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“Why not just explain it?”

Frank Couch and I recently traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia to speak at Liberty University. We were invited by Dr. Vernon Whaley, head of School of Music. He and his staff did an excellent job preparing for our visit and making us feel welcome.  If you haven’t noticed, Liberty has grown exponentially in the last decade.  The university has 85,000 students (most of those online) and a $1 billion endowment. And, believe it or not, the school is only 41 years old.  The university is building new buildings, starting new programs, and realizing its grand vision like few schools I’ve ever seen.  If you have a son or daughter preparing for college, you might want to check it out.

Liberty UniversityFrank and I talked with several hundred students over two days about the Voice project and the reading of Scripture in worship.  We had a great time thanks to the good folks there.  Along the way Frank and I fielded a number of great questions. I wish I could remember them all. Some of the questions we had heard before, but there was one which sticks out in my mind.

After Frank and I gave some of the reasons why we translated the Greek word Christos as “the Anointed,” a student asked why we didn’t just explain what Christos means and stick to the traditional rendering “Christ.”  Now we’ve discussed this issue at some length in our new book, The Story of The Voice, so I don’t want to repeat that here, but let me give you another side to that.

Go back to the prophets. The word “prophet” means literally “one who speaks for God.”  So we find in the Scriptures a number of prophetic oracles or speeches in the prophetic books (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, etc). But when you read through the prophets, you’ll also notice that sometimes God calls prophets not just to speak a message; he calls them to act it out. And to be honest, God’s servants did some pretty bizarre things. Isaiah walks naked and barefoot for 3 years (Isaiah 20). Jeremiah buys a piece of real estate just a few days before the country is invaded and destroyed by the Babylonians (Jeremiah 32). Ezekiel laid mock siege against a brick he called Jerusalem and laid on his left side by the road for 390 days and then turned over to his right side for 40 days (Ezekiel 4). You might ask: why didn’t Ezekiel just explain God’s message and be done with it? It would have saved him a lot of trouble. Why didn’t Jeremiah just explain his message, keep his money, and not invest in what everybody else thought was a lost cause? It would have saved him a lot of trouble. Why didn’t Isaiah just explain his message and not go through the shame and humiliation that came from what God asked him to do?  It would have saved him a lot of trouble. Well the reason is simple: they sensed God directing them not just to explain a message but to act it out. Sometimes actions do speak louder than words. Had they simply stood up one day in a single place and given a sermon, then I doubt we’d be reading about them today. Their message would have been . . . well, forgettable. It was the combination of word and action which imprinted their messages so clearly on the hearts of their followers.

Now, I find what the prophets did instructive. In the Christian tradition we are encouraged to imitate the noble saints of the past. So, sometimes it is more important for us to act out and live out the message than it is to just explain it.  As we were involved in this translation project, we sensed God directing us to do some things differently with this translation.  We could have just explained the meaning of these key terms in a well written and clear essay somewhere but frankly, that would have been . . . well, forgettable. 

A few of our translation decisions may seem controversial to some, but the scholars, writers, and editors we gathered were aiming to do something unique with this translation. What one writer told me is this: when controversy comes, consider it a teachable moment. This translation project has given me an opportunity to share with hundreds of thousands of people (via television, radio, personal appearances, etc.)  key elements of the Christian faith.  What we continue to hear is how people are hearing in fresh and helpful ways the Voice of God.

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Is It Time to Retire “The Old Testament”?

Old TestamentSo why do we call the first part of the Bible the “Old Testament”?  Well, for several reasons.  First, there is tradition.  For hundreds of years Bibles have been published with a page in front of the collection of 39 books from Genesis to Malachi clearly declaring these are the books of the Old Testament.  Second, there is Jesus’ declaration that he comes to establish a New Covenant in His blood.  We hear these words spoken first at the Last Supper when Jesus breaks the bread, blesses God and invites His followers to “take and eat.” That phrase “New Covenant” becomes identified later with part two of the Christian Bible; we call it the New Testament (the Greek word for “testament” means “covenant”).  If these 27 books from Matthew to Revelation make up the New Testament, then the first part must be, well, the Old Testament. 

Seldom, if ever, does anyone stop and ask “Why?”  Or perhaps even more significantly: “What do we mean when we call these books the Old Testament?”  Tradition is a powerful factor in how we think.  Now I have no real problem with calling these books the Old Testament as long as we do not fill the word “old” with the wrong content.  Frankly, I think sometimes we do.  When Christians refer to these books as the Old Testament—if by “old” they mean worn out, used up, obsolete, yesterday’s news—then  I think we ought to retire the term altogether.  Certainly that’s not how Jesus and his followers looked at their Bible. For them it was God’s Word.  In “the Law, Prophets and Writings”—the way they referred to the Scripture—the Voice of God could be heard and felt.  They heard prophecies there, stories there, poetry there that found ultimate fulfillment in the New Covenant inaugurated by the Liberating King.  For Jesus and his contemporaries the “Old Testament” was not “old” at all.  It was as fresh as the morning, as relevant as the Internet news.  They were still waiting for some of its prophecies to be fulfilled.  There is no sense in which they considered their Scripture old or obsolete.  If that is what we mean by “old,” we ought to throw a retirement party and be done with it.  

 But if by OLD Testament we mean tested, tried and true,

if we mean the foundation upon which the New Covenant is built,

if we recognize that these books point toward the climactic moment of

God’s redemption of the world . . .

then why don’t we just call it what it is: the Classic Testament. 

In many ways I prefer “Classic Testament” to “Old Testament” because it can help us reframe the discussion about Scripture.  I suggest that this subtle change might pay big dividends when it comes to thinking about the relationship between part one and part two of the Christian Scriptures. Although this is an oversimplification, the Old Testament stands in relation to the New as promise is to fulfillment, as foundation is to temple, as classic is to contemporary.  You cannot have one without the other.  The earlier paves the way and makes the later possible.  That’s why the Christian Scriptures contain both Old and New Testaments or what I prefer to call the Classic and New Testaments.

Now I realize I’m not likely to change many minds on this.  I don’t expect Bible publishers to change the introduction page to part one of the Bible.  I just want to get you thinking.  When you say Old Testament, what do you really mean?

 

 

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Easter: The ‘Big Bang’ of the New Creation

 I’m still thinking about Easter.  I know.  Easter is already past; I should be on to something else now.  But frankly, Easter is just one of those days that takes time to process.  When you think of it, Easter is more than a day; it’s a season.  Truth be told, every Sunday is “a little Easter” as we gather together to celebrate the risen Lord.big bang

As I was thinking about Easter, I also had reason recently to refer students in my New Testament class at HBU to 2 Corinthians 5:17.  This is an amazing passage about the new creation.   As anyone knows who is familiar with Greek and biblical theology, Paul’s language here is a notoriously hard to translate.  We struggled with that passage in The Voice.

Here is how we rendered it:

Therefore, if anyone is united with the Anointed, that person is a new creation.  The old life is gone—and see—a new life has begun!

The language of new creation is not original with Paul.  It goes back to the message of Isaiah who looked beyond his own day to a time when God will do something new and amazing in this good—but now disordered—world he had made.  What he will do, according to Isaiah, will be so astounding the only language to describe it is the language of “new creation” (Isaiah 65:17-25).  In John’s Apocalypse it is described this way (Revelation 21:1):

I looked again and could hardly believe my eyes. Everything above me was new. Everything below me was new.  Everything around me was new because the heaven and earth that had been had passed away, and the sea was gone, completely.

When we turn to the New Testament, we discover that the new creation has in fact already begun.  It began on that first Easter when the dead body of Jesus—composed as we are of carbon, hydrogen, and other elements—is suddenly and miraculously transformed into a new kind of body, a resurrected body.  In that moment a piece of the old order became new.  In that moment a piece of the earth—because we like Adam are all made of dust—became eternal.  Easter is “the Big Bang” of the New Creation.

No one was there to observe it, but no one can deny that in that moment everything changed.  As the risen Jesus appeared to one after another, the beleaguered and defeated disciples become powerful witnesses to the greatest miracle in history.  The church—which began small like a mustard seed—started to grow at an amazing pace and in a few decades stood to challenge the power of Rome.  If Jesus is Lord, they thought, then Caesar certainly is not.

Today the empire and her leaders are long gone.  Only fractured monuments to her greatness remain.  But the Church Jesus established is not only present; it has filled the earth.  To borrow a line from one of Jesus’ parables: the birds of the air are making their nests in it.

Paul wants the Corinthians to know that those who are united with Jesus through the ritual cleansing of baptism have entered into that new creation.  Their old lives are put away.  Their new lives have begun.  But the Lord’s emissary does not claim that they are new creations in and of themselves.  They are made new only in relation to the One who was crucified, buried, and raised to new life.  They are made new in that very first Easter.  In a sense they were there on the cross and in that tomb, already united with him.  Paul’s point is personal, but it is more than individual.  Every person who turns to Jesus is not only new creation, he or she enters into a community of individuals graced to be full participants in that new creation which began that first Easter. 

 

 

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C. S. Lewis on Bible Translation

I recently attended a lecture by the Revd Professor Alistair McGrath of Kings College London and Oxford.  The lecture was hosted by the Lanier Theological Library, a private collection of nearly 80,000 theological books.  It was founded and opened to the public just 3 years ago by an amazing fellow named Mark Lanier.  Lanier is one of the top trial lawyers in the nation, and one of the most gifted Bible teachers you will ever hear.  For those of us who love books and all things English, the Lanier Library is a bit of heaven.  You can tell from the picture that it looks like the kind of library you’d find at Cambridge. Lanier Theological Library

Professor McGrath was invited by Lanier to give a lecture on the contributions of C. S. Lewis.  2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis.  He died the same day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, November 22, 1963.  I’m sure Lewis’ death was overshadowed by the death of the 35th president.

McGrath has written a definitive biography of Lewis to mark the occasion of his passing and reassess his contribution.  He titled it C. S. Lewis—a Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet.  If you are interested in Lewis’ life, I recommend you buy it and read it.  McGrath is a worthy interpreter of Lewis.

While I have read 7-8 of Lewis’ books in the past, I haven’t read everything Lewis wrote.  I discovered from listening to McGrath that Lewis had a great deal to say about Bible translation in a variety of essays and the preface to J. B. Phillips’ translation of the New Testament Letters (published 1947). 

 Here are a few things Lewis said about translation:

 . . . the Authorised Version has ceased to be a good (that is, a clear) translation.  It is no longer modern English: the meanings of words have changed. . . . The truth is that if we are to have translation at all we must have periodical re-translation.  There is no such thing as translating a book into another language once and for all, for a language is a changing thing. If your son is to have clothes it is no good buying him a suit once and for all: he will grow out of it and have to be re-clothed.

 We ought therefore to welcome all new translations (when they are made by sound scholars) and most certainly those who are approaching the Bible for the first time will be wise not to begin with the Authorised Version—except perhaps for the historical books of the Old Testament where its archaisms suit the saga-like material well enough. 

 Lewis went on to commend the translations of James Moffatt (1870-1944) and Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957).  They had translated the full Bible, beginning with the New Testaments. C S Lewis

 After having read some of what Lewis has said about translation, I wonder what he would think of The Voice.  Lewis loved stories; he was himself a master story-teller.  Would Lewis have appreciated the emphasis on story in The Voice?  Would he like the screen play format we used in dialogue that makes it clear who is speaking to whom?  Lewis praised human imagination and encouraged Christians to be imaginative when sharing the good news; more than any 20th century Christian leader he unleashed his imagination in expressing his faith.  What would Lewis think of the imaginative ways the poets and scholars worked together in order to discover the beauty of the poetry, the acrostics and the various literary techniques employed by each writer?  Well, we will never know what Lewis might think, this side of eternity.  What I do know is that the more I read Lewis, the more I think he would celebrate any serious attempt made to capture the hearts and minds of those who read the Bible. 

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“God’s Restorative Justice”

There is a phrase in Paul’s letters that is notoriously difficult to translate.  It occurs at key moments in major letters like Romans and 2 Corinthians.  Most often the phrase is translated into English as “the righteousness of God.” cropped-p52.gif

Notice how the New American Standard Version renders Romans 1:16-17: 

                 16For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

            17For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written” But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

Now Romans 3:21-22 (NASV):

            21But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

            22even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; . . .

Now I must admit that I like the NASV translation; I have preached from it for years.  It is probably the most literal translation into English we have.  If you have the time, interest, and skill in doing a word study, it is an important translation to have around. Unfortunately, it tends to obscure the meaning of important phrases.  People without a background in Scripture may be left scratching their heads.

So what does “the righteousness of God” refer to?  It is an important question.  Without getting that straight you can’t make heads or tails out of what Paul is saying in these key passages.  Scholars, by the way, have been debating the significance of this phrase in these letters for centuries.  So it is no easy task.

When we were translating THE VOICE, we spent a great deal of time working through Paul’s language in these passages.  We ended up with what I think is a faithful and helpful rendering.  Here is The Voice translation of Romans 1:16-17:

                 16For I am not the least bit embarrassed about the gospel.  I won’t shy away from it, because it is God’s power to save every person who believes: first the Jew, and then the non-Jew.  17You see, in the good news, God’s restorative justice is revealed.  And as we will see, it begins with and ends in faith.  As the Scripture declares: “By faith the just will obtain life.”  

 Now Romans 3:21-22:

             21But now for the good news: God’s restorative justice has entered the world, independent of the law.  Both the law and the prophets told us this day would come.  22This redeeming justice comes through the faithfulness of Jesus, the Anointed, who makes salvation a reality for all who believe—without the slightest partiality.

Now, we think this translation may help shed light on what Paul is getting at here in these verses.  Still we decided to put some commentary with it to help people think through it.

The phrases “God’s restorative justice” and “this redeeming justice” refer to the same reality.  For Paul the good news—the gospel—is located in history in the incarnation and sacrificial death of Jesus. By “God’s restorative justice” Paul means first that justice and rightness belong to God; they reflect his character.  God, and no one else, determines what is right and what is just.  But as we all know, character is reflected in action.  “Justice” and “righteousness” are nouns of action.  This means that God’s justice must express itself in some way.  So it is in the nature of a just God to act, to restore, to redeem, to repair the world.  This God did primarily through His Son, Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King. 

Paul would not shy away from these bold claims.  The gospel is power.  It is God’s power to restore the world to what it can and ought to be.  But how do we get in on what God is doing?  Well, Paul says, it begins with and ends in faith.  It begins with God’s faithfulness to His creation, then His covenant people.  It continues with Jesus’ faithfulness to God to enter our broken realm to give Himself in love to begin its repair.  It ends with us, hearing and responding in faith and following faithfully in his footsteps. 

Now read the passage again with these things in mind.  Do you see it?  Did you get it?  Recognize that from the beginning God has been at work to restore our world so badly damaged by sin and corruption.