Author: eejoseph

The voice of God

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Thunder and angels

John 12:29 reports that God spoke and people who were saturated in the very words of God had no idea what he said. Some in the audience said they heard natural noise, thunder. Others assumed that an angel had spoken. The voice we hear seems to be the echoes of our imagination.

The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him.

Loud and confusing

Sometimes the noise of battle overpowers the gospel’s joyful sound. Sometimes it is the noise of battle with no battle. I detect that the John 12:29 phenomenon plays out more often than we would like to admit. The thunder-angel game is comfortable and costly. If God speaks and it sounds like thunder or if one mistakes his voice for an angel (or vice versa) we are in a deep pit with smooth walls.

Loud and low

There is quite literally a lot of shouting. Church can be loud, and its sounds can be mindboggling stupid or sensible. Slogans and mottos, maxims and downright nonsense pollute the air. There are stories that studiously avoid the gospel, even when the story is from one of the four gospels, whence we get the lowdown on the Saviour’s voice.

Matthew 12:19-21

19. He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. 20. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. 21. And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.

Canned Can-dos

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The point of telling people what God can do goes totally lunatic when the saying rolls down the cliff of “God will do for you what he has done for others”.

Words of knowledge or wisdom veer off course when their goal is a natural consumable like a healing, money in our accounts, or employment. Vaguities like “some things you need to work on”, “victory is around the corner” and self-aggrandizing rubbish like “sinless vessels” dominate.

Does anyone really want David’s presents? What would we do with Solomon’s wealth or wisdom? Are we not better off believing that God has presents designed exclusively for each of us?

Making up your own junk

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Having read with interest the call of Abraham, the many purposeful provisions for his descendants, and the action-packed narratives of Israel and Judah it is mindboggling to see the Gentile world locking on to ancient conventions without a raised eyebrow.

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Jeremiah 2:13

I see, in the 21st century exactly what Jeremiah saw: people pushing God off the grid, and fashioning strainers – sieves – as water vessels.

Why New Testament Writers Weep

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Versions of the Bible are almost as old as the church. Some of the older translations like the Coptic, Syriac, and Latin predate English versions by as much as 1800 years. The English translations have both disappointed and thrilled readers. One shocking example serves to highlight the problem with faulty translation. How did cast the same in his teeth get into the translation of Matthew 27:44?

It ought to be a crime – we are not looking for another sinful act – to publish views such as “the King James Bible is the original” or “the Kin James Bible is the true version”

The Revised English, French, Spanish and German versions all show the intent of the evangelist.

The two men on crosses with Yeshua reviled/insulted him.

Family or temple

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Obligations to the temple or contributions to the priestly economy do not take priority over caring for one’s parents. If they do rebellion is in the air.

12) And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; 13) Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.

Mark 7:12-13