There is No Thanksgiving in Cartoon Land or I Want to Build a Snowman

I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons. Mighty Mouse and Looney Tunes. Animation has come a long way since those days. I am not thinking of just the technology that allows things to be more detailed and realistic but of the writers and producers that draw us in emotionally. My heart was never moved much by Daffy being disrespected or felt tension as Elmer was hunting wabbits. However I really wanted Elsa to leave her room and help Anna build a snowman. I also have to admit that I got a little misty eyed when Carl Fredricksen’s true love dies in “Up”. After nearly forty years of being in love and devoted to Debbie, if I lost her, I might be tempted to fill my van with balloons and float off to Australia or Scotland and fulfill one of our unrealized dreams.

Yet, even with the advancements and the tug on our heart strings it is still not real. It is still two dimensional. It is still safe. For that matter so is most of our entertainment. We are spectators who allow ourselves to become emotionally invested in what is not real. But that is okay, for we can just wipe our eyes and walk away. Neither Elsa nor Daffy is offended.

Unfortunately, it seems that we have been infected with the attitude of Cartoon Land. Most of our relationships are two dimensional. They are safe. Our emotional commitment is no deeper than that to a Disney animation. This is not what God intends. This is not how the Body of Christ is to function. However, if we are honest, that is our approach fellowship with our family of faith. Having been involved in ministry for over thirty years I can attest to the fact that the Body lives much more in Cartoon Land than in agreement with the Word of God. Participation in a local assembly is a convenience, not a commitment. We keep ourselves at an emotional distance and seem far more moved by the world of make-believe that by the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ. "This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." So says John 15:17, Romans 13:8, 1 Peter 1:22 and about 20 other references in the New Testament.

God tells us that agape, that love, is not an option. It is a commandment. "As I have loved you" suggests more than convenience. It demands a commitment. To do this we also need to implement Ephesians 4:32, "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." Forgiveness and love is easier if we keep our relationships sort of two dimensional, you know, where you can just walk away at any moment for any reason and leave the old "body" behind and attach yourself to a new one. We should be most grateful that these verses are not reciprocal. What if Christ forgave and loved us only in the same way we loved one another? How would your relationship with Him be?

The world of medicine has made great strides in organ transplants. Taking parts from one body and implanting them in another. This surgery has been practiced to perfection in the Body of Christ from the days when the Apostle Paul was writing to the churches. We amputate ourselves from one fellowship and attach ourselves to another with barely a skip of a heartbeat. This should not be so. I understand that there are times when we are directed to move to a new ministry or some doctrinal issue demands our parting. On occasion God does lead this way.

But most of the moves I have observed are ones of personal "needs" and ambition rather than the Lord. Things like, "We need a more dynamic worship experience so we are going to X church. They have a bigger band and a better audio visual system." "They didn't pick my color for the nursery." "I don't like the direction of the leadership." The other church has more activities" and one of my favorites, "Johnny likes the other church better, the teaching is shallow but we have to make the sacrifice for him." (Because we all know that a nine year old is more spiritually aware than his parents as to where is the best place to grow spiritually.) The thing we fail to consider is that the donating body almost always suffers loss when the amputated part leaves to attach itself to a new organism. The church in America is more like robotic entities with interchangeable parts and just as much emotion. Yes, we might have to wipe a tear or two as we leave the theater but it will only be a short time when we arrive at a new show. Once again we can join the audience and be moved by the performance, step away any time we want, avoid any real commitment or emotional connection and enjoy living in Cartoon Land.

There are over two hundred "one anothers" in the Scriptures. The New American Standard has Two hundred fifty. The Apostle Paul says we are to: Love, teach, be members of, share gifts with, edify, forgive, encourage, be devoted to, submit to, speak no evil to, and do not defraud one another. Just to name a few. But, all these demand a commitment, actually a selfless commitment to others. It means becoming vulnerable and open. It means giving of ourselves and sacrificing our personal agendas for the benefit of others. It means leaving Cartoon Land and investing ourselves in the local Body we are a part of. The attitude of shallow commitment and easy departure will leave us felling safe, at least in the short run. In the long run we rob ourselves of the experience God desired us to have as a part of His family.

There is one other thing that must be realized. Cartoon Land does not just impact our life in the Body. It has the same effect in the Spirit. If we cannot love the family we see, how can we learn to love the God we cannot? So we rob ourselves of a deeper relationship with God. We protect ourselves from emotional hurt and pain with people and in so doing distance ourselves from the one true God. There are no true relationships in Cartoon Land. No real understanding of joy, or thanksgiving, No real delight in the God who loves us. We cannot shut off one without shutting down the other. Oh, we may have a few who we let in, a spouse or close friend. However, we will never know the full expression of God's love, joy, peace, patience, His fruit without one another.

God did not inspire Paul to give us the "body" illustration because it looked good on paper. He gave it so we could see how important it is for us to be bound to one another. As we have forsaken that commitment and vulnerability we have become two dimensional characters in a Disney animation. The world sees no reality in our midst. We are as plastic and alone as they are. We speak good words but at the end we just wipe away a tear or two and walk away from the theater with little or nothing to offer the world that needs to see the reality of God's loving commitment on display with one another.

In truth, we all know it is safer to live in a Cartoon Land of our own design. Here we write the endings. Here we mark the exits and concluding scenes. Here we can move freely from body to body a bit more like a parasite who feeds on others than the committed part God called us to play. There is no deep reality in Cartoon Land. No depth of love, no understanding of sorrow, no joy in restoration, no real thanksgiving. Just a world of our creation keeping people and God at a safe distance. If we get disenchanted with the director or other actors we can leave the theater at any time and write another shallow chapter and deny the life God intended.

I guess the real question is, "will you stay in the safe confines of your own emotional little room?"  A place where you can leave real commitment and relationships outside. A place where you are the only "one another" you have to deal with. Or, do you want to build a snowman out here with one another?

Is Your New Testament Antisemitic?

Many people have their favorite translation of the Bible. My first Bible was a Revised Standard Version. I was twelve. After I received Messiah as Lord I invested in a King James Version, followed by a New American Standard and a New International Version. My shelves have Greek texts and Hebrew along with the Septuagint or Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. There are copies of the Living Bible, the Amplified Bible, The English Standard Version, and the Message. I recently added the Complete Jewish Bible.

As I have studied I have learned that most people are unaware that they probably own an antisemitic version of the Bible, at least an antisemitic New Testament. It is not your fault. It is a choice of those who did the translation work for you. It is also my observation that the more contemporary the translation the more effort there is to remove the Jewishness of the Scriptures. This is especially true in most of our New Testaments. Could it be that the translators decided to deceive you as they considered how to interpret the Greek and Hebrew?

I understand the ongoing discussion over which texts are the most reliable. Some hold to the majority text, which in simplest terms means that as you look at the plethora of copies and partial texts of Scripture, what is the most common or found in the the majority of the texts is likely true. The reason being, the copies with errors would not have been recopied. The King James follows these texts. Most others lean on the oldest documents to likely be the more accurate. Even if the count was found to be one thousand to one, the one older is considered to be the most accurate one. This is true for the New International and English Standard Versions. The New American Standard compromises and includes the Majority Text differences, usually in parenthesis, with a footnote explaining that the older text may not have this phrase. At least that way you know there are groups of scholars holding to the different readings. However, all the English Versions seem to make a conscious effort to make the New Testament less Jewish. 

The most obvious is the simple choice to change the names in the New Testament to sound more western. For example: Mariam becomes Mary, Simeon becomes Simon, Yacob (there is no "J" sound in Greek or Hebrew) becomes James, and Yonas becomes John. Seems like a small thing but the translators are inconsistent. Bar-Jonah is kept rather than Bar-John and Abraham is still Abraham. Just some of the dominate New Testament characters names are Westernized. If you are familiar with the Old Testament genealogies there are lots of challenging names we choose to translate. Some cause our Western tongues to do gymnastics to try to pronounce. So why do they change Jewish names in the New? Could it be that the translators want to distance the "church" from its Hebrew roots? Are they convinced that the time following Messiah is so different than the time before that odd translations need to be invoked to protect the reader from the reality of a Jewish New Testament?

Names are only the beginning. The effort to remove the evidence that Hebrew was the spoken language of the Jews in Palestine at the time of Yeshua is astounding. Older translations translate the word Hebrew accurately in reference to the spoken language but others choose to hide the truth in their translations of the New Testament. Some translators simply choose to be unfaithful to the Greek text in favor of their theological bias.The New International takes the prize, (with the English Standard Version taking a close second), to remove the evidence that Jesus (Yeshua) and the Jewish people spoke Hebrew.

The Greek word Hebrais, and its various forms, appears in the New Testament Scriptures about a dozen times. The accurate translation is the word "Hebrew". However when the word refers to the Hebrew language the NIV has mistranslated the word as "Aramaic". At least until you come to Revelation 9:11 and 16:16.  After the "church age" is over and God is dealing with the Jews again the word is accurately translated "Hebrew" rather than "Aramaic". In Philippians 3:5 they do translate Hebrais as Hebrew but here it refers to Paul's nationality, not the language. In every other instance they translate the Greek word for Hebrew as Aramaic.

For example, in Acts 21:40 and 22:2, Paul is giving his defense before the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Luke tells us as they heard Paul speak in the Hebrew language they quieted down to listen. However, the NIV translates the word for Hebrew as Aramaic. This note is their justification, "Most likely aramaic rather than Hebrew since Aramaic was the most commonly used language among Palestinian Jews at the time" (NIV Study Bible pg 1689, Zondervan Publishers 1985). By volitional choice they have mistranslated the word.

Just a few questions. 1) How do you know? 2) If it was the most common language why are there no Gospel accounts or epistles written in Aramaic? 3) In Acts 21:40 & 22:2, why would the people grow quiet if Paul was speaking their most common language? 4) In Luke 4, Yeshua, quotes Isaiah 49:8-9 and 61:1-2. What language did he speak? It was Hebrew and the people understood well enough to be offended. 5) Why is there no evidence of literature, plays, sonnets, or poetry in Aramaic when there are in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek? Not to mention the ongoing practice of Bar Mitzvah where the young men had to learn, read and memorize Hebrew passages and the that the portions read in the Synagogues on the Sabbath were in Hebrew. Lastly, Many scholars suggest that Hebrew was a dying language, hence the need for the Septuagint or Greek Old Testament. They say it was due to the Hebrew language being in such little use it was no longer understood by the populous of Palestine. No ancient language has ever resurrected itself once it falls into disuse, yet, the Hebrew language is alive and well, even today. However, tradition and theological bias are more valuable that historic evidence and logic.

No one would argue that Yeshua (Jesus) was Jewish or that His mother Mariam (Mary) was Jewish. Few would disagree that the New Testament writers like Jacob (James), Jonas (John), and Judas (Jude - yes we have mistranslated this too as we don't want to confuse the traitor with the NT writer) were Jewish and most likely spoke Hebrew. Yet, their names are disguised to deny their Jewish heritage. Mariam's (Mary's) Magnificat in Luke 1 sounds pretty Jewish. The Old Testament scriptures are quoted and upheld through out the New Testament. So why the deceit? Ahhh, we are Western and Americans on top of that. The world and the universe revolve around us. Our view of the "church", and therefore the New Testament, has little to do with Judaism. So we translate God's Word to fit our agendas. We have mistranslated rather than face the Hebraic reality of who we are supposed to be. 

This post just grazes the surface of what has been done to give us an antisemitic New Testament. So give some thought to your Hebrew roots. We will talk more of this soon. Oh, by the way, the Greek New Testament never says Yeshua rose on the first day of the week.  But we will save that for another post. How is that for a future post tease?

Despair is at the Door

We live in a world that is filled with unrest and is decaying around us. We may be tempted to stop watching the news just to avoid the growing record of loss of freedoms and mayhem that seem to be a daily event. Morality is being distorted to make right wrong and the immoral moral. Profanity, the act of making what is sacred common, pervades every form of media and communication. Those who have standards are intolerant so their right to free speech cannot be tolerated. People chain themselves to trees to keep them alive while they demand public funding for the slaughter of the unborn. Christian practices and expressions are being removed from the public forum while Islam is openly promoted. Our government declares the God's nation of Israel to to be guilty of terrorism while terrorist actions are simple acts of workplace violence. Those in power cast a blind eye to those who are motivated by a zealous conviction of the spread of Islam at any cost, with any sacrifice. They are either willing accomplices or ignorant of the realities of this oppressive religion whose goal is to offer whatever sacrifice is necessary for world domination and destruction.We want them to like us so we give them the financial means and freedom to build the nuclear weapons to destroy us.

Into this very uncertain world my three grandchildren have been born to parents devoted to serving God and determined to rear these little ones in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. My youngest son has become engaged to a godly young woman with a desire to serve Yahweh and His Son as their driving motivation in life. I wonder how long any of them will have the freedom to do so.

At age sixty-two the world is not what it was when I was in grade school. Back then we started each day with a pledge to the flag, a reading of a Psalm, and the Lord's Prayer. It was more routine than religious but God was invited to bless our day, at least until third grade. Now Bibles are forbidden while Muslim prayer areas are sent aside for Islamic students to partake in their daily prayers. America is now a villain and must be cut down for our greatness and freedoms. There is no exceptionalism and no Biblical or Theocratic foundation, even though God's Word is cited throughout our founding documents, both on a federal and state level. It is enough to make you wonder how long this nation will last. It leads me to assume that the reason there appears to be no evidence of America as a world power in Biblical prophecy may be due to the reality that we will not be one when the final events begin to unfold. It can lead one to have grave concern for the coming generations and, if you let your mind run with it, a feeling of despair. Where is God in all of this?

Truth is a hard thing to hang onto when life does not seem to reflect what is supposed to be true. It is not the first time. Persecution of those who believe and hold fast to Biblical truth has been a reoccurring cycle throughout human history. There are times when I empathize with King David: "Behold, these, the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase riches, Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocenc. For all the day long I have been plagued, and chastened every morning" (Psalm 73:12-14).

Why do the wicked seem to prosper and evil gain victories over those who try to hold a righteous standard? Questions arise: Is God true? Can I rest in His grace? Will I choose to believe that He is in control? Will I believe that the chaos that grows around me and the imposing darkness that slowly brings oppression to my life is, to some extent, an illusion in contrast to His sovereign will? Or will I give in to anxious feelings or cynicism? "This is just how life has become, so ignore what you can and expect it to just get worse." Despair is at the door. There is not a lot of hope and joy in that approach to life. What is needed is a practical application of the sovereignty of God.

These are the times when what we know needs to overrule how we feel. David exemplifies this as he struggles with the apparent lack of God's participation in life around him. Scarred by Saul's betrayal, his own moral collapse, and his son's desire to destroy him David knows what it feels like to be abandoned. He shares his pain and joy in his psalms. "Why are you cast down, oh my soul? And why are you disquieted in me? Hope in God; for yet shall I praise Him for the help of His countenance" (Psalm 42:5). "But I am poor and need; yet the LORD thinks upon me, You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, oh my God" (Psalm 40:17). David's Psalms are honest enough to let God know when we do not understand and yet we can trust Him. Isaiah reminds us, "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord, Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation" (Isaiah 12:2).

The psalmist and the prophets understood that the world is not kind. Rather it is brutal and unyielding. However, they were keenly aware that the LORD God of Jacob was sovereign. He is never surprised and He will ultimately deliver. So David writes Psalm two and asks "Why do the nations rage?" God is the one they will answer to. Job can look at the undeserved turmoil of life and say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15). Again David declares, with confidence, "In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" (Psalm 56:11).

The world will always have its brutal people attempting to bring despair upon those who trust in the Lord. That really is the key, the answer. "LORD". He is the sovereign Lord in whom we trust. "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" (Psalm 27:1).