For one semester in college, my uninterrupted journey from high school to pastoring faced its first interruption. I was wooed by the romantic world of Bible translation. I was enthralled by the idea of going to faraway places and helping to deliver God's Word to them, particularly in languages that no one else knew. One group, a tribe in Northern Africa, only had 1500 people speaking their language. But that was 1500 people without the Bible, without the Gospel.
I also love languages. I love how they work. I love how they teach us about how human beings think and how societies are structured. Language and culture are two sides of the same coin, and the more we understand language, the more we understand a culture. I wanted to become a translator.
As I write this, I am not translating the Bible in a far off area. I am sitting in Northern MI in a pastor's office. But I still think I am a Bible translator.
We are all translators in one way or another. I am amazed at how quickly people translate words into full-blown concepts, irrationally holding onto the idea that one word has one meaning.
For example, I just read a great article by Tim Keller on Biblical justice. Some of the first comments were not about the article, but about how America is turning into a "welfare state" (government assistance was never mentioned in the article). Justice, it seems, translated to a particular government program. I wish someone told that to Amos before he promised that justice would come like a flowing stream.
Mis-translation shuts down conversation. It has the ability to keep people from truly communicating. Narrow translation creates an environment where I can dismiss you and figure out what you're going to say before you say it. And if you say the same thing I do, but a little bit differently, I have the power to still declare you ignorant and wrong.
Where mis-translation is one of the great sins of our society, proper translation is one of the greatest blessings. Proper translation is a hallmark of good listening. Proper translation is when I hear someone speak, and instead of putting it through all my fancy filters of "right and wrong," I simply let their idea hit the table so that we can all play with it. And I can summarize what you say without adding my own agree/disagree to it.
The capacity to listen and translate well, in my opinion, is one of the highest marks of spiritual maturity. I wonder what the impact would be if a few people in your church, your neighborhood or your town were able to listen well. I wonder what the world would look like if we had a few less commentators and a few more translators. Maybe it would look a little more like the Kingdom of God.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Will this end in bitterness?
Bitterness- what a word that evokes such despair! Bitterness is the deep hole dug by resentment and rage. Bitterness is the paralysis that comes when melancholy overcomes our energy to fight on. Bitterness makes me reactive, it shortens my fuse and makes me ready to fight.
In 2 Samuel 2, the followers of Saul and the followers of David meet for a fight. After the first group stab each other to death, the followers all jump into the fray. Asahel, a particularly fast runner, chases down Saul's former general Abner, who tries to ward off the young warrior. When it is clear that Asahel will not stop, Abner tries to stop him by thrusting the blunt end of his spear into Asahel's stomach. This attack should have left Asahel reeling but very well alive. However, Asahel is moving too fast and Abner is too strong. The spear kills Asahel. Many have already died, but Asahel's death sets David's followers off. They chase down Abner, who begs for mercy "Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will end in bitterness? How long before you order your men to stop pursuing their fellow Israelites?"
Joab, David's general, gets his wits about him and orders an end to the battle. The deal is settled... or is it? Abner eventually leaves Saul's family and joins David. David gives him amnesty and declares his past sin's forgiven. But David wasn't there when Asahel died. Joab was, and stabs Abner in the belly. The sword continues to devour. Bitterness is the end.
What is frightening about this passage is just how real it is. You can picture the screenplay of this story, and can understand the rage and anger.
What is more frightening about this passage is that God is hardly mentioned. As long as God is absent, the bitterness continues and becomes murderous. It is no surprise that Jesus tells the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount that bitter anger is related to murder- unchecked rage becomes bitterness, and bitterness makes us violent (if not physically, certainly verbally).
I pray for healing to my bitterness, that God's grace will wash away my bitterness and enable me to be free from it.
In 2 Samuel 2, the followers of Saul and the followers of David meet for a fight. After the first group stab each other to death, the followers all jump into the fray. Asahel, a particularly fast runner, chases down Saul's former general Abner, who tries to ward off the young warrior. When it is clear that Asahel will not stop, Abner tries to stop him by thrusting the blunt end of his spear into Asahel's stomach. This attack should have left Asahel reeling but very well alive. However, Asahel is moving too fast and Abner is too strong. The spear kills Asahel. Many have already died, but Asahel's death sets David's followers off. They chase down Abner, who begs for mercy "Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will end in bitterness? How long before you order your men to stop pursuing their fellow Israelites?"
Joab, David's general, gets his wits about him and orders an end to the battle. The deal is settled... or is it? Abner eventually leaves Saul's family and joins David. David gives him amnesty and declares his past sin's forgiven. But David wasn't there when Asahel died. Joab was, and stabs Abner in the belly. The sword continues to devour. Bitterness is the end.
What is frightening about this passage is just how real it is. You can picture the screenplay of this story, and can understand the rage and anger.
What is more frightening about this passage is that God is hardly mentioned. As long as God is absent, the bitterness continues and becomes murderous. It is no surprise that Jesus tells the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount that bitter anger is related to murder- unchecked rage becomes bitterness, and bitterness makes us violent (if not physically, certainly verbally).
I pray for healing to my bitterness, that God's grace will wash away my bitterness and enable me to be free from it.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Up at Night
I love asking good questions. I love questions that provoke the truth, questions which leave the Holy Spirit plenty of room to bring some level of insight. One question came from a pastor friend of mine... "What keeps you up at night?"
What a great question! And I yearn to ask that question to people. That question says so much about what we value, where our broken edges rub raw our tender souls and where lies confront reality with our minds as the battleground. What keeps you up at night?
Then someone asked me that question. And I had a pretty sweet response cooked up, derived from Alan Hirsch's "Faith of Leap." I was going to say "The fact that Christ gave us a mission 2000 years ago and we are far from completing it," or "We are supposed to care for the orphan and widow, and both groups are still yearning."
But none of those things keep me awake at night. I sleep quite comfortably most nights, actually. And so I didn't give my ideal answer... because it wasn't true. That might be what ought to keep me up, what I want to keep me up, but it isn't what keeps me up at night.
What keeps me awake at night are details that are out of my control. I get so worried about how people will respond to stuff that isn't even my responsibility. I get worried that to be known precludes being loved. I worry that my past actions will erase a Godly future. In other words, I stay awake at night because of me.
Psalm 6 gives us a glimpse of David in an "up at night" moment: "I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes."
Psalm 6 is a cry for deliverance from enemies, as well as a cry for forgiveness. It opens with David dealing with his own brokenness, then realizing that there is a very true danger out there (once he gets his "baggage" out of the way).
When I think about it, I want to be up at night. I want a pillow soaked with tears and a heart that yearns for shalom where there only seems to be disorder. What I don't want is to have my heart so burdened with imaginary fears and unchecked anxiety that I can't think about Christ's mission of reconciliation to the world.
What does this mean? As for me, it means that I want my prayer life to be an arena for my absurdities, my guilt and my shame to go toe-to-toe with the cross of Jesus, where they will be handily defeated. From there, God and I can get down to business and talk about a suffering world that needs hope. I don't know, that might keep me up all night.
What keeps you up at night?
What a great question! And I yearn to ask that question to people. That question says so much about what we value, where our broken edges rub raw our tender souls and where lies confront reality with our minds as the battleground. What keeps you up at night?
Then someone asked me that question. And I had a pretty sweet response cooked up, derived from Alan Hirsch's "Faith of Leap." I was going to say "The fact that Christ gave us a mission 2000 years ago and we are far from completing it," or "We are supposed to care for the orphan and widow, and both groups are still yearning."
But none of those things keep me awake at night. I sleep quite comfortably most nights, actually. And so I didn't give my ideal answer... because it wasn't true. That might be what ought to keep me up, what I want to keep me up, but it isn't what keeps me up at night.
What keeps me awake at night are details that are out of my control. I get so worried about how people will respond to stuff that isn't even my responsibility. I get worried that to be known precludes being loved. I worry that my past actions will erase a Godly future. In other words, I stay awake at night because of me.
Psalm 6 gives us a glimpse of David in an "up at night" moment: "I am worn out from my groaning. All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes."
Psalm 6 is a cry for deliverance from enemies, as well as a cry for forgiveness. It opens with David dealing with his own brokenness, then realizing that there is a very true danger out there (once he gets his "baggage" out of the way).
When I think about it, I want to be up at night. I want a pillow soaked with tears and a heart that yearns for shalom where there only seems to be disorder. What I don't want is to have my heart so burdened with imaginary fears and unchecked anxiety that I can't think about Christ's mission of reconciliation to the world.
What does this mean? As for me, it means that I want my prayer life to be an arena for my absurdities, my guilt and my shame to go toe-to-toe with the cross of Jesus, where they will be handily defeated. From there, God and I can get down to business and talk about a suffering world that needs hope. I don't know, that might keep me up all night.
What keeps you up at night?
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