A Musical Note

You’ll want to check out these musical tidbits:

(1) Watch this YouTube video where shoppers in Macy’s are interrupted by a grand rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus, accompanied by an incredible organ. As you watch the video, you’ll notice the official singers from various Philadelphia choirs wearing a circular pin. Click HERE. With over 5 million views on YouTube, you’ve probably already seen this video.

(2) Two of my wife’s co-teachers at the Music House performed a piano duet at the end of the student recital. They did a great job and had obvious fun while performing: notice how their arms cross as they play. Watch the video HERE.

(3) For the Beauty of the Earth has been running through my mind for weeks now. Not a bad one to have stuck in your thoughts:

For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

For thy church, that evermore
lifteth holy hands above,
offering up on every shore
her pure sacrifice of love;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

For thyself, best Gift Divine,
to the world so freely given,
for that great, great love of thine,
peace on earth, and joy in heaven:
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

Check out the Message

I just posted a translation of Hebrews 8. What do you think of the paraphrase by the Message of vv. 11-13:

They won’t go to school to learn about me,
or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons.
They’ll all get to know me firsthand,
the little and the big, the small and the great.
They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven,
with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.
By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.

When it comes to a paraphrase, this is pretty creative, don’t you think? Personally, I kind of like it.

Translation: Hebrews 8:1-13

Mine:

1 Here’s the big idea of what I’ve been saying: We have such a High Priest, seated in heaven’s most honored place—right next to the very throne of the Almighty—2 responsible for all that pertains to holiness in the genuine tabernacle pitched by God, not man. 3 The function of every High Priest is to daily offer gifts and sacrifices, so logically Christ also must have something to offer. 4 But as long as he was here on earth, Christ could not be priest since there are priests who are bringing the daily offering as prescribed by the law. 5 Such men are ministering in a shadowy representation of the heavenly tabernacle, which is why when Moses was about to construct the tent, God warned him,

“See that you build exactly according to the exemplar I showed you on the mountain.”

6 Christ now possesses a superior ministry, since he is the mediator of a better covenant which has been legislated by better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been perfect, there would have been no need for a second. 8 But the people were always bringing blame on themselves, so God says

“Look! The time is almost here, says the Lord,
When I will bring a new covenant to completion with both Israel and Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their fathers,
in the day I held their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
(Because they refused to remain in my covenant
I neglected them, says the Lord).
10 This new covenant I’m making with Israel will be completely different from those past days, says the Lord,
because I will put my law in their minds and engrave it upon their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
11 And since they will all know me—those who seem important and those who seem insignificant—
there will be no need to instruct fellow citizens and beloved brothers,
saying ‘Know the Lord!’
12 This will be true because I will deal mercifully with their unrighteousness,
and will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.”

13 By calling it ‘new,’ God made the former outdated, and that which is postdate and decrepid is close to vanishing.

NIV 2010:

1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.
3 Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. 4 If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already priests who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. 5 They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” 6 But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises.

7 For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8 But God found fault with the people and said:

“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
9 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.
10 This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
11 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

13 By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

The Message:

1-2 In essence, we have just such a high priest: authoritative right alongside God, conducting worship in the one true sanctuary built by God. 3-5 The assigned task of a high priest is to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and it’s no different with the priesthood of Jesus. If he were limited to earth, he wouldn’t even be a priest. We wouldn’t need him since there are plenty of priests who offer the gifts designated in the law. These priests provide only a hint of what goes on in the true sanctuary of heaven, which Moses caught a glimpse of as he was about to set up the tent-shrine. It was then that God said, “Be careful to do it exactly as you saw it on the Mountain.”
6-13 But Jesus’ priestly work far surpasses what these other priests do, since he’s working from a far better plan. If the first plan—the old covenant—had worked out, a second wouldn’t have been needed. But we know the first was found wanting, because God said,

Heads up! The days are coming
when I’ll set up a new plan
for dealing with Israel and Judah.
I’ll throw out the old plan
I set up with their ancestors
when I led them by the hand out of Egypt.
They didn’t keep their part of the bargain,
so I looked away and let it go.
This new plan I’m making with Israel
isn’t going to be written on paper,
isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;
This time I’m writing out the plan in them,
carving it on the lining of their hearts.
I’ll be their God,
they’ll be my people.
They won’t go to school to learn about me,
or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons.
They’ll all get to know me firsthand,
the little and the big, the small and the great.
They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven,
with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.
By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.

In the backwoods of somewhere

Last night after work, my wife and I drove to Oxford to pick up our deer which had been processed. We switched deer-processors this year because the one we had been using was pretty expensive and was giving away portions of our deer to others. So we made our way last night along the country roads, following my scribbled directions and making many 3 point turn arounds along the way. Finally we arrived at the processor, “Blackwell’s processing.”

I walked up to the door wondering about the proper way to enter a processor’s shop. Should I knock? Should I walk right in? I opted for the knock. “Come in” chimed a voice inside. I walked in an was greeted by an assembly line of about 10 folks, all working in silence with various piles of meat in front of them. “I’m here to pick up some meat” I said, “it’s in the name of Mike.” Mike was the man who shot the deer for me. I was told, “You are not Mike.” The fact that I was still wearing my bank clothes probably did not help, but this lady was not going to give me my meat. “I have Mike’s phone number” I told her. She looked at it, but it was a different number than the one she had. She proceeded to dial Mike personally. While the phone rang, all 10 employees continued subduing their portions of meat. Mike answered the phone, “And yes, Andy is picking up my meat!”

The lady was very apologetic, and I told her it was no problem, she was just doing her job. But here’s the funny part: The reason that she WOULD NOT LET ME TAKE MIKE’S MEAT was because they’ve had people steal other people’s venison before. They come to pick up the meat without being authorized to do so. I hope this brings as big a smile to you as it did to me!

The Collission of Synoptic Studies with Textual Criticism

Scot McKnight said, “Those who use the Nestle-Aland text should also favor Markan priority; if they don’t, then they ought to abandon the Nestle-Aland text” (McKnight, 84 in Rethinking the Synoptic Problem). This is a bold statement. He also says, “The foundational argument for Markan priority is the linguistic argument; it is the only argument with probative and decisive force . . . . The Griesbach proponents have yet to come up with a counterargument to the linguistic argument” (p. 83).

This really got me thinking. You see, this semester I have been taking a class in New Testament textual criticism. In my spare time, I have been doing some study on the Synoptic problem. What I find interesting is the way these two disciplines virtually ignore each other. In fact, in textual criticism last week, our teacher informed us that text critics have no interest in the Synoptic problem. I think it would be very interesting to write an essay applying the criteria of textual criticism to the study of the Synoptics, examining the issue particularly from the external evidence by looking at:

-the oldest and best evidence for the Synoptic ordering
-the geographic distribution of the evidence

I think one would be able to conclude by asking, “If I were a textual critic, which Synoptic Gospel would I conclude was first?” Furthermore, I think what would be discovered is that textual critics have been inconsistent in applying their principles to the study of the Synoptic problem. Why would the criteria apply with one discipline and not the other?

With each new language, a new soul?

Es hat oft gesagt werden, “mit jeder neu erlernten Sprache, erwerbt man eine neue Seele.” Wenn das ist so, es gibt viele halbseele Menschen, da die Meisten nur halbteilen eine neue Sprache erlernen.

*Ich willkomme Verbesserungen, daß meine Deutsch besser werden kann*

Houses of Worship?

According to David Platt:

[More than a billion people in the word] attempt to survive on less than a dollar per day . . . the same amount of money I spend on French fries for lunch.

When we pool our resources in our churches, what are our priorities? Each year in the United States, we spend more than $10 billion on church buildings. In America alone, the amount of real estate owned by institutional churches is worth over $230 billion. We have money and possessions, and we are building temples everywhere. Empires, really. Kingdoms. We call them houses of worship. But at the core, aren’t they too often outdated models of religion that wrongfully define worship according to a place and wastefully consume our time and money when God has called us to be a people who spend our lives for the sake of His glory among the needy people outside our gates?

David Platt, Radical, 118, 147.

The Sacrifice of Thanks

I was reminded this morning about how God is pleased by thankfulness,

Meinst du, daß ich Ochsenfleisch essen wolle oder Bocksblut trinken?
Opfere Gott Dank und bezahle dem Höchsten deine Gelübde
und rufe mich an in der Not, so will ich dich erretten, so sollst du mich preisen.
Wer Dank opfert, der preiset mich; und da ist der Weg, daß ich ihm zeige das Heil Gottes.

Psalm 50:13-15, 23, Luther Bible 1545.

Wordsmith

News about Palin’s recent “word-of-the-year” made me curious to know about the award-winning words from previous years. Apparently:

2005: truthiness
2006: plutoed (demoted or devalued, as with the former planet Pluto)
2009: tweet

Also notable: the 2008 runner ups:

moofing: (From “mobile out of office,” meaning working on the go with a laptop and cell phone)
youthanasia: performing a age-defying medical procedures to end lifeless skin and wrinkles
leisure sickness (noun): a purported syndrome, not universally recognized by psychologists, by which some people are more likely to report feeling ill during weekends and vacations than when working
cyberchondriac: someone who imagines having a disease based on medical information gleaned through the Internet
Obama- : in its many forms (ObamaMania, Obamamentum, Obmanomics, Obamacize, Obamanation, etc.) easily the top word of 2008 as noted by the Global Language Monitor

*click HERE for statistics

Refudiated

Sara Palin caused a stir when she used the word “refudiate” on her television show last night. People were making fun and pointing fingers . . . until New Oxford’s American dictionary spoke up today and applauded her. The dictionary said,

“From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used ‘refudiate,’ we have concluded that neither ‘refute’ nor ‘repudiate’ seems consistently precise, and that ‘refudiate’ more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of ‘reject.’ ”

In recognition of the word, New Oxford awarded her with the distinction of having coined the 2010 word of the year.

*Read the full article HERE