Translating Revelation 1 consistently

1    A revelation of Jesus Christ, 
      that the God gave to Him, to show to His slaves 
      what is necessary to happen with suddenness;
      and that He signified,
      having messaged through His angel to His slave John, 

2   who witnessed the word of the God,
      and the witness of Jesus Christ—the things he saw.

3    "Blessed is the one reading
     and they who are hearing the words of the prophecy
     and keeping the writings in it,
     for the time is near."

4  "John, to the seven churches in the Asia:
      Grace be to you, and peace, 
      from the One who is, and who was, and who is coming, 
      and from the seven Spirits that are before His throne, 

5   and from Jesus Christ,
      the Witness, the Faithful, 
      the First Born from the dead, 
      and the Ruler of the kings of the Earth.
      To Him who loves us, and loosed us
      from the sins of ours by the blood of His,  

6   and made us a kingdom 
      and priests to the God and His Father,  
      to Him be the glory and the dominion, 
      unto the ages of the ages, amen.

7   Look! 

      He comes with the clouds 

      and every eye will see Him, 

      also they who pierced Him, 

      and they will beat themselves over Him

      —all the tribes of the earth; yes, amen." (CFB)             

             
            
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Brief comments:
Many translations create inconsistencies, by for example purporting that the Revelation is of things that are to happen soon (rather than suddenly). Similarly, many translations render doulos as "servant": but this can be misleading (by weakening the obligation of obedience of the Christian to Christ), and when the New Testament seeks that sense, i.e. servant rather than slave, the term used is diakonos (cp. Matthew 23:11)

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

God's very best possible, wonderful announcement

Christ Jesus died innocently a torturous death on a cross, to pay the required ransom for each and every human being to be set free from slavery to the devil (which is the natural condition for everyone born on earth). 

Is this true? Yes. For proof, check out the countless testimonies of people who were precisely set free from sin-slavery when they accepted Christ Jesus as their lord. For example: 
      I am one of them. 
      Another is evangelist Steve Hill, formerly a hard-drug addict. 
      A brave Scotsman whose manslaughtering alcoholism evaporated.

Christ lives and governs Heaven and Earth to lead people who call Jesus Lord, through this world and into eternal life. 

      "And having been perfected He became, 

      to all who are obeying Him, 

      responsible for eternal salvation..." 

                        (Hebrews 5:9, CFB) 

      "But gratitude be to God,

      because you were slaves of the sin,

      yet you obeyed from heart

      unto that to which you were delivered,
      that form of teaching.

      Then, having been liberated from the sin,

      you were enslaved to the righteousness." 

                        (Romans 6:17-18, CFB) 

      "All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me.

      Going, therefore, disciple all the nations,

      baptizing them

      in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 

      teaching them to keep all that I have commanded you." 

                        (Matthew 28:18b-20a, CFB) 

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CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Reading Philippians 2 consistently

19 Yet I hope, by the Lord Jesus, to send Timothy to you soon, so that also I be cheered in soul, with knowing the things concerning you.

20 Indeed, I have no one equal in soul, anyone who by origin will concern himself with the things concerning you. 

21 Indeed, all people seek the things of themselves (not the things of Jesus Christ)!

22 Yet the worth of him you know, because, like a child for a father, he served together with me unto the wonderful announcement [tò euangèlion]. (CFB)

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Brief comments:

Many modern translations of these verses create conflicts, or inconsistencies, within this text by Paul:

(a) They translate Paul as though he says that he has no one like Timothy who will genuinely care about the Philippians.

(b) They translate as though Paul is criticising the people around him for seeking only the things of their own and not the things of Christ.

But Paul closes his letter by sending greetings to the Philippians from the Christian siblings who are with Paul. Would Paul speak so harshly about his brothers and sisters at all? And then send greetings from them?

Furthermore, according to tradition (cp. KJV), this letter was drafted by St. Epaphroditus, who Paul would then have been sending alongside Timothy. If that tradition is correct, then translating with (a) and (b) creates infelicity, conflicts, inconsistencies.

Investigating the Ancient-Greek text enables a translation that does not conflict with the rest of The Letter to the Philippians, because the text is quite different than what many modern translations depict. It appears very likely that Paul is not speaking insultingly about anyone, but rather remarking that Timothy, as a Greek, will care by origin ("naturally" in the KJV) for the Greeks of Philippi, and wryly adding that after all everyone seeks the (good) for their own (people). This letter is written in Rome rather than in a Greek region: thus "I have no one like-souled who will by nature take care for the things of you (Greeks)".

(c) Many translations create a conflict by making it sound as though Paul is calling himself Timothy's (spiritual) father; this conflicts with Christ Jesus's commandment to call no father on earth one's own father (Matthew 23:9). In such a way, Philippians 2:22 works alongside mistranslations of 1 Corinthians 4:15, Ephesians 6:4, Colossians 3:21, and Philemon 10, to cause Christians to start calling others than their Heavenly Father "father", in conflict with Christ's commandment. (Bible translators unfortunately often add the word “father” to St. Paul’s self-descriptions in 1 Corinthians 4:15 and in Philemon 10, or in Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21 translate hoi pateres as “fathers”, rather than “parents”, which parallelism in the context, and general knowledge, both prefer.)

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CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The disastrous return of the many fathers and guides system

God, the Lord Christ Jesus, commanded disciples,

"But you, do not be called 'rabbi' ['my master', 'my teacher'], 
      for one is your guide, and you are all siblings. 
And a father do not call yours on the earth, 
      for one is yours, the Father of Heaven. 
Neither be called 'guides', 
      for your guide is one, the Christ,
      and the greatest among you will be your servant; 
      and whoever will exalt himself will be lowered, 
      and whoever will lower himself will be exalted." 
                                                      (Matthew 23:8-12, CFB)


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CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Vital theories from God's Word: The One Author Theory and the One Ruler Theory

Update: I no longer agree much with this text. For the reasons, please see my articles on the ongoing power of Babylon and the Beasts of Revelation (at christrescues.substack.com), and my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible.

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If one reads the whole Holy Bible (all 77 books), or at least all the 27 books of the New Testament, two central theories or "ways of seeing reality" (the meaning of the word theory) are clear:

The One Ruler Theory
After Christ's death and resurrection, all authority on earth and in heaven is unified. There is one governor now. (Previously, there were two main rulers: God and "the prince of this world", the Devil.)

The One Author Theory
The Holy Bible has one author, God's Holy Spirit. (That's not to say that every word in the surviving manuscripts is authentic.)

As a Bible translator and interpreter, I have found that the One Author Theory has been wonderfully fruitful in "seeing" excellent, perfect solutions to translation problems. My hope, in proposing the One Ruler Theory for consideration, is that it will enjoy similar fruitfulness for people who consider it seriously.

Reading the Holy Bible sympathetically

Update: I would like to question the texts now highlighted in yellow. For more on how one might question those texts, please see my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible.

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Ruining any text is quite easy by reading it unsympathetically. This is generally confirmed by the language sciences: Pragmatics, for example, claims that linguistic underdetermination is usual, meaning that texts require sympathy, taking the form of agreement between writer and reader about principles of logic, coherence, intention, etc. H.P. (Paul) Grice formulated these agreements as a set of categories of maxims that writer and reader need to agree to, in order for the text to deliver successfully the intended message. [1]

What agreements do Bible readers need? What maxims does the author require agreement to? 

Having read the Holy Bible for many years, and studied it in scientific-academic disciplines for around 7 years, I propose that sympathetic reading of the Holy Bible involves these maxims:

(1) The Holy Bible has one author, the Holy Spirit. 

(2) Christ Jesus provides the core concepts that enable disambiguation and authentification of all other Biblical texts.

(3) God, the Holy Spirit, the author of the Holy Bible, speaks with perfect consistency and truth.

Unsympathetic, and therefore misdirected, readings of the Holy Bible therefore are much more common than one might otherwise be led to think. 

(a) Universities, beginning in the 1700s, have increasingly read the Holy Bible with the (astoundingly unscientific) presuppositions that God is not able to perform miracles or to author a consistent text. 

(b) Protestants, beginning with Martin Luther, have usually made their own interpretation of Paul the central criterion for how to interpret and authenticate the rest of the Holy Bible. [2]

(c) Protestants' disparagement of the Greek books of the Old Testament have discouraged Bible interpreters from confirming interpretations of for example New Testament passages, through the use of those books. 



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Notes
[1] For references and further discussion of Pragmatics and other language sciences, please see my earlier essays, "A very brief critique of the dominant hypothesis of Pragmatics", "A Christian reflexion on Pragmatics", and "Sanctification methods, the Competitive Principle, etc."

[2] For examples of how this method for reading goes very wrong, please see the brief discussions here: A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes.

Meditating with God's Word in the Psalter

From the Ancient Greek witness to Psalm 62[3], this is a newly proposed translation:

1  A psalm by David; in him being in the desert of Judea.

2  The God is the God of mine: 

     Toward You, I rise with the horizon's light.

     It thirsts for You—the soul of mine. 

     How many times multiplied [hungers] the flesh of mine for You, 

     in a land desolate and trackless and waterless?

3   Thusly, in the holy I am seen by You,

     with beholding Your power and Your glory. (CFB)


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Notes

(1) In verse 2, the Hebrew word used first is Elohim, "Gods". This can be considered a reference to the plurality of persons within the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

(2) A verb is omitted in verse 2 in the Greek Septuagint. Arguably, it is also omitted in the Hebrew. The Hebrew word kamah is found only here, once, in the Hebrew Bible, and the Greek Septuagint translator appears to have considered it not a verb at all but a pronoun, posalpos, "how many times multiplied", perhaps reading kamah as an ellision of ki (so that) or koh (thus) + mah (how).

(3) Meditation point: Why is the verb omitted in verse 2? Does one's flesh thirst for God? Or does one's flesh reject God (how many times multiplied)? Consider the person who overeats or overdrinks when wandering in a spiritually desolate, trackless and waterless land?

(4) Meditation point: Why, in verse 3, do the Greek and the Hebrew not specify more than "in the holy"? Consider Christ Jesus's conversation with the Samarian woman in Sychar, at Jacob's well.
"The woman said to Him, 'Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.' Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.'" (John 4:19-24, NKJV)

(5) In verse 3, the Greek verb is aorist indicative, the Hebrew verb is Qal perfect; here we propose it has the aorist gnomic, stative, aspectually perfective sense, i.e. having been chastized, and with the beholding of God's power and glory, thusly is the psalmist seen by God.

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NKJV: Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Reading Isaiah 65 consistently: "by them who are serving Him, He will be called by a new name..."

There are many reasons to take a second consideration of Isaiah 65:15-16. In the Masoretic Hebrew and Septuagint Greek versions, there are a number of challenges. 

Here is a translation from the Ancient Greek that seeks consistency with the New Testament, especially Matthew 5 (Christ's prohibition of oaths) and Romans 11 (God's promise to save all Israel).

15  Indeed, you will leave behind the name of yours

      unto abundance to My chosen ones,

      then the Lord will take you up.

      Then by them who are serving Him,

      He will be called by a new name,

16  that will be blessed upon the earth.

      Indeed, they will bless the true God,*

      for they will forget their former suffering,

      it will not even arise to them upon the heart. (CFB)

Compare now to the King James Version (oriented primarily to the Hebrew version) of these two verses.

15  And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen:
      for the Lord God shall slay thee,
      and call his servants by another name:
16  that he who blesseth himself in the earth
      shall bless himself in the God of truth;
      and he that sweareth in the earth
      shall swear by the God of truth;
      because the former troubles are forgotten,
      and because they are hid from mine eyes. (KJV)

And then compare to the NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint) version:

15  For you shall leave your name for fullness to** my chosen ones, 

      but the Lord will do away with you.

      But to those who are subject to him, a new name shall be called,

16  which shall be blessed on the earth;

      for they shall bless the true God,

      and those who swear on the earth

      shall swear by the true God,

      for they shall forget their first affliction,

      and it shall not come up into their heart. (NETS)

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* The reading of Isaiah 65:15-16 proposed here works with the hypothesis that LXX and Masoretic texts have been subject to an unintended addition in verse 16, a short piece of text that conflicts with Christ's teaching and the quality of Isaiah 65 as prophecy describing the Christian people. The hypothesized interpolation is: καὶ οἱ ὀμνύοντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ὀμοῦνται τὸν θεὸν τὸν ἀληθινόν / "and those who swear on the earth shall swear by the true God" (NETS).
** Or to the disgust of

KJV: KJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.

NETS: Quotations marked NETS are taken from A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ©2007 by the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Inc. Used by permission of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Does God judge human actions toward animals?

Update: I would like to question the yellow-highlighted text, because it comes with the authority of the Letter to the Hebrews rather than a teaching of the Lord Jesus. For more on this, please see my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible.

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When God told Peter to "kill and eat" (Acts 10:9-11:18), He was talking about relaxing the Israelite food restrictions and, by extension, Israelite restrictions about fellowship with non-Israelites (Gentiles). God did not thereby provide a licence to treat animals unjustly. Elsewhere in the Holy Bible, diets from vegetable sources rather than animal sources are highly praised (Genesis 1:29-31; Daniel 1:5-16).

God has created all animals, and given them their capacities to feel pain, fear, sadness, gladness, and so on. When one disrespects these qualities that God has granted to Nature, a whole set of injustices are committed: against God who owns the creation, and whose glory, including God's qualities of order, love, and justice, is reflected in creation; against people directly affected and humanity in general; against animals and other living creatures like insects. 

In my own experience, I have seen evidence of God's returning to me how I have treated God's creation. 

For example, when I have purchased non-organic foods (which often involve inflicting suffering on animals and people, through harmful chemicals), I experienced an absence of blessings coming to me. When I realized my injustice, and began buying organic foods, my income suddenly jumped much higher (one of the obvious blessings).

God judges all people justly and gives no license for voluntary sin.

"For the one eating and drinking wrongfully, eats and drinks judgement on himself, not discerning the body. Because of this, among you are many weak and sickly and a considerable number sleep. Now, if were judging ourselves, we would not judge! Being judged, however, by the Lord, we are chastized, so that we not be condemned with the world." (1 Cor. 11:31-32, CFB)

"Indeed, when we are sinning voluntarily after the receiving of the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins remains, but instead some fearful expectation of judgement, and a jealousy of fire that is going to eat the oppositions." (Hebrews 10:26-27, CFB)

"And if Father you call upon—the One impartially judging according to the work of each, in fear the time of your pilgrimage conduct, knowing that not by destructible things, by silver or by gold, were you redeemed from your vain conduct of ancestral tradition, but by honourable blood, as of a lamb unblemished and unstained, of Christ, certainly promised before the foundation of the Cosmos, then revealed at the times’ end because of you, the ones faithful through Him to God, the One having raised Him from dead ones and having given Him glory, so that your faith and your hope be in God." (1 Peter 1:17-21, CFB) 


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CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

"No one had ever seen God. God's only begotten, Him being in the bosom of the Father, related Him in full."

Thanks to a question from Ronny in Stockholm in an online theology forum, new inspiration to look at the problem of John 1:18 arose. This verse is usually translated in such a way that there is a conflict with other propositions found in the New Testament (e.g. John 14:9) and Orthodox Christian thought generally about the divine incarnation. 

But this conflict disappears if one translates consistently with the New Testament (theologically) and with Luke 1:22 and Luke 9:36 (grammatically), reading a pluperfect sense for the Ancient Greek verb form ἑώρακεν (heóraken):

"No one had ever seen God. God's only begotten, Him being in the bosom of the Father, related Him in full." (John 1:18)

Compare with Luke 1:22. 

"And when he came out, he could not speak to them, and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple; and he made signs to them and remained dumb." (RSV)

And Luke 9:36d. 

"... and [they] told no one in those days anything of what they had seen." (RSV)

This new translation of John 1:18 was also facilitated by the insights provided in A. Andrason and C. Locatell, "The Perfect Wave: A Cognitive Approach to the Greek Verbal System", Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics, 2016 (5), p. 47 (link).

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RSV: Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Two witnesses to the Good news from God

“Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” 

                         John's Gospel, 14:1-4 (RSV)

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
       Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature be thus minded; and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
       Brethren, join in imitating me, and mark those who so live as you have an example in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

                         Paul's Letter to the Philippians, 3:7-21 (RSV)

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RSV: Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Why study theology?

I am very thankful for the several years' of study in theology that I have been granted for free in Sweden. As with the study of any science, the study of theology has provided both new knowledge and the capacity to acquire further knowledge (through the learning of research methods, foundational background knowledge, etc.). 

But what is the task of theology? Alongside many other possible answers, I would answer that theology can reasonably be expected to try to answer the following questions:

(1) Does God, an all-powerful creator of all things, exist? 

(2) If God does exist, what are true descriptions of God? 

(3) If God an all-powerful creator with certain qualities (such as fairness) does exist, what are the implications for human ethics? 

Alternatively, one could focus on Christianity only and ask theology to answer this question:

(4) What claims of Christianity are true? 

Why are these reasonable expectations for theology? Firstly, any type of study needs to justify an investment of resources, such as time and money. Many types of study, for example biology and physics, justify the investments by yielding useful knowledge, for example how to develop medicines or how to build shelter and transport. The above four questions focus on the most useful knowledge that the field of theology could be expected to yield. 

But can theology answer these questions? To prove that it can, one must deliver true answers to these questions. Such work has been going on for centuries, even to the present day (for example in the work of William Lane Craig PhD, ThD). One can also reason that if God, an all-powerful creator of all things, has qualities of fairness, love, and suchlike, then God would enable human beings to answer questions (1)-(4). 

Bible misreadings that incite anti-Semitism

The most read book in the world is not anti-Jewish. But mistranslations (alongside misinterpretations) work to mislead readers. Examples:

(1) Matthew 23:32-5 (read why here)

(2) 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 (read why here)

An example of misinterpretation is that Paul in Romans 2 says Christ-believers are the only true Jews. As usual, the misinterpretation is shown to be obviously wrong within the same text: in Romans 11, Paul writes, "as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (11:28b-29, NRSV). 

How widespread are such misreadings? Is there a systematic reproduction of anti-Semitic readings of the Bible? That is: if two NT passages have been badly mistranslated, has this been sufficient to cause systematic anti-Semitic misreadings spreading throughout the 77 books of the Bible?

A deeply troubling indication is that even as one quotes the often virtuous New Revised Standard Version, one risks being tripped up by its highly questionable translation of Romans 11:28a, "As regards the gospel they are the enemies of God...". 

Here an NRSV footnote does clarify that the Greek source text does not say "of God". But why translate in such a way, when one could translate, consistent with both The Letter to the Romans and modern understanding of Ancient Greek, as follows:

...katà mèn tò euaggélion e/x/throì di' humâs
...while according to the gospel, enemies for the sake of you,

...katà dè tè:n eklogè:n agape:toì dià toùs patéras...
yet according to the election, beloved for the sake of the parents....

The NRSV appears to have sought a too-neat parallelism: although enemies of God yet beloved of God. But the text could well be more advanced in structure than a simple antithesis. (See for example a proposed translation here.)

For one thing, nowhere does Paul say that Israelites or Jews are presently the enemy of God! Rather, Paul has just stated that the historical hostility toward Jesus of Nazareth was necessary for the salvation of the Gentile nations (Romans 11:11) and of Israel (Romans 11:26-27).

A Christian who clearly did understand was Metropolitan Kiril of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, who is reported to have quoted Ruth 1:16 as he with 300 church members intervened successfully to stop a Nazi deportation train: "Wherever you go, I will go! Wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God, my God!" [1]

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Notes:

[1] Jim Forest, "The Bishop who stood in the way", In Communion: Website of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, 23 June 2009, <http://incommunion.org/2009/06/23/a-bishop-who-stood-in-the-way/>.   

NRSV: New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Why keep the Golden Rule?

Christ Jesus explains why: 

"Ask, and it will be given you. 
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and it will be opened to you. 
Indeed, everyone who asks receives, 
and he who seeks finds. 
And to him who knocks, it will be opened. 
Or what person is there of you, if his child asks bread of him, 
he might give him a stone? 
Or even if he requests a fish, he might give him a serpent? 
If you, therefore, being evil, know to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in the heavens give good things to them who ask Him? 
Therefore, all things whatsoever you wish that people should do for you, so also do for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 7:7-12)

St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) is quite unique in identifying, and drawing hearers attention to, this vital logic of Christ.

"...to indicate that we ought neither to feel confidence in prayer, while neglecting our own doings; nor, when taking pains, trust only to our own endeavors; but both to seek after the help from above, and contribute withal our own part; He sets forth the one in connection with the other. For so after much exhortation, He taught also how to pray, and when He had taught how to pray, He proceeded again to His exhortation concerning what we are to do; then from that again to the necessity of praying continually, saying, 'Ask,' and 'seek,' and 'knock.' And thence again, to the necessity of being also diligent ourselves.
         'For all things,' saith He, 'whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them.'
         Summing up all in brief, and signifying, that virtue is compendious, and easy, and readily known of all men.
         And He did not merely say, 'All things whatsoever ye would,' but, 'Therefore all things whatsoever ye would,' For this word, 'therefore,' He did not add without purpose, but with a concealed meaning: 'if ye desire,' saith He, 'to be heard, together with what I have said, do these things also.' What then are these? 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you.' Seest thou how He hath hereby also signified that together with prayer we need exact conversation? And He did not say, 'whatsoever things thou wouldest to be done unto thee of God, those do unto thy neighbor;' lest thou should say, 'But how is it possible? He is God and I am man:' but, 'whatsoever thou wouldest to be done unto thee of thy fellow servant, these things do thou also thyself show forth towards thy neighbor.' What is less burdensome than this? what fairer?
         Then the praise also, before the rewards, is exceeding great.    
         'For this is the law and the prophets.' Whence it is evident, that virtue is according to our nature; that we all, of ourselves, know our duties; and that it is not possible for us ever to find refuge in ignorance."[1]

God Almighty is parenting children to be holy, that is good, kind, thankful, full of praise and joy and peace and love (Hebrews 12). Would any wise parent reward a child for wrong behaviour? Where would that lead?

"For that reason, seeing that also we are encompassed by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." (Hebrews 12:1)

"For this reason, girding up the loins of your mind, being entirely sober, hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in ignorance, but as he who has called you is holy, so you be holy in all manner of conduct; because it is written, 'Be holy; for I am holy.' And if you call on the Father, who without respect of persons judges according to every person's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear...." (1 Peter 1:13-17)

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Notes:
[1] St. Chrysostom: Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily XXIII. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.XXIII.html

Christian questions

Update: I would like to question the text now highlighted in yellow. For more, please  see my Translator's Preface to The Christ Family Bible.

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"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18)
Should anyone follow a theologian who disagrees with any parts of the New Testament and Old Testament?

"Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent." (Revelation 2:5, NRSV)
Is there evidence that the Holy Spirit has been removed from churches that ignore God's Word? 

"And just as they did not deem God worthy to have in knowledge, God gave them over to an unworthy mind, to do those things that are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful...." (Romans 1:28-31, AKJV modified)
When these types of disgraceful behaviours are seen to endure in a church, is there a better explanation than that God has kept His Word?

"My child, when you are ill, do not delay, but pray to the Lord, and he will heal you. Give up your faults and direct your hands rightly, and cleanse your heart from all sin. Offer a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and a memorial portion of choice flour, and pour oil on your offering, as much as you can afford. Then give the physician his place, for the Lord created him; do not let him leave you, for you need him. There may come a time when recovery lies in the hands of physicians, for they too pray to the Lord that he grant them success in diagnosis and in healing, for the sake of preserving life. He who sins against his Maker, will be defiant toward the physician." (Sirach 38:9-15, NRSV)

Who takes responsibility for millions of Protestants taught not to heed Sirach as holy scripture, being led into shameful, preventable suffering and deaths of children among others? 

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17:20-21, NRSV)

How can any person believe he has a right to split the Church, the Body of Christ, by insisting on his own Biblical canon and interpretation, without the test of an ecumenical council led by the Holy Spirit (Acts 15)?

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NRSV: New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
AKJV: AKJV reproduced by permission of Cambridge University Press, the Crown’s patentee in the UK.

Symmetry to the rescue

A key concept in godly matters is symmetry, where two things look alike. Some examples:
Jesus Christ is the Word of God.
Human beings were originally created in the image of God.
All Christians are to look like Christ.
God clarifies through parallelism, where a statement is repeated using other words.

Another beautiful example of symmetry is chiasmus, so called because it is alike the Greek letter X (pronounced "chi"). Poetic notation describes chiasmus with forms such as ABB'A' or ABCB'A'. 

Chiasmus, like parallelism, clarifies (and helps a translator know when he or she has found the intended meaning of an ancient text). For example, consider the chiasmus of 1 Corinthians 13:7. 
[Love] bears all things, 
entrusts all things, 
hopes all things,
endures all things. (Christ Family Bible)

It is delightful to find that chiasmus can also be found in the first few lines of Psalm 14 (Ps. 13 in the LXX; Ps. 14 in the BHS) that in translations are often strangely inelegant. 

1  A foolish person says in his heart, "There is no God.
         They* destroy; they are sickening by their practices.
         There is not one doing virtue. There is not even one."
2  Lord from the Heaven looked upon the children of humans,
         to see if there is one considering or seeking out the God.
3  "All have deviated; together they are rendered useless.
         There is not one doing virtue. There is not even one.[..."] (CFB)

The entire Psalm 14 in the Christ Family Bible version can be read here.
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* "They" in the speech of the foolish person could refer either to people or to gods. Either way, the foolish person is claiming that anarchy (among people, or among gods) proves that there is no God.

CFB: Scripture quoted from the Christ Family Bible. Copyright © 2017 by J.J. Thomas. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Hearing and following Christ, all the way into eternal life

The Lord Christ Jesus is recorded to have said: 

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, 

and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life,

and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand." (John 10:27-28, CFB)

What are the consequences, then, of theologians, pastors, elders, evangelists, who lead people away from hearing Christ's commandments, and from following Christ? 

Here for example is Christ's prime commandment: 

"This is My commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you." (John 15:12-14, CFB)

Where are the churches that put Christ's commandment first?