I’m reading a great book right now.  Tonight as I sit in my hotel room in Albuquerque, NM, I’ve had plenty of time to read this work.  The book is written by Lee Camp, a professor at Lipscomb U in Nashville, and I’m really starting to like this guy.  The book is one that was on our reading list for one of my courses in my study program at Harding Grad in Memphis.  Mere Discipleship – Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World is fantastic in the first 3 chapters at least… that as far as I’ve gotten.

This book introduces things that I’ve wondered about for quite some time.  For example; what relationship is the true disciple of Christ to have as a citizen of the government of the U.S.A.?  I grew up a Boy Scout and with a Dad who was a Marine – It didn’t take me long to figure out which way a flag should hang!  (by the way, the blue field of stars is always to the left, even if the flag is vertical)  David Lipscomb, the spiritual icon from the Nashville area, died nearly 100 years ago.  One of Lipscomb’s deep issues was how the Christian should interact with his government; such as, should he enlist in military service?  (he dealt with issues as deep as the Civil War – bros. in Christ going up against bros. in Christ… with vehement hatred in some cases.)  should a Christian run for office?  Lipscomb even dealt with things that were far more “out there” about government than questions I ever would have dreamed of asking from my background.

I’ll probably make several posts about this book, it stimulates so much thought.  One thing I will talk about in the next day or 2 if I have time is the “Constantinian Cataract” – an interesting theological topic on the role of Constantine in Christianity’s history.  More later…

What an amazing psalm of character description!  I am amazed at the things David uses to describe the man of God; “He who does these things will never be shaken.” (Psalm 15:5)  There are people that I have shared things with that couldn’t keep them quiet.  There are things people have told ME that I have not kept quiet!  We simply struggle to keep our mouths shut, in general.  How often have I demonstrated the opposite of this character!  While I don’t believe David is talking about keeping secrets here, he mentions the deep, strong, integrity of a man, “who… keeps an oath until it hurts.”  I guess I have never really understood this Psalm as one where David asks a question and then proceeds to answer it himself.  “Who my dwell in your sanctuary?  Who may live in your holy hill?”  His answers indicate a deep understanding of man’s condition – fallen, and yet capable of choosing holiness.  And he who does these things may dwell in God’s sanctuary, and he may not be far from becoming like WHO God really is, himself.  Read it for yourself – it’s great.

LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? 
       Who may live on your holy hill?

 2 He whose walk is blameless
       and who does what is righteous,
       who speaks the truth from his heart

 3 and has no slander on his tongue,
       who does his neighbor no wrong
       and casts no slur on his fellowman,

 4 who despises a vile man
       but honors those who fear the LORD,
       who keeps his oath
       even when it hurts,

 5 who lends his money without usury
       and does not accept a bribe against the innocent.
       He who does these things
       will never be shaken.

 Amazing!  If it is that easy… that “he who does these things will never be shaken,” you would think we would all do them.  The things David mentions are HARD to do.  But if we think in terms of Godliness and holiness, we can easily do those things.  Take a moment to think of a person in your life that you remember perceiving as absolutely a Godly man.  I’ll bet he kept his oath until he hurt, I’ll bet he didn’t talk badly about his neighbor, I’ll be he was honest, and his walk was blameless! 

Father and Lord, I am so ‘failed’ and have fallen short so often.  God help me to make the effort and follow through to change my character.  That I may be a man others clearly see as honest, honorable, someone they can confide in without their secrets being known, a man who is fair, a man who is kind to his family and most certainly a man of holiness to his home first.  I love you, Lord, and love what you do for our spirits when we allow your Spirit to empower our actions.  God, help me to get my selfish and carnal nature out of my mind.  That from my bones I will again be a man of integrity and deep godliness.  Thank you for providing for my family… you always do.  You have provided a means for me to provide and LOVE what I do.  In my business, help me to succeed with flying colors because I put YOUR principles of character into my soul.  Father, help me to become a pillar of holiness as your servant David described.  May I be the type of friend to others that your servant Jonathan was to David.

Ok, so I’ve been a little busy in the last week, and haven’t been able to post.  I guess this is the longest span so far that I’ve not put something up, so hopefully I’ll be back in it now that I’m home!

Psalm 12.  Wow… this amazing prayer of David helps me to understand more about this great man’s heart and his sincere grounding in God  Perhaps it was the first “blog” or journal… the Psalms!  I am amazed at the sincerity of his words; I can begin to see the heavy, deep, thoughts of David in this Psalm as they appear in 34, and 51 as well as many other places.  “Help, Lord, for the godly are no more; the faithful have vanished from among men.  Everyone lies to his neighbor…”  Well, that certainly seems like it would apply in any age!  The final verse of the Psalm is accutely accurate to our modern time also – “The wicked freely strut around when what is vile is honored among men.”  Boy do we see that in the world we live in!

I have been struggling with my place in the world as a man of God.  As a light shining in the darkness, there are many implications for me in my daily walk, and my influence on those who are not in the Son.  First, there are several things; as John 3 discusses, light shines in darkness.  If we are the light for others because we are trying our best to walk in holiness and Godliness, where might the light shine?  The darkness.  DARKNESS!

Boy, talk about a shocker to some folks.  Am I saying that we all need to hit the bars, men’s clubs, gambling halls, and countless places where the light of God needs to be shown?  Maybe… but primarily I’m just saying that the Light of Christ must shine in the darkness.  How can light shone in the LIGHT be of any great effect?  It makes things brighter, like when you turn 2 lamps on in a large room.  So it is of great benefit to be light to our fellow brothers and sisters in Him.  However, Jesus ate with the sinners.  He did not come to heal the “well”, but those who are sick!  The struggle I have is just “how” dark the darkness has to be for me to shine in it!  I learned in Memphis that there was no way I could influence many of my non-Christian friends unless I showed them I care about them.  Did that mean going to the beer hall after our sing-outs and hanging with them late?  Well, it did for me.  There were countless opportunities after a while that the Light of Christ was able to shine in a dark place, thanks to the Lord’s being with me on those occasions.    The situations will change, and the circumstances will be different.  But darkness is all around us, and we must shine in it to show the glory of God and the wisdom of Christ!  Praise God for Psalm 12 and the thoughts of one of God’s most holy men of old.

Psalm 10:1-6
Why, LORD, do you stand far off?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? 2 In their arrogance the wicked hunt down the weak, catching them in the schemes they devise.  3 They boast about the cravings of their hearts; they bless the greedy and revile the LORD.  4 In their pride the wicked do not seek him; in all their thoughts there is no room for God.  5 Their ways are always prosperous; your laws are rejected by them; they sneer at all their enemies.  6 They say to themselves, “Nothing will ever shake us.” They swear, “No one will ever do us harm.”

Man, does that seem modern or what?  How many folks “boast about the cravings of their hearts, revile the LORD, do wickedly, and arrogantly say, “‘nothing will ever shake us.  No one will ever do us harm.'” 

I’ve begun the year in the Psalms – something different than usual for me.  I’ve tried to study 2 Psalms a night, and meditate on them… for the first time in a LONG time!  The Psalmist is not identified here, but whoever he is, he feels like Solomon in Ecclesiastes 10:6-7; Fools are put in many high positions, while the rich occupy the low ones.  7 I have seen slaves on horseback, while princes go on foot like slaves.  He continues through Psalm 10:12-18, pleading for God to not forget the hopeless, the helpless, the fatherless, the victims of evil oppression.  He is humble and melancholy, yet he praises God through it all, saying, “the Lord is King for ever and ever; thet nations [“the nations” are also known as “the Gentiles” in the Greek translations] will perish from his land.  You hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry…”

I know good, pure-hearted believers who are oppressed.  They cry out to God, and He hears them!  The rich folks of our world, the selfish, arrogant, and purely humanistic crowds are often seen as rewarded while the righteous ones suffer.  It’s no different for us today.  God hears.  I truly believe his peace and calm are felt only through the Holy Spirit in our lives, as we manifest our hearts to God in prayer and holy living, such as the thoughts of Paul in Philippians 4:6-7.  Lord, forgive our foolish ways, and help us to live as vessels of honor in this age of dishonor and disobedience.

I am further amazed by reading about William Tyndale.  This man was a person who used his noodle more in 42 years than most people do in a lifetime.  He knew 8 languages.  He had a particular affinity for English himself (his own language) and German. 

I’ll relate a couple of the things I’ve noted about his translation, and exactly what made him a master of the English language.  It’s no wonder many Englishmen regard him as the Father of the English Language – not just the Father of the English Bible!  His works were the first to be mass-printed on Gutenberg’s press.  Think about it… if you’re in Europe, and wanting to learn to read and write in English, Tyndale’s Bible is the most prominent piece of Literature you can get your hands on.  How will you learn to write?  Like Tyndale!  And… by learning God’s Word in the process.  Hmmm… sounds like modern-day China.  But according to David Daniell, as any good translator would, Tyndale got as many resources as he could get his hands on.  Not the least of which was his most helpful copy of Martin Luther’s German translation.  Luther was a contemporary to Tyndale, but it is uncertain if they ever knew one another except by name.  Tyndale studied Hebrew by using Luther’s text and crossing it with his own efforts to translate.

Tyndale had a grasp of how to translate.  He did not do a literal word-for-word translation from foreign languages – languages that may not in fact have an English equivalent.  Here are some of the differences in the Tyndale translation, and the “Authorized Version” of 1611.  (Remember, the King James had 47 scholars working on it, while Tyndale’s word was completely solo scholarly work).  And, Tyndale was roughly 60-75 years ahead of the Authorized Version.  Here are some of the differences from the Pentateuch:

• Tyndale:  (Genesis 25)  “Cain was wroth exceedingly, and loured”
  KJV:  “Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell”
• Tyndale:  (Genesis 25)  “[Cain] …became a cunning hunter and a tillman.”
  KJV:  “…was a cunning hunter, a man of the field.”
• Tyndale:  (Genesis 31)  Laban says, “Thou wast a fool to do it”
  KJV:  “thou hast now done foolishly in so doing”

That last example is a great one.  Tyndale’s phrase feels modern (for 1530) and the Authorized Version’s phraseology seems archaic in nature (while 75 yrs later than Tyndale).  Tyndale’s stuff is simply easier to read than the KJV, in many places.  And remember, the KJV of that day would have looked much like the page of Tyndale’s Bible above.  Lots of “E’s” at the end of words, and lots of double-consonants.  In fact, we’d have to read really hard to understand it!  A very cool thing about Tyndale would make some people uncomfortable.  Some people – those who are extreme theological conservatives – would DEMAND a word-for-word transliteration, because they want to be “accurate.”  The problem is, Tyndale understood what these folks don’t.  Some words DO NOT transliterate into our language, except if they do, they convey something that is vague and near meaningless for us.  One final example to show this concept to exemplify Tyndale’s work:  He uses words in the English language to describe things the Hebrew MEANT, but doesn’t transliterate into English.  In the same chapter as the last example, (Genesis 31) “mizpah“, the Hebrew word for “watch-tower”, Tyndale uses the English word “toot-hill“.  An English regional word that refers to the West Country word for a “hill used as a lookout.”  Some of us might know exactly what a Watchtower is… but some of us might think we know what it is; but if we lived in England in the 15-1600’s, we’d understand it better after Tyndale pointed it out.  After all, everybody would know what a toot-hill is!

If you don’t know much about William Tyndale, don’t take my blog’s word for it… Buy the book!  It’s an amazing work by David Daniell, Professor Emeritus of English in the University of London.  If anyone should know about this guy, Daniell should. 

Tyndale is the Father of the English Bible.  He lived from approximately 1494 – 1536.  I am totally humbled by reading this book.  I taught Christian Evidences at Harding Academy in Memphis for 3 years, and as part of my curriculum I taught a segment called, “how we got the Bible.”  Here are a few of the amazing details about this brilliant man.  The scripture had been translated into English only twice, by the same man – John Wycliffe – in the 1300’s.  The problem was, Wycliffe’s Bible was terribly awkward to read, and never got much press, literally – even though Wycliffe caused quite a stir.  Gutenberg’s press was not invented yet, and all copies were hand-written.  Also, Wycliffe translated from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate (4th Century), which was inaccurate in many ways; not the least of which was because it was not the primary Biblical text.  Tyndale didn’t translate from a secondary language that had it’s own mistakes; he knew the Greek New Testament, and learned Hebrew without the help of teachers to translate the Jewish text.  Here are a few amazing and important contributions of this man:

• Translated the Hebrew (Jewish text) and Greek (New Testament) himself, entirely alone.  His work was so amazingly accurate, that the 1611 Authorized Version (King James) is astoundingly 94% verbatim from Tyndale’s Bible.
• King James authorized 47 scholars (originally 54) in 1607, who came up with only 6% differences in the textual translation, and wording of Tyndale’s personal work.  What we know as the KJV was published in 1611.
• Tyndale was only ‘about’ 42 years old when he died; nobody knows exactly.
• Tyndale’s Bible had no verse numbers.  That didn’t come along until the Geneva Bible of the late 1560’s.
• He was burned at the stake for his treacherous deeds (putting the Bible into the hands of the common man), but because he was a revered scholar by all who knew him, he was “honored” and offered strangulation before his body was burned at the stake.
• His final words were a prayer, “Lord, open thou the King of England’s eyes.”
• In the final few months of his life, Tyndale was in prison, and in his only surviving letter, asked a friend for “a warmer cap, a candle to dispel the darkness of my cell, and my Hebrew books to continue the study of God’s Word.

This man was undoubtedly used by God for his Divine purposes; all of us who are of Anglo descent should praise God for Tyndale’s work!  Stay tuned for more on Tyndale’s specific contributions and linguistic mastery in a later post…