–140,000 words, depending on which edition one is using. But no English translation has this few. Here are some examples:

RSV           173,293

NIV           175,037

ESV           175,599

NIV 2011   176,122

TNIV        176,267

NRSV       176,417

REB          176,705

NKJV      177,980

NET         178,929

RV           179,873

ASV        180,056

KJV        180,565

NASB 95   182,446

NASB      184,062

NLT, 2nd ed  186,596

TEV         192,784

It’s no surprise that the TEV and NLT have the most words, since these are both paraphrases. But the translations perceived to be more literal are often near the bottom of this list (that is, farther away from the Greek NT word-count). These include the KJV (#12), ASV (#11), NASB (#14), NASB 95 (#13), and RV (#10). Indeed, when the RV came out (1881), one of its stated goals was to be quite literal and the translators were consciously trying to be much more literal than the KJV.

Some translations of the New Testament into other languages:

Modern Hebrew NT             111,154

Vulgate                                    125,720

Italian La Sacra Bibbia      163,870

Luther                                     169,536

French Novelle Version2   184,449

La Sainte Bible (Geneve)    185,859

3.    The King James Version is a literal translation. The preface to the KJV actually claims otherwise. For example, they explicitly said that they did not translate the same word in the original the same way in the English but did attempt to capture the sense of the original each time: “An other thing we thinke good to admonish thee of (gentle Reader) that wee have not tyed our selves to an uniformitie of phrasing, or to an identitie of words, as some peradventure would wish that we had done, because they observe, that some learned men some where, have beene as exact as they could that way. Truly, that we might not varie from the sense of that which we had translated before, if the word signified the same thing in both places (for there bee some wordes that bee not of the same sense every where) we were especially carefull, and made a conscience, according to our duetie.”

4.    The King James Version is perfect. This myth continues to be promoted today, yet even the translators of the KJV were not sure on hundreds of occasions which rendering was best, allowing the reader to decide for himself. Again, the preface notes: “Therfore as S. Augustine saith, that varietie of Translations is profitable for the finding out of the sense of the Scriptures: so diversitie of signification and sense in the margine, where the text is not so cleare, must needes doe good, yea is necessary, as we are perswaded… They that are wise, had rather have their judgements at libertie in differences of readings, then to be captivated to one, when it may be the other.” The original KJV had approximately 8000 marginal notes, though these have been stripped out in modern printings of the Authorized Version. Further, some of the typos and blatant errors of the 1611 KJV have continued to remain in the text after multiple corrections and spelling updates (weighing in at more than 100,000 changes) through the 1769 edition. For example, in Matthew 23.24 the KJV says, “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” The Greek means “strain out a gnat.” Or the wording of Hebrews 4.8, which says, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.” Instead of ‘Jesus,’ Joshua is meant. It’s the same word in Greek, but the reader of the text will hardly think of Joshua when he or she sees ‘Jesus’ here since ‘Joshua’ is found everywhere in the OT.

5.    The King James Versionwas hard to understand when it was first published. Again, the preface: “But we desire that the Scripture may speake like it selfe, as in the language of Canaan, that it may bee understood even of the very vulgar.” The reality is that the KJV was intended to be easily understood, yet today this 400-year-old version is difficult to comprehend in all too many passages.

6.     There has never been an authorized revision of the KJV. There were three overhauls of the KJV up through 1769, involving more than 100,000 changes (the vast majority of which merely spelling updates). The KJV that is used today is almost always the 1769 revision. And the Revised Version of 1885 was an authorized revision of the KJV. It used a different Greek text than the KJV New Testament had done.

 7.    The Apocrypha are books found only in Roman Catholic Bibles. Although the Apocrypha—or what Catholics call the Deutero-canonical books—are an intrinsic part of Roman Catholic translations of scripture, a number of Protestant Bibles also include them. Even the King James Bible, a distinctly Protestant version, included the Apocrypha in every printing until the middle of the nineteenth century. To be sure, the apocryphal books were placed at the end of the Old Testament, to set them apart (unlike in Roman Catholic Bibles), but they were nevertheless included.

8.    Homosexuals influenced the translation of the NIV. It is true that a woman who later admitted to being a lesbian was a style-editor of the NIV originally, but according to Dr. Ken Barker, one-time editor of the NIV, she had zero say on the content of the NIV.

9.   No translation can claim to be the word of God except the King James Bible. It may seem as though we are beating a dead horse, but the KJV-Only crowd is persistent and continues to exercise an inordinate role in some circles. In the preface to the KJV, the translators noted that the king’s speech is still the king’s speech even when translated into other languages. Further, even poor translations of the Bible deserved to be called the word of God according to the preface to the KJV. And yet, in all particulars, only the original Greek and Hebrew text can be regarded as the word of God. Something is always lost in translation. Always.

10.    Modern translations have removed words and verses from the Bible. Most biblical scholars—both conservative and liberal—would say instead that the KJV added words and verses, rather than that the modern ones have removed such. And this is in part because the oldest and most reliable manuscripts lack the extra verses that are found in the KJV.

11.    Essential doctrines are in jeopardy in modern translations. Actually, no doctrine essential for salvation is affected by translations, modern or ancient—unless done by a particular cult for its own purposes. For example, those Englishmen who signed the Westminster Confession of Faith in the seventeenth century were using the KJV, yet it is still a normative doctrinal statement that millions of Protestants sign today even though they use modern translations.

12.    “Young woman” in the RSV’s translation of Isaiah 7.14 was due to liberal bias. Actually, ‘young woman’ is the most accurate translation of the Hebrew word ‘almah. Although this created quite a stir in 1952 when the RSV was published, even the NET Bible, done by evangelicals, has ‘young woman’ here. The TEV, REB, and NJB also have ‘young woman’ here. And it is a marginal reading found in the NIV 2011, TNIV, and NLT. The NRSV has a marginal note that indicates that the Greek translation of Isaiah 7.14 has ‘virgin’ here.

13.    Gender-inclusive translations are driven by a social agenda. In some instances, this may be the case. But not in all. The NIV 2011, for example, strives to be an accurate translation that is understandable by today’s English speaker. And the translators note that the English language is changing. In reality, the older gender-exclusive translations may miscommunicate the meaning of the Bible in today’s world if readers understand the words ‘men,’ ‘brothers,’ and the like in numerous passages to be restricted to the male gender. Translations must keep up with the evolution of the receptor language. For example, the RSV (1952) reads in Psalm 50.9, “I will accept no bull from your house.” In today’s English, that means something quite different from what the translators intended! The NRSV accordingly and appropriately renders the verse, “I will not accept a bull from your house.”  One of the great challenges in English translations of the Bible today is to avoid language that can become fodder for bathroom humor. Or, as one of the translators of the ESV once mentioned, a major challenge is to remove the ‘snicker factor.’

14.    Red-letter editions of the Bible highlight the exact words of Jesus. Scholars are not sure of the exact words of Jesus. Ancient historians were concerned to get the gist of what someone said, but not necessarily the exact wording. A comparison of parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels reveals that the evangelists didn’t always record Jesus’ words exactly the same way. The terms ipsissima verba and ipsissima vox are used to distinguish the kinds of dominical sayings we have in the Gospels. The former means ‘the very words,’ and the latter means ‘the very voice.’ That is, the exact words or the essential thought. There have been attempts to harmonize these accounts, but they are highly motivated by a theological agenda which clouds one’s judgment and skews the facts. In truth, though red-letter editions of the Bible may give comfort to believers that they have the very words of Jesus in every instance, this is a false comfort.

15.    Chapter and verse numbers are inspired. These were added centuries later. Chapter numbers were added by Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the early 13^th century. Verse numbers were not added until 1551. Robert Estienne (a.k.a. Stephanus), a Parisian printer, added verse numbers to the fourth edition of his Greek New Testament. The pocket-sized two-volume work (which can be viewed at www.csntm.org) has three parallel columns, one in Greek and two in Latin (one Erasmus’s Latin text, the other Jerome’s). To facilitate ease of comparison, Stephanus added the verse numbers. Although most of the breaks seem natural enough, quite a few are bizarre. Neither chapter numbers nor verse numbers are inspired.
 


http://danielbwallace.com/2012/10/08/fifteen-myths-about-bible-translation/