Posted on 06/05/2011 4:09:34 PM PDT by Gamecock
I recently read this from Steve Brown and had to share it with you:
She was only twenty-six years old. She was a Christian working in a church. After college she had served for a year on the mission field. I didn’t know her well, but I liked her a lot. She was a strong witness for Christ and she was an articulate spokesperson for evangelical Christianity. This morning I got the message that she had taken her life. I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t understand.
As if that were not enough, shortly after hearing about her suicide I got a call from a man who listens to my radio broadcast. “Steve,” he said, “I haven’t told anybody in the world what I’m going to tell you. I have decided to leave my wife and I told God that if I get through to you, I would do whatever you told me to do.”
I asked him what prompted him to decide to leave her.
He told me, “I became a Christian at fourteen and all my life I’ve been seeking to live up to the expectations of others. I work full-time in a ministry, I teach the Bible, and everyone thinks I’m the model Christian. I’m just tired of it. I’ve decided to do something for myself for a change.”
Let me share a letter with you that I received a couple weeks ago. There was no return address and the person gave me no name.
Dear Stephen,
Please pray for me as I am on the edge–a total failure as a Christian. I have failed as a husband and as a father. God has probably given up on me. I feel so very alone and abandoned. It’s a horrible feeling that words alone cannot describe. Please don’t judge me. Pray for me.
At first these three incidents didn’t seem related. They were just about individuals for whom I prayed. But in the silence of my prayer it dawned on me that they all had the same problem: They all had created a false standard of perfection (or accepted someone else’s standard) and concluded they couldn’t live up to it.
What advice would you give them? If you had talked to the young lady before her suicide, or the man thinking about leaving his wife, or the anonymous correspondent–what would you have said?
Most Christians would say that they should try harder. The problem is that all three already had–and they were at the end of themselves.
Others would try to help them trace their despair back to some unconfessed sin in their lives–drawing a straight line between their spiritual depression and their spiritual failure.
And still others would tell them to have faith. And yet, they discovered that the faith they needed couldn’t be turned on and off like a faucet.
But what would Jesus have told them? We don’t have to guess: “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Perfectionism (or performancism) is a horrible disease. It comes from the pit of hell, smelling like rotting flesh. Someone convinced these folks that they were called to measure up to an unattainable standard. They couldn’t do it and each in his or her own way simply quit trying.
Nobody told them that Jesus was perfect for them, and because of that they didn’t have to be perfect for themselves. They didn’t understand that if Jesus makes you free, you will be free indeed.
Christian, please remember that Jesus plus nothing equals everything. That,
Because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak;
Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose;
Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one;
Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary;
Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.
Preaching the gospel is the only thing that helps us take our eyes off ourselves and how we’re doing and fix our eyes on Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus fulfilled all of God’s perfect conditions so that our relationship to God could be perfectly unconditional.
You’re free!
“Hardly — you just made a few slips in this — the hammeshiah threw me off — it looks exactly like Persian. But the word Christus is really old — from Apostolic times and it is in Greek which was the lingua Franca (along with Aramaic) of the Middle East during the time of Jesus Christ and the apostles. “
Yes. The New Testament was originally written in Greek. My point was, we don’t normally translate proper nouns (names).
Giuseppi Verdi does not become “Joe Green”on English. In Spanish, William Shakespeare is still “William Shakespeare”. We don’t translate names. But in translating the Bible into Latin, Miriam became “Maria”. Jeshua became “Jesus”.
So, you’re saying it happened when the writers of the New Testament translated Hebrew into Greek.
The New Testament was originally written in Greek. My point was, we dont normally translate proper nouns (names). -- Yet the term "Christ" is not a name, neither is Messiah or haMeshiah. That is a term added to Christ's name.
Most Jews at that time, like many Arabs today wouldn't have a surname. They would be like Simon Bar Jona -- Simon son of Jonah or in modern Arab terms like Sheikh Isa ibn Hamad ibn Khalid. At the most they would have a tribal name affixed (only in later Europe were locations or occupations added like "Fields" or "Smith")
Jesus' surname was definitely not "haMeshiah" or "Christus" -- those were the terms used to indicate that He was the Messiah
John starts off as the Hebrew Yohanan then becomes Greek Ioannes and then Latin Iohannes but becomes John in English, Jan in Swedish, Polish etc.
The translation of these names did not occur during the translation from Greek to Latin (since both were Indo-European and hence had the same phonemes), so Jerome (the translator to the Latin Vulgate) is off the hook!
Why did they change from Aramaic/Hebrew to Greek? I'm guessing due to three reasons:
“Jesus’ surname was definitely not “haMeshiah” or “Christus” — those were the terms used to indicate that He was the Messiah”
“The Annointed One”. Yes, Messiah is a title of office, like “Commisioner” or “Your Majesty” or “Your Honor”.
Well, I already established my point that Meshiah/Messiah or Chrystus/Christ was not Jesus surname, and the first time Christians were called Christians is after Chrystus (and thats in Acts) -- we're not called Meshiahians ;-P (well actually, in Arabic we are called Isai - from Meshiah)
But the translation of Hebrew/Aramaic names occurred far earlier -- right from Alexander the Great's conquering of the Middle East in the 3rd century BC, Greek dominated and local terminologies, languages etc. had to be "translated" into Greek.
you could say that.
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