Tag Archives: Christian Life

Safety in Numbers

30 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

I almost didn’t post this week.  Last week was fraught with difficulty and I wasn’t able to complete the studying I had laid out as thoroughly as I would have liked.  Perhaps I will have done by next week.  I was going to skip a week but then I came across a quote in a book by Don Keathley and, since it did relate to my current study of Isaiah 45:7, I am going to both share it and expand on it.

The quote is: “You are relieved of judging anything and anybody at any time as good or evil.  Be still and simply respond to the voice within.  Be as Jesus is only say what you hear the Father say and only do what He shows you He is doing.”1

There is such an incredible freedom in no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil but eating from the Tree of Life that is Jesus Himself.  What liberty I have in the Spirit!  I no longer do what seems good in my own eyes nor do I determine what others do to me as good or evil.  I am learning to think in terms of “life and not-life”.  This doesn’t mean I live in some sort of imagined Holy Spirit ivory tower where, whenever evil things happen to me, I pretend they are NOT happening because “God is in His heaven and all is right with the world.”2  All due respect to Robert Browning but I don’t know of anyone who can look around right now and say a statement like that has any truth to it.  Neither was this statement true closer to home.  All is NOT right in my world.  Last week was difficult both emotionally and spiritually.  I had to deal with difficult people and I am fairly certain those same people thought it difficult to deal with me.

Why?

One answer is, while I am no longer eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, many others still are.  They are both determining for themselves what is good and evil and then judging my behavior according to those standards: I am not doing what they say is “good” therefore I am evil.  Perhaps you have experienced this yourself.  And, perhaps you are like me: a people pleaser.  I don’t want people to be mad at me and neither do I want people to dislike me.  But, when I began eating from the Tree of Life and fixing my eyes solely on Jesus, this new lifestyle meant that I truly did only those things I saw the Father doing.  There is a quote I’ve seen floating around and I do not know who to attribute it to.  The quote is “It might look like I’m doing nothing but on a cellular level I’m really quite busy.”  In order to only do those things I saw the Father doing, I had to know what the Father was doing.  In order to know what the Father was doing, I had to live as a sheep that knew only my Shepherd’s voice and, in order to do that, I needed the Holy Spirit to teach me how to know that Voice in the midst of countless others.

There is an interesting piece of scripture.  It’s one tiny sentence but there is limitless treasure to be mined from it.  It’s Exodus 33:11: “So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend.  And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.”  Isn’t that amazing?!  Here are two entirely different relationships two men had to the Lord.  The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend and that is wonderful.  Joshua however, did not depart from the tabernacle so he stayed immersed in the Lord’s presence.

I wonder how many times members of the camp grumbled against Joshua.  No doubt there was plenty to do and Moses was just one man.  And, there was no denying he was getting old and that lazy servant of his was young and able bodied but was he out helping Moses?  Noooo.  Joshua was not departing from the tabernacle and what could he possibly be doing in there that was more important than meeting the immediate needs of the camp?

It did not look like Joshua was doing very much from those outside, but on a spiritual level, both he and the Lord were very busy.  Joshua was being prepared for a unique position within the people of God and so are you and I my fellow believer.  It might not look like we’re doing very much, but on a Spiritual level, both we and the Lord are very busy.  I’ve written about it before but the Hebrew word for wait as in “wait on the Lord” (Ps. 27:14) or “they that wait upon the Lord” (Is. 40:31) is qavah (H6960) and means “to bind together”.  It might look like we are doing nothing, but this waiting on the Lord is anything but passive.

And yet, we have an adversary who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).  That Serpent of old is revealed as a dragon who “deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9).  How can we be certain we are not being deceived?  I encourage you to take some time and check out how many times the words “in Christ” are used in the New Testament.  We can trust that our God WANTS us to know Him and isn’t looking to pull a fast one on us.  The apostle Peter quoting Isaiah writes, “’Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame’(Is. 28:16)” (1 Peter 2:6).  We have the absolute trustworthiness of our God revealed in Jesus.  Trust in Him and we will not be put to shame.  By no means!

But still, “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14) so how can we be really really sure the voice we are hearing is truly the voice of our Great Shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ?  I am not going to share the process through which I have come to know the guidance of the Holy Spirit and discern the voice of Jesus Christ and the will of the Father.  Take any ten believers and you’ll find ten different workings of the Spirit.  There are a few things I think are universal experiences though and the first is follow your peace.  The peace of Jesus Christ rules in our hearts and we can’t go wrong following our peace.  That doesn’t mean the things we are given to do are easy or even always that pleasant but 100% of the time I’ve had a deep calm peace about doing them.

This is in contrast to the uncomfortable stressed out feeling that comes directly on the heels of being shown what to do by the Spirit.  I can tell you my experience has been that the tactics of the enemy have not changed since that first “Hath God said” the Serpent uttered to Eve.  Again, 100% of the time, the call to disobedience has boiled down to “Hath God said…?” Not always in those exact words but that I have found that same hiss of the Serpent under every argument against doing what I know I see the Father doing.  There are also the guilt words, as my mother calls them, of “should”, “ought”, and “must”.  Whenever someone comes at me using those three words, I cling ever tighter to the cornerstone that is Jesus and listen for His voice.

One last thing: strong emotion does not necessarily equate to a moving of the Holy Spirit.  I was privileged to have an experience with my family in the last few weeks.  We participated in a supposedly ‘spirit-filled’ situation and there was no denying we laughed and cried.  There was overwhelming emotion and, when the experience was over, we wanted to have it all over again.  However, in the following days, I began to realize that strong emotion was all it was.  There was no answering from the Holy Spirit deep within my spirit.  I kept that realization to myself until my mother mentioned she too thought the experience was all emotion.  Does that mean it’s bad and no one should have participated?  Of course not!  I believe Romans 8:28 is true and God works in all things for the good to those who love Him.  What I am saying is test everything and just because a group of people are insisting something is Spirit-filled doesn’t mean it is.

This might mean you feel like the only person seeing something different from the rest of the group.  There is a perceived safety in numbers: if they are seeing/saying/doing it, then it must mean I am safe if I also see/say/do it.  No.  There is such freedom in Jesus Christ and the fruit of the Spirit is a very real way of life.  The joy of the Lord is alive in us through the Holy Spirit and, while it is our strength, it should not be confused with happiness.  Hebrews 13:12-13 states, “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.  Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”

When the Spirit opens our eyes to the hope of our calling in Christ Jesus and the richness of His inheritance in us, there is no unseeing it.  We have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light and, once we taste the reality, there is no falling for the counterfeit.  It is painful to see what someone else does not see and to be written off as deceived or worse, evil.  It is sometimes lonely outside the camp because we don’t always see the others also outside the camp.

It is not possible to be alone here.  I have another quibble with the great Robert Browning.  Our God is only in His heaven in the sense that “He is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17).  I came across an exhilarating passage while conducting my study on “evil” and it’s found in Jeremiah 23:23-24: “’Am I a God near at hand,’ says the Lord, ‘and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him?’ says the Lord; ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord.”

Our safety is not in what a great number of people believe is true, our safety is Jesus Himself.  He is at hand.  He is not up or over or afar off.  It is true that he is before us and around us and behind us and with us.  Best of all, He is IN us.  Do not be deceived away from this great truth: the being of God cannot be separated and so, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, so does the Lord Jesus Christ.  Because He is in the Father and the Father in Him, the Father is also in us.  We can know and do only what the Father is doing.  Oftentimes, what the Father is doing is not at all what others would have us do. Don’t worry if your holding fast to the cornerstone does require you coming outside the camp.  I’ll see you here.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1.  Keathley, Don, Hell’s Illusion: Exposing the Myth of Hell, 2022
  2. 718. Pippa’s Song. Robert Browning. The Oxford Book of English Verse (bartleby.com)

The Life in Us

23 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello!  Welcome to a new week and a new post on Renaissance Woman.

One day last week, I perchanced to listen to a bit of a conversation on Bible translations.  The two participants were talking about the dangers of reading translations done by just one person as opposed to other translations; ones that actually lived up to the word “translation” (as opposed to being called a “paraphrase”) because they were made by committees of scholars. One of the participants inferred bibles translated by a committee of scholars are more trustworthy than those translated by a single person but I don’t necessarily agree.  I have found translators have an incredibly difficult time not translating the Bible according to what they think it ought to say rather than sticking to the meanings found in the original languages.

One such case in point is the NIV translation of the Bible.  This is a popular translation.  According to Amazon.com, since its publication in 1973; the NIV has sold 16o million copies1.  I own a copy myself: a NIV Journal Bible because I find the columns an invaluable space to note the Greek words that have been translated by different English words: sometimes in the same sentence.  Despite the NIV being translated by a committee of scholars and despite some key changes made in the 2011 update, given the choice, it is not a translation I would trust to be the only one I read.

But then, no translation is perfect.  I have already pointed out how the translators of the King James Version were bothered by the word Elohim in Psalm 8:5 and chose to render it as “angels” rather than “God” despite there being the Hebrew malak translated angel or angels in numerous other passages.  And yet, the KJV does translate Galatians 2:20 as “…the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God” rather than “”the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God” which is how the NKJV as well as many other translations renders it.  It’s a small change-“of” to “in”-but it shifts the meaning and focus from His faith in us as our strength to live our lives to our having to have faith in Him.    

Despite the inaccuracies and inconsistencies of the various translations, I love reading my Bible.  I enjoy reading it in different translations because the rhythms resulting from the different word choices help me to look at passages in a different way.  I honor my brothers and sisters who risk their lives by merely possessing a Bible and I am grateful I live in a country where I can possess as many copies in as many translations as I like.  It is a privilege I never take for granted.  I do have a favorite translation which I read the most because the language suits me.  I think the best translation of the Bible for everyone is the one that suits that person.  For example, the Action Bible does not appeal to me in any way.  However, I recently read an article that said the Action Bible is the version that is appealing to new believers in various regions of Africa.  Just because it is not a version I care to read does not mean it is not a version the Holy Spirit would use to open others’ eyes to the truth of Jesus Christ.  Who am I then to say what is good or evil?

Bible reading and the disagreements over translations have been weighing on my mind as I’ve conducted my study on evil.  Just reading a translation, any translation, does not give a complete nor accurate picture of the meaning of evil.  For example, let’s compare the Strong’s Concordance list of scriptures containing the word “evil” in the books of Matthew and Romans.  There are 19 occurrences in the Book of Matthew.  In all but three, “evil” is used to translate the Greek word poneros (G4190). Two exceptions are Matthew 24:48 and 27:23 where the Greek word is kakos (G2556) and the third is Matthew 6:34 where “evil” is used to translate kakia (G2549). The opposite is true in the Book of Romans.  There are 17 occurrences in Romans and all but two are translations of kakos.  Romans 14:16 does not have a reference number next to it in the Strong’s.  The passage is “Then do not let your good be spoken evil of” and the word “evil” is supplied by the translators as they sought to make the meaning of blasphameo (G987) clear.  The other exception is Romans 12:9 where we are to “abhor what is evil” and the Greek word there is poneros.  We can glean a bit of the differences of meaning through a careful reading of the context of these scriptures but we cannot help but bring our own definition of “evil” to these passages.  The words in the Greek mean very different things and I am convinced something is lost with a mere reliance on an English translation.

Poneros means “hurtful, bad, evil, grievous, lewd, malicious, wicked” and derives from ponos which means “toil”.  It is a word that relates to effects rather than character and is the word translated “evil” in the scriptures describing deeds and works as well as the heart and eye (See Matt 9:4, 12:34, 15:19, 20:15, John 3:19, 7:7).  It is also the Greek word found in the scriptures describing “evil spirits” and the “evil one” (See Mat. 5:37, 6:13, Luke 7:21, Luke 8:2, Luke 11:4, John 17:5, Acts 19:12).  Kakos is a primary word and means “worthless, bad, evil, harm, ill, noisome, wicked” and-despite the definition-is not interchangeable with poneros in that kakos is intrinsic meaning the “badness” or “evil” belongs naturally to the subject being referred to. Kakos relates to character.  This fascinated me because I would have expected kakos to be the word describing both evil spirits and the evil one and it is not.  I need to take a much longer and deeper look at why this is so.

Just to be thorough, the Greek word kakia is the noun while kakos is the adjective.  The words do not carry different meanings.  

One more example because it makes me shake my head in wonder: “evil” appears three times in Titus and each time it translates a different Greek word.  The passages are Titus 1:12, 2:8, and 3:2. The phrase in Titus 1:12 is “evil beasts” and the Greek word is kakos.  Titus 2:8 says “…having nothing evil to say of you” and Titus 3:2 says “speak evil”.  The Greek words are phaulos (G5337) and blasphemeo, respectively.  I include this because I would not necessarily think the words all translated by “evil” had different meanings in the Greek based on context.  The Strong’s Concordance is, of course, based off of the King James Version.  Different translations have sometimes chosen to use different words in the passages I’ve listed but then they too end up having their own inaccuracies.  Again, no translation is perfect.

Paul says two things to Timothy which will bring me to my material point.  The first is in 2 Timothy 2:15 where Paul says, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” and, as I have heard that used to stress the importance of studying the Bible, I include it here.  The second is 2 Timothy 3:16 where Paul says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”  The NIV (ha!) but also the ESV as well as other translations have “god-breathed” instead of inspiration. 

I don’t disagree.  As I said, I love reading my Bible.  I do so for enjoyment and I can’t put into words how my knowledge of the Lord has grown through studying the Bible.  Looking beyond the language of my translations into the Hebrew, Greek, and even Aramaic is also invaluable to my increasing knowledge.  But, I do not consider my reading and study a substitute for knowing God, personally and intimately.  Paul also wrote, “our sufficiency is from God who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:5.-6).  The Spirit gives life.  I cannot say that too many times.

In recent days, the social media algorithms have sent me various posts which all have contained the same message: the number one way to grow closer to God is to read your Bible.  That is not true. You can definitely come to know about God by reading your Bible but; to know Him, which in the original languages carry the intent of the same level of intimacy as the marriage relationship, is only possible in the Holy Spirit.   It is the Spirit alone who ministers life-the very life of Jesus Christ-to us by dwelling in us.  My Bible Teacher recently pointed out the Persons of God are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not Father, Son, and Holy Scripture.  I am concerned that all I hear is a stressing of first and foremost reading the Bible.  The Holy Spirit is not mentioned.  Ever.

Do not allow yourself to be kept from living to the fullest the life of Christ Jesus which is yours now through the Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit who inspired the writers of the Bible lives in you.  So read your Bible in whatever translation you choose but take the time to close your Bible.  Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you the truth of you in Christ and Christ in you. If you do not know your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit right now, ask Him to open your eyes to this reality.  Do not settle for knowing about our God, but KNOW HIM!

May the Spirit of wisdom and revelation open the eyes of all our hearts.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

1. NIV/The Message Parallel Bible (New International Version): Zondervan: 9780310928898: Amazon.com: Books

References

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today Edition, Washington, D.C. 1965

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Interesting Reading

Where Did the NIV Come From? | The Story of the NIV (thenivbible.com)

NIV changes “sinful nature” to “flesh” | Freedom In Christ Ministries (ficm.org.uk)

The Men Who Wrote Scripture Were Led by the Spirit – BJU Seminary

My Missing Piece

12 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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Hello and welcome to Renaissance Woman where, this week, I am returning to my Isaiah 45:7 study.  I am still in the beginning stages of studying “evil” with the intent of understanding just what God meant when He said, “I create evil.”

I must say, it does appear to be a hopeless undertaking.  I looked up “evil” in the Davis Dictionary of the Bible and found this as the first sentence: “The origin of evil is a problem which has perplexed speculative minds in all ages and countries”.1  The Hastings Dictionary doesn’t appear to hold out much hope either because, at the end of the entry for “evil”, I found: “The speculative question of the origin of evil is not resolved in Holy Scripture, being one of those things of which we are not competent judges”.2

These two statements did almost obliterate an enthusiasm already dampened by the sheer vastness of the subject of evil.  If such august personages as Aquinas, Calvin, Plato, and Plotinus have turned their minds to the subject of evil and failed to find a definitive answer as to its nature and source, what hope did I have?

Well, firstly, I do not seek to provide a definitive answer.  Even if I were to do so, the odds against anyone else agreeing I had done so are astronomical.  And yet, my enthusiasm was restored during the retreat I attended earlier this month as I sat in the airport terminal reading a book while waiting for my flight.  The book was “Authors and Their Public in Ancient Times” by George Haven Putnam.  I both laughed and somewhat sadly acknowledged the truth of what he wrote in his introduction.  Mr. Putnam spoke about his reasons for writing what he called an “essay” stating it was to “trace, as far as might be practicable, from the scattered references in the literature of the period, an outline record of the continuity of literary activity, the methods of the production and distribution of literature, and the nature of the relations between the authors and their readers”.3  He then when on to write:

“The majority of my reviewers were ready to understand the actual purpose of my book and to recognise that my part in the undertaking was limited to certain general inferences or conclusions as to literary methods or conditions.  In one or two cases, however, the critics, ignoring the specified purpose and the necessary limitations of the essay, saw fit to treat it as a treatise on classical literature and devoted their reviews almost exclusively to textual criticisms and corrections.”4

This made me chuckle but it restored my enthusiasm because, no matter what I discover or what conclusions I draw at the end of this study, someone will argue.  Knowing and accepting that is liberating.  Some arguments are useful but there are those who argue for the sake of arguing.  I cannot tell you how many times someone has argued against something I have said but has done so by picking up a phrase or even a single word, constructing their argument on that, and ultimately ignoring the material point I took some pains to make.  This is irritating and yet these critics are also useful because I have learned-and am continuing to learn-how not to fall into the trap of arguing back and forth about something that really had no bearing on the main point in the first place.  I include “am learning” because there are still times when my mind gets caught up in refuting this or that and it takes a moment to mentally step back and realize, “wait a moment: we’re not even talking about the same thing!”

And so, expecting arguments and not expecting a definitive answer on the origin and nature of evil, just why am I conducting this study?  1 Peter 3:15 instructs us to “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you”.  That is what I am seeking to get out of this study.  I want to understand as much as I can so I at least have both a scripture and study based answer for any question I am asked.  The question specific to this study is; “why did God say He creates evil?”  Since I am trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth, I am looking at the scriptures that pop into my mind as I am conducting the study and the first scripture is Psalm 8:5.  For the sake of context, I’ll begin quoting in verse 3: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him?  For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.”

The bit of scripture that popped into my mind was “you have made him a little lower than the angels”.  You might be wondering what that could possibly have to do with evil so allow me to tell you how and why I got here.  This translation: “a little lower than the angels”, is not accurate.  The Modern Young’s Literal has it, “and cause him to lack a little of Godhead.”  The Amplified renders it, “but little lower than God” but adds [or heavenly beings] as a disclaimer while the NIV says, “little lower than the heavenly beings” but adds the footnote “or than God”.

The Bible fascinates me and one thing that keeps me wondering is why the translators have chosen to translate certain passages the way they have.  The only answer I have is that their theology couldn’t hold up to what the original language is actually saying and they thus translated passages to say what they thought they ought to say.  This particular passage is one such case in point.  If you have a Strong’s concordance, I encourage you to open it to the “Angels” entry and look at the list of numbers.  You’ll see 4397, 4397, 4397, 4397…and then you’ll see 430.  4397 relates to malak in the Hebrew and it means “to dispatch, as a deputy or messenger”.  This is the word usually translated as “angel” or “angels”.  430 is the word Elohim which is not translated as “angel” or “angels” anywhere except Psalm 8:5.  It is, however, very often translated as “God”.  For example, in Genesis 1:1 “God” = Elohim. 

The word translated “lower” is the Hebrew chacer (H2637) and it does mean “to lack.”  I looked it up in the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon and over and over again the word is used to mean “lack”.  It is only by stretching both the intent of the words and the imagination that one can came up with “lower than the angels” as a correct interpretation of Psalm 8:5.  The Hebrew says, “made to lack from God” though I quote it to myself as “lack from Elohim”: I prefer the Hebrew word.

It is because “lack from Elohim” is how I have long thought of Psalm 8:5 that it popped into my mind as I was looking up “evil” in the Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  I read through a brief comparison of the different theories on evil and then read, “Whichever cause is regarded as the basis of evil, even when it is seen as hamartia (Sin), it must not be regarded as personal guilt, for it is not the result of a free and responsible personal decision but of a lack.  It may be the lack of knowing the divine providence (Socrates), or of the working of a cosmic power.”5

I read that, Psalm 8:5 popped into my mind, and I took a moment to consider the evil in the world as the result of a lack.  A lack of what?  With Psalm 8:5 in mind, I must first consider it as a lack from all that God is.  This lack is the will of God for he made man to lack and, more than that, called man good.

I turned my mind to consider man placed in the garden with the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Man at this moment had the very breath of God in them and were not yet subject to death but had to look elsewhere for the source of their life.  They could eat freely from the Tree of Life but Life was something both exterior to them as well as interior.  That Life was provided by God in the form of the tree (exterior) but it was as they ate of its fruit that they would know Life (interior).  Man did lack from Elohim because Man did not have their own source of life to draw on.  In choosing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, man really did believe a terrible lie.  Already without a source of life in themselves, they decided to make themselves their source anyway and decided it was right to know good and evil for themselves.  Of course the result was death.

I take a look at my own life and breathe a massive sigh of relief.  I do not have any life in myself!  I have no resources to meet my own needs much less the needs of others around me.  I can pretend with all my might and I might even fool a few people along the way but I am NOT enough.  The relief comes in knowing I was not designed to be.  I was made to lack from Elohim.  I was made to know Him alone as the source of my life.  And, what a blessed gift to be alive now.  I am not holding onto a promise of one to come who would one day crush the head of the serpent and restore to me what was lost.  The One has come!  Everything that was to be done, He did! 

Jesus Christ IS now, this very moment, my life.  He is my missing piece, the One who perfectly fits me because I was designed to live in union with Him (See Ephesians 1).  I no longer attempt to fit myself to anything else because I am complete in Him (Colossians 2:10).  What a blessed rest!

I have been meditating on Deuteronomy 30:19-20.  Moses declares he has set before the people of Israel life and death.  He begs them to choose life so that they may “love the Lord your God that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days”.  I pray to utterly know this truth for myself and I pray it also for each of you.  May we know Jesus for in Him is life and that life is the light of men.

Amen

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

  1. Davis, John D., Davis Dictionary of the Bible, Royal Publishers, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee, 1973, Page 234
  2. Hastings, James, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, Fifth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2001, Page 247
  3. Putnam, George Haven, Authors and their Public in Ancient Times, Third Edition, Cooper Square Publishers Inc., New York, New York, 1967, Page iv
  4. Ibid., Page v
  5. Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967,1971, Page 562

Other References

The Comparative Study Bible, The Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1984

Brown, F., S. Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, Eighteenth Printing, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2018

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

Young, Robert, Modern Young’s Literal Translation: New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs, Greater Truth Publishers, Lafayette, Indiana, 2005

Knowing His Rest

05 Monday Dec 2022

Posted by in Personal Essays, Writing

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Hello and welcome to a new post on Renaissance Woman!

This post is going up on the blog a bit later than usual as I travelled to San Antonio for the weekend to take part in a retreat.  The Bishop of my church was going to do some teaching and then we were all going to celebrate his 70 years in the ministry!  The theme of the weekend was “A Living Rest” and it was as I was on my way back home I saw the truth of that illustrated.

I have not travelled on my own in almost twenty years.  And, any travelling I have done has been as a passenger in a vehicle.  I have not flown anywhere in all that time.  It so happened my family could not travel with me to the retreat and, if I wanted to go, I was going to have to go on my own.  I did consider staying home but decided I couldn’t be a coward, I was a grown adult, and my brain injury was not going to keep me home.  It did not and, though I did experience struggles, everyone I asked for help was so incredibly nice and I got to where I needed to go with all my questions answered.

I had a marvelous time but was definitely ready to get home.  It was as I waited for my return flight that I sat in the airport watching the day grow darker and darker as the fog settled in.  I occasionally glanced at the board to see if the fog would be enough to cancel my flight but there was never a change in status.  Despite the thickening fog, my flight remained on time.

The day was still foggy and damp by the time I boarded my plane and took my window seat but the pilot and flight attendants made their announcements and the flight attendants made their final checks.  The pilots began taxiing away from the terminal.

I was enjoying watching it all through the window: the different colored lights, the way the pilots so easily maneuvered that massive plane away from the terminal and onto the runway.  A gray fog still hung over the other planes and various buildings and I could only continue to watch as the pilots fired up the engines and took off, apparently unperturbed by the fog. 

Then, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  My seat was directly over the wing and I could easily see one of the engines outside my window.  As the plane rose into the air, the engine was all I could see.  Anything else including the ground from which we were pulling away, was obliterated from sight by thick fog. 

I was certain the pilots couldn’t be relying on their own sight: they couldn’t be able to distinguish anything more than I could.  No doubt they had to be relying on their instruments which must be so sophisticated that they render human eyesight unnecessary.  The pilots must have implicit trust, not only in their training but in their instruments, that taking off into a blinding fog wasn’t worth a second thought.

As for me, I was in control of nothing.  Lift off or cancellation, none of it was my choice.  All I could do was sit in my seat and trust the pilots.  My trust was both in their abilities and in their trust in the capabilities of the aircraft.

That trust was not misplaced.  In only a few moments, the plane had ascended above the clouds themselves and there wasn’t a wisp of fog to be seen.  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and I was on my way home.  As I looked out at the clouds spread out as far as my eye could see and lit by the sun, I saw illustrated what I had learned at the retreat.

A close translation of Galatians 2:20 is, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, the One loving me and giving Himself over on my behalf.” (See the Literal, King James, and Greek Interlinear)  I’ve mentioned it before but it fascinates me that the Greek tou, which is not 3588 in the Strong’s Concordance but 5120, appears three times in this passage and is translated “in”, “of”, and “the (One)”. 

It may seem like splitting hairs but I find there is a massive difference between living my life by faith in the Son of God and living by faith of the Son of God.  Within the context of my illustration, I could have freaked out, gripped the armrests of my seat, and said over and over, “I have faith in the pilots, I have faith in the plane, I have faith that weird noise I heard doesn’t mean the engine is about to fly off this wing.”  Or, I could do as I did and rest in my seat, marveling that the fog was no deterrent to their taking off and knowing that as long as the pilots and flight attendants remained calm, there was no reason for me not to do so.  I suppose I could say my faith was “in” them but it wasn’t, not really.  My faith was their faith and I could enjoy the takeoff in perfect rest because the pilots and flight attendants knew what I did not and the pilots could see what I could not.

One of my Bible Teachers shares a similar illustration.  He was on a flight that began to experience turbulence and was getting nervous but then saw the flight attendant in her seat scrolling through her phone, unfazed by being bounced around.  I see exactly what he is saying as we encountered turbulence coming into Denver.  I looked around to see the cabin shifting back and forth and could feel the plane bump and jerk.  I looked out to see the wing raising and lowering and realized the pilots weren’t fighting the turbulence but were-quite literally-rolling with it.  One of the flight attendants then announced that while we were experiencing some turbulence, it was quite normal to do so coming into Denver.  Again, I could rest in their experience and knowledge.

Jesus Himself is my living rest.  Jesus is my forerunner (Hebrews 6:20).  He is the One who is far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named (Ephesians 1:21).  He declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done (Isaiah 46:10).  My faith is His faith made a reality in me through the indwelling of His Spirit.  There are so many times I am following the leading of the Spirit and yet fog settles into the situation and I cannot see the outcome.  Lift off or cancellation?  The result is entirely out of my control.  Yet I rest.  I rest in Jesus Christ who has overcome the world.  I rest in the certainty that He sees what I cannot.

Just one more observation before I close: once the plane was above the clouds, it appeared as if we were hovering.  I knew that wasn’t possible and that the plane was travelling at hundreds maybe thousands of miles per hour. (I have since Googled it and found the average airspeed of a 747 is 550mph).  And so, even though I looked as though we weren’t moving at all, I knew that wasn’t the truth.

I have these times in my Christian life as well.  My vision is not obscured: the sun is shining and the sky is blue.  And yet I looks to me as if I am not making any progress at all.  Here too, my faith is the faith of Jesus Christ.  Because He is in me and I am in Him, I share His Oneness with the Father who has created me in Christ Jesus for good works which He prepared beforehand so that I would walk in them (See Ephesians 2:10).  Not only that, but I know His word is true and that He who has begun a good work in me will continue to perfect and complete it until the Day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).  It doesn’t matter how it may appear to me for I am in the current of the Holy Spirit and we are ever pressing on towards the goal.

Jesus Christ is the perfect gift given by the Father for the world.  I in Him and Him in me I find not only my very life but a perfect living rest.

Praise His name!  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!

Amen.

References

Galatians 2:20 Interlinear: with Christ I have been crucified, and live no more do I, and Christ doth live in me; and that which I now live in the flesh — in the faith I live of the Son of God, who did love me and did give himself for me; (biblehub.com)

Green, Jay P., The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew Greek English, Volume 4, Authors for Christ, Inc., Lafayette, Indiana, 1985

Marshall, Reverend A., The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1958,1970

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990

When Tradition and I Part Ways

28 Monday Nov 2022

Posted by in Isaiah 45:7, Studies

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“I have to go downstairs and study ‘evil’.” 

I heard myself say those words to my family and laughed when the responses I received were “okay” and “sounds good”.  Only within the context of a Bible Study can someone announce he or she is going to study evil and no one wonders at it!

I am continuing my study of “evil” this week.  In Isaiah 45:7, God says, “I create evil”.  I’ve already posted a series of studies on the Hebrew word translated “create” in this passage-which is bara-so will not repeat myself but will say I have learned enough to question what is being said here.  “To make something out of nothing” is not an accurate definition of “create” and bara is used often enough in the OT where something new came into being out of already existing materials that we do not have to automatically assume God is saying He is the source of evil.  What then is this passage saying?  In the 45th chapter of Isaiah, God is making it clear He alone is God.  There is no evil power equal to Him so-looking at this passage alone-it could be He is claiming to be the source of evil.  And yet, the text allows the equally valid interpretation that God alone is God and even evil becomes part of the working out of His will: He will come inside it, make it new, and turn it into His good.

I cannot make a determination based on this single passage of scripture.  I hear that done so often: a single verse or at times a fragment of a verse is taken and entire doctrines are built upon it.  Any passage that refutes the established doctrine is either refuted in turn or utterly ignored.  I have seen the truth of the words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.  And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’  For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men-the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things as you do…All too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition” (Mark 7:6-9, Isaiah 29:13). 

And so, because I do not want to keep hold of what the traditions I have been part of have told me evil is and how it came into being, I began first by checking which Hebrew word is translated “evil” in Isaiah 45:7.  It is ra and the Strong’s number is 7451.  I then checked whether the word was the same in Genesis 2 for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and, when I saw it was, I decided to read each passage containing the word ra and see what I could see.  I had barely begun when I wondered which Greek words the Septuagint had in place of ra in both in Isaiah 45:7 and in Genesis 2:9.  I had read that it was impossible to show a difference between kakos and poneros which are the two Greek words used to translate “evil” most often in the NT, so I checked the two passages in the OT to see if the same Greek word was used both times.  It is not.  Isaiah 45:7 has kaka which is the nominative/accusative/vocative plural neuter of kakos.  Genesis 2:9 has poneros.  I had to ask myself, why use two different Greek words to translate the same Hebrew word?

I mentioned before I had read that it was impossible to differentiate between kakos and poneros.  I read that statement in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.  The first paragraph in the entry for Evil, Bad, Wickedness states: “The two main NT terms for expressing the shortcomings or inferiority of a thing (i.e. bad) and the ethically negative and religiously destructive character of a person or thought (i.e. evil) are kakos and poneros.  In the NT kakos occurs 50 times and the linguistically later poneros 78 times though the LXX uses it only 50 times compared to the 300 cases of kakos.  Unlike the terms dealt with under –Good, it is impossible to show any difference between these two terms.  Both are used even for the personification of evil in the devil or men” (Brown, 561).

Is it impossible to show any difference between the two terms?  Perhaps it is so merely looking up the different passages in our English translations.  It is not impossible if we look up the meanings of the words.  The full definition the Strong’s gives kakos (G2556)is: “apparently a primary word; worthless (intrinsically whereas 4190 (poneros-addition mine) properly refers to effects) i.e. (subjectively) depraved, or (objectively) injurious-bad, evil, harm, ill, noisome, wicked.”  The Strong’s defines poneros (G4190) as: “from a derivate of 4192; hurtful i.e. evil (properly in effect of influence and thus differing from 2556, which refers rather to essential character, as well as from 4550 which indicates degeneracy from original virtue); figuratively, calamitous, also (passively) ill, i.e. diseased; but especially (morally) culpable, i.e. derelict, vicious, facinorous; neuter (singular), mischief, malice, or (plural) guilt; masculine (singular) the devil or (plural) sinners:-bad, evil, grievous, harm, lewd, malicious, wicked (-ness).”

 For the sake of clarification, the Greek word under 4550 in the Strong’s is sapros and means “rotten, worthless, bad, corrupt”.  I had to look up “facinorous” and found it means “atrociously wicked: infamous”.  I admit there isn’t a massive difference between the two definitions as I’ve shared them but I found the difference becomes more obvious as I traced kakos through its familial words and poneros to its root.  The root of poneros is ponos (G4190) and it means, “toil, anguish, pain.”  Ponos can be traced further to penes or peno (G3993) which means, “to toil for daily subsistence, starving, indigent, poor.” 

I won’t share every definition of the Greek words related to kakos: they are numbers 2549-2561 in the Strong’s concordance should anyone wish to look them up.  There isn’t a great variation in meaning which is expected.  What I found interesting is the Greek word kakωs (G2560).  This word is the adverbial form of kakos, is pronounced kakooce, and means, “badly (physically or morally), amiss, diseased, evil, grievously, miserably, sick, sore.”

I find it utterly fascinating that the Septuagint chose poneros for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In Genesis chapter 3, the ground is cursed for Adam’s sake and God says to him: “in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (verse 17) and poneros has the root meaning of “toil.”  Kakos, on the other hand, has the meaning of “illness, affliction.”  It is obvious to me these two words do not mean the same thing and, if word choice by the writers of the New Testament was deliberate, the passages where these words occur were meant to be read with these definitions in mind.  What the different choices in Genesis 2:9 and Isaiah 45:7 mean is something to be looked at in upcoming weeks.

It is a difficult thing to leave tradition behind and look at the scripture without any preconceived bias and be led entirely by the Holy Spirit.  It can be uncomfortable to “test everything”.  I have already come across some difficult passages which I do not want to shrink from nor dismiss out of hand.  They have been recorded in scripture for a reason.  They are important to understand.  I do not want to continue to interpret them as I’ve always been told they ought to be interpreted and I am not satisfied to settle for the vague answers I find in some commentaries.  I want to know the truth and so I continue to pray, “Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Living God, Spirit of wisdom and revelation, continue to teach and guide me.  Renew my mind and open the eyes of my heart that I might see You, Jesus, the One who is the Truth.”

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

 Notes:

Whenever I have typed kakos I am referring to the Greek word spelled with an omicron: number 2556 in the Strong’s Concordance

LXX is the abbreviation for the Septuagint

References:

κακά – Wiktionary

Septuagint | biblical literature | Britannica

Facinorous Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster

Brown, Colin, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume I, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1967, 1986, Page 561

Lanier, Gregory R., and William Ross, Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition, Volumes I & II, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, 2018

Strong, James, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1990