Posted on 01/27/2008 7:56:14 PM PST by Manfred the Wonder Dawg
January 25, 2008
ESV Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
In recent days I have spent time in Lima and Sullana Peru and Mexico City and I have discovered that people by nature are the same. Man has a heart that is inclined to selfishness and idolatry. Sin abounds in the remotest parts of the land because the heart is desperately wicked. Thousands bow before statues of Mary and pray to her hoping for answers. I have seen these people stare hopelessly at Mary icons, Jesus icons, and a host of dead saints who will do nothing for them. I have talked with people who pray to the pope and say that they love him. I talked with one lady who said that she knew that Jesus was the Savior, but she loved the pope. Thousands bow before Santa Muerte (holy death angel) in hopes that she will do whatever they ask her. I have seen people bring money, burning cigarettes, beer, whiskey, chocolate, plants, and flowers to Santa Muerte in hopes of her answers. I have seen these people bowing on their knees on the concrete in the middle of public places to worship their idol. Millions of people come into the Basilica in Mexico City and pay their money, confess their sins, and stare hopelessly at relics in hope that their sins will be pardoned. In America countless thousands are chained to baseball games, football games, material possessions, and whatever else their heart of idols can produce to worship.
My heart has broken in these last weeks because the God of heaven is not honored as he ought to be honored. People worship the things that are created rather than worshiping the Creator. God has been gracious to all mankind and yet mankind has hardened their hearts against a loving God. God brings the rain on the just and unjust. God brings the beautiful sunrises and sunsets upon the just and unjust. God gives good gifts unto all and above all things he has given his Son that those who would believe in him would be saved. However, man has taken the good things of God and perverted them unto idols and turned their attention away from God. I get a feel for Jesus as he overlooked Jerusalem or Paul as he beseeched for God to save Israel. When you accept the reality of the truth of the glory of God is breaks your heart that people would turn away from the great and awesome God of heaven to serve lesser things. Moses was outraged by the golden calf, the prophets passionately preached against idolatry, Jesus was angered that the temple was changed in an idolatrous business, and Paul preached to the idolaters of Mars Hill by telling them of the unknown God.
I arrived back at home wondering how I should respond to all the idolatry that I have beheld in these last three weeks. I wondered how our church here in the states should respond to all of the idolatry in the world. What are the options? First, I suppose we could sit around and hope that people chose to get their life together and stop being idolaters. However, I do not know how that could ever happen apart from them hearing the truth. Second, I suppose we could spend a lifetime studying cultural issues and customs in hope that we could somehow learn to relate to the people of other countries. However, the bible is quite clear that all men are the same. Men are dead in sin, shaped in iniquity, and by nature are the enemies of God. Thirdly, we could pay other people or other agencies to go and do a work for us while we remain comfortably in the states. However, there is no way to insure that there will be doctrinal accuracy or integrity. If we only pay other people to take the gospel we will miss out on all of the benefits of being obedient to the mission of God. Lastly, we could seek where God would have us to do a lasting work and then invest our lives there for the glory of God. The gospel has the power to raise the dead in any culture and we must be willing to take the gospel wherever God would have us take it. It is for sure that our church cannot go to every country and reach every people group, so we must determine where God would have us work and seek to be obedient wherever that is.
It seems that some doors are opening in the Spanish speaking countries below us and perhaps God is beginning to reveal where we are to work. There are some options for work to be partnered with in Peru and there could be a couple of options in Mexico. The need is greater than I can express upon this paper for a biblical gospel to be proclaimed in Peru and Mexico. Oh, that God would glorify his great name in Peru and Mexico by using a small little church in a town that does not exist to proclaim his great gospel amongst a people who desperately need the truth.
I give thanks to the LORD for allowing me the privilege of going to these countries and broadening my horizons. The things that I have seen will be forever engraved upon my heart. I will long remember the pastors that I spent time with in Peru and I will never forget Adolfo who translated for me in Mexico. I will relish the time that I spent with Paul Washer and the others. When I think of church I will forever remember being on top of that mountain in Sullana at that church which had no electricity and no roof. I am convinced that heaven was looking down on that little church on top of that mountain and very few people on earth even know that it exist. Oh, God I pray that the things of this world will continue to grow dim and that God’s people will be caught up in his glorious presence.
Because of the truth: Pastor: J. Randall Easter II Timothy 2:19 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases."(Ps. 115:3) "He predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will."(Eph. 1:5) Those who have been saved have been saved for His glory and they are being made holy for this is the will of God. Are you being made holy? Spurgeon says, "If your religion does not make you holy it will damn you to hell."
A proof might provide rationalism cause for psychological certainty, but that is discernibly different than faith and belief. Faith is a system of spiritual perception, just as our five bodily senses might be used in empirical thinking, or as logic might be used in rational thinking. Empiricism and rationalism are void, though, when it comes to providing what God provides to us in Faith.
The Bible is used to express the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
= =
INDEED!
Perhaps the most acclaimed and most respected full time profs at the college . . . has a 22 year old son with the mind of a 2 year old. Has to change his diapers.
A very loving father. And very patient.
Sorry, dear Kosta . . . but I still persistently find a LOT of ASSUMPTIONS in virtually all your posts.
Doesn’t per se make them evil . . . but when such a plethera of assumptions are stated as fact . . . I tend to quickly lose interest.
I think there are a LOT of surprises in store for every Christian . . . in eternity.
Roland Buck’s book:
ANGELS ON ASSIGNMENT
is a good hint at such . . . it’s available for free download on the net.
>>I wonder what the RCC would think if we started to use the term “Sado-Catholicism,” considering the hair shirts and self-flaggelation<<
Wouldn’t that be called “Maso-Catholicism”?
Have a blessed Lent, MD.
I am sorry that you don't see that every belief is an assumption if you think about it.
Doesn’t per se make them evil . . . but when such a plethera of assumptions are stated as fact . . . I tend to quickly lose interest
What can I say, Q, I am nto as talented as others. :) I do what I can.
I have had the impression that Apostolics do not believe it is possible for people to love God on a large scale outside of an Apostolic Church. Whenever the subject has come up, Apostolics HAVE consistently told me that they allow for salvation and the love of God outside the Apostolic Church. However, the way it has always been described to me was in the nature of perhaps a person here or a person there, like the way we say that we are sure there are some Mormons in Heaven. Anyway, that's what I had in mind when I wrote my comment.
The KJ uses talitha cumi in Mk.5:41,which is, I believe, an Aramaic expression, the same word that the NIV uses.
Don’t take my word for it, take His. That veracity is far greater than any proof man has ever conceived.
Another fragmented thought that challenges a position no one holds.
From another thread...
This renovation is said to be not in knowledge, much less by knowledge, but unto knowledge, so that he knows. Knowledge is the effect of the renovation spoken of.""In opposition to (Rome,) Hodge, following the lead of Calvin, stresses the fact that the whole set of sinful man needs to be renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit. The natural man must be "renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him" (Col. 3:10)...
Some of us may have thought it, but you said it.
I guess he never read Genesis 2:17!
So, questioning is the same as mocking? I spent the early part of my life in a place where it was a crime to question "official truth." I have promised myself ever since my parents brought me to this country, to never accept "official truth" just because some people say it's "sacred."
Sometimes questioning is the same as mocking, and sometimes it isn't. It just depends on the presentation. But I'm not really bent out of shape over any of that as it concerns ME. I just don't like it when Christians go after Paul. :)
Now, of course questions are perfectly appropriate. If the scriptures were not God-breathed, then questions would be inappropriate because they would defeat the faith. However, since the scriptures ARE God-breathed it is fully able to take on all comers. At least, that is my position. We run into problems when we cannot agree on what the Bible means by "scriptures" and what "God-breathed" means. Those presuppositions are critical to our respective views of the Bible. Of course without common presuppositions, it is extremely difficult for our side to convince you that the Bible proves itself. If the Bible really IS just "some other book", then your objections would appear quite valid. Based on available information, Peter probably couldn't have written 1 and 2 Peter, etc.
Thank you Quix for post #1267. Well put.
Hear Hear!
Well then are you telling us that when the writers of the New Testament used the word "Hebrew" that they really meant "Syriac" which is well known to be "Aramaic" ------ not "Hebrew"????
Are you saying that the people of that day couldn't tell the difference between "Hebrew" and "Syriac/Aramaic"????
Then you also must be saying that all the ecclesiastical writers of the ante nicene period were also likewise confused --- including your own writers of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Here -- read it and weep:
"Let us now recall the testimony of the other ecclesiastical writers on the Gospel of St. Matthew. St. Irenæus (Adv. Haer., III, i, 2) affirms that Matthew published among the Hebrews a Gospel which he wrote in their own language. Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, x, 3) says that, in India, Pantænus found the Gospel according to St. Matthew written in the Hebrew language, the Apostle Bartholomew having left it there. Again, in his "Hist. eccl." (VI xxv, 3, 4), Eusebius tells us that Origen, in his first book on the Gospel of St. Matthew, states that he has learned from tradition that the First Gospel was written by Matthew, who, having composed it in Hebrew, published it for the converts from Judaism. According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6), Matthew preached first to the Hebrews and, when obliged to go to other countries, gave them his Gospel written in his native tongue. St. Jerome has repeatedly declared that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew ("Ad Damasum", xx; "Ad Hedib.", iv), but says that it is not known with certainty who translated it into Greek. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Epiphanius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, etc., and all the commentators of the Middle Ages repeat that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. Erasmus was the first to express doubts on this subject: "It does not seem probable to me that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, since no one testifies that he has seen any trace of such a volume." This is not accurate, as St. Jerome uses Matthew's Hebrew text several times to solve difficulties of interpretation, which proves that he had it at hand. Pantænus also had it, as, according to St. Jerome ("De Viris Ill.", xxxvi), he brought it back to Alexandria. However, the testimony of Pantænus is only second-hand, and that of Jerome remains rather ambiguous, since in neither case is it positively known that the writer did not mistake the Gospel according to the Hebrews (written of course in Hebrew) for the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew. However all ecclesiastical writers assert that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, and, by quoting the Greek Gospel and ascribing it to Matthew, thereby affirm it to be a translation of the Hebrew Gospel." [Catholic Encyclopedia; Gospel of Matthew]
HEBREW --- HEBREW --- HEBREW --- No one can seem to spell the word "Syriac/Aramaic" correctly, including Jerome who translated his Latin OT directly from the "HEBREW" -- not from the "Syriac/Aramaic".
Is that what you are saying ---- that none of you, including your church fathers and present day magisterium, know how to spell words correctly???????
Yes, to a large extent. But, if you think about it, mocking is never really questioning because the intent is not to get to the bottom of an issue, but to ridicule it.
We run into problems when we cannot agree on what the Bible means by "scriptures" and what "God-breathed" means. Those presuppositions are critical to our respective views of the Bible
Because we are talking about perceptions and not necessarily the truth. And who or what shapes our perceptions is behind our disagreements.
A criminal doesn't necessarily think he is doing something 'wrong' for stealing cigarettes at a gas station and killing the obstinate clerk who decided to be in his way. Man's gotta smoke, and if you don't have the money, well then feeding your addiction by stealing and killing seems perfectly "justified" in the criminal's mind! You are messing with his needs now...so we have to be careful before we assume that our position is "justified" because that's how we perceive it.
If you assume the Bible is inerrant word of God, than the Bible doesn't have to prove itself, and anyone who questions it is automatically wrong, and blasphemous, and that just may be sufficient 'justification' to be deprived of life.
Look at the case of a 23-year-old journalist in Afghanistan who will most probably end his young life on gallows. His crime: insult to Islam. The charge for which he has been found guilty and sentenced to death by an Afghan judge: he downloaded a page from the Internet, and shared it with his students.
The document asked why is having more than one wife in Islam acceptable when it come to men, but having more than one husband is not acceptable when it comes to women! (the answer is quite simple and not so ridiculous as one might think)
And, for this he is going to die? All this on presumption of those in power that the Koran is "holy" and "God-breathed" and that anyone questioning it is as good as dead—because to fundamentalist minds questioning the official truth is as good as mocking it?
This is fundamentalism, FK. It is the same mental process regardless which religion or political system is involved; it varies only in degree.
I didn't say they don't use Aramaic words, I said NIV substitutes the (proper) name Hebrew (actually "Hebraisti" not "Ioudisti") with a (proper) name Aramaic for the name of the languge in the NT. NAB does in four instances in the OT, and the KJV calls everything Hebrew and does not use the name Aramaic in the NT.
So then if we go back and check any of your earlier posts we won't find in any of them where you said or implied that the Greek word "Hebraisti" actually means "Chaldee" or "Aramaic" or something other than "Hebrew"????
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.