Opus 2026-233: Monday Pulpit: Honor System

Sunday in my regular reading schedule I came across this verse and wrote about it for a future post on my devotional blog,

Proverbs 10:9 (KJV) He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.

My point was that we need to live in such a way that people trust us.  Then I read this as Josiah is getting serious about getting the temple back in shape,

2 Kings 22:7 (KJV) Howbeit there was no reckoning made with them of the money that was delivered into their hand, because they dealt faithfully.

Coincidence?  Sure, why not?  Strange though.

Here in the OT we have an example of what I was thinking about.  Was this originally a preaching point for NT Christians?  I doubt it.  It was an observation that there were people of honor in ancient Israel.  At the same time the Holy Spirit uses things we read to teach us lessons, encourage us, clarify things, in short, whatever we need.

We need to be reminded of what Christian culture should look like.  I can remember when your word was your bond.  I can remember when contracts were sealed with a handshake instead of multiple pages of legalese.  I can remember never locking the house.  That was a culture based on the Bible and having an expectation that people would walk uprightly.

Pray for those days to return.  Live in such a way that your corner of the world embraces that moral standard.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-032: KJO or MAD, part 3 of 3

Let’s say I am totally wrong in my grammar.  If you follow the narative you find that there’s no way that you can say it has been kept the way people would understand it to mean in the day and was given.  How?  We know that the word was lost between Solomon and Josiah.  You don’t need a degree in Hebrew to see this.  Pick your translation.  Look at the 22 chapter of II Kings.  Josiah starts to rebuild the temple and then one day this happened,

(2Ki 22:8 KJV)  And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.

As you continue to read you will find that one of the changes to come out of finding this volume was that the Passover was reinstated.  Can you picture that they knew anything about the law of Moses if they had forgotten the Passover.  How do KJO and MAD deal with this?

If you leave them alone they will just ignore it.  That didn’t work.  The claim now is that it has been miraculously preserved and brought it back in its original form in the King James Bible.  If you accept that Psalm 12:7 refers to the word available to David and somehow are able to include the centuries when it was lost, what about the prophets, gospels and letters of Paul?  They were not preserved, they were added.

The Bible is the inspired word of God.  I have no bone to pick with the KJV.  In 1611 it was a landmark in the spiritual life of the English speaking world.  If I could not use my NAS77 I could work with the KJV.  In fact I use it to preach because the pastor is a great fan of his King James.  The problem with the church is not that translation that they use but that reality that most people who call themselves Christian don’t read any translation.  We may have to lose it to begin to appreciate it.

homo unius libri