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This is the advanced version of the Story of the Bible Logos Layout demonstrated in a previous video. We’re going to pick up where that video left off adding pictures and enhancing the ability to navigate story elements with automatic sync.

SOTB Advanced Frame

The Bible does not always unfold in chronologically which makes it hard to grasp the story from reading in the sequence of the canon. Unfortunately, the “find box” in the event navigator is limited making it easy to get lost and hard to reorient yourself when you do. The remedy for this is the logos explorer.

Use Logos Explorer for Reorientation

With the Explorer set to the same linkset as your Bible, you’ll have three options to reorient and get back in sync with the story: through the event navigator, the explorer, or from your Bible.

Additional Benefits

There are two added benefits of having the explorer in this layout:

  1. The “Media” tab in the explorer automatically finds all the pictures in your library related to the passage you’re reading (though I recommend keeping the “media” tab closed until you want to find more images, so it doesn’t search continually while the narration moves from verse to verse.)
  2. The notations in the event navigator are hot-linked to open in the Factbook.

This advanced story layout is the centerpiece of my morning routine. I highly recommend this layout for writers or anyone looking to reach a deeper understanding of the narrative structures of the Bible.

One of my favorite ways to read the Bible is to listen to it being read aloud. By listening, instead of reading, I can more easily focus on the story the words are intended to convey. If that seems child-like it’s because it is. It’s also the most demanding and thrilling “reading” I’ve ever done. And, if sophisticated describes “the degree of complexity or that which appeals to those with worldy knowledge or experience” then, yeah, it’s that too.

I would argue that books are the “new kid on the block” for human communication. People have been telling each other stories since there was a second pair of ears to hear them. And the first person to exist probably told stories to themself! How long after storytelling did books come about? Nobody knows. But there’s is no doubt about which came first.

Wired for Story

People are wired for story; we think in pictures and learn from narrative. Want to explain something beyond words? Show a picture or paint one with the words you thought the idea was beyond. Want to impart lasting knowledge? Tell stories about those pictures.

It should come as no surprise, then, that God’s word came to us first by voice, and then in story. For all its many uses in describing the relationships between abstract entities, math is most certainly not the first language of God.

Introducing Basic Story Layout

This is more than enough to introduce a favorite morning ritual: listening to the Bible while focusing on the story. It’s the first part of my morning routine and great for writers or anyone looking to reach a deeper understanding of the narrative structures of the Bible. I use it to keep story, characters, and plot elements (and their relationships to other stories) at the forefront of my reading/listening.

Wisdom, prayer, songs, and stories within stories telling the Big Story. That’s what the Bible is. And yet, there’s more to the Big Story than what’s on the page.

Once absorbed, story becomes the raw material from which we build and live our own. And our story becomes part of HIStory, not in canon, but as Paul filled up what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

Like it or Not: Narrative is Your Premise

The most important decisions I’ve ever made were deciding what stories were true enough to build my life on. Disagree? Yeah, sure, tell me a story about it. Wherever you may be on that journey, perhaps this morning ritual and layout may be of assistance.

 

 

Bill Sardi reports . . .

In the process of introducing a new theory on how life began, two notable evolutionary biologists have just dismissed the reigning theory of Darwinian evolution, maintaining it would take many billions of years to accomplish and would extend beyond the very age of the universe, making the current understanding of evolution impossible.

The study of Darwinian evolution, the gradual assemblage of molecules that somehow were constructed and then began replicating themselves out of some imaginary “primordial soup” or “warm pond” as Charles Darwin once described it, has just taken a U-turn.

Today the vast majority of biologists maintain what they call RNA World existed on Earth before modern cells arose.  For the past few decades the consensus of molecular biologists is that life originated from RNA — ribonucleic acid, which is a single strand of nucleotides (adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine) unlike DNA which is double-stranded, and is bonded with ribose sugars rather than deoxyribose sugars that comprise DNA.

However RNA is more unstable and prone to degradation than DNA and makes a less plausible platform for the origin of life say two eminent researchers.  For the very reason of RNAs inherent instability, two researchers now say RNA couldn’t have endured the time it would have taken for evolutionary life forms to appear.

Scientific U-turn

The scientific U-turn is this.  According to astrobiologist and (Honorary) professor Brig Klyce, “Virtually all biologists now agree bacterial cells cannot form from nonliving chemical in one step.  If life arises from non-living chemicals, there must be intermediate forms.  Among the various theories on the origin of life, biologists have reached consensus on the RNA theory (called RNA WORLD), which serves as a messenger to carry out instructions from DNA and initiate and control the synthesis of proteins.  But now evolutionary thinkers say life’s first molecule was protein, not RNA.”

“Only one fact concerning the RNA World hypothesis can be established by direct observation: if it ever existed, it ended without leaving any unambiguous trace of itself,” say Peter R Wills and Charles W Carter Jr., authors of the new theory writing in the BioRxIV Beta journal.

Carter and Wills argue that RNA could not kick-start this process alone because it lacks a property they call “reflexivity.” It cannot enforce the rules by which it is made. RNA needed peptides to form the reflexive feedback loop necessary to eventually lead to life forms.

Bill Sardi continues with his thorough report . . .

I received a call from FaithLife, yesterday, notifying customers that the eligibility requirements for a FaithLife Church Group subscription have been changed. They are now limiting access to legally recognized churches only.

Back in June of this year, when we purchased our subscription, it was open to all church groups regardless of legal status. As of today, this is no longer the case. Indeed, the sales page on FaithLife has been updated with this new restriction.

For DC to maintain our FaithLifeTV & Logos Moblie Ed subscription, we would have to reorganize as a legally recognized church. Though not impossible, it’s not something we can do quickly. It’s also not something we’ve even contemplated, until today.

Background

Over the past two months, I’ve been in contact with multiple levels of FaithLife sales asking for guidance on how to expand the reach of our group. Based on their lack of direction I came to understand that FaithLife’s church subscription was a “pilot” sales program for the company. Their approach was to make the subscription available to see where it would lead. They were discovering things as they went along and, unfortunately, this has led to the new legal restrictions on access.

The good news is that hundreds of us on DivineCouncil.org were able to view some of the best Biblical courses in the world for almost five months. The bad news is that Faithife is now limiting access to legally recognized churches only.

Since DC is not currently a legally recognized church, please reach out to your local church to extend your access.

In the meantime, I’ll be in contact with FaithLife to see if there’s another option for small groups (and the ever-growing number of believers who have no affiliation with a formal church).

Update: After a day of thinking and discussing this with others the impetus behind this new policy became clear: the storage and streaming costs make it cost-prohibitive for FaithLife to handle organizations with members scattered around the world. In our case, we had almost 100 people from China, Korea, and Japan subscribe in the past month! Fantastic, from our point-of-view, as part of our aim is to penetrate the 10/40 window with the best Biblical materials in the world. However, if your business model or pricing structure does not account for such streaming costs, it could become impossible to break even while delivering hundreds of gigabytes of video courses.

I speculate that FaithLife’s new policy of “Legally recognized churches only” is their way of saying “Local Only”. Therefore, even if DC had met every criterion of a legally recognized church our subscription would still have been terminated due to streaming costs.

For the latest updates and discussion on this see this thread on our private forum.

July 14, 2017 by Frank Viola

Countless books pass through my hands each year. Evangelical publishers send me their neaw titles routinely. Once in a while, I will interview the authors. Most of the time I don’t.

Recently, however, I came across a book where I actually found fresh content that was significantly helpful to my own thinking. Given how much I’ve read over the years, this rarely happens. Most Christian books today simply repeat what others have already written.

Here’s the story.

While doing my research on my upcoming book on the kingdom of God (due to release Summer 2018), I began reading everything I could find on the world system (which is one of the primary enemies of God’s kingdom). This led me to take a fresh look at what Scripture calls the “principalities and powers.”

In exploring the “principalities and powers” in the world of biblical scholarship, I came across Michael Heiser’s book The Unseen Realm.

While reading the book, Heiser and I began an email dialogue that delved deeper into the themes of his book and my specific area of interest. I then followed that dialogue up with the following interview for this blog. Below you can read Heiser’s answers to my interview questions regarding the content of his book The Unseen Realm. (Our own private dialogue isn’t reflected in this interview.)

The most important contribution of The Unseen Realm in my own thinking is Heiser’s treatment of cosmic geography. His work on this subject colored in many gaps that I never observed or considered before, particularly the detailed parallels between Pentecost and Babel as well as God’s relationship to the nations of the world in biblical history.

I can’t say this about most authors today, but I owe a debt to Heiser for showing me aspects of the principalities and powers that I’ve never seen before nor read in any other scholar, theologian, or commentator.

For this reason, I cite Heiser quite a bit in several chapters of my upcoming book on the kingdom.

Here’s the interview.

Enjoy!

Instead of asking, “what is your book about,” I’m going to ask the question that’s behind that question. And that unspoken question is, “how are readers going to benefit from reading your book?”

Michael S. Heiser: Several ways. First, if reviews and interactions I’ve had with readers over the last year are any indication, _Unseen Realm _trains readers to contextualize their Bible. We think “reading the Bible in context” means thinking about the handful of verses before and after the verses we’re looking at on the page. That isn’t the case. While that’s important, context is so much wider than a handful of verses.

What I mean by context is worldview—having the ancient Israelite or first-century Jew in your head as you read. How would an ancient Israelite or first-century Jew read the Bible—what would they be thinking in terms of its meaning? The truth is that if we put one of those people into a small group Bible study and asked them what they thought about a given passage meant, their answer would be quite a bit different in many cases than anything the average Christian would think. They belonged to the world that produced the Bible, which is the context the Bible needs to be understood by.

Our contexts are foreign. They derive from church tradition that is thousands of years removed from the people who wrote Scripture and the audience to whom those people wrote. _Unseen Realm _demands people read the text of Scripture—particularly in regard to supernaturalism—the way ancient people would have read it. Second, it exposes people in the church to high scholarship—peer-reviewed material produced by biblical scholars—but in readable, normal language used by non-specialists.

It’s important for people in the Church to realize that the way they talk and think about the Bible isn’t the way Bible scholars talk and think about it—and I’m including “Bible-believing” scholars there. There is a wide gap between the work of biblical scholars, whose business it is to read the text of the Bible in its own worldview context, and what you hear in church.

Scholarship aimed at truly understanding what the biblical writers meant often does not filter down into the church and through the pulpit to folks who show up on Sunday. I think that’s just wrong, but scholars rarely make any effort to decipher their own scholarly work for people outside the ivory tower. _Unseen Realm _deliberately does that. Though readers might think that things in the book are novel since they never heard them in church or read them in a creed, every paragraph is the result of peer-reviewed scholarship. People need to know what they’re missing.

Over the years, I’ve met some Christians who deny the reality of the demonic/satanic world. They believe that the cosmology of Jesus and Paul was archaic. Mental illnesses were ascribed to “demons.” And “Satan” and “principalities and powers” were metaphors for personal and structural evil, etc. What would you say to such people in order to convince them that the spiritual worldview of Jesus and Paul does in fact reflect reality, even in the 21st century?

Michael S. Heiser: Well, the first thing I’d say is that their worldview isn’t the worldview of Jesus, Paul, or any of the biblical writers and characters. And if you don’t have the worldview of the people who produced the Bible (under inspiration no less), you can’t understand what they were trying to communicate in many respects. Biblical people weren’t modern people. That’s self-evident no matter how much we try to deny it. We doubt the supernatural because we’ve either been taught to deny it (thinking—wrongly—that it’s incompatible with science) or because we just want to be comfortable.

We impose our modern worldview on the Bible to make it conform to our intellectual happy place. But we deceive ourselves into thinking this works or is legitimate. We fail to realize that the supernatural things we want to avoid are no more supernatural (or “weird”) than the things that define the Christian faith. What’s so “normal” about the virgin birth, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the hypostatic union of the incarnation (Jesus was 100% God and 100% man)?

Why don’t we “de-mythologize” those things in our Bible while we earnestly try to deny supernaturalist interpretations of other parts of the Bible? It’s a hopelessly inconsistent and self-focused approach to say part of what the Bible says about the supernatural spiritual world are fine but other aspects of its portrayal of that same non-human world are too strange and in need of being explained away.

What is the difference between a cherub and a seraph in Scripture? They appear to be different from their biblical descriptions (number of wings, faces, etc.).

Michael S. Heiser: There’s no difference conceptually. Both terms are job descriptions of a divine being whose role it was to protect sacred space from defilement—to guard the presence of God. The terms and the descriptions are not anatomy lessons—spirit beings are not embodied by definition. Rather, the descriptions in the visions of the prophets serve as metaphors for describing a role. They are basically job descriptions.

The terms are drawn from ancient Near Eastern iconography (Mesopotamian and Egypt, respectively). They utilize the imagery these civilizations used to describe divine beings who guarded the presence of gods or god-kings. We know that because we have the iconography (sculptures, paintings) in their appropriate context. The Babylonian context for Ezekiel’s cherubim is obvious from the first chapter. Most Bible readers don’t realize, though, why (historically) Israelites living during the eras of Ahaz, Uzziah, Hezekiah, and Isaiah would have recognized Egyptian motifs. There was a lot of royal interaction with Egypt then.

What does it mean, exactly, that Satan (the devil) is “the ruler of the dead?” And where can we find this in Scripture? Related: What does it mean that Satan once had “the power of death” — Hebrews 2:14 — implying that he doesn’t have it anymore. 

Michael S. Heiser: The idea comes from several trajectories. On one hand, you have verses like Heb 2:14 (“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself [Jesus] likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil”).

The point isn’t that Satan pulls a lever somewhere and someone dies. The idea is that all humans will die—we are not immortal—because of the transgression of the Eden that the serpent instigated. He was cast down to the underworld, the realm of the dead (I discuss the terms and motifs behind that at length in Unseen Realm), which is where all humans are destined to go and remain because of the Eden tragedy. God’s plan of salvation was designed to remove humans from the realm of the dead. Humanity followed the serpent in rebellion, and so his domain is where humanity goes.

But our destiny can be different because of God’s plan. On the other hand, there are theological ideas running in the background that produce the same idea. In Canaanite religion, for example, Baal was lord of the Underworld. He was called baʿal zebul. Sound familiar? In Ugaritic it means “prince Baal,” but by the time of the New Testament it became a descriptive title for Satan. Baal, of course, was the major deity-rival to the God of Israel. He was the lead adversary to Yahweh in Israelite religious context. What people thought about Baal informed the way they thought about the Devil later on.

Regarding the origin of the devil (“Satan” as the NT calls him), in your view, specifically when, why, _and how _did he fall?

Michael S. Heiser: I believe that all Scripture tells us is that the being the New Testament calls Satan (and which it associates with the serpent in Eden) fell when he engaged Eve to steer her out of God’s will. Eve’s existence, purpose, and destiny were of no concern to the serpent figure (which I don’t believe was a mere animal—he was a divine being in rebellion against God). Fiddling with what God told her was above his pay grade; i.e., contrary to the supreme authority, which was God. We are not told he rebelled earlier than this. We have only this initial act of rebellion. Some folks appeal to the notion that he rebelled before the creation of humanity and took a third of God’s angels with him, but there is no passage in Scripture that teaches that. In fact the only place you find the “third of the angels” talk is in the last book of the Bible—Revelation 12.

But in that passage, the war in heaven is explicitly associated with the birth / first coming of the messiah, which is considerably after creation (and the Fall). As far as why he rebelled, we aren’t told specifically. But why would an otherwise intelligent being (like you and me) overstep authority? Several reasons come to mind, like self-interest and arrogance. Since there are a number of (Hebrew) inter-textual relationships between Genesis 3 and Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, and since those prophetic chapters use the tale of a divine rebel filled with hubris to malign the kings of Babylon and Tyre, respectively, I’d say we’re on safe ground to presume that self-interest and hubris are at the core of the rebellion.

The divine rebel story behind Isaiah 14:12-15 has the villain wanting to be like the Most High and above the stars of God (a term drawn directly out of Canaanite material for the divine council / heavenly host), it’s clear the villain wanted to be the highest authority in the supernatural world. He was a usurper propelled by his own arrogance.

How does your view fit in with Ezekiel 28:14, which some believe is a reference to the devil before he fell. However, assuming that interpretation is correct, he is called “an anointed cherub.” How does that fit into the idea that the devil was once a member of the Divine Council, which some believe? 

Michael S. Heiser: I believe the “anointed cherub” phrase in this verse points to a divine rebel, not Adam as many biblical scholars want to suggest. There are many reasons for this, some of which are very technical. Readers of _Unseen Realm _will get the overview, but if they really want the details, they should read through the companion website to the book, moreunseenrealm.com (click the tab for Chapter 11).

Since the Old Testament doesn’t use terms like “devil” and never applies the term “satan” to the serpent (in any passage), this question requires more unpacking than an interview can provide (i.e., it’s best to just read the book where I can take two chapters to go through it). But I’ll try and compress a few thoughts.

On one level, by definition every divine being loyal to God is a member of the divine council, presuming “council” is understood as the collective body of heavenly beings who serve God. There are of course tiers of authority in the council, but the idea can be collective as well. So, prior to his rebellion, the being that came to Eve and caused her to sin and that later became the known as the devil was a member of God’s council, broadly defined, merely because he was a spirit being. But since we have no prior history of him before Genesis 3, we can’t say much beyond that. (The serpent of Genesis 3 is not the satan figure of Job 1-2 because of a certain rule of Hebrew grammar [again, you have to read the book], so Job 1-2 isn’t much help there).

Some scholars want to restrict the term “divine council” to the “sons of God” tier, presuming them to be the only decision makers, but this understanding doesn’t reflect the variability of the terms and ideas found in ancient texts parallel to the Hebrew Bible from which the council metaphor is drawn in many instances. The analogy of human government in civilizations that had a conception of a divine council makes that point clear. Not all members of a king’s “government” would be directly involved in decision making. There are layers of advisors who have input. But these governments had service staff or “lesser bureaucrats” who were nevertheless part of the king’s administration.

Perhaps a modern analogy of government in the United States will help make the point. We can speak of the federal legislature, by which we mean that branch of government responsible for passing laws. The term “Congress” is a synonym. However, our Congress has two parts: the Senate and the House. Decision-making members of these two bodies, and hence the Congress, are elected. The House and Senate both have service staff (e.g., “guardian officers” like the Sergeant at Arms). Though they have no decision-making power, they are nevertheless part of “Congress” in certain contexts where that term is used.

For example, saying “Congress was in session” does not mean that all service staff were given the day off. “Congress” can therefore refer to only those elected officials who make laws, or can refer to the entire bureaucratic apparatus of the federal legislature. As we will see in this discussion, the heavenly bureaucracy (council) is layered and its members serve God in different but related ways.

Rebellion against God results in being cast out of his service. God doesn’t run the affairs of the spiritual world or our world with rebels on his payroll. They are cast to the Underworld (in the case of the Eden rebel), or a special place in the Underworld (e.g., the offenders of Genesis 6:1-4, who are, to quote Peter and Jude, “kept in chains of gloomy darkness” or “sent to Tartarus”). There are more divine rebels than that in the Bible, but hopefully that scratches the surface enough.

In the book, you argue persuasively that Deuteronomy 32:8 and Psalm 82 are speaking about God assigning heavenly beings to oversee each nation in the world (after Babel). How do you envision an unfallen heavenly being specifically carrying out the tasks listed in Psalm 82? Namely, _defending the just, defending the weak and the fatherless; upholding the cause of the poor and the oppressed. _This was God’s role for them before they rebelled, but how do you envision them doing this work exactly?

Michael S. Heiser: He would do what God would do. God’s standards for justice are revealed in his moral laws, in how he tries to get humans (his imagers) to relate to each other, and in true worship. Biblical theologians encapsulate all that in the concept of “order” (the opposite of which is “chaos”).

Ruling the way God wants you to rule means fostering the ordered relationships he desires, not because he is a killjoy, but because that order maximizes human happiness and love for God. Part of that is worshipping only the true God and no other. Psalm 82’s diatribe against the fallen gods is directly linked to justice because, in the biblical worldview, failing at just living produces chaos on earth—and it’s the job of superior beings to make sure that doesn’t happen. Instead, the picture we get in Psalm 82 runs from neglect that causes chaos to stirring the pot of chaos, thereby making the lives of people miserable.

Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air” in Ephesians 2. What do you think that means exactly?

Michael S. Heiser: On one hand, “air” is part of the vocabulary for the spiritual world—the world which humans do not inhabit, but which divine beings do inhabit. But “air” was also a descriptor for the heavens below the firmament in Israelite cosmology—still distinguishable from God’s abode, which was above the firmament (Isa 40:22; Job 22:13; cp. Gen 1:7 to Psa 29:10). The “air” metaphor allowed people to think of the spiritual world in terms of (a) not being the realm of humans, and (b) still beneath the presence of God, or the place where God lives.

That meant Satan wasn’t in God’s presence or in control of God’s domain. Angels could be sent into the world to assist humans and would of course be opposed by those spiritual beings in control of earth’s “air space” so to speak. Ultimately, the spiritual world has no measurable parameters, or latitude and longitude (the celestial sphere is no help locating it!). Human writers have to use the language of “place” to describe something place-less (in terms of what we, as embodied beings, can understand). For that reason, it isn’t always a neat picture.

Throughout Ephesians, the phrase “heavenly places” is used in a positive sense. God’s people are seated with Christ in heavenly places (Eph. 2). All spiritual blessings reside in Christ in heavenly places (Eph. 1). However, also in Ephesians, we are told that evil principalities and powers operate in heavenly places (Eph. 6). In your view, what are the “heavenly places” in Ephesians and how can both evil spirits and Christians occupy them at the same time?

Read the Rest (~4,500 words) of the Interview of Michael Heiser by Frank Viola

The following post is by Dr. Dale Brueggemann, Contributing Editor at Faithlife Corporation. 

Christ in the OT

Do we know for certain that Jesus can be found in the OT? In our efforts to “read backward,” are we finding Christ where perhaps he should not be found? Or do we have license as Spirit-led interpreters of Scripture to allegorize as we see fit, and as it benefits our listeners?

In this post, I’m going to address these questions by discussing the biblical mandate for a method of interpretation called “Christotelic” hermeneutics. Look with me first at the evidence from the NT directing the church to engage in Christ-centered exegesis of the OT.

How Paul and Jesus Interpreted Scripture

Paul aimed to “preach the gospel,” to “preach Christ” (Rom 15:201 Cor 1:17232 Cor 2:12Eph 3:8Phil 1:15). But he directed Timothy to “preach the word” (2 Tim 3:164:2), which meant the OT. For the early church, that meant preaching the gospel of Christ from the OT.

On the Emmaus road, Jesus modeled an approach to expositing the OT Christologically: “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27).

Jesus’ key statement was this: “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44, italics added).

Two questions come to mind: 1) did the church continue to follow Jesus’ example? and 2) what example did they follow, if we don’t have the actual transcript of his exposition to the unnamed disciples?

I’m going to show you how the church historically attempted to follow Jesus method of interpretation, and argue for one in particular as especially valuable today.

Christotelic Hermeneutics in the Church

Historically, the church has employed three methods to discern “everything written about [Jesus] in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Read the Full Article

By Mark Ward, Jr

Should pastors and other Bible teachers bother to learn Greek and Hebrew? You can use Greek and Hebrew without having to memorize a single paradigm, let alone 3,000 vocab words, so why torture yourself?

I’ll give you ten reasons studying the original languages is worth the pain, five this week and five next.

1. Because they increase interpretive accuracy.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a medical doctor by training. He had no formal theological education. Yet he went on to become one of the twentieth century’s most influential preachers—and a proponent of studying the Greek and Hebrew. He said that the languages

. . . are of great value for the sake of accuracy; no more, that is all. They cannot guarantee accuracy but they promote it. (Preaching and Preachers, 127–128)

Lloyd-Jones knew that some preachers would be tempted to treat a sanctuary like a linguistics classroom, and he discouraged that. But he also understood the interpretive power of Greek and Hebrew study. This pulpit master, in his classic work on preaching, goes on to rigorously subsume the value of the original languages to the end goal of conveying the biblical message to people. And it’s key that, in his view, they only “promote”—not “guarantee”—hermeneutical and homiletical accuracy.

I have heard comparatively untutored preachers teach Scripture accurately to groups that included numerous biblical studies PhDs. I have also heard the opposite; I have sometimes thought to myself, “Does this guy have any idea who he’s talking to?” (Indeed, the phrase “the gall!” has only ever come to my mind while listening to preachers.) If you are a Greek/Hebrew novice, by dabbling into something you don’t know, you may very well limit the effectiveness of your ministry to the educated by unwitting inaccuracies.

2. Because they make contextual connections which are necessarily obscured by translation.

There’s an apparently awkward break in the chain of Jesus’ reasoning in English translations of John 15:1–4. See if you can catch it:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.

One of these sentences doesn’t at first seem to flow very well with what comes before and after it. Why does he break out of his vine and fruit talk to mention, “Already you are clean”? That “already” implies some contrast with uncleanness—but he was just talking about pruning, not cleaning. And after his reference to cleaning, he goes back to talking about the main topic of the paragraph, namely branches and vines.

This is a perfect example of the kind of thing that knowing Greek can do for you. The word translated “clean” and the word translated “prunes” in the previous sentence are from the same Greek root (καθαρος). Jesus isn’t awkwardly lurching; he’s making a bit of a pun that’s hard to put into English. You can’t make these sorts of connections (the sorts that are necessarily obscured by translation) without knowing the original languages.

3. Because they rule out some interpretations.

Knowing original languages is more often helpful for ruling out bad interpretations than anointing true ones. Consider Psalm 14:1.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. (ESV)

In the English Bible translation I grew up with, the KJV, the words “There is” are italicized, meaning that they were supplied by the translators and not present in the original Hebrew. That’s true.

So I have heard numerous people say over the years that, supposedly, the italics indicate that the original Hebrew reads, “The fool hath said in his heart, ‘No, God!’” (I particularly remember hearing this from a clever roommate in college, who won the smarter-than-thou award for that day.)

But once I learned Hebrew I discovered that there’s a significant problem with this argument: the Hebrew word translated “no” doesn’t mean “no,” as in the opposite of “yes.” It means “non-existence of.” The fool described in Psalm 14:1 is denying God’s existence, not saying “No” to God.

Knowing Hebrew didn’t give me the right interpretation of this verse; that was something I already knew from my English translation(s). It just enabled me to decisively rule out the urban legend interpretation.

… For reasons 4 through 9 please follow the direct links, below.

5 Reasons Studying the Original Languages Is Worth the Pain

5 More Reasons Bible Teachers Should Learn Greek & Hebrew

 

In a world of information overload, whoever appears to be the most reasonable can influence or control the overloaded.

There’s no historical precedent for the amount of information the average person has at their fingertips, today. Anyone with a phone can bring libraries of information to bear on each and every decision.

But information is not knowledge. And knowledge is not wisdom. Without wisdom, it’s hard to tell what information applies to which decision.

This challenge, to the average person, is an opportunity for:

  1. Those who would seek to influence.
  2. Those who would seek to control.

Influence vs. Control

Whether influence is good or bad can only be determined by context and discernment. For now, I’ll confine “influence” to that with no destructive intent.

Control, on the other hand, is the desire to obtain consent for the purpose of domination. I’ll explain why consent is necessary, later in this article.

How can you tell whether someone is seeking benevolent influence or destructive control?

Those Seeking Influence …

… behave like vendors in a marketplace. They present the pros and cons of an idea or product and leave you to decide for yourself.

Those Seeking Control …

… bully, rather than inform or persuade. For example, any one of Schopenhauer’s 38 stratagems might be used to give the appearance of being right; with little or no interest in actually being right:

  1. The Extension (Dana’s Law)
  2. The Homonymy
  3. Generalize Your Opponent’s Specific Statements
  4. Conceal Your Game
  5. False Propositions
  6. Postulate What Has to Be Proved
  7. Yield Admissions Through Questions
  8. Make Your Opponent Angry
  9. Questions in Detouring Order
  10. Take Advantage of the Nay-Sayer
  11. Generalize Admissions of Specific Cases
  12. Choose Metaphors Favourable to Your Proposition
  13. Agree to Reject the Counter-Proposition
  14. Claim Victory Despite Defeat
  15. Use Seemingly Absurd Propositions
  16. Arguments Ad Hominem
  17. Defense Through Subtle Distinction
  18. Interrupt, Break, Divert the Dispute
  19. Generalize the Matter, Then Argue Against it
  20. Draw Conclusions Yourself
  21. Meet Him With a Counter-Argument as Bad as His
  22. Petitio principii
  23. Make Him Exaggerate His Statement
  24. State a False Syllogism
  25. Find One Instance to the Contrary
  26. Turn the Tables
  27. Anger Indicates a Weak Point
  28. Persuade the Audience, Not the Opponent
  29. Diversion
  30. Appeal to Authority Rather Than Reason
  31. This Is Beyond Me
  32. Put His Thesis into Some Odious Category
  33. It Applies in Theory, but Not in Practice
  34. Don’t Let Him Off the Hook
  35. Will Is More Effective Than Insight
  36. Bewilder Your opponent by Mere Bombast
  37. A Faulty Proof Refutes His Whole Position
  38. Become Personal, Insulting, Rude (argumentum ad personam)

Personal Favorites

  1. Declaring as “over”, debates that have hardly begun.
  2. Declaring as “debunked”, valid concerns yet to be addressed.
  3. Declaring as “discredited”, persons of integrity.
  4. Declaring as “concluded”, discussions that have hardly begun.
  5. Threats in lieu of persuasion.
  6. Imposing artificial deadlines for a decision.
  7. Declaring that “everybody does it” while providing no specific examples.

All of the above are attempts to deceive, rather than inform or persuade.

The Debate is Over!

Whenever I hear someone say, “The debate is over”, I know an end has been pronounced by someone desperate to avoid a beginning. I also know that the one making the pronouncement has made an investment, either monetary or emotional, that debate would put in jeopardy.

Global/Climate (Cooling | Warming | Change)

The first time I heard the phrase “Global Cooling” was in a sentence declaring the debate about it to be over. The phrase was then changed to “Global Warming” in the  same sentence declaring that debate to be over, as well.

Finally, the phrase was changed to something for which no debate is necessary: “Climate Change”. Indeed, climate is 100% guaranteed to change, forever!

The debate is over on a lot of things: ocean waves, morning dew, childish innocence. If the debate about something is declared to be over before it’s even begun, the one making the declaration has something to hide.

The Information Advantage

Due to the amount of information available, those who seek control must compete in the “marketplace” of ideas. They must not only to appear reasonable, but the most reasonable among competing alternatives. This “most reasonable” appearance must persist for as long as it takes to obtain a lasting form of control. The best of these is a binding contract, either signed or opted into.

Consent is Required for Lasting Control

Without consent, control is temporary. It lasts only as long as you remain fooled.

With consent, however, control lasts for the length of the contract.

The Jurisdiction of Reasonableness

Mere opinions, and the bullying tactics used to get them accepted, don’t matter unless there’s a valuable jurisdiction to be gained, and a judge to decide who gains them.

Those who don’t seek control rarely think about things like jurisdictions and judges. Those who do seek control, however, think about little else. They spend most of their time campaigning for appointment, by you, to be a judge in one of the most important jurisdictions of all: your mind.

Your mind is not only a jurisdiction, but the deciding jurisdiction of all others.

Agreement Types

Contractual opt-ins are becoming more and more subtle. For example, the mere breaking of a plastic seal on the box for a TV or appliance, is the opt-in for many EULAs (End-User License Agreements).

Still, an actual signature “on the dotted line” of a contract is the best legal mechanism of control.

The Debt-Contract Example

Only a handful of contracts, spread across the 7 Matters of Life, are needed to control most aspects of life. Three debt-contracts illustrate the point:

  1. Student loans — 10 Years.
  2. Car Loan — 5 Years.
  3. Mortgage — 30 Years.

One of these three contracts enslaves a large percentage of the world. To avoid that fate, consider two questions, before signing one of them:

  1. Are you fully aware of the educational, transportation, or housing alternatives that would fill these needs without going into debt?
  2. Do you not know that, if you present yourselves to anyone as an obedient slave, you are a slave of the one whom you obey? (Romans 6:16)

Some Legal Terms

Contracts are as good, or bad, as the words they contain.

Most liberties are not “lost” or “stolen”. They are surrendered, voluntarily, through legal contracts. It’s worth understanding some legal terms around such contracts.

To bear witness v. — To solemnly assert something, offering firsthand authentication of the fact; often concerning grave or important matters.

Truth (quality) n. — Conformity to reality or actuality; often with the implication of dependability.

Message — truth n. — A message that conforms to reality or actuality; whether historical (in space and time) or supernatural.

The Usual Campaign Sequence

The campaign to become an appointed judge in the jurisdiction of your mind follows a usual sequence. Think of it as a sales pitch, because that’s what it is.

  1. I am the most reasonable and provide the best options.
  2. You are less reasonable with limited options.
  3. “Those who love the truth hear my voice”1, and sign my contract.

Conclusion

Your mind is the deciding jurisdiction of all others, and you are its primary judge. The cost of retaining this position is choosing the highest source of truth, exploring all options available, and solving problems with a commitment to remain debt-free.

Pay whatever cost necessary to remain the primary judge of the jurisdiction of your mind. If you forfeit that position, all that isn’t immediately lost, is exposed to loss.

In a world of information overload, whoever appears to be the most reasonable can influence or control the overloaded.


  1. John 18:37 (ESV) 

That’s 163 Logos Mobile Ed Courses in addition to I don’t know how many movies and videos on FaithLifeTV Plus.

If you’ve already signed-up you’ve been sent an invitation. Otherwise, when you get on the forum I’ll send you a personal invite.

NOTE: We’re setting up Small Groups and Churches on the Forum so they can easily find, vet, and share materials with each other. Send the details of your group so we can set you up!

Without making promises, yet, we’re also looking for video sharing options so Small Groups and Worship can be engaged from anywhere in the world!

Oh, and we have a new look that makes things easier to find, so come check us out!

DivineCouncil.org Forum

Questions?  e-mail Terence at tg@McGillespie.com

A few months ago, there was a 60-day preview of Unseen Realm on LOGOS and Michael Heiser asked some of his more veteran readers to help shepherd newcomers to the material on the FaithLife Forum.

Growing out of those discussions has been what I hope to be the first sister website and forum for writers, artists, and believers looking to interact with others on the material: DivineCouncil.org.

What is it?

It’s a full website & forum with three writers contributing to the front page blog. I hope the site may also serve as an outlet for others. So, if there are any believing writers, artists, photographers etc. Looking to contribute, this might be a good fit for you.

The forum part of the site is structured around the Unseen Realm in terms of the overarching missions of Jesus. We are organizing it to be a central hub for small groups to share materials and study the Word of God, wherever they are on the planet!

So What?

There’s a special resource manager setup to disseminate materials to small groups and make it easier to find things to bring to your church. Each resource can be reviewed, and have discussions formed around them, so people know how they can be used, the ideal audience, attributions, etc.

There’s also a live chat area, so you might be able to catch fellow listeners online for a brief chat while you’re on the forum.

Better than Facebook!

Facebook is fun, but if you’re tired of conversations scrolling off the screen (and other FB pitfalls) the private forum environment is more conducive to organized and focused discussions that can be searched later by yourself and others.

So, if you’re looking for a more private and trusted environment for discussions around this material you have another option available in which to do that. And, if your looking to start a small group, our forum may be the ideal place in which to find, organize, and disseminate the optimal subjects of study for your group!

What Next?

Over 50 people have signed-up to the forum in the first week, and the platform will scale up to as large as it needs to be.

If you’d like to use the forum to organize (and optimize) your small group, send Terence an e-mail at tg@McGillespie.com so he can set you up.

Nathan, Terence, and Zechariah hope DivineCoucil.org will fill a need for the Kingdom, empower small groups, and be a worthy site for the Church.

See you there!

DivineCouncil.org Website
DivineCouncil.org Forum