Weekly Articles

There are a lot of Christians today who believe that the King James version of the Bible is the only “authorized” version.  In this, they are correct, but not in the way that they believe:  the KJV is the only “authorized” version of the Bible – authorized by the British Parliament!  King Henry VIII had authorized the “Great Bible” previously, but it had some severe limitations (“Great” refers more to its very large size than any comment on its appeal as a text); King James then “authorized” a new Bible – which was called the “Authorized Version” until published in America as the King James version.  Thus, when people claim that the KJV is the “authorized” version, they are telling you that they respect man rather than God.

I am not denigrating the KJV; it must be remembered that the KJV acted much like the Latin Vulgate in that it helped unify Christianity behind one book.  None of the German texts did that, nor did any other Bible; the KJV provided a Bible that was read by the masses, at a time when the English language was being spread across the world.  But the elevation of the KJV as holy (as opposed to the Bible as holy) is wrong.  By the standards of its day, the KJV was remarkably well done; but the methods and texts used leave a lot to be desired by today’s standards.

The KJV followed in the footsteps of the Bibles that came before it, most notably Tyndale’s Bible and its successor the Great Bible, in that it primarily used the Textus Receptus (previously called the Instrumentum or Testamentum); this document was translated/compiled from what was available (mostly from texts dating after 600AD).  This was fine – in the 17^th century.  But for us to accept the KJV-only crowd’s premise is to say that God gave the wrong message to the Apostles and used centuries of scribal errors and hidden agendas to get it right.  You see, the manuscripts used by later versions (such as the NRSV and the NIV) date much closer to the original message.  There are fragments of texts that get as close as fifty years from the time the Apostle John was writing!  Some, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls (found in 1947) were not available in the 17^th century, but were preserved nonetheless and reasonably should be closer to the truth.

What the KJV-only crowd does not tell other people (and maybe they haven’t realized themselves) is that of the major translations used, the KJV is the only one that was subjected to agenda-based editing.  What this means is that the KJV was translated by 47 Anglican scholars (the NIV, by comparison, was translated by scholars from five nations and many groups – including the Churches of Christ).  What surprises me is how good a translation the KJV is!  That is the miracle and proof of inspiration in this story. 

From the beginning there were attempts to keep the Scriptures out of the hands of the masses.  The Latin Vulgate was originally translated to make the Bible available to be read in the common tongue of the day; a thousand years later, only the clergy read Latin and there was the need for a common-language version.  William Tyndale was burned at the stake for translating the Bible into English!  Even when it was allowed (authorized) to translate into English the Word of God, the translation efforts were often helped by Royal agendas (such as Henry VIII and the Great Bible).  Many men risked their lives to get the Word of God into the hands of ordinary people.  Through the centuries, despite major upheavals throughout the world, the Bible was preserved for man; this proves that the Holy Spirit is alive and working through our lives to effect God’s plans.

By modern standards, the King James Version is a poor translation; but even so, it is still good enough for you to get the Word of God out of it.  I am not anti-KJV, but I am against the KJV-only crowd because they are worshipping the works of man (the translation efforts) rather than the living God.  The message of the Bible is clearly understood, even from the KJV.  I should know:  I came to know Christ from reading the KJV.  But I also grew up to understand that God wants me to give my allegiance to HIM only, not to an Anglican Church translation of the Bible!

-Charles Peterson

I still remember my first multi-geared bicycle.  It was a glittering silver Schwinn 10-speed with red lettering and pinstripes; I was so excited that not only did I get the bike, but I also got a handlebar-attached satchel bag, a seat-mounted storage bag, and a protective helmet (which was quickly abandoned – it was 1983 and nobody took those seriously).  I remember learning about how changing the gears changed how hard you had to pedal.  I also remember learning that the chain jumped off of the gears when the changing was done improperly. 

Our spiritual lives can be looked at like a long ride on an eight-speed bicycle.  Each of the eight gears is a representation of a Christian quality, as listed by the Apostle Peter.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.  For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.  For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.  (2 Peter 1:3-9 NIV)

Imagine a new Christian starting out on the road of his new spiritual life.  He starts pedaling in first gear, because it is the easiest to pedal and thus he can keep his balance as he begins to pick up speed.  But can he go very far?  No, because he has to pedal at an exhausting rate just to keep enough speed to stay balanced.  If he does not shift gears soon, he will grow very tired and may even quit.  This first gear is FAITH.  It is very easy to pedal, but it does not allow you to build up any amount of spiritual momentum.  But it is perfect at getting you moving, and allowing you to get started on your spiritual journey.  But that second gear of GOODNESS has to be engaged quickly, in order to build on what faith has allowed you to do.

This process is the same for all of the gears:  they can only help you grow so much, and then you need to add the next gear.  But it is not just about going to a higher gear; sometimes you have to downshift to make the pedaling easier.  When the new Christian is riding along, pedaling in third or fourth gear (KNOWLEDGE or SELF-CONTROL) and he encounters a hill of adversity or temptation, knowledge or self-control may not be enough to carry him over; indeed, he may still be immature with those qualities and unable to fully utilize them to push over the hill.  It is then that he needs to downshift and rely on the easier pedaling of goodness and faith.  Then, after the hill, he can with confidence shift back to the higher gears and continue his journey.

Remember that the whole purpose of these qualities (gears) is to give us a venue through which we can participate in the “divine nature” and “escape corruption”.  We are also told that if we possess them, we will be effective and productive.  But in this process, you have to remember two very important things:  to reduce drag, bow down to the one you are following, and you have to keep pedaling or you will fall.

-Charles Peterson

An article in the August 14, 2008 issue of Fortune magazine was titled “Wal-Mart enters the ad age”.  It discussed the struggles that Wal-Mart’s marketing department had been through in recent years and the solution that they found.  I think that this deserves closer scrutiny, because the problems Wal-Mart encountered mirror closely the problems that the church has encountered recently.

In recent years Wal-Mart, as detailed in the aforementioned article, experimented with its image in trying to compete with rival Target; they hired a marketing expert who tried to spice up their ad campaigns and introduce trendier brands.  The results speak volumes:  the ads flopped, the brands didn’t sell, and the scandalized expert left.  And Wal-Mart learned a valuable lesson.

For most of its history, Wal-Mart used advertising merely to get their name before the public and preach the “lowest cost” message.  Ads were budget affairs with little high-production value to them (compare the smiley face slashing prices to the rival ads featuring hip songs and choreographed dancing).  But Wal-Mart destroyed all competitors because people came to Wal-Mart to buy lots of stuff at low prices.  When they forsook their founding principles, they lost their focus and their customers (among the most price-sensitive in the marketplace) lost interest.  So Wal-Mart abandoned its new, failed campaign and returned to its roots:  they took a phrase that founder Sam Walton had spoken in 1992 and renewed their vigor around the new campaign of “Save money. Live better”.

So that’s great for Wal-Mart; what does it have to do with the church?  Everything.  The church had a founder – Jesus Christ; the church was given founding principles – going out, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and teaching the to obey everything Jesus commanded.  When we stay with those principles, we stay on track; when we depart from them, we lose focus and purpose.

The church has struggled for relevance over the past twenty years or so.  This is ironic, because God’s word remains highly relevant and the need for Christ is even more apparent today than ever before.  But we are often caught between two opposing forces:  the desire to remain unchanged and the desire to change. 

We have people who want things to remain as they have been – not meaning scripture, but the manmade things that we do to facilitate our worship such as our buildings, order of worship, styles of fellowship gatherings, programs (such as buses), etc.  Now these are not in any way bad things, but they must be recognized for what they are:  culturally sensitive things that we have designed.  And if they are culturally sensitive, then they can lose their relevance over time.

We also have people who want to change everything about the church in order to remain relevant.  Now, if they propose to change the manmade things (such as buildings, advertising and programs), then that should be looked at carefully; sometimes changes in these areas can yield great benefits.  But changes should be weighed with a great degree of caution.  We should never be trying to update God’s word in order to make it relevant – it already is relevant.  And when making changes to the manmade things, we need to exercise great care and reflection so that the changes are made appropriately.  

Just as Wal-Mart discovered, the church needs the guidance of its founder’s principles.  Jesus established his church and told us what our guiding principles were to be.  As we focus on those, we are successful; as we depart from those, we fail.  And just as Wal-Mart lost customers when it lost focus, the church loses its people when it loses focus; Wal-Mart’s customers are sensitive to the low-cost image, and the church’s audience is sensitive to the sound doctrine image. 

We need to make sure that everything we do is done with our founding principles in mind.  We need to make disciples of Jesus:  they must be baptized, taught God’s word and taught to obey that word.  Everything else that we do should support that mission.  If it hinders, it needs to change or be removed.  If it helps, it should remain or be expanded.  God’s word reaches people just fine.  Let’s share it with others.

-Charles Peterson

There are certain images that most people will conjure up when hearing the word “glory”.  For example, military valor often brings glory (such as that of King Leonidas and his Spartans or that of the U.S. Marines who raised the flag on Mt. Suribachi at the battle of Iwo Jima).  Other examples are inventors such as Thomas Edison and Johann Gutenberg; scientists such as Jonas Salk and Louis Pasteur; statesmen such as George Washington and Ronald Reagan; and artists such as Monet, Mozart, and DaVinci.

This is perfectly natural, and is even good – better to glorify those above than the infamous crowd of Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, and Saddam Hussein!  But it is also very human, and so therefore it is not Godly.  There are numerous reminders in the Bible that God’s ways and our ways do not have very much in common.  Humans do all sorts of things that God does not – lie, cheat, etc.; and of course God does things humans do not – create the universe, defeat sin and death, etc.  One more example of the huge difference between man and God is what we glorify versus what God glorifies.

When we read the gospel accounts of Jesus, his birth and his resurrection are often pointed to as the high points while his death is seen as the low point.  Now this is true from the reader’s perspective, and it was certainly true for the people who were there.  But it is important to remember that the terrible hours on the cross were dark, but in the same way that the early morning is dark right before the dawn.  This is so because it is on the cross that Christ’s victory is assured and his glorification is at hand. 

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:  “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.  For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.  Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.  And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.  (John 17:1-5 NIV)

Jesus said that he would draw all men to himself when he was lifted up (John 12).  It is no coincidence that Christians have been symbolized by the cross almost from the beginning.  The cross, a symbol of death in the ancient world, came to represent Jesus.  Why not the manger, the Jordan River, the empty tomb, or a crowd looking into the sky?  Because it was Jesus Christ’s triumph over death on the cross that shows God’s infinite love and mercy for us.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  (John 3:16-17 NIV)

It is not the creation account that gives us hope; it is not the stories of the patriarchs, prophets, kings, or judges that demonstrate the glory of God.  The glory that Jesus had before with the Father is seen most clearly through the death, burial, and resurrection.  Look at the symbols of this throughout the Bible:  the Flood, the passing through the Red Sea, Jonah in the whale, and Baptism.  In each of these, man is saved from certain death and is given a new life.  Is it any wonder that baptism is so important?  All of these directly point to the glorification of Jesus as the savior and redeemer of God’s children.

Remember, when someone speaks of glory and then tells you of a story of valor, inventiveness, creativity, or accomplishment that there is a story that you know that shows true glory.  Tell them the story of the cross.

-Charles Peterson

On the cutting edge of energy technology research are the nuclear fusion experiments with Tokamak reactors.  Temperatures in excess of 600 million degrees Fahrenheit have been attained (in comparison, the center of the Sun is roughly 27 million °F).  Most of these experiments are performed with an agenda towards developing a cheap, clean energy source.

One of the interesting things that they do involves a deuterium ice pellet (deuterium is a isotope of hydrogen, having a neutron as well as a proton in its nucleus).  This ice pellet is very cold at 4°K (-452.2 °F), and it is injected into the reactor’s plasma stream (at about 200 million °F); the pellet is consumed in less than two-thousandths of a second.  It is amazing to me the amount of data that these researchers can collect about an event that lasts such a small amount of time.

Our lives here on this earth are also very short, yet they determine the path that we will lead for eternity.  Jesus related a story about this to his disciples:

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.  At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.  The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried.  In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.  So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’  But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.  And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’  He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’  Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’  ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’  He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ “  (Luke 16:19-31 NIV)

This life is but the merest hint of existence; our years here go by in a flash.  But the brevity of our existence here is belied by the enormity of the choices that we make here.  In Jesus’ story, we see that the unnamed rich man lived a life of self-indulgence, in which he had no care for the beggar dying at his doorstep.  Lazarus, on the other hand, lived a life without the pleasures that were quite literally all around him.  The choices each made had profound impacts on their eternal lives.  The rich man chose sweetness in this life with eternal bitterness, while Lazarus chose bitterness here for a sweet eternity.

We, too, make those same choices.  What we should keep in mind is that this life will end; the next will not!  Choosing to forego self in this life in order to have a better eternity is like enduring a hot day, once, and then living comfortable and cool at a resort.  But choosing to make yourself the “all-important number-one” in this life, thereby earning a harsh eternity is like having a party in your honor and then being sent to a prison for the rest of your life.

Live your life in such a way so that Jesus will welcome you to his side; don’t live your life thinking only of yourself.  You don’t want this life to be the only cool drop of water in an eternity of fire. 

-Charles Peterson