Comments for BibleBridge

Comment on The Apostle Paul’s Income: Four Reasons Why Paul Worked a Day Job by Ken Parks

Ken Parks — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:50:09 +0000

You raise some valid points about occupational ministries. Often we see church organizations with salaried positions; they expect to be paid. I heard an assistant pastor become annoyed when the plate was being passed around in a Bible Study (Sunday morning) and several members did not give, “Come on people, this is a business!” Obviously, this comment demonstrates the attitude of so-called ministers of God’s Word and how the writings of Paul contradict this attitude.

It’s my expressed opinion that anyone who desires to minister the Word ought to take up a trade, earn an income, and not be a burden to the listeners; they should follow the example of Paul, not expecting any gift but willing to give freely as he received freely from the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It’s all about attitude.

Comment on 6 Pitfalls of High School Bible Teaching by les

les — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:28:56 +0000

Thanks for the encouragement Aaron. Glad I could be helpful.

Comment on 6 Pitfalls of High School Bible Teaching by Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:10:42 +0000

Wow! You hit the nail on the head here. I teach full-time Bible at a Christian high school and agree with every word above. Thank you for this helpful article!

Comment on God’s Name Revealed: Moses’ Encounter with God at the Burning Bush by les

les — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:57:10 +0000

Thanks for the comment Jay. I don’t share your negative view of the translators. I think they were doing the best they could with a difficult word. And in fact, the tradition of using Adonai (Lord) for YHWH goes back to the ancient translators of the Greek Septuagint. Furthermore, if the translators decided not to translate God’s personal name, what should they do with it on a practical level? Should their translations include a blank space, or a special mark, or the actual Hebrew letters, or the English letters YHWH? What I’m saying is that the difficult translation decision doesn’t go away by simply asserting that we shouldn’t tamper with the Hebrew name.

Comment on God’s Name Revealed: Moses’ Encounter with God at the Burning Bush by Jay

Jay — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:23:55 +0000

Proper names especially that of the Creator as according to His command not to ‘ misuse’ ie take in vain His Name cannot except falsely , truly be rendered other than by a willful impropriety of measure by the evil tranlators. In other words , if you cannot properly pronounce or ‘carry over’ to the recipient language , you must leave that NAME unmolested. Example YHWH does not phonetically sound like J-hovah . No ‘J’ existed in Eng until the 1700′s , therefore if it were have been corrupted, ‘sanitized’ or vulgarized the transfer would be IoUWw , Yah(oo)wah but never J-ehovah or other nonsense as the blatant L-O-R-D . The ‘circe’ (church) deluged with idolatry could never accept the Mono-theistic Hebrew GOD YHWH. No room for the Trinity and other doctrines of devils to co-habitate with Eloah Echad.

Comment on God’s Name Revealed: Moses’ Encounter with God at the Burning Bush by Les

Les — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:24:25 +0000

Thanks for your response Jon. (I’ve deleted the lengthy list of quotes you gave, but I think I got the gist of them.) Regarding the other words in the Hebrew Bible, we are fairly certain how to pronounce them. And that certainty is based on trust in the ancient scribes who inserted vowel points into the consonantal Hebrew text. If any group of people knew how to pronounce the Hebrew words of Scripture it would have been the ancient Hebrew scribes who spoke Hebrew and were immersed in the tradition of the Hebrew Bible. As far as I know these scribes only deliberately used vowels from another word for the Tetragrammaton. So we have no reason to suspect inaccurate vowels for any other Hebrew word.

Regarding the quotes you sent, some of them seem to say what I said in my post such as, “No human today can be certain how it was originally pronounced in Hebrew.” And “Many scholars favor the spelling ‘Yahweh,’ but it is uncertain and there is not agreement among them.” But from that state of uncertainty your quotes move toward approval for the use of the name Jehovah. For example, “German professor Gustav Friedrich Oehler concluded: ‘From this point onward I use the word Jehovah, because, as a matter of fact, this name has now become more naturalized in our vocabulary, and cannot be supplanted.’”—Theologie des Alten Testaments, second edition (Stuttgart, 1882), p. 143. I cannot agree with that statement. It’s a purely pragmatic argument and it ignores the facts from which your quotes began. Furthermore, it was written more than a century ago in a different country from my own. If I were to use that same argument today and from my particular location, I would have to conclude that the name LORD should be the preferred translation for the Tetragrammaton. But in fact, I don’t believe that is the case. I actually think a strong case can be made for Yahweh, but I’m not sure if that’s the most accurate rendering either.

Regarding the use of Jehovah in the Greek New Testament, I don’t know of any evidence to support that assertion. Our earliest manuscripts of the New Testament were all written in Greek and in those manuscripts we don’t find Jehovah or Yahweh, but kyrios which is the Greek word for Lord. That’s all we have, at this point. Anything else is speculation.

Thanks again and keep searching for truth wherever you can find it.

Comment on God’s Name Revealed: Moses’ Encounter with God at the Burning Bush by Jon Bishop

Jon Bishop — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 22:31:47 +0000

Dear Sir
I am curious, more so because i had a very bad education until i came in contact with Jehovah’s witnesses, but if using the reasoning about correct pronunciation, Are not Jeremiah Hezekiah and all those famous men of the old testament names wrong too? surely using this reasoning all those Characters names must all be wrong? But are all accepted today! Take all of these away because of fear of miss- pronouncing them and we would have very little to base our understanding of the Bible on surely ? what of Jesus genealogy in Matthew chapter 1 (Joseph’s family line)and Jesus genealogy though Mary’s family in Luke 3 23 ? again how would we understand who these family member were if we take away the consonants? I addressed you as Sir because i don’t know your personal name But would it have been better to leave the consonant out and just address you as Dr Sr ? please have a read of the text below and see if it adds up for you ? I would be only too glad to hear from you
Regards
Jon Bishop

Comment on Calvinism vs. Arminianism: Why I Can’t Decide by Les

Les — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 19:33:43 +0000

Thanks Ben. I agree, pride is unattractive. On the other hand, a little humility makes a big difference, especially on a topic as vast as this one. To be fair though, I’ve gone back and forth on this issue so I can kind of sympathize with those who feel confident in their Calvinist or Arminian view. However, I never could get to that same degree of confidence that some have. Ironically, I’m now fairly certain about my uncertainty.

Comment on Calvinism vs. Arminianism: Why I Can’t Decide by Ben P

Ben P — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:47:37 +0000

I find the dogmatism on this subject to be one of the most off-putting things about modern evangelicalism today. Thanks for this perspective, especially your conclusion about respect.

Comment on Sovereignty and Responsibility: Living Between Two Truths by Ben P

Ben P — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Slight revision: the Ravi Zacharias quote might have been more along the lines of: “The exercise of God’s sovereignty is not absolute…”. Neither RZ nor I would suggest that God is not all-powerful.