Podcasts about orya

This is the 11th Episode of “A Dialogue of history” featuring Sahil Adeem | Orya Maqbool Jan Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A dialogue with history with Qibla Syed Sarfraz Ahmad Shah Sahab Podcast with Orya Maqbool Jaan on 15 October 2023https://videos.kahayfaqeer.org/episode/a-dialogue-with-history-episode-006-sarfraz-a-shah-orya-maqbool-jan-podcast-hds/To view full video library of Syed Sarfraz Shah please visit https://videos.kahayfaqeer.org/

Hey there! It seems like we are off to a good start this year in the Daily Bible Reading Podcast. In this extra podcast, I am trying to give answers to frequent questions. First I want to ask you to share the DBRP NOW with your friends. If you started listening to the podcasts just a few days ago, then perhaps it has occurred to you, “Hey, this podcast would be perfect for …” this or that friend. If so, please share with them right away. This first week of the yearly plan is a great time to start listening, and if your friend wants to, he/she can easily catch up with you. Then you can discuss the readings together. I invite you to contact me if you hear mistakes in my podcasts or if you would like to send a comment. My favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. It's in the upper right hand corner of the screen. If you write about a problem in accessing a certain podcast, please tell me what device you are using and what podcast player. But hey, before writing to me, please check out the Read This First pages linked in the banner bar at dailybiblereading.info. That's the place to go for information about Bible apps, podcast apps, Bible sites useful for digging deeper. and also information about me (Phil) and Gale.[a] After a break in listening to my own podcasts, in 2022 I came back to listen to them again in a concentrated way, looking for things to improve. I ended up making improvements to 154 out of the 365 episodes among the NLT podcasts, and I will continue making improvements to the GNT series in 2023. But now I am afraid that I may have introduced new errors in the NLT series. So for you listening to the NLT series in 2023, please let me know if you hear mistakes or if a certain episode has inferior recording quality compared to the others. YouVersion now has an audio play button at the bottom of every page in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Because that reading plan is sponsored by the Daily Bible Reading Podcast, some people will think that the play button is giving them the recordings for the podcasts. It does NOT. If you hit the play button, you get a Siri/Alexa-like voice that reads the devotional content page, and after that page, the app will play whatever voice is bundled with the translation you have selected. If any of the people who have recently subscribed to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion app are confused like that, then they won't get the message about their mistake, since they will never see the extra podcast that I release like this one. However, when the voice pronounces the name of Job as job, I hope that they will figure out that they are not listening to a podcast. Actually following the 3D reading plan that way is not too bad. I'm just sorry that those who do this will miss out on the extra information that I sometimes give in the podcasts, and also they will miss the prayers at the end of each podcast. For more information about my two full-Bible reading plans in the YouVersion app, please visit the Read This First pages linked at dailybiblereading.info, and look for the page that is about Listening to podcasts. Now let me give you a selection of quick tips.  If you have any questions about why I have recorded the NLT and the GNT for the DBRP, please see the Read This First pages. Those two are the most understandable English translations for those consuming Scripture in audio form. If you started listening to episode 1 podcast on January 1st, if you don't want to install a podcast app, you can simply go to dailybiblereading.info or dailygntbiblereading.info. Your daily episode will be near the top. Using that website is also a great way to listen if you are using a computer instead of a smaller device. If you are somewhere in the middle of the year or are irregular in your listening, a good podcast app will make it easy to select the next episode without having to remember the day number or search for it. If my reading is too slow for you, a good podcast app will let you choose to speed up the audio. My favorite speed is 1.20. I don't recommend listening to Scripture at 1.5 speed if your aim is to understand it and think about it. Two years ago, when I was reading the 3D plan and not listening to the audio[b], I enjoyed using the MyBible app, which works on both Apple and Android devices. It has MANY options for customization. A simpler app that allows you to follow the 3D plan is called Quick Bibles. The Indonesian version of that program is the most popular Bible app in Indonesia. You can download and follow the Digging Deeper Reading plan in both of these two apps instead of using the more popular YouVersion/Bible.com app. Please, if you are listening to the DBRP on your commute to work, have things set up with your podcast app so you do not need to touch your phone. If you commute to work with an Android device, I recommend that you check out using the Podbean app. If you sort the DBRP podcasts in ascending order (low to higher numbers), then the app will automatically move from one episode to the next without a touch. One of the easiest ways to listen to the 3D plan using smart speakers. Please see the Read This First pages at dailybiblereading.info for instructions about using smart speakers, and also for more information about podcast apps. At the first of each year, I frequently have received email questions asking me to explain what I said about the Orya people in the introductions to Genesis 1 and 2. I said this: I have seen first-hand in my work in Indonesia that when a people group misunderstands and twists the story in Genesis 1-3, it will have far-reaching consequences for their lives. In the case of the Orya people, twisting the story of the fall caused much suffering and misery among families. ============== It was about 1986 when Isaak Sasbe made a special trip to see me. At that time I and several Orya men were about to finish translating the Gospel of Mark. While I knew how to say lots of things in the Orya language, I usually couldn't follow everything in an extended narrative in that language. So, on the day Isaak visited me, I am so thankful that I thought to turn on my little tape recorder. In the following months, I would carefully transcribe everything that Isaak told me. Isaak was the governmental head (or the mayor) of the village of Santosa. This is the story that he told, and that which the people there learned from his uncle, Daud. In the beginning, Adam and Eve and other Orya people lived on Jadam mountain. They lived by the power of God. They even had glass in their windows. And they could just think about it, and food would appear on their tables. And they could just think about it, and all the dishes would be washed and put away. (They lived by the magical power of God and didn't have to work.) But it all was ruined when Adam had sex with Eve. Until that time people lived without sex. So God got angry and told Noah to build a big boat. When the boat was finished and the flood waters started coming up, everyone who helped build the boat could get on. Those that got on included Jesus. As the flood got deeper, other people tried to climb up, but Noah hit them over the head with a hammer and they fell back into the water. Jadam mountain was the only mountain peak left above water, and the remaining Orya people stayed there until the water receded. But Noah and Jesus took the power of God with them in the boat, and they sailed away with it and landed in America. That's why you Americans live with the power of God. Then Isaak said something most significant: “I came here to ask you: How can we get the power of God back?” (The anthropology article that I wrote on this is published with the title Of Paradise Lost.) Of course I tried to explain to Isaak that all this was twisted and wrong! I remember his disappointed look upon hearing my explanations. Years later I gained insight as to why he would have been disappointed. According to his belief, if I really had the secret of the power of God, I wouldn't share it with anyone, because that would let others in on the secret. If I told other people how to share the power, the result would be less power and wealth for me. Eventually this story and another told by Isaak's uncle resulted in what anthropologists call a ‘cargo cult'. Such movements are common in the Papua province of Indonesia (formerly called Irian Jaya), and the other side of the island in Papua New Guinea, and in the Solomon Islands. A cargo cult starts when a charismatic leader arises (like Isaak's uncle Daud), and tells people, “Hey, we're doing things wrong. If you do what I tell you, we'll be blessed with cargo (health, wealth, and prosperity) from our departed ancestors.” Daud's twist on this was that the thing the Orya people needed to do to unlock garden-of-Eden-like prosperity was to trade wives. That idea actually had almost nothing to do with Adam and Eve falling into sin in the garden, but with Moses and Joshua and the raising of the walking stick at the crossing of the Red Sea. A little note about Isaak's uncle's background: Daud was one of the few men of his age that went into town and learned the Malay language. So when the first Malay-speaking evangelists came into the Orya area, he was one who was often called upon to translate what the preacher said. That's where he learned Bible stories. How I wish I had recordings of those Maylay sermons and Daud's translations! Another point worth mentioning: Spontaneous sermon translations are not a good way to present the Gospel. There is a little interesting thing here also from a Bible translation perspective: The false teaching of Isaak's uncle involved taking literal happenings in Bible stories and taking them figuratively. Orya people still struggle with this: “Adam and Eve surely didn't sin by just eating a fruit. How silly! It's no big deal if I take a papaya from someone else's garden. They had sex.” Now, a figure of speech in Orya is ‘to pick a flower with someone', and it means to commit adultery with that person. So it was very logical for them to think that picking a fruit was a euphemism for forbidden sex. And Daud's false teaching was that Moses didn't literally raise a walking stick over the Red Sea. Orya men always go to war in pairs. The junior goes first and strikes the first blow, and the junior warrior follows and dispatches the victims. The less senior warrior is called (using figurative language) the other man's ‘walking stick'. So Daud said, “Instead of Moses raising his literal walking stick, he and Joshua (who were war partners) exchanged wives. God was so pleased with that that He opened the Red Sea for them to escape.”   When Daud first started promoting this teaching about wife-swapping, the Orya people didn't just start having free sex. No, Daud and the other leaders regulated which pairs of men would trade wives. I said before that this led to misery. Imagine this: Among two couples, there might be 2-3 of them who were happy with making the trade, but 1-2 were not thrilled with having sex with their new partner. When I first heard of all this, I imagined that it might be all the guys who would be happy, and all the women who would not be. But, in fact, I heard stories of misery from both sexes. One could not run away from this. Where could you run to? And would you leave the children behind? Women were beaten. People of both sexes were trapped. And sexual sin is sticky, in the sense that it inescapably brings more sin and shame with it. Plus it all has to be kept hush-hush, and you can't tell anyone about your problems. Trying to regain a Lost Paradise using human ideas results in misery. I'll probably tell you in another podcast how, years later, the Lord used his Word to defeat the cargo cult. One terrible effect of the cult was to distrust anyone teaching differently from the cult teaching. That is one thing the Lord defeated. Before the occasion that brought the defeat of the cult, people would hint to me about their cult activities saying, “We're doing our traditional cultural practices to bless this land (meaning to bring prosperity).” Note that after only 30-40 years after the start of the cult, they called the wife swapping their ‘traditional cultural practice'. That was not their true tradition! I, the newcomer and foreigner, had to remind them! In the olden days before Daud Sasbe, adultery was severely punished. The punishment was to have your thigh shot at close range with an arrow. The thigh would be pierced with a big spear-like arrow— the kind used in killing pigs. Not many committed adultery back then. God, our creator, has every right to tell us humans how to live. People who live as God instructs us in the Scripture are actually the happiest people in the world. God knows what is best for us. And He has been kind enough to not hide this knowledge from us. He made us male and female to harmonize together in a beautiful way. A couple is so harmonized that two become one, one body. Any time we humans say, “Oh God didn't really mean what he said about __x__ in the Bible!” (you fill in the blank) — we are headed for trouble and misery. My stories about how the Orya people were led into degrading sexual sin probably sound so strange to you that you can hardly believe it. Well, when I tell the Orya what is happening now in the sexual revolution in America and other first-world nations, they can hardly believe it! The sexual revolution will not lead our society to Paradise, happiness, or prosperity, but to shame and misery. ============= I want to repeat my appeal from the top of this episode: Please share with your friends about the 3D reading plan and the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts. Any day of the year is a good day to start listening to the Bible. The Holy Spirit will never tell you not to read the Bible. That message comes from someone else. Expect the Holy Spirit to speak to you each time you read or listen to the Bible. Please forget about me and listen to Him. Gale and I send you our New Year's greetings, and as always, I say, May the Lord bless you ‘real good'.      

Hey there! It seems like we are off to a good start this year in the Daily Bible Reading Podcast. In this extra podcast, I am trying to give answers to frequent questions. First I want to ask you to share the DBRP NOW with your friends. If you started listening to the podcasts just a few days ago, then perhaps it has occurred to you, “Hey, this podcast would be perfect for …” this or that friend. If so, please share with them right away. This first week of the yearly plan is a great time to start listening, and if your friend wants to, he/she can easily catch up with you. Then you can discuss the readings together. I invite you to contact me if you hear mistakes in my podcasts or if you would like to send a comment. My favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. It's in the upper right hand corner of the screen. If you write about a problem in accessing a certain podcast, please tell me what device you are using and what podcast player. But hey, before writing to me, please check out the Read This First pages linked in the banner bar at dailybiblereading.info. That's the place to go for information about Bible apps, podcast apps, Bible sites useful for digging deeper. and also information about me (Phil) and Gale.[a] After a break in listening to my own podcasts, in 2022 I came back to listen to them again in a concentrated way, looking for things to improve. I ended up making improvements to 154 out of the 365 episodes among the NLT podcasts, and I will continue making improvements to the GNT series in 2023. But now I am afraid that I may have introduced new errors in the NLT series. So for you listening to the NLT series in 2023, please let me know if you hear mistakes or if a certain episode has inferior recording quality compared to the others. YouVersion now has an audio play button at the bottom of every page in the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. Because that reading plan is sponsored by the Daily Bible Reading Podcast, some people will think that the play button is giving them the recordings for the podcasts. It does NOT. If you hit the play button, you get a Siri/Alexa-like voice that reads the devotional content page, and after that page, the app will play whatever voice is bundled with the translation you have selected. If any of the people who have recently subscribed to the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan in the YouVersion app are confused like that, then they won't get the message about their mistake, since they will never see the extra podcast that I release like this one. However, when the voice pronounces the name of Job as job, I hope that they will figure out that they are not listening to a podcast. Actually following the 3D reading plan that way is not too bad. I'm just sorry that those who do this will miss out on the extra information that I sometimes give in the podcasts, and also they will miss the prayers at the end of each podcast. For more information about my two full-Bible reading plans in the YouVersion app, please visit the Read This First pages linked at dailybiblereading.info, and look for the page that is about Listening to podcasts. Now let me give you a selection of quick tips.  If you have any questions about why I have recorded the NLT and the GNT for the DBRP, please see the Read This First pages. Those two are the most understandable English translations for those consuming Scripture in audio form. If you started listening to episode 1 podcast on January 1st, if you don't want to install a podcast app, you can simply go to dailybiblereading.info or dailygntbiblereading.info. Your daily episode will be near the top. Using that website is also a great way to listen if you are using a computer instead of a smaller device. If you are somewhere in the middle of the year or are irregular in your listening, a good podcast app will make it easy to select the next episode without having to remember the day number or search for it. If my reading is too slow for you, a good podcast app will let you choose to speed up the audio. My favorite speed is 1.20. I don't recommend listening to Scripture at 1.5 speed if your aim is to understand it and think about it. Two years ago, when I was reading the 3D plan and not listening to the audio[b], I enjoyed using the MyBible app, which works on both Apple and Android devices. It has MANY options for customization. A simpler app that allows you to follow the 3D plan is called Quick Bibles. The Indonesian version of that program is the most popular Bible app in Indonesia. You can download and follow the Digging Deeper Reading plan in both of these two apps instead of using the more popular YouVersion/Bible.com app. Please, if you are listening to the DBRP on your commute to work, have things set up with your podcast app so you do not need to touch your phone. If you commute to work with an Android device, I recommend that you check out using the Podbean app. If you sort the DBRP podcasts in ascending order (low to higher numbers), then the app will automatically move from one episode to the next without a touch. One of the easiest ways to listen to the 3D plan using smart speakers. Please see the Read This First pages at dailybiblereading.info for instructions about using smart speakers, and also for more information about podcast apps. At the first of each year, I frequently have received email questions asking me to explain what I said about the Orya people in the introductions to Genesis 1 and 2. I said this: I have seen first-hand in my work in Indonesia that when a people group misunderstands and twists the story in Genesis 1-3, it will have far-reaching consequences for their lives. In the case of the Orya people, twisting the story of the fall caused much suffering and misery among families. ============== It was about 1986 when Isaak Sasbe made a special trip to see me. At that time I and several Orya men were about to finish translating the Gospel of Mark. While I knew how to say lots of things in the Orya language, I usually couldn't follow everything in an extended narrative in that language. So, on the day Isaak visited me, I am so thankful that I thought to turn on my little tape recorder. In the following months, I would carefully transcribe everything that Isaak told me. Isaak was the governmental head (or the mayor) of the village of Santosa. This is the story that he told, and that which the people there learned from his uncle, Daud. In the beginning, Adam and Eve and other Orya people lived on Jadam mountain. They lived by the power of God. They even had glass in their windows. And they could just think about it, and food would appear on their tables. And they could just think about it, and all the dishes would be washed and put away. (They lived by the magical power of God and didn't have to work.) But it all was ruined when Adam had sex with Eve. Until that time people lived without sex. So God got angry and told Noah to build a big boat. When the boat was finished and the flood waters started coming up, everyone who helped build the boat could get on. Those that got on included Jesus. As the flood got deeper, other people tried to climb up, but Noah hit them over the head with a hammer and they fell back into the water. Jadam mountain was the only mountain peak left above water, and the remaining Orya people stayed there until the water receded. But Noah and Jesus took the power of God with them in the boat, and they sailed away with it and landed in America. That's why you Americans live with the power of God. Then Isaak said something most significant: “I came here to ask you: How can we get the power of God back?” (The anthropology article that I wrote on this is published with the title Of Paradise Lost.) Of course I tried to explain to Isaak that all this was twisted and wrong! I remember his disappointed look upon hearing my explanations. Years later I gained insight as to why he would have been disappointed. According to his belief, if I really had the secret of the power of God, I wouldn't share it with anyone, because that would let others in on the secret. If I told other people how to share the power, the result would be less power and wealth for me. Eventually this story and another told by Isaak's uncle resulted in what anthropologists call a ‘cargo cult'. Such movements are common in the Papua province of Indonesia (formerly called Irian Jaya), and the other side of the island in Papua New Guinea, and in the Solomon Islands. A cargo cult starts when a charismatic leader arises (like Isaak's uncle Daud), and tells people, “Hey, we're doing things wrong. If you do what I tell you, we'll be blessed with cargo (health, wealth, and prosperity) from our departed ancestors.” Daud's twist on this was that the thing the Orya people needed to do to unlock garden-of-Eden-like prosperity was to trade wives. That idea actually had almost nothing to do with Adam and Eve falling into sin in the garden, but with Moses and Joshua and the raising of the walking stick at the crossing of the Red Sea. A little note about Isaak's uncle's background: Daud was one of the few men of his age that went into town and learned the Malay language. So when the first Malay-speaking evangelists came into the Orya area, he was one who was often called upon to translate what the preacher said. That's where he learned Bible stories. How I wish I had recordings of those Maylay sermons and Daud's translations! Another point worth mentioning: Spontaneous sermon translations are not a good way to present the Gospel. There is a little interesting thing here also from a Bible translation perspective: The false teaching of Isaak's uncle involved taking literal happenings in Bible stories and taking them figuratively. Orya people still struggle with this: “Adam and Eve surely didn't sin by just eating a fruit. How silly! It's no big deal if I take a papaya from someone else's garden. They had sex.” Now, a figure of speech in Orya is ‘to pick a flower with someone', and it means to commit adultery with that person. So it was very logical for them to think that picking a fruit was a euphemism for forbidden sex. And Daud's false teaching was that Moses didn't literally raise a walking stick over the Red Sea. Orya men always go to war in pairs. The junior goes first and strikes the first blow, and the junior warrior follows and dispatches the victims. The less senior warrior is called (using figurative language) the other man's ‘walking stick'. So Daud said, “Instead of Moses raising his literal walking stick, he and Joshua (who were war partners) exchanged wives. God was so pleased with that that He opened the Red Sea for them to escape.”   When Daud first started promoting this teaching about wife-swapping, the Orya people didn't just start having free sex. No, Daud and the other leaders regulated which pairs of men would trade wives. I said before that this led to misery. Imagine this: Among two couples, there might be 2-3 of them who were happy with making the trade, but 1-2 were not thrilled with having sex with their new partner. When I first heard of all this, I imagined that it might be all the guys who would be happy, and all the women who would not be. But, in fact, I heard stories of misery from both sexes. One could not run away from this. Where could you run to? And would you leave the children behind? Women were beaten. People of both sexes were trapped. And sexual sin is sticky, in the sense that it inescapably brings more sin and shame with it. Plus it all has to be kept hush-hush, and you can't tell anyone about your problems. Trying to regain a Lost Paradise using human ideas results in misery. I'll probably tell you in another podcast how, years later, the Lord used his Word to defeat the cargo cult. One terrible effect of the cult was to distrust anyone teaching differently from the cult teaching. That is one thing the Lord defeated. Before the occasion that brought the defeat of the cult, people would hint to me about their cult activities saying, “We're doing our traditional cultural practices to bless this land (meaning to bring prosperity).” Note that after only 30-40 years after the start of the cult, they called the wife swapping their ‘traditional cultural practice'. That was not their true tradition! I, the newcomer and foreigner, had to remind them! In the olden days before Daud Sasbe, adultery was severely punished. The punishment was to have your thigh shot at close range with an arrow. The thigh would be pierced with a big spear-like arrow— the kind used in killing pigs. Not many committed adultery back then. God, our creator, has every right to tell us humans how to live. People who live as God instructs us in the Scripture are actually the happiest people in the world. God knows what is best for us. And He has been kind enough to not hide this knowledge from us. He made us male and female to harmonize together in a beautiful way. A couple is so harmonized that two become one, one body. Any time we humans say, “Oh God didn't really mean what he said about __x__ in the Bible!” (you fill in the blank) — we are headed for trouble and misery. My stories about how the Orya people were led into degrading sexual sin probably sound so strange to you that you can hardly believe it. Well, when I tell the Orya what is happening now in the sexual revolution in America and other first-world nations, they can hardly believe it! The sexual revolution will not lead our society to Paradise, happiness, or prosperity, but to shame and misery. ============= I want to repeat my appeal from the top of this episode: Please share with your friends about the 3D reading plan and the Daily Bible Reading Podcasts. Any day of the year is a good day to start listening to the Bible. The Holy Spirit will never tell you not to read the Bible. That message comes from someone else. Expect the Holy Spirit to speak to you each time you read or listen to the Bible. Please forget about me and listen to Him. Gale and I send you our New Year's greetings, and as always, I say, May the Lord bless you ‘real good'.  

After being directly involved in Bible translation since 1983, I have wanted to share with younger generations about the things I have learned from my experiences as a Bible translator— the things that made the most impact on me through my years. I have now decided to put a few of my most important stories in this JoySightings podcast. I know that I am never going to write a book. But now if anyone ever asks about my experiences, I will have a place to send them: Go to JoySightings.info and start at episode 52. I hope to add several other stories this year. Today I will also read one more parable of Safed the Sage. When we were about 7-8 years into the Orya translation project, back around 1991, Nahe asked one Sunday morning to have a private conversation with me. Nahe and I had never had much communication, so I felt it was an unusual request. I knew him mainly as a young guy who made his income by cutting trees into lumber with his chainsaw. He was strong and athletic, but a man of few words. He came that evening and we sat down together in my candle-lit rustic cabin's front room. He said, “You wouldn't have heard this, because it happened in another village. I got very sick and died. When I came back to life, the men were already building my coffin. But while I was dead, I went to heaven and saw wonderful things. The people in heaven are so happy and rejoicing.” He ended his story with tears in his eyes saying this, “I cry every single day because I know that someone like me can't go to heaven. What do I have to do to be saved?” I thought, “Oh boy! A chance to be a real missionary! This will make a good prayer letter.” (But I was in for a surprise!) I immediately answered his question from the book of Acts chapter 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31) Nahe answered, “That's just it! How can I tell if I have believed?” I responded incredulously, “Can't you tell if you've believed something?” And he said, “We Orya people don't think so.” That's how the conversation went according to my understanding of it in those moments. But what we said really meant this: I answered wrongly from the book of Acts, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Nahe's answer made sense, “That's just it! How can I tell if I have faith?” I responded incredulously, “Can't you tell if you have faith?” And he said, “We Orya people don't think so.” The difference is between ‘believe' and ‘faith'. It took a little while in the conversation before I figured out what Nahe was saying. This was a heavy moment for me, because I realized that the word for ‘believe' that we had used in all our translation work for six years was wrong, including verses in Scripture booklets we had carefully checked and distributed. Long before we arrived in Guay, the word that the Orya people used to translate ‘faith' was ei gwen, or to have ‘inner fruit'. By ‘inner fruit' the Orya meant the inside part that you eat when you take off the skin. It's the inside of the papaya or watermelon. The situation might be compared to buying a papaya at the market. You don't know whether the inside is red or yellow until you take it home and cut it open. Nahe told me that the Orya people assumed that you couldn't know if you had this inner fruit (or faith) inside you until you died. They thought that at the door of heaven, God would somehow do an operation to reveal if you had any of the right stuff inside you. It was clear that if we used ‘have inner fruit' to translate ‘believe', then no Orya person could tell if they had done the required action to be saved. No one could have assurance of salvation! After that Sunday evening conversation with Nahe, all day Monday Boas and I and several others worked to make sure we found exactly the right word for ‘believe' in Orya. The word for believe in Orya is not ei gwen, but taïblïblan. There is a weird twist that has happened with the words for faith and believe in several languages that is not like the Greek words pisteuo and pistis. The Greek words have the same root, so they sound alike.   Greek English Indonesian Orya verb pisteuo I believe Saya percaya taïblïblan noun pistis faith iman ei gwen visually clearly related dissimilar dissimilar dissimilar If only pisteuo (I believe) and pistis/pisteos (noun/possesive noun) were translated into English with similar looking words like ‘I'm confident' and ‘confidence', we wouldn't have so many false teachings being spread around! But because ‘believe' and ‘faith' share no visible or audible root relationship, the English noun faith has been allowed to wander— so to speak. The cohesion between pisteuo and pistis that was obvious for the original readers in Grrek has been lost in translation. Perhaps because of the influence of the KJV on Indonesian translations, the same thing has happened in Indonesian. The result is that the Indonesian word iman (like ‘faith' in English) is used for all sorts of things, including inner fortitude, vague hope, blind trust, denominational faith, and a force for good luck. Notice what happens in verses like Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. …” If you want to be saved, it would be a good idea to understand ‘faith'. But so many people who ask Nahe's question, “How can I tell if I have faith,” will get all sorts of misleading answers. Dear friend, anytime you want to understand what ‘faith' means in a verse in the New Testament, just remember that you can substitute the word ‘believe', ‘believed', or ‘believing' (whatever form fits) in place of the word ‘faith'. NLT translates Ephesians 2:8 as “God saved you by his grace when you believed. …” If you substitute the word ‘believe' for ‘faith' in translations that use that word, you will probably find that you want to add an object. You can choose an object from the context such as these: ‘believe in Christ', ‘believe in the gospel', ‘believe true teachings', or ‘believe God's promises'. Now you know why in the Daily Bible Reading podcasts that I always substitute the word ‘believe' or ‘fully believing' for ‘faith' in the NLT or GNT. It all stems from my conversation with Nahe. You see, I want people to know how to be saved. Note that believing is a volitional act. We decide to believe, and we better hope our decisions are based on good logic and evidence. That is what makes it so different from the word ‘faith'. People believe that ‘faith' just sort of happens. False teachers make money by promoting all sorts of things that they claim will increase your faith. But remember that in Greek, faith is the noun form for the verb believe. So if God gives you clear evidence of his power and love for you, like He did when he led the people of Israel out of Egypt, and then you refuse to believe in his good will for you, that is called stubborn disobedience. Believing is a volitional act. Deciding to believe what God says equals increasing your faith. I wish I could tell you that Nahe followed through with my advice to fully believe in Jesus. Nahe's widow goes to close friend Boas' church, and I happened to meet her in his village two years ago. We both feel that Nahe never believed in Jesus to the point that it changed his life. But, interestingly, on that same visit to Boas' village, two old friends there told me stories of their dying, going to heaven, and being told to return to this world. (If you ever experienced malaria, you would know how easy it would be to nearly die!) I am encouraged that both of my two old friends show signs of true new life in Christ. Friends, I want everyone to get a clear answer to the question, “How can I be sure I am saved?” I want you to not get confused by the fuzzy word ‘faith'. Remember, faith is fully believing what the Bible says. Every time you read God's Word and decide that you believe what you find there, you have increased your faith.  

After being directly involved in Bible translation since 1983, I have wanted to share with younger generations about the things I have learned from my experiences as a Bible translator— the things that made the most impact on me through my years. I have now decided to put a few of my most important stories in this JoySightings podcast. I know that I am never going to write a book. But now if anyone ever asks about my experiences, I will have a place to send them: Go to JoySightings.info and start at episode 52. I hope to add several other stories this year. Today I will also read one more parable of Safed the Sage. When we were about 7-8 years into the Orya translation project, back around 1991, Nahe asked one Sunday morning to have a private conversation with me. Nahe and I had never had much communication, so I felt it was an unusual request. I knew him mainly as a young guy who made his income by cutting trees into lumber with his chainsaw. He was strong and athletic, but a man of few words. He came that evening and we sat down together in my candle-lit rustic cabin's front room. He said, “You wouldn't have heard this, because it happened in another village. I got very sick and died. When I came back to life, the men were already building my coffin. But while I was dead, I went to heaven and saw wonderful things. The people in heaven are so happy and rejoicing.” He ended his story with tears in his eyes saying this, “I cry every single day because I know that someone like me can't go to heaven. What do I have to do to be saved?” I thought, “Oh boy! A chance to be a real missionary! This will make a good prayer letter.” (But I was in for a surprise!) I immediately answered his question from the book of Acts chapter 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31) Nahe answered, “That's just it! How can I tell if I have believed?” I responded incredulously, “Can't you tell if you've believed something?” And he said, “We Orya people don't think so.” That's how the conversation went according to my understanding of it in those moments. But what we said really meant this: I answered wrongly from the book of Acts, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” Nahe's answer made sense, “That's just it! How can I tell if I have faith?” I responded incredulously, “Can't you tell if you have faith?” And he said, “We Orya people don't think so.” The difference is between ‘believe' and ‘faith'. It took a little while in the conversation before I figured out what Nahe was saying. This was a heavy moment for me, because I realized that the word for ‘believe' that we had used in all our translation work for six years was wrong, including verses in Scripture booklets we had carefully checked and distributed. Long before we arrived in Guay, the word that the Orya people used to translate ‘faith' was ei gwen, or to have ‘inner fruit'. By ‘inner fruit' the Orya meant the inside part that you eat when you take off the skin. It's the inside of the papaya or watermelon. The situation might be compared to buying a papaya at the market. You don't know whether the inside is red or yellow until you take it home and cut it open. Nahe told me that the Orya people assumed that you couldn't know if you had this inner fruit (or faith) inside you until you died. They thought that at the door of heaven, God would somehow do an operation to reveal if you had any of the right stuff inside you. It was clear that if we used ‘have inner fruit' to translate ‘believe', then no Orya person could tell if they had done the required action to be saved. No one could have assurance of salvation! After that Sunday evening conversation with Nahe, all day Monday Boas and I and several others worked to make sure we found exactly the right word for ‘believe' in Orya. The word for believe in Orya is not ei gwen, but taïblïblan. There is a weird twist that has happened with the words for faith and believe in several languages that is not like the Greek words pisteuo and pistis. The Greek words have the same root, so they sound alike.   Greek English Indonesian Orya verb pisteuo I believe Saya percaya taïblïblan noun pistis faith iman ei gwen visually clearly related dissimilar dissimilar dissimilar If only pisteuo (I believe) and pistis/pisteos (noun/possesive noun) were translated into English with similar looking words like ‘I'm confident' and ‘confidence', we wouldn't have so many false teachings being spread around! But because ‘believe' and ‘faith' share no visible or audible root relationship, the English noun faith has been allowed to wander— so to speak. The cohesion between pisteuo and pistis that was obvious for the original readers in Grrek has been lost in translation. Perhaps because of the influence of the KJV on Indonesian translations, the same thing has happened in Indonesian. The result is that the Indonesian word iman (like ‘faith' in English) is used for all sorts of things, including inner fortitude, vague hope, blind trust, denominational faith, and a force for good luck. Notice what happens in verses like Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. …” If you want to be saved, it would be a good idea to understand ‘faith'. But so many people who ask Nahe's question, “How can I tell if I have faith,” will get all sorts of misleading answers. Dear friend, anytime you want to understand what ‘faith' means in a verse in the New Testament, just remember that you can substitute the word ‘believe', ‘believed', or ‘believing' (whatever form fits) in place of the word ‘faith'. NLT translates Ephesians 2:8 as “God saved you by his grace when you believed. …” If you substitute the word ‘believe' for ‘faith' in translations that use that word, you will probably find that you want to add an object. You can choose an object from the context such as these: ‘believe in Christ', ‘believe in the gospel', ‘believe true teachings', or ‘believe God's promises'. Now you know why in the Daily Bible Reading podcasts that I always substitute the word ‘believe' or ‘fully believing' for ‘faith' in the NLT or GNT. It all stems from my conversation with Nahe. You see, I want people to know how to be saved. Note that believing is a volitional act. We decide to believe, and we better hope our decisions are based on good logic and evidence. That is what makes it so different from the word ‘faith'. People believe that ‘faith' just sort of happens. False teachers make money by promoting all sorts of things that they claim will increase your faith. But remember that in Greek, faith is the noun form for the verb believe. So if God gives you clear evidence of his power and love for you, like He did when he led the people of Israel out of Egypt, and then you refuse to believe in his good will for you, that is called stubborn disobedience. Believing is a volitional act. Deciding to believe what God says equals increasing your faith. I wish I could tell you that Nahe followed through with my advice to fully believe in Jesus. Nahe's widow goes to close friend Boas' church, and I happened to meet her in his village two years ago. We both feel that Nahe never believed in Jesus to the point that it changed his life. But, interestingly, on that same visit to Boas' village, two old friends there told me stories of their dying, going to heaven, and being told to return to this world. (If you ever experienced malaria, you would know how easy it would be to nearly die!) I am encouraged that both of my two old friends show signs of true new life in Christ. Friends, I want everyone to get a clear answer to the question, “How can I be sure I am saved?” I want you to not get confused by the fuzzy word ‘faith'. Remember, faith is fully believing what the Bible says. Every time you read God's Word and decide that you believe what you find there, you have increased your faith.  

I have prepared this Every Word podcast to discuss the ending of Mark 16, verses 9-20. Those are the verses that are bracketed in most translations made in the last century. The brackets indicate that the compilers of the Greek text used by the translators did not think those verses are part of the authentic inspired text. I am going to try to convince you today that the verses shouldn't have brackets around them, and that they are authentic Scripture inspired by God. The NLT, has this: Mark 16:8 NLT 8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.[c] c The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. A few include both the “shorter ending” and the “longer ending.” The majority of manuscripts include the “longer ending” immediately after verse 8. [The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.] [Shorter Ending of Mark] Then they briefly reported all this to Peter and his companions. Afterward Jesus himself sent them out from east to west with the sacred and unfailing message of salvation that gives eternal life. Amen. [Longer Ending of Mark] verses 9-20 I did not read the shorter ending for the podcast. That ending has extremely thin support in ancient manuscripts, and where the words occur, the manuscripts often also have the longer ending, verses 9-20. In my preparation to be a Bible translator, I was given virtually zero preparation about different Greek texts of the NT or the manuscript evidence supporting them. We were expected to simply follow the lead of the main English translations as we translated into the Orya language (an ethnic language of Papua Province) and later in our translation into Indonesia's national language. So the Orya translation and the first editions of our Indonesian translation include the brackets and a footnote. But our 3rd edition Plain Indonesian Translation (TSI) has no brackets for verses 9-20. I want to tell you why I changed my mind, and why the decision is important. Some experts today think that Mark intended to end his Gospel with the words, “they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” But this defies imagination. I don't think authors started using the type of endings where you leave-the-audience-hanging until centuries later, like perhaps just two centuries ago. Remember that Mark starts with the words, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mark shows a pattern of telling the outcome for every miracle. He is not about to leave his main thesis of his story without its fulfillment. The fulfillment of the starting thesis is found in the next to last verse (16:19), which says, “19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.” Verse 19 also is an important doctrinal statement, since no other Gospel includes those words as part of the story after Jesus' resurrection. And the same verse also very appropriately links the book of Mark with Peter's teaching in 1Pet. 3:22. Please check yourself. Do you believe what Moses and Jesus said?: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) If we are to live by ‘every word', do you believe that God would preserve every word for us? I hope you respond, “Why yes, of course.” I believe that God has preserved His Word for us. Therefore it is unacceptable for me to say that the Holy Spirit would leave a whole book of the NT without a clear ending. We have two choices for the ending: One says the ladies didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. The other ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Which one seems to be the proper ending to you?! The NLT has words in bold italics before Mark 16 verses 9-20 which say, “[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]” How many manuscripts are we talking about with the words ‘most ancient manuscripts'? Then the footnote says ‘later manuscripts add' the last 12 verses. What are the real numbers? Two of the very oldest manuscripts plus one other do not have the last 12 verses of Mark. But the manuscripts that include the last 12 verses number more than 1,650! 99.99% of ancient manuscripts contain the longer ending of Mark. The NLT also has a footnote that starts with “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” But this statement is actually false. The two manuscripts they are talking about (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) cannot be said to be ‘reliable'. They are, however, recognized as the very earliest, dated at 325 and around 345. For Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus to be considered reliable, one would hope they would be reasonably consistent with one another. Instead they differ from one another in 3,036 places. I believe that early scribes recognized that they were defective, and this offers a plausible explanation for why there are no extant copies made from them. I do not agree with the practice of writing vague footnotes in our Bibles as seen above. Many of the footnotes in your Bible will talk about what ‘some manuscripts' say. It has actually been recommended to translators to keep such footnotes vague. I do not have the time to adequately explain why this has been done. It is time to give people better information. I will explain more about this in another podcast. Many old-school ‘experts' (by that I mean seminary teachers from the mid-20th century) will say that the two oldest manuscripts outweigh all of the 1,650 other ancient manuscripts. But many of today's informed experts will not agree with the people I just called the ‘old-school experts'. Here are some points to consider: Both of the two oldest manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) have an odd blank space at the end of Mark, showing that the scribe realized the manuscript he was copying had something left out. This is called a ‘memorial space'. Such memorial spaces are found in various places in other ancient manuscripts. So even though the two manuscripts do not have the last 12 verses of Mark, the scribes telegraphed to us that they knew such an ending existed. Remember that Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are from the early 4th century. There are quotes of verses from Mark 16:9-20 by church fathers that predate Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Earlier support for the longer ending of Mark include “four second-century witnesses, and 99.9% of the [other ancient] Greek manuscripts, and 99.99% of the [ancient] Latin manuscripts, and 99.5% of the [ancient] Syriac manuscripts, and 40 Roman-era patristic writers.” (Quote from Dr. James Snapp: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/08/robert-stein-and-ending-of-mark.html) Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1844. This touched off a lot of excitement, and a revolutionary new text of the NT was published by Westscott and Hort in 1881. Please consider that there are multiple examples in history where excitement over new discoveries resulted in mistaken theories. For example, Darwin's theory of evolution from the same time period is now discredited. Just like you have university teachers still bone-headedly holding on to the theory of evolution, so the theories of Westscott and Hort are no longer upheld by many of today's experts but are still being repeated by seminary teachers. Westscott and Hort's faulty decisions about what verses are not authentic are still seen in today's Bibles. I'm sure that you will hear someone claim that the last 12 verses of Mark use non-Markan vocabulary, but that assertion has been repeatedly disproved. In my January 4 news and information podcast, I mentioned that the GotQuestions web site often included very good answers to questions Bible readers bring up. Generally I believe that is true. But evidently it is NOT true when it comes to textual issues like the long ending of Mark. The GotQuestions article I refer to is entitled Should Mark 16:9-20 be in the Bible? https://www.gotquestions.org/Mark-16-9-20.html But please don't read that one unless you also read Dr. James Snapp's refutation of it linked here: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/07/the-got-questions-website-and-mark-169.html I would be very happy for you to read both articles, as this would show you how untruths are passed on by people who should know better. Please consider supporting the work of James Snapp by buying and reading his 400-page book entitled Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition. The Kindle book is only 99 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Case-Mark-9-20-2016-ebook/dp/B01EU1OR9O Some of you might be interested in listening to my 2020 podcast entitled EveryWord005 Mark 16. Please follow that last link to find the supplemental PDF for that episode containing an essay on the ending of Mark by Dr. Wilbur Pickering. What I have said about the ending of Mark is important. Let me illustrate: About six years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does an excellent job of preaching straight through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear a message about Mark 16, the pastor began by telling us he would not be preaching about that chapter. Before he launched into the totally new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he rather quietly said this, “I decided that I would not preach on the ending of Mark, because, after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” Our pastor said, “after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” He didn't say “I don't know.” He said ‘we' don't know if it is inspired. What a terrible thing for a pastor to say from the pulpit! If 12 whole verses could disappear and marr the conclusion of a book of Scripture, how many other corruptions might there be in the New Testament? This semester my wife (Gale) is teaching a morning and evening Bible study for women based on the Gospel of Mark. The same pastor (whom I highly respect) very nicely supplied four commentaries to help her. Three of the four do not discuss the last 12 verses of chapter 16. But none of them have a good explanation as to why they do not discuss it. Two of them hold to the idea that Mark intentionally left readers hanging with the words ‘because they were too frightened'. One of the books gushes, “What a perfect ending!” The footnotes and the brackets in our Bibles don't just confuse believers in Christ, but they confuse people who are wondering if the Bible is true. And opponents of Christianity seize on such things to say that the Bible text is not reliable. The answer to this problem is to base our Bible translations on the Majority Text of the New Testament, also called the Byzantine Textform. I will give more information about that later. Until then, the bottom line is that 1650 ancient manuscripts found all over the ancient world, all made by an army scribes each copying the text of an earlier manuscript, could not have the last 12 verses of Mark if the verses had not come from the first papyrus copy written by Mark. Until next time, may the Lord bless you ‘real good'.

I have prepared this Every Word podcast to discuss the ending of Mark 16, verses 9-20. Those are the verses that are bracketed in most translations made in the last century. The brackets indicate that the compilers of the Greek text used by the translators did not think those verses are part of the authentic inspired text. I am going to try to convince you today that the verses shouldn't have brackets around them, and that they are authentic Scripture inspired by God. The NLT, has this: Mark 16:8 NLT 8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.[c] c The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. A few include both the “shorter ending” and the “longer ending.” The majority of manuscripts include the “longer ending” immediately after verse 8. [The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.] [Shorter Ending of Mark] Then they briefly reported all this to Peter and his companions. Afterward Jesus himself sent them out from east to west with the sacred and unfailing message of salvation that gives eternal life. Amen. [Longer Ending of Mark] verses 9-20 I did not read the shorter ending for the podcast. That ending has extremely thin support in ancient manuscripts, and where the words occur, the manuscripts often also have the longer ending, verses 9-20. In my preparation to be a Bible translator, I was given virtually zero preparation about different Greek texts of the NT or the manuscript evidence supporting them. We were expected to simply follow the lead of the main English translations as we translated into the Orya language (an ethnic language of Papua Province) and later in our translation into Indonesia's national language. So the Orya translation and the first editions of our Indonesian translation include the brackets and a footnote. But our 3rd edition Plain Indonesian Translation (TSI) has no brackets for verses 9-20. I want to tell you why I changed my mind, and why the decision is important. Some experts today think that Mark intended to end his Gospel with the words, “they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” But this defies imagination. I don't think authors started using the type of endings where you leave-the-audience-hanging until centuries later, like perhaps just two centuries ago. Remember that Mark starts with the words, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mark shows a pattern of telling the outcome for every miracle. He is not about to leave his main thesis of his story without its fulfillment. The fulfillment of the starting thesis is found in the next to last verse (16:19), which says, “19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.” Verse 19 also is an important doctrinal statement, since no other Gospel includes those words as part of the story after Jesus' resurrection. And the same verse also very appropriately links the book of Mark with Peter's teaching in 1Pet. 3:22. Please check yourself. Do you believe what Moses and Jesus said?: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) If we are to live by ‘every word', do you believe that God would preserve every word for us? I hope you respond, “Why yes, of course.” I believe that God has preserved His Word for us. Therefore it is unacceptable for me to say that the Holy Spirit would leave a whole book of the NT without a clear ending. We have two choices for the ending: One says the ladies didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. The other ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Which one seems to be the proper ending to you?! The NLT has words in bold italics before Mark 16 verses 9-20 which say, “[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]” How many manuscripts are we talking about with the words ‘most ancient manuscripts'? Then the footnote says ‘later manuscripts add' the last 12 verses. What are the real numbers? Two of the very oldest manuscripts plus one other do not have the last 12 verses of Mark. But the manuscripts that include the last 12 verses number more than 1,650! 99.99% of ancient manuscripts contain the longer ending of Mark. The NLT also has a footnote that starts with “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” But this statement is actually false. The two manuscripts they are talking about (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) cannot be said to be ‘reliable'. They are, however, recognized as the very earliest, dated at 325 and around 345. For Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus to be considered reliable, one would hope they would be reasonably consistent with one another. Instead they differ from one another in 3,036 places. I believe that early scribes recognized that they were defective, and this offers a plausible explanation for why there are no extant copies made from them. I do not agree with the practice of writing vague footnotes in our Bibles as seen above. Many of the footnotes in your Bible will talk about what ‘some manuscripts' say. It has actually been recommended to translators to keep such footnotes vague. I do not have the time to adequately explain why this has been done. It is time to give people better information. I will explain more about this in another podcast. Many old-school ‘experts' (by that I mean seminary teachers from the mid-20th century) will say that the two oldest manuscripts outweigh all of the 1,650 other ancient manuscripts. But many of today's informed experts will not agree with the people I just called the ‘old-school experts'. Here are some points to consider: Both of the two oldest manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) have an odd blank space at the end of Mark, showing that the scribe realized the manuscript he was copying had something left out. This is called a ‘memorial space'. Such memorial spaces are found in various places in other ancient manuscripts. So even though the two manuscripts do not have the last 12 verses of Mark, the scribes telegraphed to us that they knew such an ending existed. Remember that Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are from the early 4th century. There are quotes of verses from Mark 16:9-20 by church fathers that predate Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Earlier support for the longer ending of Mark include “four second-century witnesses, and 99.9% of the [other ancient] Greek manuscripts, and 99.99% of the [ancient] Latin manuscripts, and 99.5% of the [ancient] Syriac manuscripts, and 40 Roman-era patristic writers.” (Quote from Dr. James Snapp: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/08/robert-stein-and-ending-of-mark.html) Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1844. This touched off a lot of excitement, and a revolutionary new text of the NT was published by Westscott and Hort in 1881. Please consider that there are multiple examples in history where excitement over new discoveries resulted in mistaken theories. For example, Darwin's theory of evolution from the same time period is now discredited. Just like you have university teachers still bone-headedly holding on to the theory of evolution, so the theories of Westscott and Hort are no longer upheld by many of today's experts but are still being repeated by seminary teachers. Westscott and Hort's faulty decisions about what verses are not authentic are still seen in today's Bibles. I'm sure that you will hear someone claim that the last 12 verses of Mark use non-Markan vocabulary, but that assertion has been repeatedly disproved. In my January 4 news and information podcast, I mentioned that the GotQuestions web site often included very good answers to questions Bible readers bring up. Generally I believe that is true. But evidently it is NOT true when it comes to textual issues like the long ending of Mark. The GotQuestions article I refer to is entitled Should Mark 16:9-20 be in the Bible? https://www.gotquestions.org/Mark-16-9-20.html But please don't read that one unless you also read Dr. James Snapp's refutation of it linked here: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/07/the-got-questions-website-and-mark-169.html I would be very happy for you to read both articles, as this would show you how untruths are passed on by people who should know better. Please consider supporting the work of James Snapp by buying and reading his 400-page book entitled Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition. The Kindle book is only 99 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Case-Mark-9-20-2016-ebook/dp/B01EU1OR9O Some of you might be interested in listening to my 2020 podcast entitled EveryWord005 Mark 16. Please follow that last link to find the supplemental PDF for that episode containing an essay on the ending of Mark by Dr. Wilbur Pickering. What I have said about the ending of Mark is important. Let me illustrate: About six years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does an excellent job of preaching straight through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear a message about Mark 16, the pastor began by telling us he would not be preaching about that chapter. Before he launched into the totally new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he rather quietly said this, “I decided that I would not preach on the ending of Mark, because, after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” Our pastor said, “after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” He didn't say “I don't know.” He said ‘we' don't know if it is inspired. What a terrible thing for a pastor to say from the pulpit! If 12 whole verses could disappear and marr the conclusion of a book of Scripture, how many other corruptions might there be in the New Testament? This semester my wife (Gale) is teaching a morning and evening Bible study for women based on the Gospel of Mark. The same pastor (whom I highly respect) very nicely supplied four commentaries to help her. Three of the four do not discuss the last 12 verses of chapter 16. But none of them have a good explanation as to why they do not discuss it. Two of them hold to the idea that Mark intentionally left readers hanging with the words ‘because they were too frightened'. One of the books gushes, “What a perfect ending!” The footnotes and the brackets in our Bibles don't just confuse believers in Christ, but they confuse people who are wondering if the Bible is true. And opponents of Christianity seize on such things to say that the Bible text is not reliable. The answer to this problem is to base our Bible translations on the Majority Text of the New Testament, also called the Byzantine Textform. I will give more information about that later. Until then, the bottom line is that 1650 ancient manuscripts found all over the ancient world, all made by an army scribes each copying the text of an earlier manuscript, could not have the last 12 verses of Mark if the verses had not come from the first papyrus copy written by Mark. Until next time, may the Lord bless you ‘real good'.

Partager sa vie avec deux chiennes, de races différentes, aux besoins parfois opposés, voilà le choix qu'a fait Amandine.  Orya, la husky et Patch, la cocker, suivent Amandine dans toutes ses aventures. Parce qu'au delà des contraintes occasionnelles, elles l'incitent à se remettre en question sur sa vie. Elles lui montrent qu'une autre voie peut être possible et envisageable. Que ce soit professionnellement ou dans sa vie au quotidien, sa réflexion est en cours.  Car Orya et Patch aiguillent Amandine vers un chemin parallèle composé de liberté et d'amour. Elles lui enseignent un mode de vie qui lui correspond profondément et lui font prendre confiance en elle. Elles lui insufflent une force incroyable et courage qu'elle même ne pensait pas avoir. Pour suivre leurs aventures : https://www.instagram.com/canirandoworld / https://www.facebook.com/canirandoworld

Orya Maqbool Jan's Prediction About Dajjal in light of Hadis

Chanelle visits the studio this week to seek help about beauty expectations. Ele, Marcel, and Orya try and help her avoid "becoming a mermaid." Later in the listener mailbag, we solve problems about struggling to relax, directing life models, and organ donation. Featuring Nikki Britton (How to Stay Married). Listen to her podcast Mates Talking About Stuff.   Brought to you by HELP Industries. If you have a problem, send it to weneedhelppod@gmail.com and don't forget to follow us on social media. We'd love to hear from you. Rate us on Apple Podcasts and we'll read it out on the show. Produced by Disco Turtle Productions.  Hosted by Marcel Blanch- de Wilt, Orya Golgowski, and Eleanor Stankiewicz.

Reine Victoria est coach sportif certifié, et propose également des accompagnements sur le plan alimentaire. Elle est aussi maman, et vient du Gabon, comme moi. Dans cet épisode nous nous interrogeons sur "Comment faire que l'alimentation équilibrée soit quelque chose de spontané chez nos enfants?" Comment leur faire aimer les légumes, comment faire en sorte qu'ils aiment les repas variés... Reine Victoria nous rappelle l'importance de bien manger pour conserver notre capital santé Nous parlons aussi de plats Gabonais et Africains qui vont très bien avec une alimentation healthy, à condition d'adapter les modes de cuisson et les matières grasses utilisées. ___________________________________________________________________ Rejoignez la communauté sur Instagram @orema_podcast Retrouvez Reine Victoria sur Instagram @orya_beauvisage Inscrivez-vous à la newsletter et recevez le guide Eveiller les enfants à l'antiracisme en 4 points clés https://orema.fr/nl-parentalite ____________________________________________________________________ Cités en introduction de cet épisode, vous pouvez m'entendre sur les podcasts: Le bruit qui court sur les femmes et le féminisme au Gabon - Episode 19 L'étincelle invisible de l'autisme : mon témoignage de maman d'enfant différent - Episode 12

Masjid-e-Aqsa Aur Roza Rasool Ki Fazilat | Orya Maqbool Jan | 24 May 2021 | Subh E Noor

"Every country has its own opportunity and its own money... Wherever you live, you can earn, if you have an idea and build something new."- Habib Orya, Marketing Officer of Sky International InsuranceJoin Habib Orya and Ben Schneider as they talk about the struggles of entrepreneurship in Afghanistan, creating opportunities in risky situations, and bringing value by addressing a demand. For Habib, starting a business disadvantaged merely means he has to work harder than everybody else. He built his small team with only $100 in 2016, and started the grind of building his business from the ground up. He became brave enough to find security in his challenging environment. From a 3-man team, they gradually grew to 20 people and now has a profitable business in Afghanistan. Episode Notes:To find out more about Habib Orya, click the following link:LinkedIn | WebsiteConnect with Ben on Instagram and on his website.Follow the podcast on Instagram @bllpodcastcomFor more information and to explore other episodes, click here. Email: hello@bllpodcast.com

Hello! I’m sending this update to you from Jakarta, where I am in my third day of five in quarantine after arriving here. This audio update is for any of you listeners to the Daily Bible Reading Podcast who would like to hear about my work as a Bible translator. This is not one of the Reader Take Note series where I discuss various topics in God’s Word.  For those of you who are new DBRP listeners who don’t know much about our ministry as Bible translators in Indonesia, here is the back story: Gale and I came to Indonesia as aspiring Bible translators in 1983. After learning the Indonesian language for 6 months, in mid-1984, we chose to work among the Orya language group. That project lasted for 21 years. The Orya New Testament was dedicated in 2005. But even before completing that project, I was convinced that Indonesia’s national language needed a better Bible translation. So in that same year, 2005, we started what eventually was named the Plain Indonesian Translation. In order to publish a Bible translation for Indonesia’s national language, I found it necessary to start a non-profit Bible translation organization. The OurLanguage Bible Organization (which I will refer to as Albata) was started in 2012. Then in 2014, the Plain Indonesian Translation NT was published in its first edition. Skipping to the present: It is not fun to have to wade through the list of requirements to do international travel these days. One bright spot, however, was that this time the planes were quite empty. All the passengers had extra room on the 12 ½ hour flight from Dallas to Narita (Japan), and the 7 hour flight from Narita coming here. Once on the ground in Jakarta, all the passengers were herded through 8 different checking stations. Normally it would take me around half an hour to get through the immigration check and pick up my luggage. This time it took 2 ½ hours. At the end of the line, in a process supervised by the police, all foreigners coming into the country have to quarantine in a hotel for 5 days at their own expense. During the 5 days I will get two PCR Covid tests. At least, as one fellow passenger observed, the good thing in all this is that Indonesia’s government is trying their best to limit new strains of the Covid virus from entering the country. So here I am on the 16th floor of a 4-star hotel, all alone, getting 3 very good meals per day, and finding it hard to stay awake and even harder to force myself to exercise in my room. In November of last year, I started working with four members of our translation team here to revise our Plain Indonesian New Testament. I finished my main part in that revision process just before starting this trip. I am looking forward to what God will do through his Word in this new edition and ask for your prayers. For the first time ever, in this third edition, the New Testament will be published using high quality Bible paper and with a more durable cover. Instead of looking like a fat paperback book, this time the New Testament will look like a sacred book should look. I am certain that readers will enjoy our more concise and more precise translation with added footnotes. Much enthusiasm for the Plain Indonesian Translation has come through a partnering group called the Good Seed Network, which is challenging people to read the whole NT in 90 days. People have been participating from all over Indonesia. We will be giving away thousands of New Testaments this year to people who are in this program. About a month ago, Balazi, the director of our organization here in Indonesia, brought it to my attention that many Indonesians use the KJV as their final authority when confused by Indonesian Bible translations. Two things have bothered me about that: Indonesian students of the Bible need better tools to be able to discover what the Hebrew and Greek source texts actually say. The source language of the Bible is not the English of the KJV. And secondly, students of the Bible in Indonesia need better information about how we got our Bible, including information about how the original language texts were preserved for us and what happened in the history of Bible translations, including the far-reaching influence of the KJV. So I started writing a short history of Bible translation which is now about 80% finished. I have enjoyed discovering so many things I never knew about all this, and I hope to share them with you in one or two Reader Take Note series podcasts, sometime after I get back home (at the end of June). If you have listened to this so far, I ask you to pray for my time in Indonesia. Here are three prayer requests: In four to eight years our Bible translation organization here (Albata) will be able to publish the Plain Indonesian Bible with a complete Old Testament. I hope to live to see that day. But our six team members here are looking farther into the future and asking, “After that, what will we do?” We will be having meetings starting next week to discuss that topic. The answer to that question will tell Albata’s leaders what they need to do in the next few years to prepare for the future. My main concern now is to set operating principles and establish an organizational culture that will help Albata continue as a ministry that the Lord will be pleased to use in the future. Please pray that the Lord will give us his wisdom. One of our partner organizations is called Faith Comes By Hearing. They do many of the audio Bible recordings all over the world. They have given us 100 audio Bible players (called Proclaimers) that are for the Orya people. I look forward to being among the Orya people when we start distributing those in June. Now FCBH have promised to give us 400 more Proclaimer units which we will give to people who are unable to read or those who have vision problems. I hope to be present when we distribute a few of those during my trip. The solar powered Proclaimer units are expensive, and we never would be able to afford so many of them. We are so grateful for FCBH’s support! Please give thanks to the Lord for the gift of the 500 Proclaimer units, and pray that the Lord will lead us to those who need and will cherish these. Please pray for me in many divine appointments, that I can be the Lord’s representative, speaking with the help of the Holy Spirit. In family news, our daughter, Hannah, with Brandon and three kids will soon be leaving Jakarta. Brandon has accepted a job directing a ministry to refugees in Greenville, SC. I will only get to eat dinner with them a couple of times before they leave. Gale will travel from Arkansas to Greenville to see them shortly after they arrive there. Then Gale will drive a rented car from there to visit her Mom in Georgia. Her Mom has been under hospice care for over 6 months now. She is so ready to be in the presence of her Savior. Thank you for praying for us, and we pray for you that  the Lord will bless you ‘real good’. Phil

Hello! I’m sending this update to you from Jakarta, where I am in my third day of five in quarantine after arriving here. This audio update is for any of you listeners to the Daily Bible Reading Podcast who would like to hear about my work as a Bible translator. This is not one of the Reader Take Note series where I discuss various topics in God’s Word.  For those of you who are new DBRP listeners who don’t know much about our ministry as Bible translators in Indonesia, here is the back story: Gale and I came to Indonesia as aspiring Bible translators in 1983. After learning the Indonesian language for 6 months, in mid-1984, we chose to work among the Orya language group. That project lasted for 21 years. The Orya New Testament was dedicated in 2005. But even before completing that project, I was convinced that Indonesia’s national language needed a better Bible translation. So in that same year, 2005, we started what eventually was named the Plain Indonesian Translation. In order to publish a Bible translation for Indonesia’s national language, I found it necessary to start a non-profit Bible translation organization. The OurLanguage Bible Organization (which I will refer to as Albata) was started in 2012. Then in 2014, the Plain Indonesian Translation NT was published in its first edition. Skipping to the present: It is not fun to have to wade through the list of requirements to do international travel these days. One bright spot, however, was that this time the planes were quite empty. All the passengers had extra room on the 12 ½ hour flight from Dallas to Narita (Japan), and the 7 hour flight from Narita coming here. Once on the ground in Jakarta, all the passengers were herded through 8 different checking stations. Normally it would take me around half an hour to get through the immigration check and pick up my luggage. This time it took 2 ½ hours. At the end of the line, in a process supervised by the police, all foreigners coming into the country have to quarantine in a hotel for 5 days at their own expense. During the 5 days I will get two PCR Covid tests. At least, as one fellow passenger observed, the good thing in all this is that Indonesia’s government is trying their best to limit new strains of the Covid virus from entering the country. So here I am on the 16th floor of a 4-star hotel, all alone, getting 3 very good meals per day, and finding it hard to stay awake and even harder to force myself to exercise in my room. In November of last year, I started working with four members of our translation team here to revise our Plain Indonesian New Testament. I finished my main part in that revision process just before starting this trip. I am looking forward to what God will do through his Word in this new edition and ask for your prayers. For the first time ever, in this third edition, the New Testament will be published using high quality Bible paper and with a more durable cover. Instead of looking like a fat paperback book, this time the New Testament will look like a sacred book should look. I am certain that readers will enjoy our more concise and more precise translation with added footnotes. Much enthusiasm for the Plain Indonesian Translation has come through a partnering group called the Good Seed Network, which is challenging people to read the whole NT in 90 days. People have been participating from all over Indonesia. We will be giving away thousands of New Testaments this year to people who are in this program. About a month ago, Balazi, the director of our organization here in Indonesia, brought it to my attention that many Indonesians use the KJV as their final authority when confused by Indonesian Bible translations. Two things have bothered me about that: Indonesian students of the Bible need better tools to be able to discover what the Hebrew and Greek source texts actually say. The source language of the Bible is not the English of the KJV. And secondly, students of the Bible in Indonesia need better information about how we got our Bible, including information about how the original language texts were preserved for us and what happened in the history of Bible translations, including the far-reaching influence of the KJV. So I started writing a short history of Bible translation which is now about 80% finished. I have enjoyed discovering so many things I never knew about all this, and I hope to share them with you in one or two Reader Take Note series podcasts, sometime after I get back home (at the end of June). If you have listened to this so far, I ask you to pray for my time in Indonesia. Here are three prayer requests: In four to eight years our Bible translation organization here (Albata) will be able to publish the Plain Indonesian Bible with a complete Old Testament. I hope to live to see that day. But our six team members here are looking farther into the future and asking, “After that, what will we do?” We will be having meetings starting next week to discuss that topic. The answer to that question will tell Albata’s leaders what they need to do in the next few years to prepare for the future. My main concern now is to set operating principles and establish an organizational culture that will help Albata continue as a ministry that the Lord will be pleased to use in the future. Please pray that the Lord will give us his wisdom. One of our partner organizations is called Faith Comes By Hearing. They do many of the audio Bible recordings all over the world. They have given us 100 audio Bible players (called Proclaimers) that are for the Orya people. I look forward to being among the Orya people when we start distributing those in June. Now FCBH have promised to give us 400 more Proclaimer units which we will give to people who are unable to read or those who have vision problems. I hope to be present when we distribute a few of those during my trip. The solar powered Proclaimer units are expensive, and we never would be able to afford so many of them. We are so grateful for FCBH’s support! Please give thanks to the Lord for the gift of the 500 Proclaimer units, and pray that the Lord will lead us to those who need and will cherish these. Please pray for me in many divine appointments, that I can be the Lord’s representative, speaking with the help of the Holy Spirit.   In family news, our daughter, Hannah, with Brandon and three kids will soon be leaving Jakarta. Brandon has accepted a job directing a ministry to refugees in Greenville, SC. I will only get to eat dinner with them a couple of times before they leave. Gale will travel from Arkansas to Greenville to see them shortly after they arrive there. Then Gale will drive a rented car from there to visit her Mom in Georgia. Her Mom has been under hospice care for over 6 months now. She is so ready to be in the presence of her Savior.   Thank you for praying for us, and we pray for you that the Lord will bless you ‘real good’.   Phil

Greetings and welcome to this third edition of the Reader: Take Note series. This is an occasional series of podcasts aimed at providing extra commentary and encouragement for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. No matter where you are in the reading calendar, I hope that the things I share in this episode will support the idea that God’s Word has many treasures for us, and it always pays to dig deeper. In this episode I will discuss * my mistake in the last Take Note podcast, * things modern readers may miss in the story of the 10 plagues in Egypt, * why the descriptions of the construction of the Tabernacle are so hard to visualize, * which order were the synoptic Gospels written in? * and two verses that are difficult to translate in Luke. Did you catch my mistake in the last Take Note podcast? I said that John the Baptist’s father (Zechariah) quoted from Malakai 4, about ‘NLT'07 Malachi 4:6: 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. … Zechariah actually said, GW'20 Luke 1:76:76 “You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High. You will go ahead of the Lord to prepare his way. His words are reminiscent of Malachi 3-4. But the one who actually quoted Malakai 4:6 was the angel Gabriel, who (speaking to Mary about Jesus) said, GW'20 Luke 1:17:17 He will go ahead of the Lord with the spirit and power that Elijah had. He will change parents’ attitudes toward their children. He will change disobedient people so that they will accept the wisdom of those who have God’s approval. In this way he will prepare the people for their Lord.” If you have questions or comments, or corrections to what I have said, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I’m always interested to hear your thoughts. Let’s open to Exodus 3— if you happen to have a Bible handy and are not listening to this while driving. When we were checking our translation of Exodus with a consultant (Norm Mundhenk by name), he showed us several things I had never noticed. In the story of the burning bush: NLT'07 Exodus 3:2-4:2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3 “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” 4 When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. So who is in the bush, the angel or God? The interesting observation here is that Moses seems not to like having the Lord do things that are physical or visible, such as making a bush be on fire. In this story, the angel messenger never speaks, but GW'20 Exodus 3:5-6:5 God said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals because this place where you are standing is holy ground. 6 I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. Another example is found in chapter 14: NLT'07 Exodus 14:19-20:19 Then the angel of God, who had been leading the people of Israel, moved to the rear of the camp. The pillar of cloud also moved from the front and stood behind them. 20 The cloud settled between the Egyptian and Israelite camps. As darkness fell, the cloud turned to fire, lighting up the night. But the Egyptians and Israelites did not approach each other all night. The angel of the Lord made the very visible pillar of cloud and fire, but just a few verses later: NLT'07 Exodus 14:23-25:23 Then the Egyptians— all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and charioteers— chased them into the middle of the sea. 24 But just before dawn the LORD looked down on the Egyptian army from the pillar of fire and cloud, and he threw their forces into total confusion. 25 He twisted their chariot wheels, making their chariots difficult to drive. “Let’s get out of here— away from these Israelites!” the Egyptians shouted. “The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt!” There are Bibles that capitalize the word for Angel in these cases where God is so closely connected with some physical manifestation. In Genesis the same thing happens. When angels appear, they most often speak God’s words directly using the first person for God. Now the word in both Hebrew and Greek that we translate as ‘angel’ means messenger. In later OT books (and especially Daniel) angels are indeed just that, messengers, and sometimes even with names, who speak about the Lord in the third person. Now let’s look at the 10 plagues that God wreaked upon Egypt. Our consultant, Norm, had us compare the similarities and differences in * location, at the river, or more likely at the palace? * Whose staff was used, Moses’ or Aaron’s? Or did God say to lift up their hands, or did Moses just pray? * the magicians’ reaction, or the reaction of Pharaoh’s officials * Pharaoh's reaction, in particular, Did Pharaoh harden his own heart, or did God do that? If you do the analysis, you will notice patterns and a crescendo building toward the 10th plague. Then there is something I only recently learned from a different source: I perhaps heard in a sermon, but never remember looking into the claim that each of the 10 plagues showed that God is more powerful than Egypt’s gods. Rather than repeating information penned by others, let me suggest that you search on the Internet for ‘ten plagues of Egypt’ and choose the article by GotQuestions.org, or find the link here in the episode notes: https://www.gotquestions.org/ten-plagues-Egypt.html This site also has a beautifully done video with the same information as their excellent article. I find the 9th plague particularly interesting: “The ninth plague, darkness, was aimed at the sun god, Re, who was symbolized by Pharaoh himself. For three days, the land of Egypt was smothered with an unearthly darkness, but the homes of the Israelites had light.” “The tenth and last plague, the death of the firstborn males, was a judgment on Isis, the protector of children.” Remember that Pharaoh’ own son and heir to his throne died on that night. (Ex. 11:5) Next, have you ever had trouble visualizing the sacred tent or tabernacle? I certainly have! Let’s concentrate on chapter 26:1-6.  Exo 26:1-6: "“Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtain in the first set. Likewise you shall make loops on the edge of the outermost curtain in the second set. Fifty loops you shall make on the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is in the second set; the loops shall be opposite one another. And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole." One of the problems is that the Lord (or Moses) didn’t organize the material to make it easy to understand for those who didn’t get to see the virtual guided tour or YouTube shown to Moses up on Mount Sinai. (Actually, I am sure that Moses was shown something much better than a YouTube.) First we are told to make ten curtains of linen that are 42 feet by 6 feet. These sheets are called ‘curtains’ by both ESV and NLT. So I ask you, when I say ‘curtain’ do you envision something laying horizontally or hanging vertically? My problem in understanding started here, because these are not curtains that hang vertically, but would be better called sheets of cloth that lay over something. These sheets will lay over a framework to make the roof and hang down over the walls on the north and south, and also on the west. The front door faces east. Then the text says that the curtains were joined together on ‘one side’. Because of the word curtain, I always imagined joining the long sheets on the short side, and imagined we were making the curtain fence that was made to surround the Tabernacle. That is wrong again. The Hebrew text never clearly says, but these 42 foot long sheets were actually joined on the long side. That's why joining them required 50 clasps. To me, it helps a lot to simply say right from the beginning of the description that all this is to make the roof of the Tabernacle. There are also other things that are not clear. The Hebrew text doesn’t specifically say that they were to ‘sew’ the 10 sheets into two sets. The Hebrew says they would be ‘joined’ or ‘attached’. The ten sheets were probably sewn together, with five in each set, sewn along the long edge. Each set would then measure 42 feet by 30 feet.  Above the linen layer, there was a slightly bigger goat's hair layer. Over those two layers of cloth, they made a ram’s skin leather layer. The skins were dyed red. Think how many male lambs were sacrificed to make that?! Then a mysterious final layer was placed on top of that. We really don’t know how to translate the material for the top layer. It has been translated as fine goat’s skin, or as sea cow hide. The way we translated it (since no one  knows what it was made of) is to say that it was ‘water proof leather’. Now that you understand about the 4 layers of the roof and walls, let’s take another look at the linen cloth. The NLT says, NLT'07 Exodus 26:1:1 “Make the Tabernacle from ten curtains of finely woven linen. Decorate the curtains with blue, purple, and scarlet thread and with skillfully embroidered cherubim. The Hebrew text is not clear that the pattern was applied by embroidering. Think of the 42 by 30 foot long sheets being spread out over a frame that is 15 feet high. Inevitably there would be a lot of rubbing and friction on the decorated surface of the cloth due to frequent disassembly and reassembly. If the design was embroidered, it would quickly become abraded. Instead, I propose that the beautiful designs of blue, purple, and scarlet were woven directly into the fabric. As we worked on this book with our translation consultant, we found evidence that Egyptians of this period had linen cloth with elaborate woven designs. The Hebrew slaves would likely have been involved in this art. Note also, whether or not the design was woven into the material, it would take a seriously big loom to make 6 foot wide bolts of cloth. Where would the Israelites have gotten all the tools to make bronze castings, and to engrave gemstones, and to weave cloth? Think how magnificent the visual result would have been! Someone with the initials R W has created 12 wonderful Youtube videos of the Tabernacle construction. You can find them by searching for ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The boards’ and especially see ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The curtains’. This is a series of 12 videos.  Now I want to shift our attention to the Gospel of Luke. In the last episode in the Take Note series, I mentioned that I was reading a book entitled Perspectives on the Ending of Mark. The last chapter in that book is by David Alan Black. He defended his position supporting the longer ending of Mark based on evidence for the order of the writing of the first three Gospels. Let me very briefly summarize. According to some ancient sources, Mattew was written first, and written at a time when most believers were from a Jewish background. That Gospel was carried far and wide as Christianity spread.  However, as Paul spread the Gospel among the non-Jews in far away places, the need became increasingly apparent for a Gospel to be told from a Greek world view, instead of the Jewish world view. Luke came with Paul to Jerusalem as one of those who brought financial help to the believers. (Acts 20) He evidently stayed in the area during Paul’s two year imprisonment, which is the most likely time for him to pen his Gospel. One wonders how often Luke came to Caesarea to visit Paul and share about his research, such as interviewing Mary the mother of Jesus, and other early followers of Jesus. It might be that Paul was the one who asked Luke to write his own well-researched account. All the exact details that Luke included would appeal to Greek readers. Luke followed much of the outline of events as given by Matthew, with a notable exception in the accounts of John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ birth. If Luke took the draft of his Gospel on the voyage to Rome, I wonder how he kept it dry in the shipwreck at Malta! Somehow he must have. The problem, as Black reconstructs the situation, is that a Gospel from a non-witness like Luke would not have been accepted well, so Luke delayed the release of his Gospel. During some part of the time that Paul was in Rome, Peter was there as well, along with Mark. So Black further posits that Paul arranged with Peter to have public lectures in Rome where Matthew’s account of a portion would be read, then Luke’s account, and afterward Peter would give his recollections of the same event. I would have loved to be present at those lectures! Evidently in Rome, there were scribes that were experts at shorthand. Black again posits that one such person was employed to write down Peter’s words. That account, then could be used by Mark to write his Gospel, which everyone recognizes shows Peter’s influence. This explains why events where Peter was not present (like the birth of Jesus) are not told in Mark’s Gospel. The ordering of Matthew first, Luke second being based on Matthew, and Mark third based on Peter’s reactions to both Matthew and Luke— does a fair job of answering why various details are differently related between the three accounts. Well, you may remember that I started the Digging Deeper Reading plan with Mark as the first NT book in the year because I said that it was written first. It turns out that there are various theories. A remark by Augustine of Hippo at the beginning of the fifth century presents the gospels as composed in their canonical order (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), with each evangelist thoughtfully building upon and supplementing the work of his predecessor. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels#:~:text=A%20remark%20by%20Augustine%20of,hypothesis%20(Matthew%E2%80%93Mark).) However another wikipedia article under the title of Marcan priority, states that  The tradition handed down by the Church Fathers regarded Matthew as the first Gospel written.[3] This view of Gospel origins, however, began to be challenged in the late 18th century, when Gottlob Christian Storr proposed in 1786 that Mark was the first to be written.[4][5] Gottlob Storr’s opinion was largely ignored for a while, and then picked up and debated. And by the time of the last century, the Wikipedia article states: Many scholars in the twentieth century regarded Marcan priority as no longer just a hypothesis, but an established fact.[14] So it turns out that the theory I took as ‘an established fact’, which I picked up from various sources, was really 20th century opinion. But that opinion was strongly influenced by the scepticism of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Dr. Black’s reconstruction of the order of writing is supported by writings of Eusebius, who is a far earlier source than the experts of just 170 years ago. Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265—339/340 AD), EH6.14.5–7, speaking of (*?no longer extant) writings of Clement (35-99 AD) states 5 Again, in the same books, Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner: 6 The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. 7 When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it. … I think Eusebius is right, and probably Dr. Black has perhaps filled in too many details, but is pointing us in the right direction. It just goes to show: In the realm of historical information circulating about the Bible, ideas regarded as established facts in our time are often just opinions currently in vogue. Because I have mentioned reading a book or two, I want to admit that I seldom sit down to read books. But wonder of wonder, I am actually in the process of reading another book. It is How People Grow, by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr. John Towns. I have been so impressed with this book that a few days ago I ordered 5 copies to give away. Lots of authors share how to make your life better or how to become a more effective person. But these two authors have a breadth of counselling experience and they have learned Biblical principles that actually work. It turns out that how people grow is related to how our Creator has made us, plus other principles found in God’s Word. Even at 71 years old, I want to keep growing. I hope you do too. GW’20Luk 11:34-36: "Your [eyes are//eye is] the lamp of your body. When your [eyes are//eye is] healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when [they are//it is] bad,** your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you [become//be] darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”" **Translation note: The Greek use the singular eye (ὀφθαλμός), but there is no reason to not use plural in our translation, as this is more natural, and Luke would have used plural had he been writing in English. Footnote in our Indonesian translation: eyes are bad Literally, “your eyes are evil/diseased.” Jesus was speaking to the Jewish leaders, including the members of the Pharisees and the Law experts. In the context of this chapter, we see that they had seen many miracles which proved that Jesus was sent by God, but it’s as if they became blind to all of those miracles. (11:29-30) In fact, they say that He worked by the devil’s power. Bad eyes are also frequently interpreted as meaning greedy for money, as in Matt. 6:19-24. See Luke also 16:14. GW'20 Luke 14:34-35:34 “Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how will you restore its flavor? 35 It’s not any good for the ground or for the manure pile. People throw it away. “Let the person who has ears listen!” Many people can’t fathom how salt could lose its flavor. Modern pure white salt crystals never lose their flavor. But when we were living with the Orya people, they had salt that could lose its flavor. Out in the forest, around a hundred miles from the coast, there are salt springs. Back in the early 1980’s when we first were there, the people would still go out to the spring and boil salt water in pans until the water would evaporate and salt would be left. The water was not clean and smoke went into the pan, so the resultant salt was black and gritty with impurities. They kept it wrapped in leaves hanging over their cooking fire, so that it would stay dry. They called it ‘black salt’. In the tropical climate, black salt that wasn’t kept dry would collect moisture and the salt water would drip out. If that happened, all that was left was slightly salty black sand. Just like Jesus said, it is good for nothing and people throw it away. But what’s the point? Why did Jesus give this teaching about salt? For people groups who have trouble figuring out why Jesus would talk about salt (and who don’t figure out that He is speaking figuratively), translators can explicitly give a hint: “You are like salt.” ESV Colossians 4:6:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Jesus finished his teaching with a favorite saying of his, and I have found it very hard to translate.  ESV Luke 14:35b:He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” This memorable saying always comes at the end of something Jesus is teaching. It is pointing backwards. In other words: “Listen to that, what I just said.” Here’s how we translated those verses in Orya and Indonesian: 34 “Each of you who follows Me is like salt. Of course, salt is used to make food tastier. But if its taste has disappeared, the salt won’t be useful at all, 35 either for the field or as fertilizer. In the end such salt is just thrown out. “Don’t let that last teaching of mine go in your right ear and out your left! Meditate on it.” Let’s pray: Truly, Father, please transform us so that we might be called the salt of the earth and lights in this world. Please help us to keep our spiritual eyes clear. When we have opportunities to give a word of testimony about You or don’t know what to say to people, we pray that you would bring to mind what we have read from your Word. Teach us how to keep your Word in mind and to meditate on it. We pray that we would have the joy of feeling your presence as we lean and rely on You. Amen. May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.

Greetings and welcome to this third edition of the Reader: Take Note series. This is an occasional series of podcasts aimed at providing extra commentary and encouragement for those following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. No matter where you are in the reading calendar, I hope that the things I share in this episode will support the idea that God’s Word has many treasures for us, and it always pays to dig deeper. In this episode I will discuss * my mistake in the last Take Note podcast, * things modern readers may miss in the story of the 10 plagues in Egypt, * why the descriptions of the construction of the Tabernacle are so hard to visualize, * which order were the synoptic Gospels written in? * and two verses that are difficult to translate in Luke. Did you catch my mistake in the last Take Note podcast? I said that John the Baptist’s father (Zechariah) quoted from Malakai 4, about ‘NLT'07 Malachi 4:6: 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. … Zechariah actually said, GW'20 Luke 1:76:76 “You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High. You will go ahead of the Lord to prepare his way. His words are reminiscent of Malachi 3-4. But the one who actually quoted Malakai 4:6 was the angel Gabriel, who (speaking to Mary about Jesus) said, GW'20 Luke 1:17:17 He will go ahead of the Lord with the spirit and power that Elijah had. He will change parents’ attitudes toward their children. He will change disobedient people so that they will accept the wisdom of those who have God’s approval. In this way he will prepare the people for their Lord.” If you have questions or comments, or corrections to what I have said, my favorite way for you to send messages to me is via the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. I’m always interested to hear your thoughts. Let’s open to Exodus 3— if you happen to have a Bible handy and are not listening to this while driving. When we were checking our translation of Exodus with a consultant (Norm Mundhenk by name), he showed us several things I had never noticed. In the story of the burning bush: NLT'07 Exodus 3:2-4:2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. 3 “This is amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.” 4 When the LORD saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” “Here I am!” Moses replied. So who is in the bush, the angel or God? The interesting observation here is that Moses seems not to like having the Lord do things that are physical or visible, such as making a bush be on fire. In this story, the angel messenger never speaks, but GW'20 Exodus 3:5-6:5 God said, “Don’t come any closer! Take off your sandals because this place where you are standing is holy ground. 6 I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. Another example is found in chapter 14: NLT'07 Exodus 14:19-20:19 Then the angel of God, who had been leading the people of Israel, moved to the rear of the camp. The pillar of cloud also moved from the front and stood behind them. 20 The cloud settled between the Egyptian and Israelite camps. As darkness fell, the cloud turned to fire, lighting up the night. But the Egyptians and Israelites did not approach each other all night. The angel of the Lord made the very visible pillar of cloud and fire, but just a few verses later: NLT'07 Exodus 14:23-25:23 Then the Egyptians— all of Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and charioteers— chased them into the middle of the sea. 24 But just before dawn the LORD looked down on the Egyptian army from the pillar of fire and cloud, and he threw their forces into total confusion. 25 He twisted their chariot wheels, making their chariots difficult to drive. “Let’s get out of here— away from these Israelites!” the Egyptians shouted. “The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt!” There are Bibles that capitalize the word for Angel in these cases where God is so closely connected with some physical manifestation. In Genesis the same thing happens. When angels appear, they most often speak God’s words directly using the first person for God. Now the word in both Hebrew and Greek that we translate as ‘angel’ means messenger. In later OT books (and especially Daniel) angels are indeed just that, messengers, and sometimes even with names, who speak about the Lord in the third person. Now let’s look at the 10 plagues that God wreaked upon Egypt. Our consultant, Norm, had us compare the similarities and differences in * location, at the river, or more likely at the palace? * Whose staff was used, Moses’ or Aaron’s? Or did God say to lift up their hands, or did Moses just pray? * the magicians’ reaction, or the reaction of Pharaoh’s officials * Pharaoh's reaction, in particular, Did Pharaoh harden his own heart, or did God do that? If you do the analysis, you will notice patterns and a crescendo building toward the 10th plague. Then there is something I only recently learned from a different source: I perhaps heard in a sermon, but never remember looking into the claim that each of the 10 plagues showed that God is more powerful than Egypt’s gods. Rather than repeating information penned by others, let me suggest that you search on the Internet for ‘ten plagues of Egypt’ and choose the article by GotQuestions.org, or find the link here in the episode notes: https://www.gotquestions.org/ten-plagues-Egypt.html This site also has a beautifully done video with the same information as their excellent article. I find the 9th plague particularly interesting: “The ninth plague, darkness, was aimed at the sun god, Re, who was symbolized by Pharaoh himself. For three days, the land of Egypt was smothered with an unearthly darkness, but the homes of the Israelites had light.” “The tenth and last plague, the death of the firstborn males, was a judgment on Isis, the protector of children.” Remember that Pharaoh’ own son and heir to his throne died on that night. (Ex. 11:5) Next, have you ever had trouble visualizing the sacred tent or tabernacle? I certainly have! Let’s concentrate on chapter 26:1-6.  Exo 26:1-6: "“Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them. The length of each curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits; all the curtains shall be the same size. Five curtains shall be coupled to one another, and the other five curtains shall be coupled to one another. And you shall make loops of blue on the edge of the outermost curtain in the first set. Likewise you shall make loops on the edge of the outermost curtain in the second set. Fifty loops you shall make on the one curtain, and fifty loops you shall make on the edge of the curtain that is in the second set; the loops shall be opposite one another. And you shall make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains one to the other with the clasps, so that the tabernacle may be a single whole." One of the problems is that the Lord (or Moses) didn’t organize the material to make it easy to understand for those who didn’t get to see the virtual guided tour or YouTube shown to Moses up on Mount Sinai. (Actually, I am sure that Moses was shown something much better than a YouTube.) First we are told to make ten curtains of linen that are 42 feet by 6 feet. These sheets are called ‘curtains’ by both ESV and NLT. So I ask you, when I say ‘curtain’ do you envision something laying horizontally or hanging vertically? My problem in understanding started here, because these are not curtains that hang vertically, but would be better called sheets of cloth that lay over something. These sheets will lay over a framework to make the roof and hang down over the walls on the north and south, and also on the west. The front door faces east. Then the text says that the curtains were joined together on ‘one side’. Because of the word curtain, I always imagined joining the long sheets on the short side, and imagined we were making the curtain fence that was made to surround the Tabernacle. That is wrong again. The Hebrew text never clearly says, but these 42 foot long sheets were actually joined on the long side. That's why joining them required 50 clasps. To me, it helps a lot to simply say right from the beginning of the description that all this is to make the roof of the Tabernacle. There are also other things that are not clear. The Hebrew text doesn’t specifically say that they were to ‘sew’ the 10 sheets into two sets. The Hebrew says they would be ‘joined’ or ‘attached’. The ten sheets were probably sewn together, with five in each set, sewn along the long edge. Each set would then measure 42 feet by 30 feet.  Above the linen layer, there was a slightly bigger goat's hair layer. Over those two layers of cloth, they made a ram’s skin leather layer. The skins were dyed red. Think how many male lambs were sacrificed to make that?! Then a mysterious final layer was placed on top of that. We really don’t know how to translate the material for the top layer. It has been translated as fine goat’s skin, or as sea cow hide. The way we translated it (since no one  knows what it was made of) is to say that it was ‘water proof leather’. Now that you understand about the 4 layers of the roof and walls, let’s take another look at the linen cloth. The NLT says, NLT'07 Exodus 26:1:1 “Make the Tabernacle from ten curtains of finely woven linen. Decorate the curtains with blue, purple, and scarlet thread and with skillfully embroidered cherubim. The Hebrew text is not clear that the pattern was applied by embroidering. Think of the 42 by 30 foot long sheets being spread out over a frame that is 15 feet high. Inevitably there would be a lot of rubbing and friction on the decorated surface of the cloth due to frequent disassembly and reassembly. If the design was embroidered, it would quickly become abraded. Instead, I propose that the beautiful designs of blue, purple, and scarlet were woven directly into the fabric. As we worked on this book with our translation consultant, we found evidence that Egyptians of this period had linen cloth with elaborate woven designs. The Hebrew slaves would likely have been involved in this art. Note also, whether or not the design was woven into the material, it would take a seriously big loom to make 6 foot wide bolts of cloth. Where would the Israelites have gotten all the tools to make bronze castings, and to engrave gemstones, and to weave cloth? Think how magnificent the visual result would have been! Someone with the initials R W has created 12 wonderful Youtube videos of the Tabernacle construction. You can find them by searching for ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The boards’ and especially see ‘Youtube 3D Tabernacle The curtains’. This is a series of 12 videos.  Now I want to shift our attention to the Gospel of Luke. In the last episode in the Take Note series, I mentioned that I was reading a book entitled Perspectives on the Ending of Mark. The last chapter in that book is by David Alan Black. He defended his position supporting the longer ending of Mark based on evidence for the order of the writing of the first three Gospels. Let me very briefly summarize. According to some ancient sources, Mattew was written first, and written at a time when most believers were from a Jewish background. That Gospel was carried far and wide as Christianity spread.  However, as Paul spread the Gospel among the non-Jews in far away places, the need became increasingly apparent for a Gospel to be told from a Greek world view, instead of the Jewish world view. Luke came with Paul to Jerusalem as one of those who brought financial help to the believers. (Acts 20) He evidently stayed in the area during Paul’s two year imprisonment, which is the most likely time for him to pen his Gospel. One wonders how often Luke came to Caesarea to visit Paul and share about his research, such as interviewing Mary the mother of Jesus, and other early followers of Jesus. It might be that Paul was the one who asked Luke to write his own well-researched account. All the exact details that Luke included would appeal to Greek readers. Luke followed much of the outline of events as given by Matthew, with a notable exception in the accounts of John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ birth. If Luke took the draft of his Gospel on the voyage to Rome, I wonder how he kept it dry in the shipwreck at Malta! Somehow he must have. The problem, as Black reconstructs the situation, is that a Gospel from a non-witness like Luke would not have been accepted well, so Luke delayed the release of his Gospel. During some part of the time that Paul was in Rome, Peter was there as well, along with Mark. So Black further posits that Paul arranged with Peter to have public lectures in Rome where Matthew’s account of a portion would be read, then Luke’s account, and afterward Peter would give his recollections of the same event. I would have loved to be present at those lectures! Evidently in Rome, there were scribes that were experts at shorthand. Black again posits that one such person was employed to write down Peter’s words. That account, then could be used by Mark to write his Gospel, which everyone recognizes shows Peter’s influence. This explains why events where Peter was not present (like the birth of Jesus) are not told in Mark’s Gospel. The ordering of Matthew first, Luke second being based on Matthew, and Mark third based on Peter’s reactions to both Matthew and Luke— does a fair job of answering why various details are differently related between the three accounts. Well, you may remember that I started the Digging Deeper Reading plan with Mark as the first NT book in the year because I said that it was written first. It turns out that there are various theories. A remark by Augustine of Hippo at the beginning of the fifth century presents the gospels as composed in their canonical order (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), with each evangelist thoughtfully building upon and supplementing the work of his predecessor. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels#:~:text=A%20remark%20by%20Augustine%20of,hypothesis%20(Matthew%E2%80%93Mark).) However another wikipedia article under the title of Marcan priority, states that  The tradition handed down by the Church Fathers regarded Matthew as the first Gospel written.[3] This view of Gospel origins, however, began to be challenged in the late 18th century, when Gottlob Christian Storr proposed in 1786 that Mark was the first to be written.[4][5] Gottlob Storr’s opinion was largely ignored for a while, and then picked up and debated. And by the time of the last century, the Wikipedia article states: Many scholars in the twentieth century regarded Marcan priority as no longer just a hypothesis, but an established fact.[14] So it turns out that the theory I took as ‘an established fact’, which I picked up from various sources, was really 20th century opinion. But that opinion was strongly influenced by the scepticism of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Dr. Black’s reconstruction of the order of writing is supported by writings of Eusebius, who is a far earlier source than the experts of just 170 years ago. Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265—339/340 AD), EH6.14.5–7, speaking of (*?no longer extant) writings of Clement (35-99 AD) states 5 Again, in the same books, Clement gives the tradition of the earliest presbyters, as to the order of the Gospels, in the following manner: 6 The Gospels containing the genealogies, he says, were written first. The Gospel according to Mark had this occasion. As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out. And having composed the Gospel he gave it to those who had requested it. 7 When Peter learned of this, he neither directly forbade nor encouraged it. … I think Eusebius is right, and probably Dr. Black has perhaps filled in too many details, but is pointing us in the right direction. It just goes to show: In the realm of historical information circulating about the Bible, ideas regarded as established facts in our time are often just opinions currently in vogue. Because I have mentioned reading a book or two, I want to admit that I seldom sit down to read books. But wonder of wonder, I am actually in the process of reading another book. It is How People Grow, by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr. John Towns. I have been so impressed with this book that a few days ago I ordered 5 copies to give away. Lots of authors share how to make your life better or how to become a more effective person. But these two authors have a breadth of counselling experience and they have learned Biblical principles that actually work. It turns out that how people grow is related to how our Creator has made us, plus other principles found in God’s Word. Even at 71 years old, I want to keep growing. I hope you do too. GW’20Luk 11:34-36: "Your [eyes are//eye is] the lamp of your body. When your [eyes are//eye is] healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when [they are//it is] bad,** your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you [become//be] darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”" **Translation note: The Greek use the singular eye (ὀφθαλμός), but there is no reason to not use plural in our translation, as this is more natural, and Luke would have used plural had he been writing in English. Footnote in our Indonesian translation: eyes are bad Literally, “your eyes are evil/diseased.” Jesus was speaking to the Jewish leaders, including the members of the Pharisees and the Law experts. In the context of this chapter, we see that they had seen many miracles which proved that Jesus was sent by God, but it’s as if they became blind to all of those miracles. (11:29-30) In fact, they say that He worked by the devil’s power. Bad eyes are also frequently interpreted as meaning greedy for money, as in Matt. 6:19-24. See Luke also 16:14. GW'20 Luke 14:34-35:34 “Salt is good. But if salt loses its taste, how will you restore its flavor? 35 It’s not any good for the ground or for the manure pile. People throw it away. “Let the person who has ears listen!” Many people can’t fathom how salt could lose its flavor. Modern pure white salt crystals never lose their flavor. But when we were living with the Orya people, they had salt that could lose its flavor. Out in the forest, around a hundred miles from the coast, there are salt springs. Back in the early 1980’s when we first were there, the people would still go out to the spring and boil salt water in pans until the water would evaporate and salt would be left. The water was not clean and smoke went into the pan, so the resultant salt was black and gritty with impurities. They kept it wrapped in leaves hanging over their cooking fire, so that it would stay dry. They called it ‘black salt’. In the tropical climate, black salt that wasn’t kept dry would collect moisture and the salt water would drip out. If that happened, all that was left was slightly salty black sand. Just like Jesus said, it is good for nothing and people throw it away. But what’s the point? Why did Jesus give this teaching about salt? For people groups who have trouble figuring out why Jesus would talk about salt (and who don’t figure out that He is speaking figuratively), translators can explicitly give a hint: “You are like salt.” ESV Colossians 4:6:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Jesus finished his teaching with a favorite saying of his, and I have found it very hard to translate.  ESV Luke 14:35b:He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” This memorable saying always comes at the end of something Jesus is teaching. It is pointing backwards. In other words: “Listen to that, what I just said.” Here’s how we translated those verses in Orya and Indonesian: 34 “Each of you who follows Me is like salt. Of course, salt is used to make food tastier. But if its taste has disappeared, the salt won’t be useful at all, 35 either for the field or as fertilizer. In the end such salt is just thrown out. “Don’t let that last teaching of mine go in your right ear and out your left! Meditate on it.” Let’s pray: Truly, Father, please transform us so that we might be called the salt of the earth and lights in this world. Please help us to keep our spiritual eyes clear. When we have opportunities to give a word of testimony about You or don’t know what to say to people, we pray that you would bring to mind what we have read from your Word. Teach us how to keep your Word in mind and to meditate on it. We pray that we would have the joy of feeling your presence as we lean and rely on You. Amen. May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.

"Every country has its own opportunity and its own money... Wherever you live, you can earn, if you have an idea and build something new."- Habib Orya, Marketing Officer of Sky International InsuranceJoin Habib Orya and Ben Schneider as they talk about the struggles of entrepreneurship in Afghanistan, creating opportunities in risky situations, and bringing value by addressing a demand. For Habib, starting a business disadvantaged merely means he has to work harder than everybody else. He built his small team with only $100 in 2016, and started the grind of building his business from the ground up. He became brave enough to find security in his challenging environment. From a 3-man team, they gradually grew to 20 people and now has a profitable business in Afghanistan.  Episode Notes:To find out more about Habib Orya, click the following link:LinkedIn | WebsiteConnect with Ben on Instagram and on his website.Follow the podcast on Instagram @bllpodcastcomFor more information and to explore other episodes, click here.  Email: hello@bllpodcast.com

Greetings friends to this end of the year podcast! Before I share my own stories, I want to give you our last two Listener Stories for 2020, one from Tom and another from Tammy. I think Tammy’s story is especially interesting because the Coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on her. I think her story will resonate with many of you.  Hello, my name is Tammy.  I recently retired from being a principal and before that a school teacher, a job I had done and loved for over 30 years.  I had oodles of plans for what I was going to do, places I was going to go and things I was really looking forward to doing-  like working with children at our church this summer.  When COVID hit and closed down school as we knew it on March 13, 2020, my life really changed.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students, parents and staff, it just all ended that Friday in March.  I was really struggling with what to me felt like a major loss. (This is in no way to disrespect those that have had greater losses due to COVID.) I was talking to my husband explaining how I was feeling such an absence of being needed and like I was just wandering looking for what I was supposed to be doing with my life at this time.  My sweet husband said some very wise words to me.  He said, “Tammy, I believe God is just giving you this down time to recharge you and prepare you for what He has planned next for you to do for Him.  Take this time and use it to its best.”  While I knew he was right, I have to say I DON’T  do down time well.  When you work 60 hours a week for oodles of years and have people consistently needing things from you, to have that come to a screeching halt, really put me off kilter.   I was struggling trying to figure out what God wanted me to do.  Then one morning in my devotion time God put on my heart that I have been wanting to complete a read through the Bible in a year program for a long time.  Even though it was August, I thought, this doesn’t have to wait until January to be a New Year’s Resolution, it can be my New Life Resolution. What a blessing this decision has been!  I looked at all different types of programs.  I found Digging Deeper Daily and liked the explanation of how this program was laid out. I wanted to learn about the “threads that unify the message of the Old and New Testaments”. I also like the fact that there were brief devotional notes that I thought would help me see the connections clearer.   I started this journey on August 20th and upon hearing the first reading, I fell in love with this journey.  Phil’s voice was so calming and yet assured in what he was saying and reading.  The brief stories he shares of his work as a Bible translator make me feel like I have a new friend.  This adventure has helped me grow daily in my understanding of God’s word.   Being a Christian since a child, I had heard many stories from the bible, now I understand more deeply what was happening before, during and after those isolated events.  It has really helped make the Bible come to life for me.   Phil explains how he started this project as a gift to leave his grandchildren.  He wanted to read the entire bible to them.  I feel his love each morning as I listen to him read and explain the daily passage, its as if for those brief moments I have been adopted into his family.  This has not only been a way for me to learn more about the Bible, grow closer to God, but also to feel like I am being gathered into the fold each morning.   The brief explanations at the end of the readings are so helpful.  I always look forward to the prayer Phil delivers to close the devotional time.  Often, I will replay the prayer a time or two more.  At the end of “our time together” I try to conclude with a prayer for Phil and all those doing God’s work to bring His word to the nations that don’t have the Bible yet.  This reminder of what a gift the Bible is to us, that I often take for granted because I haven’t known a time without it, has made my daily time with God even more precious.   Early on in the program, Phil was reading to us from Matthew.  When He read Matthew 11:28 which says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cried.  This to me reiterated what my husband told me.    I was in need of this passage.  When Phil read this verse, with such love in his voice, I felt as if it was God speaking it to me.  I needed rest, yet I wouldn’t let myself admit it.  Now, each morning I consider my time listening to Phil read God’s word as a time of rest, connection and recharging.   I can’t wait to find out what great adventure God has in store for me next, or where He needs me in this stage of life, what I do know though is that Phil Fields and Digging Deeper Daily will be on that amazing ride with me.   Thanks so much, Tammy, for your story! And with a sincere blush, I also say thanks for your kind words. I am so pleased— more than that— filled with joy, when people are able to look through the kind of one-way mirror that podcasting is, to become my friends and even adopted family.  Thanks to Tom giving me this next story. Tom is mainly a reader (not a regular podcast listener). The 3D YouVersion plan he has followed for 2020 is called Read To Me Daily. (Link given in the episode notes.) Tom is a long time friend, dating back to my music teaching days. There is one odd, totally unplanned, similarity between his story and Tammy’s. I think you will catch it. My name is Tom and I am a sixty-year-old Arkansan.  I have read through the Bible several times using different plans.  The last few times, using electronic media, such as Digging Deeper Daily, has aided me greatly through ease of access.  Reading the Bible entirely in one year gives one little time for Bible study, but I value the discipline of daily reading which stirs my thoughts and continually whets my appetite to, what else, dig deeper. I read through the Bible this year using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition.  In the past I have used various translations and even some paraphrases and I may have been wiser to use the recommended New Living Translation or Good News Translation.  Instead, however, I wanted to use the AMPC this year to slow me down.  The many bracketed words and phrases in the AMPC which are used to further describe a translated word or passage, forced me to ponder over a word or passage and think about how an idea was being explained.  I did enjoy the New Living Translation as well as the Good News Translation versions referenced most often in the devotionals.  I found multiple translations of the same verses to be quite helpful. Most years when using a daily reading plan I plowed right past the devotional passages and read only the scripture.  This year I was determined to include reading the devotionals, again, to slow me down and to help me think about what I was reading.  I enjoyed reading the Digging Deeper Daily devotionals which often gave the translator’s perspective of a passage, citing examples of difficult passages to translate and including real-life examples of working with an indigenous people group to help them understand the Bible.  In addition to translation notes, I appreciated the occasional summaries from prior days, reminding me of an important passage, even to the point of repeating some passages over consecutive days for emphasis.  I also appreciated being prodded by the devotional to live up to its title to, here it is again, dig deeper into particular passages. I appreciated how the daily readings were divided up between Old and New Testaments, particularly saving Isaiah for the end of the calendar year with so many relevant passages for the advent season.  My favorite passage, personally, occurred late in the calendar year on September 21.  Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)  I am never more at peace than when I surrender to Christ’s yoke. Finally, while I spent the year in the daily reading plan rather than listening to the daily podcasts, I did enjoy utilizing the audio podcasts through the Old Testament genealogies.

Greetings friends to this end of the year podcast! Before I share my own stories, I want to give you our last two Listener Stories for 2020, one from Tom and another from Tammy. I think Tammy’s story is especially interesting because the Coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on her. I think her story will resonate with many of you.  Hello, my name is Tammy.  I recently retired from being a principal and before that a school teacher, a job I had done and loved for over 30 years.  I had oodles of plans for what I was going to do, places I was going to go and things I was really looking forward to doing-  like working with children at our church this summer.  When COVID hit and closed down school as we knew it on March 13, 2020, my life really changed.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students, parents and staff, it just all ended that Friday in March.  I was really struggling with what to me felt like a major loss. (This is in no way to disrespect those that have had greater losses due to COVID.) I was talking to my husband explaining how I was feeling such an absence of being needed and like I was just wandering looking for what I was supposed to be doing with my life at this time.  My sweet husband said some very wise words to me.  He said, “Tammy, I believe God is just giving you this down time to recharge you and prepare you for what He has planned next for you to do for Him.  Take this time and use it to its best.”  While I knew he was right, I have to say I DON’T  do down time well.  When you work 60 hours a week for oodles of years and have people consistently needing things from you, to have that come to a screeching halt, really put me off kilter.   I was struggling trying to figure out what God wanted me to do.  Then one morning in my devotion time God put on my heart that I have been wanting to complete a read through the Bible in a year program for a long time.  Even though it was August, I thought, this doesn’t have to wait until January to be a New Year’s Resolution, it can be my New Life Resolution. What a blessing this decision has been!  I looked at all different types of programs.  I found Digging Deeper Daily and liked the explanation of how this program was laid out. I wanted to learn about the “threads that unify the message of the Old and New Testaments”. I also like the fact that there were brief devotional notes that I thought would help me see the connections clearer.   I started this journey on August 20th and upon hearing the first reading, I fell in love with this journey.  Phil’s voice was so calming and yet assured in what he was saying and reading.  The brief stories he shares of his work as a Bible translator make me feel like I have a new friend.  This adventure has helped me grow daily in my understanding of God’s word.   Being a Christian since a child, I had heard many stories from the bible, now I understand more deeply what was happening before, during and after those isolated events.  It has really helped make the Bible come to life for me.   Phil explains how he started this project as a gift to leave his grandchildren.  He wanted to read the entire bible to them.  I feel his love each morning as I listen to him read and explain the daily passage, its as if for those brief moments I have been adopted into his family.  This has not only been a way for me to learn more about the Bible, grow closer to God, but also to feel like I am being gathered into the fold each morning.   The brief explanations at the end of the readings are so helpful.  I always look forward to the prayer Phil delivers to close the devotional time.  Often, I will replay the prayer a time or two more.  At the end of “our time together” I try to conclude with a prayer for Phil and all those doing God’s work to bring His word to the nations that don’t have the Bible yet.  This reminder of what a gift the Bible is to us, that I often take for granted because I haven’t known a time without it, has made my daily time with God even more precious.   Early on in the program, Phil was reading to us from Matthew.  When He read Matthew 11:28 which says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cried.  This to me reiterated what my husband told me.    I was in need of this passage.  When Phil read this verse, with such love in his voice, I felt as if it was God speaking it to me.  I needed rest, yet I wouldn’t let myself admit it.  Now, each morning I consider my time listening to Phil read God’s word as a time of rest, connection and recharging.   I can’t wait to find out what great adventure God has in store for me next, or where He needs me in this stage of life, what I do know though is that Phil Fields and Digging Deeper Daily will be on that amazing ride with me.   Thanks so much, Tammy, for your story! And with a sincere blush, I also say thanks for your kind words. I am so pleased— more than that— filled with joy, when people are able to look through the kind of one-way mirror that podcasting is, to become my friends and even adopted family.  Thanks to Tom giving me this next story. Tom is mainly a reader (not a regular podcast listener). The 3D YouVersion plan he has followed for 2020 is called Read To Me Daily. (Link given in the episode notes.) Tom is a long time friend, dating back to my music teaching days. There is one odd, totally unplanned, similarity between his story and Tammy’s. I think you will catch it. My name is Tom and I am a sixty-year-old Arkansan.  I have read through the Bible several times using different plans.  The last few times, using electronic media, such as Digging Deeper Daily, has aided me greatly through ease of access.  Reading the Bible entirely in one year gives one little time for Bible study, but I value the discipline of daily reading which stirs my thoughts and continually whets my appetite to, what else, dig deeper. I read through the Bible this year using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition.  In the past I have used various translations and even some paraphrases and I may have been wiser to use the recommended New Living Translation or Good News Translation.  Instead, however, I wanted to use the AMPC this year to slow me down.  The many bracketed words and phrases in the AMPC which are used to further describe a translated word or passage, forced me to ponder over a word or passage and think about how an idea was being explained.  I did enjoy the New Living Translation as well as the Good News Translation versions referenced most often in the devotionals.  I found multiple translations of the same verses to be quite helpful. Most years when using a daily reading plan I plowed right past the devotional passages and read only the scripture.  This year I was determined to include reading the devotionals, again, to slow me down and to help me think about what I was reading.  I enjoyed reading the Digging Deeper Daily devotionals which often gave the translator’s perspective of a passage, citing examples of difficult passages to translate and including real-life examples of working with an indigenous people group to help them understand the Bible.  In addition to translation notes, I appreciated the occasional summaries from prior days, reminding me of an important passage, even to the point of repeating some passages over consecutive days for emphasis.  I also appreciated being prodded by the devotional to live up to its title to, here it is again, dig deeper into particular passages. I appreciated how the daily readings were divided up between Old and New Testaments, particularly saving Isaiah for the end of the calendar year with so many relevant passages for the advent season.  My favorite passage, personally, occurred late in the calendar year on September 21.  Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)  I am never more at peace than when I surrender to Christ’s yoke. Finally, while I spent the year in the daily reading plan rather than listening to the daily podcasts, I did enjoy utilizing the audio podcasts through the Old Testament genealogies.

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EveryWord003 Mark 2   Welcome to this THIRD podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, to which he gave the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 2.   Please bear in mind that the episode notes for all of my podcasts provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation.   Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text** which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century.  **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts.   The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt.  *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts.   The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV.   It is high time (now that I’ve reached the 3rd podcast) that I admit to you that— although I have worked as a Bible translator for most of my life— I am a new-comer to the whole study of textual criticism. In my article Playing Follow-the-Leader in Bible Translation, I speak about how little missionary Bible translators of my generation were trained in the area of textual criticism. I— unlike many of my colleagues— did not have the benefit of seminary education. My degrees are in the field of music. But from what I have heard from my seminary-trained colleagues, there is not much taught to normal seminary students about textual criticism. Few pastors today know anything about the subject.   It was in April of 2018 that I had the opportunity to visit Timothy and Barbara Friberg in Indonesia. Four years prior to this my team and I had published the Plain Indonesian NT. Dr. Timothy Friberg is famous for compiling the Analytical Greek New Testament, which is a reference work that virtually all Bible translators use. (Incidentally the AGNT is now being released in a new and improved edition.) I sought Dr. Fribergs advice because of his experience translating the NT for Muslim background audiences, because I am a consultant for such a project. During my two-day visit, I received excellent advice, but also received a bonus I didn’t expect. Tim Friberg convinced me that the Majority Greek Text should be used in translating the New Testament for Muslim background believers.    But then he asked, “Well, what about your Plain Indonesian New Testament? Are you going to revise that to follow the Majority Text?” This was a hard question for me because that NT was already published. I had just played follow-the-leader in basing that translation on the Eclectic text. After some thought and prayer, I concluded that God would be most glorified if my translation team and I  revised our published New Testament to follow the Majority Text. The revisions are now about 75% complete. Please pray for us in this: Please pray that we will work carefully so that we do not make mistakes as we revise the Plain Indonesian New Testament. Please pray that Bible readers in Indonesia would be happy to have a translation following the Majority Text, even though that will make our translation different from the default Indonesian Bible. Being aware that the United Bible Society publishes the Eclectic Greek Text, please pray that the Indonesian Bible Society or other parties will not publicly criticize our move to the Majority Text.    As I admitted above, I do not have training in the field of textual criticism. Because of that, I am sure that I have already made mistakes in these EveryWord podcasts. If you find errors in my statements, feel free to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info to send your input to me.    Mark 2  Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized in the PDF attached to this podcast. Find EveryWord003 at dailybiblereading.info and use the red Download PDF button to get it. A paralytic— the evaluation ¹ Well a few days later, He again entered Capernaum, and it was heard that He was at home. ² Without delay so many were gathered together that there was no more room, not even around the door, and He was speaking the Word to them. ³ Then four men came, carrying a paralytic to Him. ⁴ And not being able to get near Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof where He was;  The roof was presumably flat, with an outside staircase leading up to it. I suppose damaging someone else’s roof could be considered a crime, but they were determined. If Jesus was in His own house, there would be no problem.  upon breaking through they lowered the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. ⁵ So seeing their faith Jesus says to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you”. ⁶ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts: ⁷ “Why does this guy speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ⁸ Immediately Jesus perceived in His spirit what they were reasoning within themselves  *Time and again the Inspired Record will point out that Jesus could read people’s thoughts. and said to them: “Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts? ⁹ Which is easier:  *I suppose the point to be that the first is easier to say, because no one can see whether it happened or not. But if you tell a paralytic to get up and he doesn’t, you get egg on the face. The Lord did it that way to help them believe that He could really forgive sin. There was nothing wrong with the scribes’ inference; indeed only God can forgive sin, so in fact Jesus was claiming to be God!  to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins have been forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your pallet and start walking!’? ¹⁰ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins” —He says to the paralytic: ¹¹ “To you I say, get up, pick up your pallet and go to your house!” ¹² So forthwith he got up, picked up his pallet and went out in front of them all; so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”  Quite right; they never had!   PCF: I agree heartily with Pickering’s footnote on v. 8. I think especially of the Gospel of John that repeatedly shows that Jesus could read people’s thoughts.   I do not agree with Pickering’s first sentence about ‘which is easier to say’. The idea he supports is that it would be easier to forgive sins because no one could tell if it happened. But even he seems a bit doubtful about saying that, because his sentence starts with, “I suppose the point to be …”  Yes, the interpretation he gives— that forgiving the man’s sins would be the easier to say— can be found in some commentaries. But that is worldly thinking. Jesus would have known that saying ‘I forgive your sins’ would mean that He would pay for those sins on the cross.    But Pickering is right in the last part of that footnote. Only God can forgive sin, so the scribes’ inference was right. He might as well as said, ‘I am God’.   There is interesting linguistic support for only God being able to forgive sins. In the Orya language of Papua, Indonesia, and in many other languages, ordinary persons cannot ‘forgive’ someone else’s wrongs or sins. The word  the Orya language uses for forgiving on a person-to-person level is simply to ‘forget’. You can choose to ‘forget’ a sin someone commits against you. But the real word for ‘forgive’ in Orya means to ‘finish’ or ‘nullify’ the sin. Only God can finish all the liabilities of a sin or nullify the consequences. So the scribes were right that it takes an action of God to have one’s sins forgiven. Matthew called ¹³ Then He went out again by the sea; and the whole crowd came to Him, and He began to teach them. ¹⁴ As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow me”. So he got up and followed Him. ¹⁵ Now it happened, as He was reclining at the table in his house,  Matthew’s—he evidently put on a big dinner and invited all his associates.  that many tax collectors and sinners  ‘Tax collectors and sinners’ seems to have been almost a frozen idiom. A Jew who collected taxes for Rome was viewed as a traitor and held in very low esteem.  joined Jesus and His disciples at the table; for there were many and they followed Him. ¹⁶ The scribes and the Pharisees, seeing Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, said to His disciples, “Why is it that He is eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ Upon hearing it Jesus said to them: “It is not the healthy who have need of a doctor, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  Perhaps 10% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘to repentance’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.   Fasting ¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?” ¹⁹ So Jesus said to them: “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom to themselves they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast, in those days.  Some 15% of the Greek manuscripts read ‘day’ instead of ‘days’ (as in NIV, NASB, TEV, etc.), but obviously the fasting would take place on more than one day.   PCF: The two textual variants from the Majority Text that Pickering points out in verses 17 and 20 both make better sense than what is found in the Eclectic text. In particular, it seems a shame that most Bibles of the last century left out the words ‘to repentance’ in verse 17. The men who compiled the Eclectic Text chose a principle that would favor the Alexandrian manuscripts. They decided that a shorter variant in a text was more likely to be correct. Verse 17 is shorter without the two words ‘to repentance’ but it leaves the reader wondering, “Where is Jesus calling sinners to come to?” In the early years of the Eclectic Text movement, people did not yet realize that Alexandrian copyists frequently shortened the texts they copied. This goes for secular works as well as NT books. Alexandrian copies of Homer’s poems are much shorter than manuscripts found in other places.    Together with verse 17, there are four places where Mark’s account uses the words ‘repent’ and ‘repentance’. Clearly the call to repentance was an important part of what both John the Baptist and Jesus taught. In Mark, Jesus sent the disciples out preaching that people ‘should repent’. (6:11) So having Jesus say that his mission was to call sinners to repent makes good sense in the context of this gospel. Cloth and wineskins ²¹ “Further, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the new tears away some of the old, and a worse hole results. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine spills out and the skins will be ruined; rather, new wine must be put into new wineskins.”  There is no way of renewing an old wineskin. Whenever a church becomes an ‘old wineskin’, any introduction of new wine will always cause a split.   Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath ²³  Between verses 22 and 23 all of John chapter 5 takes place—that chapter revolves around the second Passover of His public ministry, in 28 A.D. A year and a half have passed since His baptism.  Now it happened, on a Sabbath, that He was passing through some grain fields, and His disciples began to make a path, picking the heads of grain. ²⁴ So the Pharisees said to Him, “Just look, why are they doing on a Sabbath that which is not permitted?” ²⁵ And He said to them: “Did you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him? ²⁶ How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest)  My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high priest’. When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1 Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the LORD rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore (1 Samuel 23:9-12). That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech had a pretty good idea what would happen, so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide; Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest. Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded.  and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him?” ²⁷ Then He said to them: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  This is a crucial point. The Pharisees, etc., had turned the Sabbath into an instrument of domination that they used to impose their authority on the people. ²⁸ Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”  The Lord of the Sabbath can change the rules, or even retire it!   Abiathar is not Ahimelech  Mark 2:26 X 1 Samuel 21:1  Some of my readers may be aware that this verse has destroyed the faith of at least one scholar in our day, although he was reared in an evangelical home. He understood Jesus to be saying that Abiathar was the priest with whom David dealt, when in fact it was his father, Ahimelech. If Jesus stated an historical error as fact, then he could not be God. So he turned his back on Jesus. I consider that his decision was lamentable and unnecessary, and in the interest of helping others who may be troubled by this verse, I offer the following explanation:  “How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest) and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him.”    My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV, NKJV and NIV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high-priest’ (but the preposition here, επι, is the most versatile of the Greek prepositions, and one of its many meanings/uses is 'toward'―the standard lexicon, BDAG, lists fully eighteen areas of meaning, quite apart from sub-divisions). When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the Lord rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore, since only that ephod had the Urim and Thummim (1 Samuel 23:9-12; cf. Numbers 27:21, Ezra 2:63).    That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech foresaw what would happen (Doeg probably took off immediately, and Ahimelech figured he wouldn't have much time), so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide―he probably did it that very day (once the soldiers arrived to arrest Ahimelech and the other 84, it would be too late). Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest.    Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded in passing (which is why I used parentheses). But why would Jesus allude to that? I suppose because the Bible is straightforward about the consequences of sin, and David lied to Ahimelech. Although Jesus was using David's eating that bread as an example, He did not wish to gloss over the sin, and its consequences.    Recall that Jesus was addressing Pharisees, who were steeped in the OT Scriptures. A notorious case like Saul's massacre of 85 priests would be very well known. And of course, none of the NT had yet been written, so any understanding of what Jesus said had to be based on 1 Samuel (“Have you never read…?”). If we today wish to understand this passage, we need to place ourselves in the context recorded in Mark 2:23-28. The Pharisees would understand that if Abiathar was in possession of the ephod with the Urim and Thummim, then he was the high priest. And how did he get that way? He got that way because of David's visit. It was an immediate consequence of that visit.    Some may object that 'making' is a verb, not a preposition. Well, the 'in the days of' of the AV, etc., though not a verb, is a phrase. Both a pronoun and an adverb may stand for a phrase, and a preposition may as well. TEV and Phillips actually use a verb: ‘when… was’; NLT has ‘during the days when… was’. Where the others used from two to five words, I used only one.     PCF: Just a little comment from me on the this topic. The problem in this verse is very hard to deal with, and I am linking an article here written by Dr. Daniel Wallace to illustrate how hard this is. As I said before, we can’t prove anything because of how vague Greek prepositions are. An added thing to think about is that Jesus could have been speaking in Aramaic, not Greek, because that was the everyday language for him. I am willing to set this aside as a problem we cannot solve for sure. But one thing I hold onto is that God’s Word is true in the Old Testament record, and what Jesus said was also true. It seems more likely to me to conclude that He knew much more than us about it, and various things could have happened like what Pickering posits.   Secondly I think the comment about this verse destroying the faith of a Christian scholar is interesting. If you know who that scholar was, please let me know. My searches on the internet for likely choices failed to turn up the answer. Just the other day my son, David, mentioned how a little thing like this that erodes one’s faith puts a person on a dangerous slippery slope. He told about a fellow graduate of his Christian university who was his friend. But the friend learned things that shook his faith. He ended up as a pastor in an extremely liberal denomination. But now he has left even that and has taken up with Hindus in India, but it is unclear if he really believes what they teach either.    A little thing like the presence of footnotes in our Bibles could be the thing that would cause someone to embark on that slippery downward slope. People will think, “Well, who knows what the apostles really wrote?” This has been a problem with the adoption of the Eclectic Text starting in 1901, which has contributed to liberalism in the church for over a century. Now I ask my listeners, Would your church hire someone as (let’s say) an associate pastor if the person did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible? I think I can hear the answer. My church wouldn’t. If someone interviewed for a job at my church without believing in Jesus or the inspiration of the Bible, the interview would quickly change to my pastor seeking to share the Gospel with that person. So then I ask, Do you think that it would be a good idea to trust a person with beliefs like that to manage the Greek text that is translated for our Bibles? I don’t think so! I recommend an an article I found about the beliefs of Kurt Aland, the one whose name is on the publications of the Nestle-Aland Eclectic Greek Text. It is linked here in the episode notes.      The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations.   All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices.    Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H  did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved.   Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4)   May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!   Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.   Friberg, Timothy:  On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.  I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.   Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.   What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.   Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35   Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.  This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.   Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

EveryWord003 Mark 2   Welcome to this THIRD podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, to which he gave the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 2.   Please bear in mind that the episode notes for all of my podcasts provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation.   Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text** which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century.  **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts.   The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt.  *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts.   The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV.   It is high time (now that I’ve reached the 3rd podcast) that I admit to you that— although I have worked as a Bible translator for most of my life— I am a new-comer to the whole study of textual criticism. In my article Playing Follow-the-Leader in Bible Translation, I speak about how little missionary Bible translators of my generation were trained in the area of textual criticism. I— unlike many of my colleagues— did not have the benefit of seminary education. My degrees are in the field of music. But from what I have heard from my seminary-trained colleagues, there is not much taught to normal seminary students about textual criticism. Few pastors today know anything about the subject.   It was in April of 2018 that I had the opportunity to visit Timothy and Barbara Friberg in Indonesia. Four years prior to this my team and I had published the Plain Indonesian NT. Dr. Timothy Friberg is famous for compiling the Analytical Greek New Testament, which is a reference work that virtually all Bible translators use. (Incidentally the AGNT is now being released in a new and improved edition.) I sought Dr. Fribergs advice because of his experience translating the NT for Muslim background audiences, because I am a consultant for such a project. During my two-day visit, I received excellent advice, but also received a bonus I didn’t expect. Tim Friberg convinced me that the Majority Greek Text should be used in translating the New Testament for Muslim background believers.    But then he asked, “Well, what about your Plain Indonesian New Testament? Are you going to revise that to follow the Majority Text?” This was a hard question for me because that NT was already published. I had just played follow-the-leader in basing that translation on the Eclectic text. After some thought and prayer, I concluded that God would be most glorified if my translation team and I  revised our published New Testament to follow the Majority Text. The revisions are now about 75% complete. Please pray for us in this: Please pray that we will work carefully so that we do not make mistakes as we revise the Plain Indonesian New Testament. Please pray that Bible readers in Indonesia would be happy to have a translation following the Majority Text, even though that will make our translation different from the default Indonesian Bible. Being aware that the United Bible Society publishes the Eclectic Greek Text, please pray that the Indonesian Bible Society or other parties will not publicly criticize our move to the Majority Text.    As I admitted above, I do not have training in the field of textual criticism. Because of that, I am sure that I have already made mistakes in these EveryWord podcasts. If you find errors in my statements, feel free to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info to send your input to me.    Mark 2  Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized in the PDF attached to this podcast. Find EveryWord003 at dailybiblereading.info and use the red Download PDF button to get it. A paralytic— the evaluation ¹ Well a few days later, He again entered Capernaum, and it was heard that He was at home. ² Without delay so many were gathered together that there was no more room, not even around the door, and He was speaking the Word to them. ³ Then four men came, carrying a paralytic to Him. ⁴ And not being able to get near Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof where He was;  The roof was presumably flat, with an outside staircase leading up to it. I suppose damaging someone else’s roof could be considered a crime, but they were determined. If Jesus was in His own house, there would be no problem.  upon breaking through they lowered the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. ⁵ So seeing their faith Jesus says to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you”. ⁶ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts: ⁷ “Why does this guy speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ⁸ Immediately Jesus perceived in His spirit what they were reasoning within themselves  *Time and again the Inspired Record will point out that Jesus could read people’s thoughts. and said to them: “Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts? ⁹ Which is easier:  *I suppose the point to be that the first is easier to say, because no one can see whether it happened or not. But if you tell a paralytic to get up and he doesn’t, you get egg on the face. The Lord did it that way to help them believe that He could really forgive sin. There was nothing wrong with the scribes’ inference; indeed only God can forgive sin, so in fact Jesus was claiming to be God!  to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins have been forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your pallet and start walking!’? ¹⁰ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins” —He says to the paralytic: ¹¹ “To you I say, get up, pick up your pallet and go to your house!” ¹² So forthwith he got up, picked up his pallet and went out in front of them all; so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”  Quite right; they never had!   PCF: I agree heartily with Pickering’s footnote on v. 8. I think especially of the Gospel of John that repeatedly shows that Jesus could read people’s thoughts.   I do not agree with Pickering’s first sentence about ‘which is easier to say’. The idea he supports is that it would be easier to forgive sins because no one could tell if it happened. But even he seems a bit doubtful about saying that, because his sentence starts with, “I suppose the point to be …”  Yes, the interpretation he gives— that forgiving the man’s sins would be the easier to say— can be found in some commentaries. But that is worldly thinking. Jesus would have known that saying ‘I forgive your sins’ would mean that He would pay for those sins on the cross.    But Pickering is right in the last part of that footnote. Only God can forgive sin, so the scribes’ inference was right. He might as well as said, ‘I am God’.   There is interesting linguistic support for only God being able to forgive sins. In the Orya language of Papua, Indonesia, and in many other languages, ordinary persons cannot ‘forgive’ someone else’s wrongs or sins. The word  the Orya language uses for forgiving on a person-to-person level is simply to ‘forget’. You can choose to ‘forget’ a sin someone commits against you. But the real word for ‘forgive’ in Orya means to ‘finish’ or ‘nullify’ the sin. Only God can finish all the liabilities of a sin or nullify the consequences. So the scribes were right that it takes an action of God to have one’s sins forgiven. Matthew called ¹³ Then He went out again by the sea; and the whole crowd came to Him, and He began to teach them. ¹⁴ As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow me”. So he got up and followed Him. ¹⁵ Now it happened, as He was reclining at the table in his house,  Matthew’s—he evidently put on a big dinner and invited all his associates.  that many tax collectors and sinners  ‘Tax collectors and sinners’ seems to have been almost a frozen idiom. A Jew who collected taxes for Rome was viewed as a traitor and held in very low esteem.  joined Jesus and His disciples at the table; for there were many and they followed Him. ¹⁶ The scribes and the Pharisees, seeing Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, said to His disciples, “Why is it that He is eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ Upon hearing it Jesus said to them: “It is not the healthy who have need of a doctor, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  Perhaps 10% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘to repentance’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.   Fasting ¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?” ¹⁹ So Jesus said to them: “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom to themselves they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast, in those days.  Some 15% of the Greek manuscripts read ‘day’ instead of ‘days’ (as in NIV, NASB, TEV, etc.), but obviously the fasting would take place on more than one day.   PCF: The two textual variants from the Majority Text that Pickering points out in verses 17 and 20 both make better sense than what is found in the Eclectic text. In particular, it seems a shame that most Bibles of the last century left out the words ‘to repentance’ in verse 17. The men who compiled the Eclectic Text chose a principle that would favor the Alexandrian manuscripts. They decided that a shorter variant in a text was more likely to be correct. Verse 17 is shorter without the two words ‘to repentance’ but it leaves the reader wondering, “Where is Jesus calling sinners to come to?” In the early years of the Eclectic Text movement, people did not yet realize that Alexandrian copyists frequently shortened the texts they copied. This goes for secular works as well as NT books. Alexandrian copies of Homer’s poems are much shorter than manuscripts found in other places.    Together with verse 17, there are four places where Mark’s account uses the words ‘repent’ and ‘repentance’. Clearly the call to repentance was an important part of what both John the Baptist and Jesus taught. In Mark, Jesus sent the disciples out preaching that people ‘should repent’. (6:11) So having Jesus say that his mission was to call sinners to repent makes good sense in the context of this gospel. Cloth and wineskins ²¹ “Further, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the new tears away some of the old, and a worse hole results. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine spills out and the skins will be ruined; rather, new wine must be put into new wineskins.”  There is no way of renewing an old wineskin. Whenever a church becomes an ‘old wineskin’, any introduction of new wine will always cause a split.   Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath ²³  Between verses 22 and 23 all of John chapter 5 takes place—that chapter revolves around the second Passover of His public ministry, in 28 A.D. A year and a half have passed since His baptism.  Now it happened, on a Sabbath, that He was passing through some grain fields, and His disciples began to make a path, picking the heads of grain. ²⁴ So the Pharisees said to Him, “Just look, why are they doing on a Sabbath that which is not permitted?” ²⁵ And He said to them: “Did you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him? ²⁶ How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest)  My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high priest’. When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1 Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the LORD rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore (1 Samuel 23:9-12). That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech had a pretty good idea what would happen, so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide; Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest. Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded.  and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him?” ²⁷ Then He said to them: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  This is a crucial point. The Pharisees, etc., had turned the Sabbath into an instrument of domination that they used to impose their authority on the people. ²⁸ Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”  The Lord of the Sabbath can change the rules, or even retire it!   Abiathar is not Ahimelech  Mark 2:26 X 1 Samuel 21:1  Some of my readers may be aware that this verse has destroyed the faith of at least one scholar in our day, although he was reared in an evangelical home. He understood Jesus to be saying that Abiathar was the priest with whom David dealt, when in fact it was his father, Ahimelech. If Jesus stated an historical error as fact, then he could not be God. So he turned his back on Jesus. I consider that his decision was lamentable and unnecessary, and in the interest of helping others who may be troubled by this verse, I offer the following explanation:  “How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest) and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him.”    My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV, NKJV and NIV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high-priest’ (but the preposition here, επι, is the most versatile of the Greek prepositions, and one of its many meanings/uses is 'toward'―the standard lexicon, BDAG, lists fully eighteen areas of meaning, quite apart from sub-divisions). When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the Lord rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore, since only that ephod had the Urim and Thummim (1 Samuel 23:9-12; cf. Numbers 27:21, Ezra 2:63).    That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech foresaw what would happen (Doeg probably took off immediately, and Ahimelech figured he wouldn't have much time), so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide―he probably did it that very day (once the soldiers arrived to arrest Ahimelech and the other 84, it would be too late). Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest.    Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded in passing (which is why I used parentheses). But why would Jesus allude to that? I suppose because the Bible is straightforward about the consequences of sin, and David lied to Ahimelech. Although Jesus was using David's eating that bread as an example, He did not wish to gloss over the sin, and its consequences.    Recall that Jesus was addressing Pharisees, who were steeped in the OT Scriptures. A notorious case like Saul's massacre of 85 priests would be very well known. And of course, none of the NT had yet been written, so any understanding of what Jesus said had to be based on 1 Samuel (“Have you never read…?”). If we today wish to understand this passage, we need to place ourselves in the context recorded in Mark 2:23-28. The Pharisees would understand that if Abiathar was in possession of the ephod with the Urim and Thummim, then he was the high priest. And how did he get that way? He got that way because of David's visit. It was an immediate consequence of that visit.    Some may object that 'making' is a verb, not a preposition. Well, the 'in the days of' of the AV, etc., though not a verb, is a phrase. Both a pronoun and an adverb may stand for a phrase, and a preposition may as well. TEV and Phillips actually use a verb: ‘when… was’; NLT has ‘during the days when… was’. Where the others used from two to five words, I used only one.     PCF: Just a little comment from me on the this topic. The problem in this verse is very hard to deal with, and I am linking an article here written by Dr. Daniel Wallace to illustrate how hard this is. As I said before, we can’t prove anything because of how vague Greek prepositions are. An added thing to think about is that Jesus could have been speaking in Aramaic, not Greek, because that was the everyday language for him. I am willing to set this aside as a problem we cannot solve for sure. But one thing I hold onto is that God’s Word is true in the Old Testament record, and what Jesus said was also true. It seems more likely to me to conclude that He knew much more than us about it, and various things could have happened like what Pickering posits.   Secondly I think the comment about this verse destroying the faith of a Christian scholar is interesting. If you know who that scholar was, please let me know. My searches on the internet for likely choices failed to turn up the answer. Just the other day my son, David, mentioned how a little thing like this that erodes one’s faith puts a person on a dangerous slippery slope. He told about a fellow graduate of his Christian university who was his friend. But the friend learned things that shook his faith. He ended up as a pastor in an extremely liberal denomination. But now he has left even that and has taken up with Hindus in India, but it is unclear if he really believes what they teach either.    A little thing like the presence of footnotes in our Bibles could be the thing that would cause someone to embark on that slippery downward slope. People will think, “Well, who knows what the apostles really wrote?” This has been a problem with the adoption of the Eclectic Text starting in 1901, which has contributed to liberalism in the church for over a century. Now I ask my listeners, Would your church hire someone as (let’s say) an associate pastor if the person did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible? I think I can hear the answer. My church wouldn’t. If someone interviewed for a job at my church without believing in Jesus or the inspiration of the Bible, the interview would quickly change to my pastor seeking to share the Gospel with that person. So then I ask, Do you think that it would be a good idea to trust a person with beliefs like that to manage the Greek text that is translated for our Bibles? I don’t think so! I recommend an an article I found about the beliefs of Kurt Aland, the one whose name is on the publications of the Nestle-Aland Eclectic Greek Text. It is linked here in the episode notes.      The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations.   All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices.    Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H  did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved.   Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4)   May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!   Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text.   Friberg, Timothy:  On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable.  I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below.   Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019.   What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019.   Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35   Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018.  This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways.   Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

GENESIS 30:In yesterday’s reading in Genesis 28-29, Jacob left home, and God appeared to him and promised to bless him as he blessed Isaac. Jacob worked for Laban, married both Leah and Rachel, and he had four sons through Leah. JOB 17:Yesterday was the first chapter of Job's response to Eliphaz. He complained that his three comforters were not very comforting, saying 1-2 GNT I have heard words like that before;the comfort you give is only torment.3 Are you going to keep on talking forever?Do you always have to have the last word? And he said, 6 But nothing I say helps,and being silent does not calm my pain. And 9 In anger God tears me limb from limb;he glares at me with hate. This last statement shows how easy it is for us humans to misunderstand God’s will or intentions concerning us. God did not hate Job! MARK 10b:Yesterday in the first half of chapter 10, Jesus gave God's true perspective on divorce, blessed some children, and said that is impossible for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God (in their own strength). By the way, there is a wrong teaching that is still often heard. People have heard that the ‘eye of the needle’ was a little door next to the big gate in Jerusalem, and that a camel could get through this gate but all the burden would have to be taken off. This is just plain wrong, but it is one of those things that just keeps being passed on. No such gate was made in New Testament days in Jerusalem. Such gates were made in castles in Europe in the middle ages. No, instead of holding out hope for rich people, Jesus’ meaning is just what he said: It is just as impossible for the rich to enter heaven as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a real sewing needle. The next statement of Jesus however shows the way the rich may enter heaven. Jesus gave a wonderful promise for missionaries at the end of the chapter. I bear witness to every part of that. 2,000 Orya people call me ‘Aya Bak’— which means ‘older brother’. The Lord has blessed me way more than 100 times.

GENESIS 30: In yesterday’s reading , Jacob left home, and God appeared to him and promised to bless him as he blessed Isaac. Jacob worked for Laban, married both Leah and Rachel, and he had four sons through Leah. JOB 17: Yesterday was the first chapter of Job's response to Eliphaz. He complained that his three comforters were not very comforting. 1-2 GNT I have heard words like that before; the comfort you give is only torment. 3 Are you going to keep on talking forever? Do you always have to have the last word? And he said, 6 But nothing I say helps, and being silent does not calm my pain. And 9 In anger God tears me limb from limb; he glares at me with hate. This last statement shows how easy it is for us humans to misunderstand God’s will or intentions concerning us. God did not hate Job! MARK 10b: Yesterday in the first half of chapter 10, Jesus gave God's true perspective on divorce, blessed some children, and said that is impossible for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God (in their own strength). By the way, there is a wrong teaching that is still often heard. People have heard that the ‘eye of the needle’ was a little door next to the big gate in Jerusalem, and that a camel could get through this gate but all the burden would have to be taken off. This is wrong. No such gate was made in New Testament days in Jerusalem. Such gates were made in castles in Europe in the middle ages. No, the meaning of the saying is just what he said: It is just as impossible for the rich to enter heaven as it is for a camel to go through the eye of a real sewing needle. The next statement of Jesus however shows the way the rich may enter heaven. Jesus gave a wonderful promise for missionaries at the end of the chapter. I bear witness to every part of that. 2,000 Orya people call me ‘Aya Bak’— which means ‘older brother’. The Lord has blessed me way more than 100 times. GNT Translation note: 45 For even [I, as] the Son of Man did not come to be served; [I//he] came to serve and to give [my//his] life to redeem many people.” 52 “[You may go.//Go,]” Jesus told him, “[You have been made well because you believed fully in me.//your faith has made you well.]” At once he was able to see and followed Jesus on the road. Constable’s notes for v.49: The two descriptions of Jesus in these verses reveal the faith of Bartimaeus. The crowds simply described Jesus as “the Nazarene.” Bartimaeus had obviously heard about Jesus and had concluded that He was the Messiah. “Son of David” is a messianic title (cf. 11:9-10; 12:35-37; 2 Sam. 7:8-16; Isa. 11:1, 10; Jer. 23:5-6; Ezek. 34:23-24). Even though Bartimaeus lacked physical sight he saw more clearly who Jesus was then the multitudes who could see. His cry for mercy from Jesus expressed the attitude of trust, humility, and dependence that Jesus had been teaching His disciples to maintain.  NLT Translation notes: 33 “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where [I,/0] the Son of Manh will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence [me/him] to die and hand [me/him] over to the Romans.i 34 They will mock [me], spit on [me], flog [me] with a whip, and kill [me], but after three days [I/he] will rise again.” [One very seldom talks of oneself using a third person pronoun in most of the world's languages.] 45 For even [I, as/0] the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give [my/his] life as a ransom for many.” 52 And Jesus said to him, “Go, [you are healed now because you fully believed in me//for your faith has healed you].” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road.  

For more information about the features of this reading plan, please see the ‘ReadMe’ PDF file linked in the header of http://dailygntbiblereading .info. You will note that I read most Bible names phonetically— rather than the using normal English pronunciation. This means that the letter A will have a consistent sound ‘ah’ and the letter I will be pronounced ‘ee’. This happens to match Indonesian pronunciations and that of many other languages. This also makes the pronunciation more like that of the source languages, Hebrew and Greek. GENESIS 3-4:In chapter 2 of Genesis, we saw that Eve was created and introduced to Adam. And the pair at the end of the chapter were “naked and not embarrassed/unashamed.” As I said in yesterday’s introduction, I have seen first-hand in my work in Indonesia that when a people group misunderstands and twists the story in Genesis 1-3, it will have far-reaching consequences for their lives. In the case of the Orya people, twisting the story of the fall caused much suffering and misery among families. JOB 2:At the close of chapter 1 of Job, Job had lost virtually everything he had, including his possessions, livestock, and children. He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” MARK 1b:Mark does not specifically identify himself as the author, but the church fathers unanimously say that the John Mark mentioned several times in the New Testament was the author. Mark was a companion of Peter, so the eyewitness content in this book is that of Peter. It is also thought that Mark wrote this account before or shortly after Peter’s martyrdom in Rome— which happened somewhere between 64-67 AD. This is certainly the first written Gospel, and it could have been written earlier than the earliest of Paul’s letters. Tradition says that Mark wrote this Gospel in Rome. That would help to explain why Mark gives background information to some Jewish customs that would have been unknown to his Roman readers, and why he doesn’t include teachings of Jesus which were based on the Jewish Scriptures and religion. Instead he tells us the plain story of Jesus and his miracles, so that the reader finds out who Jesus is. Yesterday in chapter 1 of Mark, Jesus was baptized by John, called his first disciples, and cast out an evil spirit from a man in a synagogue. GNT Translation note:Gen. 3:15 I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring's heel.” [Verse 15 has several translational difficulties. When you find a place where you would like to understand why translation differ, I recommend looking at Lumina.bible.org and reading  the notes to the NET.]

For more information about the features of this reading plan, please see the ‘ReadMe’ PDF file linked in the header of http://dailygntbiblereading .info.   You will note that I read most Bible names phonetically— rather than the using normal English pronunciation. This means that the letter A will have a consistent sound ‘ah’ and the letter I will be pronounced ‘ee’. This happens to match Indonesian pronunciations and that of many other languages. This also makes the pronunciation more like that of the source languages, Hebrew and Greek.   GENESIS 3-4: In chapter 2 of Genesis, we saw that Eve was created and introduced to Adam. And the pair at the end of the chapter were “naked and not embarrassed/unashamed.” As I said in yesterday’s introduction, I have seen first-hand in my work in Indonesia that when a people group misunderstands and twists the story in Genesis 1-3, it will have far-reaching consequences for their lives. In the case of the Orya people, twisting the story of the fall caused much suffering and misery among families.   JOB 2: At the close of chapter 1 of Job, Job had lost virtually everything he had, including his possessions, livestock, and children. He said, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!”   MARK 1b: Mark does not specifically identify himself as the author, but the church fathers unanimously say that the John Mark mentioned several times in the New Testament was the author. Mark was a companion of Peter, so the eyewitness content in this book is that of Peter. It is also thought that Mark wrote this account before or shortly after Peter’s martyrdom in Rome— which happened somewhere between 64-67 AD. This is certainly the first written Gospel, and it could have been written earlier than the earliest of Paul’s letters. Tradition says that Mark wrote this Gospel in Rome. That would help to explain why Mark gives background information to some Jewish customs that would have been unknown to his Roman readers, and why he doesn’t include teachings of Jesus which were based on the Jewish Scriptures and religion. Instead he tells us the plain story of Jesus and his miracles, so that the reader finds out who Jesus is.   Yesterday in chapter 1 of Mark, Jesus was baptized by John, called his first disciples, and cast out an evil spirit from a man in a synagogue.   GNT Translation note: Gen. 3:15 I will make you and the woman hate each other; her offspring and yours will always be enemies. Her offspring will crush your head, and you will bite her offspring's heel.” [Verse 15 has several translational difficulties. When you find a place where you would like to understand why translation differ, I recommend looking at Lumina.bible.org and reading  the notes to the NET.]   NLT Translation notes: Mrk 1:34 So Jesus healed many people who were sick with various diseases, and he cast out many demons. [Because//But because] the demons knew who he was, he did not allow them to speak. 38 But Jesus replied, “[No. ]We must go on to other towns as well, and I will preach to them, too. That is why I came.”  

Congratulations on starting TODAY on a life-transforming journey! The Digging Deeper Daily plan will help you be successful in your commitment to read the whole Bible in a year. The unique order of the readings— together with the brief devotional notes, will help you see the various threads that unify the message of the Old and the New Testaments. I hope these notes will help you remember what you have read the day before, and hint at the deep and incredibly rich treasures in God’s Word. But the most satisfying treasures that you find this year will be the ones you dig to discover for yourself! Check out the ‘Shovels’ page of dailybiblereading.info for tools to help you go deeper in your study. Please also check out our free dedicated listening apps for your smart device by searching for the DailyBibleReading podcast in the app store or play store.   NLT podcast listeners: You have chosen to listen to the first podcast in the NLT series. Please be aware that these recordings of the NlT were first made in 2014, when I was very new to podcasting. Now, after three year’s experience, I hear all sorts of little things I would now do differently, including pronunciation, tone of voice, and audio editing. I almost decided NOT to re-release this series of podcasts this year. If you are patient through the first month or two, you will find that I eventually got better in making the podcasts. Even though I don’t like listening to these first podcasts, there are some serendipitous and spontaneous moments that I hope my grandchildren will enjoy listening to. If you are listening using earbuds in a car speeding down the freeway, perhaps some of the glitches in production won’t be noticed. However, if you find yourself bothered by the imperfections, try listening to the GNT recordings instead.     GENESIS 1-2: The first five books of the Bible are the Jewish Torah, and the Bible refers to them collectively as ‘the Law’. Many other books in the Bible attribute the authorship of these five books to Moses. Genesis is the foundational book of the whole Bible. When we were in our first Bible translation project among the Orya in Papua, Indonesia, I witnessed how getting a little detail of the foundation wrong (such as, how the first sin happened) can wreck the whole building that is being constructed. This book of Genesis tells us what God wants us to know about the beginning of our world, the beginning of sin, mankind’s rebellion against God, and who God and Satan are.     JOB 1: The story of Job is set in the period of the patriarch Abraham, and it takes place in the land of the East. What I did not realize until recently is that signs indicate that this book was written at a later time and almost certainly by an Israelite. By the author writing that Job was “the richest man in the East”, it places the author in the West, in the land of Israel. The author frequently uses the name of ‘Yahweh’, which I think would not have been done in Abraham’s time— which was long before God’s name was revealed to Moses at the burning bush. The author was a highly educated man. All of the book— except the first two chapters, are in exquisite poetry. The author displays an in-depth knowledge of mythology, the constellations, and the current wisdom concerning the world— including the underworld and traits of exotic animals. I might as well say it: The philosophy of this book is worthy of Solomon. Whoever he is, the author displays incredible wisdom. One would expect an ancient book that is didactic in nature to end with a neat answer that sums up the author’s opinion. Or one would expect an ancient author to create a debate where the hero is totally right and the other speakers are clearly wrong. Instead, all the human speakers in the book of Job mix truth and error. It is a mark of inspired wisdom that in the end, the book of Job leaves us still pondering and searching for some answers.     MARK 1a: Due to the 400 word limit for the YouVersion Devotional Content pages, the introduction to Mark is given on Day 2.     GNT Translation notes: 1 This is the Good News about [Christ Jesus//Jesus Christ], the Son of God. [The order in Greek here is ‘Jesus Christ’, and sometimes the Greek puts the order the other way around. I will consistently read ‘Christ Jesus’. Here is the reason I do this: Although it has become natural for us to say ‘Jesus Christ’, it is actually against English grammar. ‘Christ’ is a title. And in English, titles (such as president, doctor, or ambassador) always come first. The reason why I point this out is this: I have found people who think that ‘Christ’ is Jesus’ last name. The title ‘Christ’ (from Greek) means exactly the same thing as Messiah (from Hebrew). Both mean ‘anointed one’. You will notice that I read many Bible names in a strange way. I read them with a more phonetic pronunciation— which in fact, is more like how the Indonesian language and many others read them. This allows me to be more consistent in my pronunciation, and it also happens to be more like the Hebrew and Greek pronunciations. English pronunciations for some names is quite far from the source language pronunciations. An example from today is the name Isaiah, which I pronounce as ‘Yesayah’.]   6 John wore clothes made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food [included//was] locusts and wild honey.     NLT Translation notes: Gen. 1:3Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the [end of the] first day. … And evening passed and morning came, marking the [end of the] second day. …and so forth. ==== Mrk. 1:1 This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. It began 2 just as the prophet Isaiah had written, … [quoting what God said to his son:] 6 [John reminded people of the prophet Elijah,] because his clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. And he ate food such as locusts and wild honey.  

Congratulations on starting TODAY on a life-transforming journey! The Digging Deeper Daily plan will help you be successful in your commitment to read the whole Bible in a year. The unique order of the readings— together with the brief devotional notes, will help you see the various threads that unify the message of the Old and the New Testaments. I hope these notes will help you remember what you have read the day before, and hint at the deep and incredibly rich treasures in God’s Word. But the most satisfying treasures that you find this year will be the ones you dig to discover for yourself! Check out the ‘Shovels’ page of dailybiblereading.info for tools to help you go deeper in your study. Please also check out our free dedicated listening apps for your smart device by searching for the DailyBibleReading podcast in the app store or play store. GENESIS 1-2:The first five books of the Bible are the Jewish Torah, and the Bible refers to them collectively as ‘the Law’. Many other books in the Bible attribute the authorship of these five books to Moses. Genesis is the foundational book of the whole Bible. When we were in our first Bible translation project among the Orya in Papua, Indonesia, I witnessed how getting a little detail of the foundation wrong (such as, how the first sin happened) can wreck the whole building that is being constructed. This book of Genesis tells us what God wants us to know about the beginning of our world, the beginning of sin, mankind’s rebellion against God, and who God and Satan are. JOB 1: The story of Job is set in the period of the patriarch Abraham, and it takes place in the land of the East. What I did not realize until recently is that signs indicate that this book was written at a later time and almost certainly by an Israelite. By the author writing that Job was “the richest man in the East”, it places the author in the West, in the land of Israel. The author frequently uses the name of ‘Yahweh’, which I think would not have been done in Abraham’s time— which was long before God’s name was revealed to Moses at the burning bush. The author was a highly educated man. All of the book— except the first two chapters, are in exquisite poetry. The author displays an in-depth knowledge of mythology, the constellations, and the current wisdom concerning the world— including the underworld and traits of exotic animals. I might as well say it: The philosophy of this book is worthy of Solomon. Whoever he is, the author displays incredible wisdom. One would expect an ancient book that is didactic in nature to end with a neat answer that sums up the author’s opinion. Or one would expect an ancient author to create a debate where the hero is totally right and the other speakers are clearly wrong. Instead, all the human speakers in the book of Job mix truth and error. It is a mark of inspired wisdom that in the end, the book of Job leaves us still pondering and searching for some answers. MARK 1a:Due to the 400 word limit for the YouVersion Devotional Content pages, the introduction to Mark is given on Day 2. GNT Translation notes:1 This is the Good News about [Christ Jesus//Jesus Christ], the Son of God. [The order in Greek here is ‘Jesus Christ’, and sometimes the Greek puts the order the other way around. I will consistently read ‘Christ Jesus’. Here is the reason I do this: Although it has become natural for us to say ‘Jesus Christ’, it is actually against English grammar. ‘Christ’ is a title. And in English, titles (such as president, doctor, or ambassador) always come first. The reason why I point this out is this: I have found people who think that ‘Christ’ is Jesus’ last name. The title ‘Christ’ (from Greek) means exactly the same thing as Messiah (from Hebrew). Both mean ‘anointed one’. You will notice that I read many Bible names in a strange way. I read them with a more phonetic pronunciation— which in fact, is more like how the Indonesian language and many others read them. This allows me to be more consistent in my pronunciation, and it also happens to be more like the Hebrew and Greek pronunciations. English pronunciations for some names is quite far from the source language pronunciations. An example from today is the name Isaiah, which I pronounce as ‘Yesayah’.] 6 John wore clothes made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food [included//was] locusts and wild honey.

EZEKIEL 4-5:In Ezekiel 2-3 God commissioned Ezekiel to speak for God to the rebellious people of Israel. God fed Ezekiel a scroll. This tasted sweet, but afterwards I think he would tell us that it produced “bitterness”— as we will see with John who eats a similar scroll in Revelation. God gave these important words to Ezekiel in yesterday’s reading: Ez. 3:10 NLT …“Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. SONG OF SOLOMON 3:As we have seen, this Song of Songs is high poetry. The woman’s stories— such as what we hear today, are better taken as poetic expressions of her deep love than as true narratives. MATTHEW 24b:Jesus said, “Immediately after those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will give no light.” Here is a story from 20 14, the first year I was recording these podcasts. I wrote: Just three days ago, in the evening, I was with the Orya people at an open-air youth retreat. The pastor pointed out that the Bible says the moon will turn into blood (or be the color of blood). He had come from town and is not an Orya speaker. He told the people that he had seen that morning on the Internet that on that very night there would be a “blood moon”— or a lunar eclipse where the moon would turn red like blood. And while he was speaking about that and other end-times signs, sure enough, it happened! Nothing like God managing a visual presentation for you! I have never seen a more moving sight. GNT Translation notes:Mat. 24:15 “You will see ‘The Awful Horror’ of which the prophet Daniel spoke. It will be standing in the holy place.” ([May the one who reads out loud note this and explain it to those who listen!//Note to the reader: understand what this means!])27 For [when I,] the Son of Man, [come, it will be//will come] like the lightning which flashes across the whole sky from the east to the west. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man [(my sign)] will appear in the sky; and all the peoples of earth will weep as they see [me//the Son of Man] coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 The great trumpet will sound, and [I//he] will send out [my//his] angels to the four corners of the earth, and they will gather [my//his] chosen people from one end of the world to the other.37 [My//The] coming [as//of] the Son of Man will be like what happened in the time of Noah.yet they did not realize what was happening until the flood came and swept them all away. 39 That is how it will be when [I,] the Son of Man[, come// comes].44 So then, you also must always be ready, because [my coming as] the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting [me//him]. NLT Translation notes:Mat. 24:15 “The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about—the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” ([May the one who reads out loud note this and explain it to those who listen!//Reader, pay attention!])39 People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came  came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when [I, the Son of Man come.//the Son of Man comes].44 You also must be ready all the time, for [I,] the Son of Man[,] will come when least expected.

EZEKIEL 4-5:In Ezekiel 2-3 God commissioned Ezekiel to speak for God to the rebellious people of Israel. God fed Ezekiel a scroll. This tasted sweet, but afterwards I think he would tell us that it produced “bitterness”— as we will see with John who eats a similar scroll in Revelation. God gave these important words to Ezekiel in yesterday’s reading: Ez. 3:10 NLT …“Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. SONG OF SOLOMON 3:As we have seen, this Song of Songs is high poetry. The woman’s stories— such as what we hear today, are better taken as poetic expressions of her deep love than as true narratives. MATTHEW 24b:Jesus said, “Immediately after those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will give no light.” Here is a story from 2014, the first year I was recording these podcasts. I wrote: Just three days ago, in the evening, I was with the Orya people at an open-air youth retreat. The pastor pointed out that the Bible says the moon will turn into blood (or be the color of blood). He had come from town and is not an Orya speaker. He told the people that he had seen that morning on the Internet that on that very night there would be a “blood moon”— or a lunar eclipse where the moon would turn red like blood. And while he was speaking about that and other end-times signs, sure enough, it happened! Nothing like God managing a visual presentation for you! I have never seen a more moving sight. GNT Translation notes:Mat. 24:15 “You will see ‘The Awful Horror’ of which the prophet Daniel spoke. It will be standing in the holy place.” ([May the one who reads out loud note this and explain it to those who listen!//Note to the reader: understand what this means!])27 For [when I,] the Son of Man, [come, it will be//will come] like the lightning which flashes across the whole sky from the east to the west. 30 Then the sign of the Son of Man [(my sign)] will appear in the sky; and all the peoples of earth will weep as they see [me//the Son of Man] coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 The great trumpet will sound, and [I//he] will send out [my//his] angels to the four corners of the earth, and they will gather [my//his] chosen people from one end of the world to the other.37 [My//The] coming [as//of] the Son of Man will be like what happened in the time of Noah.yet they did not realize what was happening until the flood came and swept them all away. 39 That is how it will be when [I,] the Son of Man[, come// comes].44 So then, you also must always be ready, because [my coming as] the Son of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting [me//him].

Kali ini kami akan memberitahu apa saja manfaat meneriaki idol. Call atau Chant atau Chant Mix atau Mix atau yang lebih masyarakat kita kenal sebagai "Adukan" adalah kegiatan teriak-teriak yang kelihatannya tidak berguna dan memalukan, tapi ternyata ada terdapat banyak manfaat dalam kegiatan ngaduk mengaduk ini man teman. Di podcast ini kita sudah merangkum dengan singkat dan padat apa saja manfaat yang akan kita dapat saat mengaduk. Yuk simak..

Greetings Friends! Thanks for listening or reading this news update, which is for everyone reading the Bible— but especially to all who are following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. As always, you can find all sorts of information about this reading plan at dailybiblereading.info. That’s where to look for helpful tips to make it easy listen or read the Bible in a year. In particular, see the Read This First information linked in the site header. I praise God that the 3rd semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan is live now in your YouVersion Bible reading app. The link for subscribing is in the episode notes. If you don’t know, this reading plan follows the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan (like my podcasts) but this is an audio plan within YouVersion. In the third semester, I read the devotional page, then the internally bundled YouVersion recordings are played for the Bible readings. Please pray for me in preparing the 4th semester, so that it will be published before people complete the 3rd semester. I haven't been posting the videos from TheBibleProject.com like I planned in email updates and at our Facebook group. But I do at least want to remind you of them. The overview videos for each Bible book that they have done are Way Better than my short comments in the podcasts. They are especially helpful for more difficult books of the Bible, like the Old Testament prophetic books. Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info. Right after this news podcast goes live, I will do another podcast on What Greek text of the New Testament that I recommend. That is the Byzantine text. In my opinion, the Nestle-Aland text no longer holds up under academic scrutiny as the best text for Bible translation or serious Bible study. In my podcast notes, I will link to readable articles that support what I am saying. For me as a Bible translator, this is not a decision I have made lightly. This will mean a lot of work for me and my team in Indonesia, because we will  revise our published New Testament to match the Byzantine text by 2022. Some have asked and will ask if I will redo all my daily Bible reading podcasts. I’m sorry, I certainly won’t have time for that. But here’s what I want to do, LORD willing: I would like to make a new series of podcasts of the New Testament that will be based on a new translation of the best Greek text. These won’t be daily podcasts, and I can’t do this alone. I need some volunteers who have time to help me. If you can use online Bible study tools effectively, and think you might have a flair for expressing Bible concepts in everyday language, please use the contact link at dailybiblereading.info to email me. Here is the MOST IMPORTANT thing I want to share with you in this News update: I want to highly recommend that EVERYONE who will read this letter or listen to this podcast to see the documentary movie called American Gospel. If you don’t want to spring immediately for the two hour movie (which is well worth the $5 price), please view the free one hour video linked here. This is a very clear presentation of the TRUTH about the false gospel that is being taught in so many churches in America. Even if you feel that your church is teaching what the Bible teaches, I still urge you to see the one hour version of American Gospel. I think every Christian needs to be able to identify the false message, because someone you know is listening to it, and you will want to be able to help them. If you live in another country, I also urge you view to this video, because this false gospel has been exported all around the globe. Let me also share another little tidbit on this topic, showing Francis Chan’s perspective. In family news, I am thrilled that my grandson Luke (16) will be going with me for 18 days to Papua, Indonesia, starting on the 22nd of June. Four college age people in an internship program with Pioneer Bible Translators will meet us there, and I will take them for a five-day adventure living in an Orya village. The goal of this time is to find out what village life in a tropical rainforest is like. They will help catch, butcher, harvest, and prepare the food we eat. I hope that they leave feeling like they have truly made a few good friends among the Orya people. And I know that whenever I go out there, the people will ask me about Luke and the four interns. Please pray in the first week of July! We hope that this experience will prepare all five of them for whatever service God has in mind for them in the future. Lord bless you all. We send our love in Christ to you. Phil & Gale

Greetings Friends! Thanks for listening or reading this news update, which is for everyone reading the Bible— but especially to all who are following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan. As always, you can find all sorts of information about this reading plan at dailybiblereading.info. That’s where to look for helpful tips to make it easy listen or read the Bible in a year. In particular, see the Read This First information linked in the site header. I praise God that the 3rd semester of the Read To Me Daily reading plan is live now in your YouVersion Bible reading app. The link for subscribing is in the episode notes. If you don’t know, this reading plan follows the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan (like my podcasts) but this is an audio plan within YouVersion. In the third semester, I read the devotional page, then the internally bundled YouVersion recordings are played for the Bible readings. Please pray for me in preparing the 4th semester, so that it will be published before people complete the 3rd semester. I haven't been posting the videos from TheBibleProject.com like I planned in email updates and at our Facebook group. But I do at least want to remind you of them. The overview videos for each Bible book that they have done are Way Better than my short comments in the podcasts. They are especially helpful for more difficult books of the Bible, like the Old Testament prophetic books. Our Facebook group is now replaced by our forum at http://biblereaders.info. Right after this news podcast goes live, I will do another podcast on What Greek text of the New Testament that I recommend. That is the Byzantine text. In my opinion, the Nestle-Aland text no longer holds up under academic scrutiny as the best text for Bible translation or serious Bible study. In my podcast notes, I will link to readable articles that support what I am saying. For me as a Bible translator, this is not a decision I have made lightly. This will mean a lot of work for me and my team in Indonesia, because we will  revise our published New Testament to match the Byzantine text by 2022. Some have asked and will ask if I will redo all my daily Bible reading podcasts. I’m sorry, I certainly won’t have time for that. But here’s what I want to do, LORD willing: I would like to make a new series of podcasts of the New Testament that will be based on a new translation of the best Greek text. These won’t be daily podcasts, and I can’t do this alone. I need some volunteers who have time to help me. If you can use online Bible study tools effectively, and think you might have a flair for expressing Bible concepts in everyday language, please use the contact link at dailybiblereading.info to email me. Here is the MOST IMPORTANT thing I want to share with you in this News update: I want to highly recommend that EVERYONE who will read this letter or listen to this podcast to see the documentary movie called American Gospel. If you don’t want to spring immediately for the two hour movie (which is well worth the $5 price), please view the free one hour video linked here. This is a very clear presentation of the TRUTH about the false gospel that is being taught in so many churches in America. Even if you feel that your church is teaching what the Bible teaches, I still urge you to see the one hour version of American Gospel. I think every Christian needs to be able to identify the false message, because someone you know is listening to it, and you will want to be able to help them. If you live in another country, I also urge you view to this video, because this false gospel has been exported all around the globe. Let me also share another little tidbit on this topic, showing Francis Chan’s perspective. In family news, I am thrilled that my grandson Luke (16) will be going with me for 18 days to Papua, Indonesia, starting on the 22nd of June. Four college age people in an internship program with Pioneer Bible Translators will meet us there, and I will take them for a five-day adventure living in an Orya village. The goal of this time is to find out what village life in a tropical rainforest is like. They will help catch, butcher, harvest, and prepare the food we eat. I hope that they leave feeling like they have truly made a few good friends among the Orya people. And I know that whenever I go out there, the people will ask me about Luke and the four interns. Please pray in the first week of July! We hope that this experience will prepare all five of them for whatever service God has in mind for them in the future. Lord bless you all. We send our love in Christ to you. Phil & Gale

Congratulations on starting TODAY on a life-transforming journey! The Digging Deeper Daily plan will help you be successful in your commitment to read the whole Bible in a year. The unique order of the readings— together with the brief devotional notes, will help see the various threads that unify the message of the Old and the New Testaments. I hope these notes will help you remember what you have read the day before, and hint at the deep and incredibly rich treasures in God’s Word. But the most satisfying treasures that you find this year will be the ones you dig to discover for yourself! Check out the ‘Shovels’ page of dailybiblereading.info for tools to help you go deeper in your study. GENESIS 1-2:The first five books of the Bible are the Jewish Torah, and the Bible refers to them collectively as ‘the Law’. Many other books in the Bible attribute the authorship of these five books to Moses. Genesis is the foundational book of the whole Bible. When we were in our first Bible translation project among the Orya in Papua, Indonesia, I witnessed how getting a little detail of the foundation wrong (such as, how the first sin happened) can wreck the whole building that is being constructed. This book of Genesis tells us what God wants us to know about the beginning of our world, the beginning of sin, mankind’s rebellion against God, and who God and Satan are. JOB 1: The story of Job is set in the period of the patriarch Abraham, and it takes place in the land of the East. What I did not realize until recently is that signs indicate that this book was written at a later time and almost certainly by an Israelite. By the author writing that Job was “the richest man in the East”, it places the author in the West, in the land of Israel. The author frequently uses the name of ‘Yahweh’, which I think would not have been done in Abraham’s time— which was long before God’s name was revealed to Moses at the burning bush. The author was a highly educated man. All of the book— except the first two chapters, are in exquisite poetry. The author displays an in-depth knowledge of mythology, the constellations, and the current wisdom concerning the world— including the underworld and traits of exotic animals. I might as well say it: The philosophy of this book is worthy of Solomon. Whoever he is, the author displays incredible wisdom. One would expect an ancient book that is didactic in nature to end with a neat answer that sums up the author’s opinion. Or one would expect an ancient author to create a debate where the hero is totally right and the other speakers are clearly wrong. Instead, all the human speakers in the book of Job mix truth and error. It is a mark of inspired wisdom that in the end, the book of Job leaves us still pondering and searching for some answers. MARK 1a:This book will be introduced in the next podcast.  GNT Translation notes:1 This is the Good News about [Christ Jesus//Jesus Christ], the Son of God.[The order in Greek here is ‘Jesus Christ’, and sometimes the Greek puts the order the other way around. I will consistently read ‘Christ Jesus’. Here is the reason I do this: Although it has become natural for us to say ‘Jesus Christ’, it is actually against English grammar. ‘Christ’ is a title. And in English, titles (such as president, doctor, or ambassador) always come first. The reason why I point this out is this: I have found people who think that ‘Christ’ is Jesus’ last name. The title ‘Christ’ (from Greek) means exactly the same thing as Messiah (from Hebrew). Both mean ‘anointed one’.You will notice that I read many Bible names in a strange way. I read them with a more phonetic pronunciation— which in fact, is more like how the Indonesian language and many others read them. This allows me to be more consistent in my pronunciation, and it also happens to be more like the Hebrew and Greek pronunciations. English pronunciations for some names is quite far from the source language pronunciations. An example from today is the name Isaiah, which I pronounce as ‘Yesayah’.]6 John wore clothes made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and his food [included//was] locusts and wild honey. NLT Translation notes:Gen. 1:3Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there waslight. 4And God saw that the light was good. Then heseparated the light from the darkness. 5 God called thelight “day” and the darkness “night.”And evening passed and morning came, markingthe [end of the] first day.… And evening passed and morning came, markingthe [end of the] second day.…and so forth. ==== Mrk. 1:1 This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Sonof God. It began 2 just as the prophet Isaiah had written, …[quoting what God said to his son:]6 [John reminded people of the prophet Elijah,] becausehis clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he worea leather belt around his waist. And he ate food such aslocusts and wild honey.

12 DAYS, 9 PORTS, 2 KIDS, A LOT OF TRAVEL GOODNESS AND JUST A LITTLE BIT OF SLEEP! Megan Welcomes back Orya, Joey and Joe to share about life on the Royal Princess sailng a 12 night British Isles Cruise Itinerary. https://www.abmc.gov/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/galleries/Normandy_Reflecting_Pool.jpg?itok=oVgJxcod Podcast Format: The kids talk for a short time on their favorite moments and prove that you do not need to bring toys, crafts and stuffed animals on a Princess Cruise. They will come home with full hands! Joe and Megan attempt to blitz through the ports of call (but there are 9 and we are loquatious) with a few comments on dress code, on board entertainment, where the great bar tenders are, coffee drinks package and what happens when parents go into port and leave to the children with the kid's camp. This is a cruise for people who like to stay busy! Enjoy and please write for more questions, comments or general Tom Foolery! Thanks, Megan Chapa Special Guest: Joseph Chapa.

John Doyle discusses his story on the ORYA "beaning" story, which was picked up nationally. Also, plenty of high school talk, including softball and Red Sox with Herald assistant sports editor Jay Pinsonnault. 

Brighton Collage https://uploads.fireside.fm/images/0/037e01ef-c3bb-4048-9bb2-f57e8e9144e2/rgjOVihC.jpg Megan, Joe, Orya and for the first time Joey, the two year old, lay out a 72 visit for families in Brighton. This is a great walkable, or busable destination for families even in the winter! Game plan: Day 1 arrive afternoon at the beach and pier Day 2 Brighton Sealife Center Day 3 Brighton Pavillion and lanes Day 4 Wake up and roll out! Special Guest: Joseph Chapa.

Oxford is known for educating the worlds best and brightest (don't hate Ivy League, I read it in a report..) and everything tediously preserved by historians. Though this is true, you can still keep your littles busy here! Today's episode features a nice half day to the Oxford University's Museum of Natural History and the Pitt River's Museum. If you love a New England fall - you will love Oxford Fall. Autumn man, get out your beard oil and pumpkin spice latte, this is your Mecca. Megan and Orya talk through what is a nice half day outting for kids. The conversation goes something like, Oxford Half Marathon, rocks in the museum, African stuff, shrunken heads, sea bugs, food, spiders, Orya laughing uncontrollably. Additionally, if you are a runner, plan to visit Oxford in the fall. Run the half Marathon and take the family to the museum at the end point, hit up a pub for a fun half day in town!

Selected & Mixed by @Cycle-Call RA DJ Page / residentadvisor.net/profile/cycle_call Facebook / facebook.com/pages/Cycle-Call/145502155649309 Tracklist: http://www.electrocorp.fr/?p=5965 It is with a great honour that Electrocorp welcomes Cycle Call for their first-ever mixtape. The new collaboration from G.Odys & Orya Maïro, two famous DJs from South-West of France, brings you the latest installment in our podcast series. This episode 14 is a true journey into the world of the artists, evolving between the Deep-sounds of Alfie, Giuseppe Cennamo, the House world of Andre Crom (OFF Recordings), and the Tech-oriented tracks of Rodriguez Jr (Mobilee), Dominik Eulberg or Tale Of Us (Minus). Trust me, you want to be part of this journey... so please, have a seat, make yourself comfortable, stretch your legs and close your eyes. The cover is based on an original photograph by David Higgs: http://davidhiggsphotography.com