Convictions & Affections » Bible

The Word 11.6.11

Jeff Lash — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 03:13:46 +0000

Let the Lord be your salvation on this day and all others.

Psalm 43 (ESV)

¹ Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people,
from the deceitful and unjust man
deliver me!
²For you are the God in whom I take refuge;
why have you rejected me?
Why do I go about mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?

³ Send out your light and your truth;
let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
and to your dwelling!
⁴Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God my exceeding joy,
and I will praise you with the lyre,
O God, my God.

⁵ Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.

The Word 10.16.11

Jeff Lash — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:35:15 +0000

May our hope rest in a God who teaches us his ways in order that we may walk in his ways. He gives us everything we need.

Psalm 25 (ESV)

¹To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. ²O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
³Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

⁴ Make me to know your ways, O LORD;
teach me your paths.
⁵Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

⁶Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
⁷Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O LORD!

⁸ Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
⁹He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
¹⁰All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

¹¹For your name’s sake, O LORD,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
¹²Who is the man who fears the LORD?
Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose.
¹³His soul shall abide in well-being,
and his offspring shall inherit the land.
¹⁴ The friendship^[b] of the LORD is for those who fear him,
and he makes known to them his covenant.
¹⁵My eyes are ever toward the LORD,
for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
¹⁷The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
¹⁸ Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.

¹⁹Consider how many are my foes,
and with what violent hatred they hate me.
²⁰Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me!
Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
²¹May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait for you.

²² Redeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles.

The Word 10.9.11

Jeff Lash — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:50:08 +0000

Let this hymn bring you great comfort and confidence in the Lord’s care for his children.

Psalm 23 (ESV)

¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
²He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
³He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.

⁴Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

The Word 8.28.11

Jeff Lash — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:55:04 +0000

I hope that this psalm is an encouragement to you, on this day and every day that follows, to trust in the Lord.

Psalm 20 (ESV)

1 May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
2 May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!
3 May he remember all your offerings
and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

4 May he grant you your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans!
5 May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

6 Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.
7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
8 They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.

9 O Lord, save the king!
May he answer us when we call.

The Word 7.31.11

Jeff Lash — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:06:06 +0000

This psalm is a reminder about the importance of holding fast to our faith in God and passing it down the the generations that follow us. It is also a testimony to the glory of God and his great mercy in preserving his people despite their sins.

Psalm 78 (ESV)

78:1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.

5 He established a testimony in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers
to teach to their children,
6 that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
7 so that they should set their hope in God
and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments;
8 and that they should not be like their fathers,
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation whose heart was not steadfast,
whose spirit was not faithful to God.

9 The Ephraimites, armed with the bow,
turned back on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep God’s covenant,
but refused to walk according to his law.
11 They forgot his works
and the wonders that he had shown them.
12 In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders
in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.
13 He divided the sea and let them pass through it,
and made the waters stand like a heap.
14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud,
and all the night with a fiery light.
15 He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16 He made streams come out of the rock
and caused waters to flow down like rivers.

17 Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18 They tested God in their heart
by demanding the food they craved.
19 They spoke against God, saying,
“Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
20 He struck the rock so that water gushed out
and streams overflowed.
Can he also give bread
or provide meat for his people?”

21 Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of wrath;
a fire was kindled against Jacob;
his anger rose against Israel,
22 because they did not believe in God
and did not trust his saving power.
23 Yet he commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven,
24 and he rained down on them manna to eat
and gave them the grain of heaven.
25 Man ate of the bread of the angels;
he sent them food in abundance.
26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
and by his power he led out the south wind;
27 he rained meat on them like dust,
winged birds like the sand of the seas;
28 he let them fall in the midst of their camp,
all around their dwellings.
29 And they ate and were well filled,
for he gave them what they craved.
30 But before they had satisfied their craving,
while the food was still in their mouths,
31 the anger of God rose against them,
and he killed the strongest of them
and laid low the young men of Israel.

32 In spite of all this, they still sinned;
despite his wonders, they did not believe.
33 So he made their days vanish like a breath,
and their years in terror.
34 When he killed them, they sought him;
they repented and sought God earnestly.
35 They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God their redeemer.
36 But they flattered him with their mouths;
they lied to him with their tongues.
37 Their heart was not steadfast toward him;
they were not faithful to his covenant.
38 Yet he, being compassionate,
atoned for their iniquity
and did not destroy them;
he restrained his anger often
and did not stir up all his wrath.
39 He remembered that they were but flesh,
a wind that passes and comes not again.
40 How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
and grieved him in the desert!
41 They tested God again and again
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power
or the day when he redeemed them from the foe,
43 when he performed his signs in Egypt
and his marvels in the fields of Zoan.
44 He turned their rivers to blood,
so that they could not drink of their streams.
45 He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them,
and frogs, which destroyed them.
46 He gave their crops to the destroying locust
and the fruit of their labor to the locust.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamores with frost.
48 He gave over their cattle to the hail
and their flocks to thunderbolts.
49 He let loose on them his burning anger,
wrath, indignation, and distress,
a company of destroying angels.
50 He made a path for his anger;
he did not spare them from death,
but gave their lives over to the plague.
51 He struck down every firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52 Then he led out his people like sheep
and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 He led them in safety, so that they were not afraid,
but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 And he brought them to his holy land,
to the mountain which his right hand had won.
55 He drove out nations before them;
he apportioned them for a possession
and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

56 Yet they tested and rebelled against the Most High God
and did not keep his testimonies,
57 but turned away and acted treacherously like their fathers;
they twisted like a deceitful bow.
58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places;
they moved him to jealousy with their idols.
59 When God heard, he was full of wrath,
and he utterly rejected Israel.
60 He forsook his dwelling at Shiloh,
the tent where he dwelt among mankind,
61 and delivered his power to captivity,
his glory to the hand of the foe.
62 He gave his people over to the sword
and vented his wrath on his heritage.
63 Fire devoured their young men,
and their young women had no marriage song.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows made no lamentation.
65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
like a strong man shouting because of wine.
66 And he put his adversaries to rout;
he put them to everlasting shame.

67 He rejected the tent of Joseph;
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68 but he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which he loves.
69 He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
like the earth, which he has founded forever.
70 He chose David his servant
and took him from the sheepfolds;
71 from following the nursing ewes he brought him
to shepherd Jacob his people,
Israel his inheritance.
72 With upright heart he shepherded them
and guided them with his skillful hand.

Free Shipping on ESV Student Study Bible

Jeff Lash — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:19:23 +0000

Crossway just recently released a student version of the ESV Study Bible. Here’s a little promo for it:

Westminster Bookstore now has them in stock and is offering free shipping on any order that includes the ESV Student Study Bible until next Thursday (July 28th). You can get it in hardcover, Trutone Navy, or Trutone Taupe.

The Word 7.17.11

Jeff Lash — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:00:14 +0000

Let us arise this morning with praise on our lips and continue to exalt the Lord throughout the day. He preserves us every day and shows us the path of life through his presence.

Psalm 16 (ESV)

1 Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”

3 As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.

4 The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.

5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

7 I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.

11 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

CBT Responds to SBC

Jeff Lash — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:10:58 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I received a link to the CBMW statement about the NIV 2011 in response to a post about the SBC resolution against the updated translation. However, I wondered if Zondervan or the translation committee had published a response to the the Southern Baptist Convention. And it seems that they have responded with a brief, pointed statement.

Translation is an extremely difficult task. Moises Silva illustrates this point well in an excerpt from The Challenge of Bible Translation (HT: Andy Naselli):

During my student days, while looking over a Spanish theological journal, I happened to notice an article on a topic I knew would be of interest to one of my professors. When I brought it to his attention, he asked me whether I would be willing to translate the essay into English for him. Since Spanish is my mother tongue, he figured I’d be able to come up with a rough translation quite quickly. I thought so, too, but to my surprise, the project became a nightmare. I labored over virtually every sentence and felt burdened that at no point was I communicating in a truly satisfactory manner what I knew to be the “total” meaning of the Spanish. Possibly for the first time I sensed what factors may have motivated the old Italian complaint, Traduttore traditore—“A translator is a traitor.”

This incident was rather puzzling and troubling to me. True, I was unduly concerned over precision—my teacher needed only a general understanding of the article’s main points (and I was too afraid of writing down something that might be misleading). It was also true that at that stage in my life, although I had served as an interpreter on a few occasions, I had little experience in the translation of written literature. But my inadequacy as a translator was not the real problem. What was disturbing to me was that I found it much easier to render Greek and Hebrew into English, even though my knowledge of those languages was almost infinitely inferior to my knowledge of Spanish! In a very important sense, my understanding of the latter (simply because it was a living language learned from infancy) was far greater than the understanding that anyone can have of an ancient language no longer spoken. Yet I struggled to express in English the meaning of a Spanish sentence in a way that I did not experience when translating a biblical text (naturally, I might struggle trying to figure out what the Greek and Hebrew meant, but that’s a different question).

In truth, there is a simple solution to the mystery. The answer is twofold. First, the very fact that Spanish was a living language for me meant that I was much more conscious of its subtleties and connotations than I could be of comparable nuances in Greek and Hebrew. As a result, I was fully aware of my failure to reproduce such features in English, whereas in the case of the biblical languages, well, ignorance is bliss. [Endnote 3: My experience thus illustrates a fundamental principle of the universe: The less one knows, the quicker one can form an opinion.] True, increased practice in translation develops one’s skills in finding adequate equivalents, but it takes years of intensive work—to say nothing of the need for an inherent linguistic and literary gift—to become a truly competent translator. There is an important lesson here for the many students, and even professional scholars, who think that after two or three years of Greek they are qualified to translate the New Testament.

But I am more interested here in the second part of the answer. College and seminary courses in the biblical languages consist primarily of guiding the student in translating word-for-word. [Endnote 4: Note that in modern-language courses students are seldom asked to translate written texts into English.] If the resulting rendering violates English syntax or makes no sense at all, changes may be introduced, but as a rule these translations are stilted (sometimes barely intelligible to a layperson) and rarely express the thought of the original in the most natural way that the rich resources of the English language make available. Most of us have thus been led to believe that if we manage to represent the Greek and Hebrew words in as close a one-to-one correspondence as possible, we have succeeded in the task of translation. But who would consider successful a Spanish-to-English translation that had such renderings as “I have cold in the feet” (instead of “My feet are cold”) or “He has ten years” (instead of “He is ten years old”)—even though these sentences conform to English syntax and their meaning can be figured out?

I think that we should be careful in our judgments about the intentions of the translation committee. Undoubtedly, translation is interpretation in a lot of ways. Translators cannot completely evade their own presuppositions when making decisions on how to translate one language to another. Therefore, we can all benefit from respectful challenges and criticisms. They help keep our illegitimate biases in check. However, we should not make strong statements about the intentions of a well respected group of scholars without a clear statement of such from the group itself. It may be true that the NIV 2011 suffers from the influences of the wider culture. It may also be true that the committee intended to translate the Bible with great fidelity in order to communicate the truth of God’s Word to God’s people (I think it would be hard to argue otherwise). So let us disagree with charity and assume the best intentions by our brothers and sisters until we know otherwise.

(HT: Louis McBride)

SBC Shuts Out NIV

Jeff Lash — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:17:37 +0000

It seems that Southern Baptists have a problem with the new NIV being published by Zondervan this year. At the annual SBC meeting, messengers voted to approve a resolution that criticizes the new NIV for gender inclusive language. It calls on Lifeway to reject the translation by refusing to carry it in their bookstores. The resolution ends with this bold statement: “RESOLVED, That we cannot commend the 2011 NIV to Southern Baptists or the larger Christian community.” You can read the entire resolution here (scroll down to 5:14 pm).

I have not had a chance to read any of the updated translation so I do not have a firm opinion on the matter. My initial thought is that this resolution may be a bit of an overreaction. It certainly would not be the first time that Southern Baptists have overreacted to something. On the other hand, it may be legitimate given the concerns of many people with the TNIV. And if I’m not mistaken, the new NIV was commissioned in part to correct some of the criticisms of the TNIV. If so, it makes the SBC criticisms of the new NIV even more curious.

I would love to hear some thoughts from anyone who has read some of the new NIV. In your opinion, is the SBC overreacting?

The Word 6.5.11

Jeff Lash — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 02:22:58 +0000

I love the first two verses of this psalm. Let them be true of our lives. Let them be our prayer to God each and every day.

Psalm 9:1-20 (ESV)

1 I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
2 I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

3 When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
4 For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.

5 You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
6 The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
their cities you rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.

7 But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
8 and he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness.

9 The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
10 And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

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

13 Be gracious to me, O Lord!
See my affliction from those who hate me,
O you who lift me up from the gates of death,
14 that I may recount all your praises,
that in the gates of the daughter of Zion
I may rejoice in your salvation.

15 The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
16 The Lord has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah

17 The wicked shall return to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.

18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.

19 Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail;
let the nations be judged before you!
20 Put them in fear, O Lord!
Let the nations know that they are but men!