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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Fire!

Campfire that is... Campfire Fellowship!

When?  Saturday, October 29th starting at 5:00 PM
Where? The Ross Ranch - see Phil or Myrna for directions.

Food, fellowship, and fun.
Singing, Hay Ride.

Don't miss this last campfire fellowship for 2011!

Oh, and remember to bring a dish to pass, and a chair to sit on.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

And this I pray...

... that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;

... that ye may approve things that are excellent;

... that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ;

Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11 KJV)

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Come and dine, the Master calleth - come and dine!



Well, if you are of the male persuasion that is.

Men's Prayer Breakfast, this coming Saturday morning at 8:00 AM, followed by Men Serving Together.

Don't miss it!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Not all Bible translations are good!

Here is a great article written by a woman on why the new "gender-inclusive" NIV should be left on the shelf. She is right on in her thinking.

10 Reasons Why the New NIV is Bad for Women

The new gender-inclusive NIV was published earlier this year. It contains thousands of changes to the Bible’s male-gendered language. Having a gender-inclusive Bible appears to be the latest trend amongst cutting-edge, cappuccino-slurping Christian hipsters. Don’t get me wrong. I like to be hip. And I enjoy cappuccino as much as the next person. But my biggest beef with gender-inclusive Bibles is that they lack doctrinal precision. If you mess with the words, you mess with the meaning. Respected Bible scholars have explained why inclusive translations such as the New International Version (NIV), New Revised Standard (NRSV), and Common English Bible (CEB) are deeply flawed. If you haven’t yet considered their arguments, you might want to check out these Gender Neutral Bible Articles.

Notwithstanding the doctrinal imprecision and blatant politically-correct translating agenda, there are additional reasons why I dislike gender inclusive Bibles. Undoubtedly the publishers had good intentions, and genuinely wanted to help women, but in my mind, a gender-inclusive Bible is BAD for women. Really, really bad for women! I react to people reading from the new, gender-inclusive NIV the way I react to nails scratching down a chalk board. Here are ten reasons why:

1. It obscures the profound symbolism of gender:

Gender has a profound, cosmic meaning. God created manhood, womanhood, marriage and sex to put the love story of Christ and the Church on display. When we mess with the Bible’s gender language, we obscure gender’s symbolism. We make truths about God and the gospel more difficult to understand

2. It exalts gender above that to which it points:

Changing the Bible’s gender language implies that the Bible’s gender language is about us. It’s not. The Bible is ultimately not about male and female—it’s about Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God. The Bible does not use predominantly male gendered language to exalt men; it uses it to exalt THE Man who paid the ultimate price to redeem His Bride.

3. It diminishes the unique beauty of womanhood:

Blurring the Bible’s gender language contributes to the blurring of gender distinctions. It diminishes and devalues the unique role and beauty of womanhood.

4. It is less inclusive of women:

Gender inclusive Bibles cast women as “other” rather than part of the collective whole. God collectively named male and female “man” (Hebrew: ‘adam. See Gen. 5:2) to indicate that male and female would share a common condition for which He would provide a common answer. Because both male and female are ‘adam, both are equally represented by the first man, Adam. Both are fallen and in need of a Savior. The good news of the gospel is that both are also equally represented by the Second Man—the Last Adam—Jesus Christ. When God named male and female ‘adam, he had the Last Adam in mind. So when, in order to appease modern sensibilities, we change “man” to something we think is more inclusive,” we diminish the theological meaning and exclude woman. If woman is not specifically identified as “man” then how can she be represented by the first man, Adam? What’s more, how can she be represented by the Second Man, the Last Adam, Jesus Christ? Gender inclusive Bibles are supposed to be more inclusive of women, but pardoxically, the language theologically does the exact opposite. It excludes women from the collective whole.

5. It demeans women:

Gender inclusive Bibles imply that women are too stupid to figure out that in the Bible, the words “man” and “brothers” are inclusive terms. The male translators have to fix the words for us, since we’re not theologically astute enough or bright enough to get it on our own. Quite frankly, I feel like gender-inclusive Bibles insult a woman’s intelligence.

6. It patronizes women:

Poor little girls. The translators need to change the words of the Bible so our feelings don’t get hurt. Boo hoo. Women are so easily offended. Sorry, . . . but changing the words of the Bible because you think some women might be offended by its language is downright patronizing.

7. It calls God’s attitude toward women into question:

Making changes to gender language is based on the premise that God ought to have given gals and guys equal air time. Trying to minimize the discrepancy suggests that God didn’t care enough about women to take our feelings into account. The natural conclusion is that He obviously loves his boys more than He loves his girls. The conclusion is wrong. And the premise is wrong.

8. It calls God’s wisdom into question:

Poor God. His bad. He needs our help. He wasn’t smart enough to get the words right. He obviously isn’t as enlightened as people living in the new millennium. We have to step in and update His image, to make the Bible more palatable to woman’s modern sensibilities.

9. It encourages further changes to Scripture:

I know of at least one Muslim that is aghast that Christians would have the audacity to tamper with the wording of our Holy Book. And since we’re audacious enough to tamper with gender wording for humans, it won’t be long till we’re audacious enough to tamper with gender wording for God. Translators will undoubtedly feel the need to update God’s names so that HE becomes more gender inclusive. Terms like “Mother-Father God,” “Jesus, child of woman and man,” “Great Source of Being in the Sky” and our “God-Goddess” communicate the concept of a gender-inclusive deity much better than the male-gendered language of the Bible. Don’t be naive. I’ve studied feminist theology long enough to know that naming self leads to naming the world leads to naming god. It’s audacious indeed!

10. It leads women away from truth:

I care about women. Deeply. I long to see them experience healing and wholeness in Christ Jesus. I do them a disservice when I apologize for the Bible, fail to embrace its unvarnished beauty and power, and shrink back from sharing the Words that are perceived by some as foolishness and a stumbling block, yet are actually the power and wisdom of God for righteousness and sanctification and redemption. I fail women when I try to make God or His Word more palatable. I empty the cross of its power (1 Cor. 1:17-30).

Gender and gender language is important. It touches on the essence of a woman’s identity, the essence of the character of God, and on the essence of the gospel. We get things so very wrong when we think we can improve on the Bible’s teaching on gender or the gender language it uses. The big picture informs us that from the very beginning, God’s plan for gender has very little to do with us and very much to do with Him. And we need to trust that even if we don’t fully understand them, the words, images and means He has chosen to display His glory are not only right, they are also good. Very good! And also very good for women!

A Battle Worth Fighting

I understand that language changes over time, and that translation is not always an easy task. But I am saddened that Christians seem so eager to jump on the cultural bandwagon to update God’s Holy Book with inclusive language. I don’t think they realize what is at stake. I have had students struggle with understanding concepts about God because their native language did not lend itself to translating/expressing the gendered concepts that exist in the original languages of the Bible. We will lose something very critical and essential if we lose the linguistic concepts afforded us by the gendered nature of English. Retaining gender distinctiveness in our language is a battle worth fighting. There is a great deal at stake.

So ladies, please don’t jump on the gender-inclusive Bible bandwagon. Be hip. Be courageous. Be politically incorrect. Insist on a Bible that acurately translates gender language– like the ESV, Holman Christian Standard, or New America Standard. Because in the end, inclusive language, and inclusive language Bibles, are bad for women.


© Mary Kassian


Tags: Bible, CSB, ESV, gender-neutral bible, inclusive language, NIV, TNIV

Category: Blog, Disciplines, Doctrine

http://www.girlsgonewise.com/10-reasons-why-the-new-niv-is-bad-for-women/

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Details for Cecil McKinney

Cecil R. McKinney ``Bones Mac', 97, died at his residence October 9, 2011. Friends may call from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13 in The Clifford-Shoemaker Funeral Home, 1930 Front St., Cuyahoga Falls where at funeral service will be conducted at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 14, Pastor William Johnson officiating. Interment Northlawn Memorial Gardens. Memorials may be made to Friendship Bible Church, P.O. Box 341, Randolph, OH 44265.


FBC Family, let us remember Jill and her family in prayer this week. 

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Phase 3 Underway!




The heating and A/C team started today and should finish in the next couple of weeks. Please be careful around the construction areas.

We know not...

Spurgeon said, "We know not what prayer cannot do!"

Thus, we gather every Wednesday evening for prayer. Will you join us tonight at 6:30?

Oh, and Leadership Team, remember we will meet immediately thereafter.


This Morning's Spurgeonism

“I will meditate in thy precepts.” (Psalm 119:15)

There are times when solitude is better than society, and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God, and gathering through meditation on his Word spiritual strength for labour in his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God, because we thus get the real nutriment out of them. Truth is something like the cluster of the vine: if we would have wine from it, we must bruise it; we must press and squeeze it many times. The bruiser’s feet must come down joyfully upon the bunches, or else the juice will not flow; and they must well tread the grapes, or else much of the precious liquid will be wasted. So we must, by meditation, tread the clusters of truth, if we would get the wine of consolation therefrom. Our bodies are not supported by merely taking food into the mouth, but the process which really supplies the muscle, and the nerve, and the sinew, and the bone, is the process of digestion. It is by digestion that the outward food becomes assimilated with the inner life. Our souls are not nourished merely by listening awhile to this, and then to that, and then to the other part of divine truth. Hearing, reading, marking, and learning, all require inwardly digesting to complete their usefulness, and the inward digesting of the truth lies for the most part in meditating upon it. Why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make but slow advances in the divine life? Because they neglect their closets, and do not thoughtfully meditate on God’s Word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it; they would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the fields to gather it; the fruit hangs upon the tree, but they will not pluck it; the water flows at their feet, but they will not stoop to drink it. From such folly deliver us, O Lord, and be this our resolve this morning, “I will meditate in thy precepts.” (Spurgeon, Morning and Evening)

Friday, October 7, 2011

Phase Two Under Way!






The whole massed sin of the human race...

For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians. 5:21)

Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God. The Christian religion bases everything on the positive, radical nature of sin. Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin. The first thing Jesus Christ faced in men was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the Gospel that the message of the Gospel has lost its sting and its blasting power.

The revelation of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took upon Himself our fleshly sins, but that He took upon Himself the heredity of sin which no man can touch. God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint. All through the Bible it is revealed that Our Lord bore the sin of the world by identification, not by sympathy. He deliberately took upon His own shoulders, and bore in His own Person, the whole massed sin of the human race—“He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,” and by so doing He put the whole human race on the basis of Redemption. Jesus Christ rehabilitated the human race; He put it back to where God designed it to be, and anyone can enter into union with God on the ground of what Our Lord has done on the Cross. (from My Utmost For His Highest, by Oswald Chambers)

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

What does your world-view teach the child who is watching you?

I just read this troubling article, which is actually 2 years old now.  I'm certain the statistics are at least as troubling today.

All of us who are parents, Sunday School teachers, Jr. Church leaders, VBS workers, grandparents, etc. NEED TO READ THIS and see the result of not raising our children for Christ - of letting the world-view obtained from their secular influencers win the day.

I encourage you to read and pray about this...  and work with us at FBC to reach the children of our generation for Christ, through our words, and mostly through their seeing it in our personal world-views.


Saturday, October 1, 2011

Rainy day - perfect for Bible reading




George Muller said that we all, no matter our state, will benefit from reading our Bibles more. Actually, what he said was:

"If the reader understands very little of the word of God, he ought to read it very much; for the Spirit explains the Word by the Word. And if he enjoys the reading of the Word little, that is just the reason why he should read it much; for the frequent reading of the Scriptures creates a delight in them, so that the more we read them, the more we desire to do so. And if the reader should be an unbeliever, I would likewise entreat him to read the Scriptures earnestly, but to ask God previously to give him a blessing. For in doing so, God may make him wise unto salvation, 2 Timothy 3:16."

Have you read your Bible yet today?

Opportunities to Go and Give

It's the first Saturday - Haven of Rest day. If you will give a couple hours to the needy this morning, meet at the Haven of Rest at 10:00.

It's also the start of the final month of R.R.O.D.A.AT. for 2011. If you will go to reach out to our neighbors in Randolph this morning, meet at FBC at 10:00.