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“Know For a Certainty,” As Seen in the Old Testament, Especially Joshua 23:13-14 and the Hebrew Idiom There, and Its Relevance to Today
While reading through the Bible a second time this year, I came across Joshua 23:13:
Know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you.
In a day of uncertainty, where we are challenged to say that we “know” anything for sure, here is a strong statement at the beginning of the verse, something the audience should “know for a certainty” that would happen in the future. This could be considered a doctrine of its own, because how could anyone “know for a certainty” something is going to happen or not going to happen in the future? I decided to look at the Hebrew behind this English translation to see what the words were.
“Know for a certainty” translates a Hebrew idiom, where the same Hebrew word is used back to back, and in this case it is yawda (my transliteration). Yawda and yawda, the same Hebrew root, appear side by side. The first form is yaw-doe-a (my transliteration), which is a qal infinitive absolute verb, and the second is te-də-oo´ (my transliteration), a qal imperfect, second person, masculine, plural verb. Literally, the two words together say, “Knowing, ye will know.” The sense of those two words in the English is “know for a certainty.”
In 1933, Charles Eugene Edwards wrote a journal article about the above Hebrew idiom construction in Bibliotheca Sacra, entitled, “A Hebrew Idiom.” The first paragraph of that journal article reads [BSac 90:358 (Apr 1933) p. 232]:
In his commentary on Matthew, D. J. A. Alexander refers to a Hebrew idiom (p. 408) “which combines a finite tense and an infinitive of the same verb to express intensity, repetition, certainty, or any other accessory notion not belonging to the essential import of the verb itself”. An illustration is in Is. 6:9, which is more literally quoted in Matt. 13:14, “Hearing ye shall hear”, and “seeing ye shall see”. And Dr. Alexander remarks, (p. 358) “The Hebrew idiom is retained, which uses two forms of the same verb for intensity or more exact specification”. Too literal a translation might sometimes be barbarous or absurd. For example, Joseph never meant to say (Gen. 40:15) “For stealing I was stolen but as it is properly rendered, “For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews”.
The repetition of the same word brings intensity. For the verb “know,” bringing intensity to “know” is “certainty” or “surety.” That idiom of that exact Hebrew verb in Joshua 23:13 is found thirteen times in the Old Testament. For your reference, here are those twelve usages underlined in the King James Version, minus Joshua 23:13:
Genesis 15:13, And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
Genesis 43:7, And they said, The man asked us straitly of our state, and of our kindred, saying, Is your father yet alive? have ye another brother? and we told him according to the tenor of these words: could we certainly know that he would say, Bring your brother down?
1 Samuel 20:3, And David sware moreover, and said, Thy father certainly knoweth that I have found grace in thine eyes; and he saith, Let not Jonathan know this, lest he be grieved: but truly as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death.
1 Samuel 20:9, And Jonathan said, Far be it from thee: for if I knew certainly that evil were determined by my father to come upon thee, then would not I tell it thee?
1 Samuel 28:1, And it came to pass in those days, that the Philistines gathered their armies together for warfare, to fight with Israel. And Achish said unto David, Know thou assuredly, that thou shalt go out with me to battle, thou and thy men.
1 Kings 2:37, For it shall be, that on the day thou goest out, and passest over the brook Kidron, thou shalt know for certain that thou shalt surely die: thy blood shall be upon thine own head.
1 Kings 2:42, And the king sent and called for Shimei, and said unto him, Did I not make thee to swear by the LORD, and protested unto thee, saying, Know for a certain, on the day thou goest out, and walkest abroad any whither, that thou shalt surely die? and thou saidst unto me, The word that I have heard is good.
Proverbs 27:23, Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.
Jeremiah 26:15, But know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof: for of a truth the LORD hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears.
Jeremiah 40:14, And said unto him, Dost thou certainly know that Baalis the king of the Ammonites hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to slay thee? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not.
Jeremiah 42:19 The LORD hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah; Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have admonished you this day.
Jeremiah 42:22, Now therefore know certainly that ye shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither ye desire to go and to sojourn.
Joshua in his speech to gathered Israel uses the same Hebrew verb in Joshua 23:14, the next verse:
And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.
Looking at the usage of the verb in verse 13 and then in verse 14, the understanding is that they should know with certainty about their futures and that they already do know in the present. They should know what’s going to occur in the future with certainty partly because they already know in the present. What they know in the present in their hearts and in their souls, an expression that also brings intensity to knowing, is that not one thing failed of all the good things which the Lord their God spoke concerning them. If they know that in the present, then they know with certainty also what God says to them through Joshua for their future.
Nothing is more sure than the Word of God. It is so sure that the knowledge is certain. If God says it, it is certain. This certain knowledge could be and should be called, the truth. It is the truth. Any contradiction to it is a lie. Today it could and should also at least be called, “science.” God created all natural laws and He spoke all moral law. They are both all true, knowledge, and scientific.
Uncertainty is a tool of Satan from the very beginning of time. Satan’s temptation of Eve created uncertainty about what God said. The uncertainty relates to the human will, giving a person liberty where he doesn’t have it. The uncertainty about what God said gave Eve what she thought was liberty to eat. Maybe she wouldn’t die if she ate of the tree. Maybe God was doing something other than what He said.
The liberty created by uncertainty is a confusion of sovereignty. Who is sovereign? Or, who is the true or actual sovereign in the world? Sovereignty shifts from God to man. If I can’t be sure of what God said, then I am free to do what I want to do. God can’t hold me responsible for something I couldn’t know. This conflicts with faith that pleases God. God isn’t pleased by the uncertainty that fuels unbelief and disobedience. He wants us to be sure.
In Joshua 23:14, Joshua says, you already know. This is a presupposition. The Apostle Paul uses the same presupposition in Romans 1:18-20:
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.
Not knowing, being uncertain, is an excuse. It isn’t a valid excuse. It allows for a wide range of possibilities for men. Anticipating that excuse, in Deuteronomy God takes a preemptive strike after repeating His law to the people Israel through Moses (30:11-14):
11 For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? 14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.
Today people will say either the Bible was written by men, it isn’t preserved in a perfect way, or it can’t be understood because of the centuries of separation from its original writing. The will of God then becomes very pliable, very adaptable to the will of man. He won’t be challenged by authority because there is none. He gets to do what he wants with uncertainty as his premise. This is a lie, just like it was in the Garden of Eden. Don’t think that you are free to go your own way because you can’t know the truth. God’s Word is true. Know with certainty.
Profane
Reading through the Bible for my second time this year, I arrived at Leviticus again and the word “profane” stood out to me. It is found 26 times in the Old Testament of the King James Version and seven in the New. Fifteen of those total times are in Leviticus.
In eighteenth century English dictionaries, to profane something is to violate something sacred. The Universal English Dictionary in 1706 defines “profane”:
Ungodly, unholy, irreligious, wicked; unhallowed, common, ordinary: It is often opposed to sacred.
The Hebrew word, translated “profane,” also many times means and is translated “to bore or to pierce.” Something is added that is not natural to a thing when it is pierced. It is violated. I like to use the analogy of a dirty dish placed with the clean dishes.
Here are the fifteen usages of the English word “profane” in Leviticus, all found in five of the chapters.
Leviticus 18:21, And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:12, And ye shall not swear by my name falsely, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.
Leviticus 20:3, And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.
Leviticus 21:4, But he shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people, to profane himself.
6, They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the bread of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy.
7, They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband: for he is holy unto his God.
9, And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.
12, Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God; for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.
14, A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take: but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.
15, Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the LORD do sanctify him.
23 Only he shall not go in unto the vail, nor come nigh unto the altar, because he hath a blemish; that he profane not my sanctuaries: for I the LORD do sanctify them.
Leviticus 22:2, Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the LORD.
9, They shall therefore keep mine ordinance, lest they bear sin for it, and die therefore, if they profane it: I the LORD do sanctify them.
15, And they shall not profane the holy things of the children of Israel, which they offer unto the LORD.
32, Neither shall ye profane my holy name; but I will be hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the LORD which hallow you.
Profane, you can see, is an adjective, noun, or verb. As a verb, the Hebrew word (chalal) means, “to be commonly used.” The Hebrew word is also translated in the King James Version, “pollute” (Numbers 18:32). An understanding of “profane” must be taken in contrast to sacred, hallowed, or holy.
Something sacred is kept separate, not mixed with the common. By mixing it with the common, it is profaned or becomes profane, which is the opposite of holy. By adding something common to something sacred, the sacred is profaned. It is no longer hallowed or kept separate. The common is something not sacred, so it is of a different nature than the sacred or the holy. For something to remain holy, it must be kept distinct, and a difference must be kept between the holy and the profane in order to keep sanctified that what is holy. This is especially in important in worship and Leviticus is a guidebook for worship.
To keep something hallowed that is sacred, one must understand it’s nature. What makes it holy? What is this act, thing, or person in its essence? Then only something of that essence or of the same kind can be associated with it, brought into contact with it, or linked with it or correlated to it. It’s worth reading all the usages above from Leviticus.
The first usage in Leviticus of “profane” reads, “neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God.” It does not explain what that is. It assumes the reader knows what that is.
“The name of God” is who God is. It’s what characterizes Him in His Person and Work. To profane His name is to associate or correlate with Him something that is contrary to His nature. It disrespects Him. It dishonors Him. It mischaracterizes Him, and this is very serious to do to God, so God adds, “I am the LORD.” John Gill writes about this: “I [am] the Lord; who would avenge such a profanation of his name.” God isn’t going to allow someone to keep profaning His name.
I’m going to select a few of the above examples to give the sense or understanding of “profane.” Leviticus 21:12 says, “Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God.” To profane the sanctuary is to make it common. It’s a sacred place and it is treated as a common place, not unique to God. This is not just profaning God, but profaning God’s sanctuary, something closely associated with God.
Leviticus 22:1-2 say,
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the LORD.
Those who had become common and, therefore, not holy, were not qualified to offer holy sacrifices. God would be profaned by the unholy offering the holy. The person himself could profane God and the worship of God and the thing offered could be profaned so as to profane God and the worship of Him. Common things, which are unholy, are to be kept out of worship. They may not even be evil — they’re just common. Something is made common when it is not treated in a unique or sacred manner, but is treated like everything else.
How people understand God in their imagination comes in a major way through association. Not only does God take offense at it, because it disrespects Him, but it also gives people as much as anything a wrong view of God. Someone will have a lesser view of God, a diminished understanding of Him, and that will affect a person’s life. He may not believe in the true God or live in accordance with the true God.
As much as anything today as an application of profane is the mixture in worship in the contemporary churches what is common with what it holy. Professing churches give God profane worship and they profane God. They give Him something worldly, lustful, and distorted so as to blaspheme God. The people then become like their worship. They themselves are profane and this just results in even further profanity of God and of their lives. The world doesn’t know God because of the correlation of the common or the profane with God in professing churches. The people of these professing churches are made common and profane as they blaspheme God with their profanity.
The Elimination of Practices and Activities Deemed Dispensable By the Truth About Real Gain
You can do certain things. They’re permissible, sure. They’re not wrong per se. Paul argue that’s not how we should choose to do things. We might like them. They might be fun.
Paul could have made money off of his preaching. According to him in 1 Corinthians 9, he even deserved it. Those who preach of the gospel, he said, should live of the gospel. However, he willingly gave up that support for the sake of the gospel. As an evangelist or missionary, taking monetary support for preaching the gospel could diminish the effects of his preaching.
The money Paul could have made was a type of gain. It’s still a well-known type of gain. Gain is an economics term, like “capital gains.” Adam Smith in his classic, Wealth of Nations, begins chapter ten by saying:
The five following are the principal circumstances which, so far as I have been able to observe, make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments, and counterbalance a great one in others.
Then he names those five principles circumstances and elaborates on them. You see his use of the word “gain.” He uses it 17 times in that chapter. In the next paragraph, he writes:
Honour makes a great part of the reward of all honourable professions. In point of pecuniary gain, all things considered, they are generally under-recompensed, as I shall endeavour to show by and by. Disgrace has the contrary effect. The trade of a butcher is a brutal and an odious business; but it is in most places more profitable than the greater part of common trades. The most detestable of all employments, that of public executioner, is, in proportion to the quantity of work done, better paid than any common trade whatever.
He says that honor is the reward of certain honorouble professions, rather than “pecuniary gain.” “Pecuniary” is “related to or consisting of money.” He implies there are other types of gain, like honor. Honor is a kind of gain, not pecuniary, but one to be chosen over money apparently. The profession brings honor, if it doesn’t bring money.
The Apostle Paul refers to gain again and again in scripture, and this is seen in 1 Corinthians 9 in a section that most label as a section on Christian liberty. I respect that idea that 1 Corinthians 6-10 is about Christian liberty. I don’t mind it, but it is worth looking at it from the perspective of the definition of real gain.
God created man for a relationship with Him. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 16:26,
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
There’s that word “gain.” The implication here is that someone profits nothing, even if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul. Luke 9:25 says,
For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
In the King James Version, Paul uses the word “gain” five times. He writes first in 1 Corinthians 9:19,
For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.
The Evidence of Things Not Seen
In the King James Version, Hebrews 11:1 calls “faith,” “the evidence of things not seen.” How is faith itself evidence? Does the English word “evidence” in the King James Version mean the same thing as what we think it means today? It is close, but I believe there is evidence (pun intended) to say that “evidence” in Hebrews 11:1 means something a little different than what we think it means.Faith itself doesn’t seem to be evidence as we understand the meaning of evidence. It is based on evidence, but not itself evidence. Evidence itself is proof. The slight difference in understanding would be that faith is the “proving to yourself” things unseen. The Greek word elegchos is found only here in the New Testament. However, the verb form, elegcho, is used 17 times in the New Testament, it would have the same root meaning as the noun, and it’s classic and first usage in the New Testament is found in John 16:8, used by Jesus:
And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.
Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Faith demonstrates to the eye of the mind the reality of those things that cannot be discerned by the eye of the body. Faith is the firm assent of the soul to the divine revelation and every part of it, and sets to its seal that God is true. It is a full approbation of all that God has revealed as holy, just, and good; it helps the soul to make application of all to itself with suitable affections and endeavours; and so it is designed to serve the believer instead of sight, and to be to the soul all that the senses are to the body. That faith is but opinion or fancy which does not realize invisible things to the soul, and excite the soul to act agreeably to the nature and importance of them.
Power Comes from Somewhere
When you turn on your lights or your appliance and open your refrigerator and see it working, you know that power comes from somewhere. It didn’t just happen. Your heart is beating, the power for that comes from somewhere. You look up and see a burning sun. The power for that sun comes from somewhere. Nuclear, gravitational, and chemical energy all come from someplace. They have their start somewhere.
We all need power. Our body is burning energy, our brains are using it, our heart needs it, and every other creature does too. It’s there. People are but dust. Power holds this dust together in a complex and functioning form.
The Big Bang Theory supposedly explains the origin of matter, but the explosion could not have occurred without energy. Senior writer and editor of Quanta Magazine, Natalie Wolchover, wrote on June 6, 2019:
The Big Bang theory . . . . pioneered 50 years before Hawking’s lecture by the Belgian physicist and Catholic priest Georges Lemaître, who later served as president of the Vatican’s academy of sciences — rewinds the expansion of the universe back to a hot, dense bundle of energy. But where did the initial energy come from?
The Big Bang theory had other problems. Physicists understood that an expanding bundle of energy would grow into a crumpled mess rather than the huge, smooth cosmos that modern astronomers observe.
Men guess, but they don’t have an answer to the origin of energy or power.
The English word “power” is found 272 times in the King James Version. The first time the English word appears, it is koah, and it refers to God’s strength, ability, might, and force. That Hebrew word is used 126 times. The first is used of God in Exodus 15:6, “Thy right hand, O LORD, is become glorious in power: thy right hand, O LORD, hath dashed in pieces the enemy.” Another one is Exodus 32:11, “And Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand?” A lot of the usages of koah are like that one.
Another Hebrew word translated power in 1 Chronicles 29:11 is gebera, the verse reading: “Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all.” That word is used 61 times in the Old Testament with another example, Psalm 21:13, “Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power.”
The New Testament uses mainly two Greek words, which are translated “power” in the King James Version. Matthew 6:13 reads:
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
“Power” here comes from dunamis. The English “dynamite” comes from dunamis, which BDAG, the foremost Greek New Testament lexicon, says means:
potential for functioning in some way, power, might, strength, force, capability
That Greek word is used 120 times in the New Testament. The very next usage of “power” in the New Testament is in Matthew 9:6:
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
1. a state of control over something, freedom of choice, right2. potential or resource to command, control, or govern, capability, might, power
1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
James 4:12, There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?Matthew 10:28, And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
The Fine-Tuning Argument, to be abbreviated by FTA in what follows, claims that the present Universe (including the laws that govern it and the initial conditions from which it has evolved) permits life only because these laws and conditions take a very special form, small changes in which would make life impossible.
Memorial Day and Memorials, Their Scriptural Importance
By dictionary definition, a memorial is something established to remind people of a person or event. The last Monday of May is Memorial Day in the United States, a federal holiday for honoring and mourning those who have died in the performance of their military duties while serving in the United States Armed Forces. The dedication of a certain day as a memorial began with spontaneous memorials in the middle of the 19th century at the tombstones of American soldiers, who fell in battle. Women decorated these stones as a way to honor these who had died. Then it turned into an annual day to decorate these tombstones.A unique day to remind people of the sacrifice of American soldiers started out as “Decoration Day.” By 1890, every northern state celebrated this as a holiday. Not until 1971, however, did Congress designate the day in May as a national holiday, and called it “Memorial Day.”I like visiting memorials. The best ones in the United States are in Washington DC, including the fairly recent and gigantic World War 2 Memorial. Everyone knows about the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. The Alamo is a memorial. A memorial stands in Hawaii for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Memorials dot Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields, and now a big one sits in New York City for those who died on 9/11/2001.The most moving memorial for me was the American Cemetery near Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. I wept again and again. The cemetery staff there did a great job telling the story. I felt thankful to be an American and for the men buried there.The idea of memorial comes from God though. We should use symbols, days, statues, and now what are actually called “memorials” to remember what is very important, not to be forgotten, and use them to motivate us. The Lord’s Table is a memorial. The bread and the cup remind a church of the body and blood of Christ, His substitutionary and sacrificial death on the cross.The word “memorial” is found 32 times in the King James Version. It’s mainly translating a Hebrew word in the Old Testament, tsekaron, found 24 times and means “remembrance.” A Greek word, mnemosunon, meaning, “memory” and translated “memorial,” occurs three times in the New Testament. God exalts the practice of making a special day, display, or monument in honor of something for the purpose of remembering. God wants remembrance.In Exodus 12:14, the memorial is a day. In Exodus 17:14, it’s a book. In Exodus 28:12, they are the stones on the garment of the priest. In several Old Testament references, it is the actual offering in the sacrificial system, for instance, the flour cast on the altar by the priest in the sin offering is a “memorial.” Stones were set out in Joshua 4:7 as a memorial of God’s dividing the River Jordan for the dry land crossing into Canaan. The feast of Purim starts as a memorial to remember the salvation of Israel in Esther 9:28.Remembering is helpful. It’s required. I’m not saying we should try to remember wrong things or discouraging things. We can remember what God has done, our parents have done, and what other godly people have done to give us strength and motivation. Remembering the right things renews the mind in a transformational way. It can lead to a life of praise and thanks. This Memorial Day, let’s all remember.
The Place of Fear in a True Church and With True Worship
I’ve read recently, “Fear is not a virtue.” A company called, American Virtue Clothing prints “Fear Is Not a Virtue” on its clothing. Heather Delapi argues that “fear” isn’t found in the lists of virtues of scripture, hence is not a virtue. The English word “fear” is found 385 times in the King James Version of the Bible. I have read all of those verses, but I haven’t sorted through everyone of them to find how many times fear is rebuked or admonished and how many times it is extolled or commended. There are both.Fear is a virtue. No godly person lives without fear. It is a necessity for pleasing God. Just because it isn’t listed as fruit of the Spirit doesn’t mean that it isn’t a virtue. It is dangerous and wrong to say it isn’t a virtue. Why would I even write this? I’ve taught through Acts all the way through once, and in great detail about halfway through the whole book about five times. I’m teaching and preaching through it again right now as we evangelize and plant a church in Southern Oregon. When Luke writes under the inspiration of God to describe the basics of the church of Jerusalem in that classic passage in Acts 2:41-47, he writes in Acts 2:43 an attitude of that first church:
And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
“Fear came upon every soul.” This verse got my attention again on this subject, so I’m writing on it. This same morning as I was preaching the end of the book of Acts, in Sunday School I started a short series on “The Detection and Correction of Doctrinal and Practical Error.” In my introduction I quoted what Jesus said in Matthew 10:28 and elaborated about its part in that subject.
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Four Thousand Praised the LORD with the Instruments Which I Made
In the midst of a variated list, 1 Chronicles 23:5 reads:
Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.
1 Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power. 2 Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. 3 Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. 4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. 5 Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. 6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 33:2, Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.Psalm 92:3, Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.Psalm 98:6, With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the LORD, the King.Psalm 144:9, I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee.
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps.
Gender-Neutral Language in Bible Translation is Unscriptural
Many modern Bible versions employ what they call “gender neutral” language. So, for example, the Authorized, King James Version of John 1:9 reads:
κἀγὼ ἐὰν ὑψωθῶ ἐκ τῆς γῆς, πάντας ἑλκύσω πρὸς ἐμαυτόν.
kagō ean hypsōthō ek tēs gēs, pantas helkysō pros emauton.
The masculine form of pantas is properly rendered “all men.” The NKJV alters the text to the more feminist “all peoples” to prevent “man/men” from being the generic word for mankind (oops, excuse me, “humankind”; using “mankind” might have been a microaggression and evidence of systemic racism and sexism). Note also that here, as in vast numbers of other places, the NKJV is not simply updating archaic and hard-to-understand language in the KJV; “all men” is not hard to understand in the least.
αὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐρεῖ αὐτοῖς, Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐφ᾿ ὅσον ἐποιήσατε ἑνὶ τούτων τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου τῶν ἐλαχίστων, ἐμοὶ ἐποιήσατε.
ai apokritheis ho basileus erei autois, Amēn legō hymin, eph’ hoson epoiēsate heni toutōn tōn adelphōn mou tōn elachistōn, emoi epoiēsate.
The plural adelphon, “brethren,” is from the Greek word adelphos, “brother.” The “and sisters” is simply not contained in the text, but has been added in by the NIV translators to make their version more feminist.
When the New Testament writers, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, translated the Old Testament, did they follow the practice of modern feminism and transform the inspired Hebrew Old Testament into something more “gender neutral”? Or did the New Testament specifically use “man” as the generic term for all people–does it specifically make the male the representative of generic humanity?
Romans 11:4 is referencing 1 Kings 19:18:
1Kings 19:18 Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.
Notice that the word “men” is not specifically contained in 1 Kings 19:18, but it is in Romans 11:4. Furthermore, Romans 11:4 does not use the Greek word anthropos, which is commonly a generic word for “mankind” or the entire human race, but the word andros (lexical form aner)–“men” as “males.” So when the New Testament, under inspiration, makes reference to the Old Testament, it is so far from removing masculine terms and making the Scripture more gender neutral that it specifically states “all men” in translating a less-specific original language reference.
The Lord Jesus Christ does the same thing as the Apostle Paul. Consider Matthew 12:41:
Matt. 12:41 The men [andros, “males,” from aner] of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
The Lord Jesus is referring to Jonah 3:7-8:
And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man [Hebrew ‘adam, properly rendered “man” but frequently a generic word for the entire human race, not for “males” in particular] nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man [Hebrew ‘adam again, frequently a generic term] and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
When Christ refers to the Old Testament, He takes a more generic Hebrew word for “mankind” or “humankind” and employs the word aner, the word specifically for a “male … in contrast to woman” (BDAG). Christ, speaking in Greek, does not make the Hebrew Old Testament “gender neutral.” He does exactly the opposite. Luke 11:32 indicates this fact as well.
So, what does the Bible teach? When the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, it translates and paraphrases the Hebrew in such a way that the text is less gender neutral, not more gender neutral.
In light of the inspired and infallible practice of translation modeled by the sovereign, all-wise God, we should:
1.) Reject modern Bible versions influenced by feminism and gender-neutral language, from the New International Version to the New King James Version, and cleave to the Authorized, King James Bible.
2.) Reject gender-neutral replacements for classical terms for humanity. We should retain expressions such as “all men” and “mankind” if we are engaged in the holy practice of Bible translation ourselves.
3.) We should continue to use “man,” “mankind,” and such like terms in our own speech when reference is made to the entire human race. We should follow the practice of Christ and His Apostles instead of bowing to anti-Scriptural feminism in our language.
4.) Recognize that feminists know exactly what they are doing when they seek to make the English language, and even more importantly, God’s infallible Word, less patriarchal. They oppose patriarchy, while the resurrected Lord and Son of Man, Jesus Christ, their Creator, taught patriarchy Himself and led His prophets and Apostles to support it through what He dictated to them through the Holy Spirit from God the Father. Let us consciously agree with the Father, the Son of God, the Holy Ghost, the Apostles, and the infallible Word of God, and support male headship in our common language and in our English Bible version.
Learn more about Bible texts and versions by clicking here.
–TDR
“Holy” Is Not Related to “Wholly”
Calvary Chapels multiplied here in the Rogue River Watershed beginning in the late 1970s, especially beginning with Applegate Christian Fellowship and Jon Courson, which is the largest congregation in all of Southern Oregon. This was an outgrowth of the first Calvary Chapel started in Southern California in 1965 with Chuck Smith, proceeding from the Jesus Movement. Very large other Calvary Chapels have divided off of Applegate here, one called Mountain Church in Medford. They all have the “Jesus Movement” quality, which was an outlier in the history of Christianity, producing something syncretistic with the culture of the world at a much higher degree than had ever been seen.
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