Got a chance to share the Gospel this weekend

I was at a family get together in north-Philadelphia. It was cold and rainy, but there was some excellent Belgian wheat beer and the discussion got really interesting. It's all my wife's family so I'm not related to any of them, but they're great people and mostly catholic, since they're of Polish decent from Long Island. We were talking about interpreting the constitution, and I mentioned that I'm an originalist because I view the Bible in the same terms.

Basically I believe that the Bible should be interpreted based on what the original authors intent was in communicating to their original audience. Then the challenge left to us is understanding how that intent applies to 21st century people. This of course led us to a discussion of textual-criticism. I summarized the key points of the discussion to: (1) A real God who was really powerful would ensure that the words He wanted to communicate, would be. (2) We have so many copies that are so close to when the original manuscripts were written, that to say we don't have accurate translations today is ridiculous.

Then my wife's 15 year-old 2nd cousin pointed out that 'all religions are really the same thing' as he's learning in his world history class that recently covered Islam, & Hinduism. I mentioned in response that those other world religions may appear in the externals to be similar, but on the internals are radically different. I then asked him to describe the 'heaven entry requirements' for those faiths and Christianity. When he got to Christianity, he said following the 10 commandments was how you got in.

I then got to share that, actually the Bible teaches that all men, including us, had sinned against God and that He was righteously angry as a result, and that the only way His wrath could be averted was via the sacrifice of His Son on the cross to pay for our sins. Our response is merely faith in that effective salvation and not a list of works. This is what separates a relationship with Christ from all other 'faiths.' We do nothing to come to God, He graciously does it all. In all other systems, the human has to do all the work.

Sadly we weren't able to get to any other conclusions during the evening as the hour was so late. But I thank God that He used me to share His amazing truth, and I pray that the seed planted in the hearers would grow to full-blown faith.

To Him be the Glory!

Caught my bad Exegesis

Tonight in Bible study we were looking at Isaiah 5:1-4. The fourth verse in NKJV reads:
4 Without Me they shall bow down among the prisoners, And they shall fall among the slain.
For all this His anger is not turned away, But His hand is stretched out still.

My gut reaction to anything in the Bible that says 'But' is to assume that God is being merciful to someone, even me (Rom. 5:8; 1 Cor 2:10, 10:13; Gal. 3:18; Eph. 2:4, Phil. 2:27, etc..). I assumed the verse was saying that God was holding back His full hand of wrath. So the group talked for a few minutes about God's mercy to sinners even though they deserve worse. And that is very true doctrine.

But in the middle of Bible study, I felt the Spirit nudge me and say "that isn't right read it again." Reading vs 4 again and looking at some of the cross-references, its clear that the verse is not about mercy but is actually a warning: Unrighteous - wealthy people, who think they've gotten away with oppressing the poor and wasting money, are still under God's righteous wrath. They think they've escaped 'But' God's hand is still raised above them and is about to fall, like smashing a fly on the table.

We all scurried through our cross-references together and read the verse in a couple different translations that people had, and came to the proper interpretation. It was a cool moment in the study to teach how to properly interpret a scripture. God was gracious to turn my mistake into something positive. Isn't He cool?

Here's the verse rendered this time by the ESV. Its a little clearer:
4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain.
For all this His anger has not turned away, and His hand is stretched out still.

Just a reminder to myself and to the other journy-men exegetes out there. When you're interpreting the Word, don't be afraid to fix your mistakes mid-teaching. Especially if you're prompted to by the Spirit.

Fasting changes attitudes

I'm struggling with how to deal with someone lately. I dearly want to communicate my concern with this person and I have a tendency to get bitter about their lack of response to my concerns. I decided to fast today to help clarify my next steps in pursuing a resolution.

At the beginning of the day my prayers mostly sounded like: "God, how can I change this person's mind?" By about mid-day the Spirit had moved my prayers more towards: "God, help this brother in his vocation to glorify you."

Its amazing how the Spirit can slowly change my heart. Its one of the things that 'proves' to me that I have authentic faith when I'm doubting it. Praise to the Lord for His great mercies.