Opus 2026-092: The Middle Ground

My thoughts were on being thankful for God’s beneficial providence.  I was marveling over how patient He is.  We hear a lot about God‘s wrath and forget that He would often withhold His correcting rod for hundreds of years before He would lower the boom.  He was definitely patient.

From there, my thoughts went to the antisemitism that we are hearing so much about.  I just finished reading a section in Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” in which he was dealing with the suffering that the Jews endured in medieval Europe.  It was widespread and brutal.  What impressed me, and honestly surprised me, was that the safest place to be a Jew was in the Papal Estates.  Were the Pope had the greatest authority the persecution was held at bay.  Throughout Europe, many church leaders did what they could to protect the Jews that were being harassed by Crusaders and others.

I fear that antisemitism is real and is on the rise.  By that I don’t mean all of the loud noise attacking certain talking heads.  I don’t listen to those people much anyway, but I’ve never heard them say anything I thought it was filled with hate.  Much of what we hear is just the left and the pseudo-right trying to defame them.  Hatred of Jews does not come from those who believe in the traditional America.  Historically it has come from the world of socialism and totalitarian governments.  Keep in mind that the communisst are also socialist and if you lump together the persecution between the communist and the national socialist, you have a perfectly brutal demonstration of what totalitarians have in store with the Jewish people.

What is ironic is that in our country the forces of socialism seem to be supported by the Jews themselves.  Is it a form of self hatred?  What kind of thinking has almost an entire ethnic group being supportive of the people who hate them the most?

We need to bend over backwards to make sure that we are not expressing hatred for Jews.  Whatever you’re feelings about the nation of Israel and the place of Israel in prophecy, Jews are created in the image of God, just like the rest of us.  They deserve the same courtesy and compassion that anyone else would deserve.  That middle ground is hard for people to walk.

Genuine Americans, and true Christians should be looking inward and preparing themselves in case we ever have the resurgence of the kind of things that happened in Nazi Germany.  What that means is that we will need to be ready to quietly and secretly practice resistance to the forces of tyranny.  That means sheltering the target of tyranny and risking ourselves in the cause of righteousness.  It means realizing that we may be that prey.

Pray and prepare.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-338: I Can’t Avoid It

It seems like everywhere I turn I run into people who think that the KJV is the cats meow.  I have a friend who is a KJV only man.  He spends most of his time trying to convince me how it is the most accurate and influential Bible in history.  When he’s not doing that, he’s attacking the historical figures who translated other versions and trying to put them in the camp of Satan.

My pastor is not that rabid, but he loves the King James Version.  I have no problem with that.  He was raised on it.  He was converted under it.  He consumes it on a regular basis. I am sure he memorizes verses out of it.  It is part of his blood.  He is joined by millions of people around the world.  Glorious.  I think that’s wonderful.  I also know that in the days of my life when I was expected to read the King James, I didn’t.  The language was so archaic that the effort to understand it just wasn’t worth it.

That is still my problem with this translation.  I have never said it was a bad translation.  I’ve never said it is corrupt.  I’ve never made a big deal about the fact that it used inferior Greek and Hebrew manuscripts...unless you asked me.  It’s not worth dividing the kingdom over such things.  And 1611 this was an awesome project that was completed by some great scholars.  The problem is it was 1611.  Just as many people have a mental block against reading Shakespeare, the KJV is beyond their comprehension.

Now I get on my soapbox.  I’m thinking that perhaps the King James Version is now becoming the Latin Vulgate of a certain branch of Christianity.  The Latin Vulgate had become a barrier to everyone from understanding the Bible.  They were forced to depend upon the priest to tell them what it meant.  I don’t know Latin.  I can still take parts of the Latin mass and figure out what it’s talking about simply because of the roots but I can’t sit down and read it and understand it.  It would require a Latin scholar to tell me what it means.  That was the role of the priest.

Fast forward to our modern age.  One of the books I’ve been reading, given to me by my King James Only friend, when asked about the issue of archaic language was perfectly fine with it.  In some twisted way the author felt like it wasn’t important to actually understand the words.  Our pastor doesn’t go that far, but I noticed something.  Because I wanted to be supportive of his love of this translation I bought one that was a parallel publication to my New American Standard.  It had the same Greek and Hebrew helps and tools like that, so I was familiar with its format.  That in itself is not important.  What was interesting to me when I started following along as the pastor read was that the pastor would paraphrase, interpret, explain what the KJV was saying.  He would do it almost automatically without thinking.  At times he would tell you he was doing it but most of the time it was just happened.  He had become the priest who was telling the persons in the pew what the Bible said because they could not understand it.

I have no problem with the King James on the whole.  I use it in my blogs regularly.  When I have the opportunity to preach or teach at church I use it out of respect for the pastor.  I have no problem with this.  It is still not my preferred translation because I get tired of spending time looking up words to trying and figure out what they mean.  And I always wonder how many words that I think I know what they mean in reality have changed their meaning since 1611 and I just don’t notice it.

If you’d love it, use it.  Bless you.  Just don’t curse me because I am going down a different road in my Bible translations.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-226: On the Street: Passing the Privilege

I had a chance to share some white privilege today.  I was out walking and a man and his wife pulled up in a nice shiny pickup and asked me if I could tell him how to get to a certain tourist attraction near us.  I was glad to do so.  We had a very pleasant conversation and I used terms such as “left” and “right” and “big sign”.  I forgot to apologize for assuming that he agreed with me on my definitions of what right and what left meant.  He never questioned that I was white and he seemed to be Latino, or at least his wife was definitely Latino.  We had a courteous, polite and very friendly conversation.  Why would anyone assume anything else?

He did not hesitate to roll down his window and asked me a question.  There was no fear in his eyes.  No trembling hands.  No quavering voice.  No servile demeanor.  No hesitation, just friendly American conversation like we have every day.  This was based not on white privilege but upon accepting the Declaration of Independence statement about all men being created equal and a Biblical concept of treating people with courtesy and kindness even if they weren’t of the faith.

I did not take three steps back, pull my gun, wave it in a threatening manner, and scream out “whatchu want sucka?”

Welcome to the world of white privilege brought to you by Judeo-Christian values and Western culture.

See you on the street, Bro.

homo unius libri

Opus 2021-158: New Terms: Uncle Tim

If you have been paying attention you have seen that the Proregressive* haters have gone on a racist rampage against Senator Tim Scott who presented the response to Biden’s speech.  They decided to mock him by calling him “Uncle Tim”.  I hesitate to point it out but this is an allusion to the tradition of racist of calling conservative blacks “Uncle Tom”.  A further point is that this hails back to the novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  I might also point out that it was one of the items that led up to the Civil War.

The Marxists in government, business, entertainment and media are continuing their attacks on America with the cancel culture.  The latest target is Senator Scott.  I am hoping that they have mis-calculated on this one.  I watched Ted Cruz do an interview with him on the podcast Verdict.  I was impressed.  I don’t think he will be easily intimidate.  To the contrary, I think he will begin to wear this as a badge of shame.

I can see a whole line of badges and bumper stickers saying, Just Call Me Uncle Tim.  Or Tim Spoken Here.  Maybe a clothing line.  Insults often are embraced by the insulted because those attacked often live on a higher plain than the smug.  Maybe it can be more along Tiny Tim from The Christmas Carol than the one who tiptoed through the tulips.  He was instrumental in changing the heart of scrooge, but keep in mind that the hearts of the modern Progregressives* are much harder than that of Scrooge.

Feel free to call me an Uncle Tim any time.

*(Liberals, educators, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Another word for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri