An Open Mind

Often Christians are, asked ‘to keep an open mind,’  by a friend who declares there are many ways to God. I believe that’s a great opportunity and a fantastic open door to witness to our friend for asking us such a loaded question. Here’s a dialog we could possible have,   

My response,

Me: That’s fine. Will you keep an open mind too if I ask you who you believe Jesus is?

They generally will say,

Friend: Yes, He was a great teacher.

Me: Cool, so you trust everything Jesus taught?

Friend: Well, I guess so.

Me: Great! Because Jesus says, ‘you will die in your sin if you don’t believe who I have said I Am.’

Friend: WOW, Who did Jesus say he was?

Me: Jesus says He was God almighty, the Son of God in the flesh!

Our dumbfounded friend utters,

Friend: WOW

Me: Jesus says in one place, ‘I and the Father are One;’ and in another place, ‘I Am the ONLY way to the Father.’

Friend: You mean there aren't many ways to get to God?

Me: Nope, not according to Jesus. So do you still believe Jesus was a great teacher?

Friend: I don’t know.

Me: That’s wonderful, you have done exactly what Jesus teaches us to do!

Friend: It is?

Me: Yes, Proverbs says not to lean upon our own thinking, our own understanding; and Jesus says, you must change your mind and become like a child or you will never be able to see or even enter the kingdom of Heaven.

Friend: What do you mean by ‘change my mind,’ about what?

Me: Jesus says, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The word repent is a military term, it means, ‘to change our mind; to make an about face’ about something. We are to completely turn all the way around and change our mind about what we think the kingdom of Heaven is.

As you know, where there is a kingdom there has to be a king. We have to surrender our life and swear allegiance to the King of Heaven. Christianity is not a Democracy. Jesus will not accept allegiance to any other kingdom but His. Jesus is Lord! He’s the King of kings, Lord of lords.

Our friend injects,

Friend: That sounds too simple to do, it sounds so simple even a child could understand it.

Me: You got it my friend! If people only knew how simple it is to change our mind about God, they would be breaking down our front doors, not to rob us, but to wake us up at night begging to hear more about Jesus!”

Friend: WOW, how do I surrender to Jesus?”

Me: It’s all by grace, God’s unmerited favor, it’s a gift from God that we can be part of His Kingdom. He gives us the right to be in His Kingdom. We cannot earn it. In the Bible verses from Romans 10:9-10 it says, ‘If you surrender you life and swear allegiance openly with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God, come in the flesh, and believe in your heart that His Father has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with your heart you believe everything Jesus taught was true and that causes you now by grace to be in a right relationship with Him, His Father and the Holy Spirit; and now by God’s unmerited favor your mouth’s declaration is turned unto salvation!’

Friend: I don’t know everything that Jesus taught.

Me: That’s good, because nobody does. The Apostle John said if all the WORDS that Jesus taught were written down in books, the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen! We don’t have to know everything about God, only He does, but we do have to believe everything He says is true! How ‘bout it, what do you declare now?

Friend: “WOW, I surrender my life and swear allegiance openly with my mouth that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God, come in the flesh, and I believe in my heart that His Father raised Jesus from the dead, I am saved! For with my heart I believe all what Jesus has taught was true and that causes me now by grace to be in a right relationship with Him, His Father and the Holy Spirit; and now with God’s unmerited favor my mouth’s declaration is turned unto salvation!”

Me: Bingo!

Both: Glory to God! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!

Sprang From The Jailhouse Of Darkness

I feel we need to preach the true Gospel (Good News) of what God has done "in Christ" 

[my words are in italics—Jim]

Colossians 1:13 1^st 6 Versions are from *Mark Hankins:

(KJV) who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

(New English) He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us away into the kingdom of his dear Son,

(Wade) For God has rescued us from the dominance exercised by the Powers of Spiritual Darkness, and transferred us to the dominion of His Son—the Object of His love—

(Amplified) [The Father] has delivered us and drawn us to Himself out of the control and dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,

(Moffatt) rescuing us from the power of Darkness and transferring us to the realm of his beloved Son.

(Cotton Patch) It was the Father who sprang us from the jailhouse of darkness, and turned us loose in the new world of his beloved Son,

The following commentaries were added, transcribed and edited by Jim Hughes:

(Barnes) And hath translated us - The word rendered here “translated” is often used in the sense of:

• Removing a people from one country to another; see Josephus, Ant. ix. 11. 1.
• They who are Christians have been transferred from one kingdom to another, as if a people were thus removed.
• They become subjects of a new kingdom, are under different laws, and belong to a different community.
• This change is made in regeneration, by which we pass from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light;
• From the empire of sin, ignorance, and misery, to one of holiness, knowledge, and happiness.
• No change, therefore, in a man’s life is so important as this; and no words can suitably express the gratitude which they should feel who are thus transferred from the empire of darkness to that of light.

(Clarke) Translated us into the kingdom, etc - He has thoroughly changed our state, brought us out of the dark region of vice and impiety, and placed us in the kingdom under the government of his dear Son, Υἱου της αγαπης αὑτου, the Son of his love; the person whom, in his infinite love, he has given to make an atonement for the sin of the world.

We have been completely REMOVED from the world we knew before coming to Christ! As far as we are concerned that old world is dead and gone!

2 Corinthians 5:17-19

(KJV)

¹⁷ Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. ¹⁸ And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them: and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

What does to wit mean in verse 19? 

I’ve combined several online sources that pretty much agree that it’s a legal term meaning "in other words” “in particular" or "namely" or "that is to say" or “as follows” or “for example”

To wit . . .

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; in other words God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them: and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

[Just the “To wit” was changed from the KJV – w/no verse numbers]

The Father was in Christ reconciling us to Himself and He wants any man in Christ also to reconcile others to Himself; He’s committed unto us the word of reconciliation (in other words) the Father is not imputing their trespasses unto them. —Jim

The first 2 versions are from Mark Hankins:

2 Corinthians 5:19

(Beck) In Christ, God was getting rid of the enmity between himself and the people of the world.

(Wand) That ministry is based on the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, wiping out the debit balance of our transgressions and setting His reconciliation to the credit of our account.

(Good News) Our message is that God was making all human beings his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.

(Common English) In other words, God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ, by not counting people’s sins against them. He has trusted us with this message of reconciliation.

(Amplified) It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but canceling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).

(Easy-to-Read) I mean that God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself. In Christ, God did not hold people guilty for their sins. And he gave us this message of peace to tell people.

Resources:

Amplified Bible (AMP)—Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

Barnes, Albert (Barnes) Albert Barnes' Notes on the New Testament by Albert Barnes Published in Philadelphia, August 25th, 1832

Beck, William F. (Beck) The New Testament in the Language of Today by William F. Beck, St. Louis, MO Concordia Publishing House 1963

Clarke, Adam (Clarke) Adam Clarke's Commentary by Adam Clarke Published in 1825

Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible

Cotton Patch Version (Cotton Patch)—Copyright © 1968 by Clarence Jordan

Easy-to-Read Version (Easy-to-Read) Copyright © 2006 by World Bible Translation Center

Good News Translation (GNT) Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society

Moffatt, James (Moffatt) The New Testament by James Moffatt London: Hodder & Stoughton 1913

New English Translation (NET) NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2006 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.

Wade, G. Woosung (Wade) The Documents of the New Testament translated by G.W. Wade, London: Thomas Murby & Co., 1934

Wand, J.W.C.; (Wand) The New Testament Letters prefaced and paraphrased by J.W.C. Wand, Melbourne: Oxford University Press 1944

*Hankins, Mark (MHM) The New Creation study guide by Mark Hankins

Mark Hankins Ministries - PO Box 12863 - Alexandria, LA 71315 - (318) 767-2001   

Study guide transcribed by Jim Hughes from 1985 copy — jimhughesgraphics@gmail.com / Jim Hughes is not affiliated with (MHM)

VTG Notes Pages xi and xii

This is a study of the ^a Lexicon work directly transcribed from: Vocabulary of the Greek Testament by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, Published by Hodder And Stoughton, Limited London, 1914-1929

*Notes in [brackets] are my edit notes —Jim Hughes.

—www.dictionary.com

^a  Dictionary, esp one of an ancient language such as Greek or Hebrew

C17: New Latin, from Greek lexikon , n use of lexikos  relating to words, from Greek lexis  word, from legein  to speak

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Page xi:

"New Testament Greek." [Research of the non-Biblical Egyptian papyri found in the early 1860s] 

—It is with this aspect of the papyri that we are primarily concerned. Alike in Vocabulary and Grammar the language of the New Testament exhibits striking dissimilarities from Classical Greek ; and in consequence it has been regarded as standing by itself as " New Testament Greek." In general it had been hastily classed as "Judaic" or "Hebraic" Greek; its writers being Jews (with the probable exception of St. Luke), and therefore using a language other than their own, a language filled with reminiscences of the translation-Greek of the ^a Septuagint on which they had been nurtured. ¹ But true as this may be, it does not go far to explain the real character of the Greek which meets us in the New Testament writings.

For a convincing explanation we have in the first instance to thank the German scholar, Adolf Deissmann, now Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of Berlin. While still a pastor at Marburg, Dr. (then Mr.) Deissmann happened one day to be turning over in the University Library at Heidelberg a new section of a volume containing transcripts from the collection of Greek Papyri at Berlin. And, as he read, he was suddenly struck by the likeness of the language of these papyri to the language of the Greek New Testament. Further study deepened in his mind the extent of this likeness, and he realized that he held in his hand the real key to the old problem. [of translating Greek New Testament language]

So far from the Greek of the New Testament being a language by itself, or even, as one German scholar called it, " a language of the Holy Ghost," ²  its main feature was that it was the ordinary vernacular Greek of the period, not the language of contemporary literature, which was often influenced by an attempt to imitate the great authors of classical times, but the language of everyday life, as it was spoken and written by the ordinary men and women of the day, or, as it is often described, the Koivuh vor Common Greek, of the great Graeco-Roman world. That, then, is Deissmann's general conclusion, which quickly found an enthusiastic . . .

—www.dictionary.com

^a The oldest Greek version of the Old Testament, traditionally said to have been translated by 70 or 72 Jewish scholars at the request of Ptolemy II: most scholars believe that only the Pentateuch was completed in the early part of the 3rd century B.C. and that the remaining books were translated in the next two centuries.

¹ Cf. W. F. Howard's Appendix " Semitisms in the New Testament" in Grammar of New Testament Greek by J. H. Moulton and W. F. Howard (Edinburgh, 1929), Vol. II, p. 411 ff.

² R. Rothe, Zur Dogmatik (Gotha, 1863), p. 238: "We can indeed with good right speak of a language of the Holy Ghost. For in the Bible it is manifest to our eyes how the Divine Spirit at work in revelation always takes the language of the particular people chosen to be the recipient, and makes of it a characteristic religious variety by transforming existing linguistic elements and existing conceptions into a shape peculiarly appropriate to that Spirit. This process is shown most clearly by the Greek of the New Testament" (quoted by Deissmann, The Philology of the Greek Bible (London, 1908), p. 42 f.).

Page xii:

and brilliant advocate in this country in the person of Dr. J. H. Moulton. And though the zeal of the first discoverers of the new light [these papyri] may have sometimes led them to go rather far in ignoring the ^a Semitisms, on the one hand, and the literary culture of the New Testament writers, on the other, their main conclusion has found general acceptance, and we have come to realize with a definiteness unknown before that the book intended for the people was written in the people's own tongue. Themselves sprung from the common people, the disciples of One Whom the common people heard gladly, its writers, in their turn, wrote in the common tongue to be " understanded of the people."

In the Prolegomena to his translation of Winer's well-known Grammar of New Testament Greek, published in 1859, Professor Masson, at one time Professor in the University of Athens, writes:

—the New Testament may be considered as exhibiting the only genuine facsimile of the colloquial diction employed by unsophisticated Grecian gentlemen of the first century, who spoke without ^b pedantry— as idiwtai ('private persons'), and not as sofistai ('adepts')" (p. vii. f.).¹

—www.dictionary.com

^a a word or idiom peculiar to, derived from, or characteristic of a Semitic language, especially of hebrew.

^b the habit or an instance of being a pedant, esp in the display of useless knowledge or minute observance of petty rules or details.

¹ Cf. J. Rendel Harris, Exp T, xxv. p. 54 f., and notes by the present writer in ib. xxxi.

p. 421, and xxxii. p. 231 f.

A second statement to much the same effect will be found in the article "Greek Language (Biblical)," contributed by Mr. (afterwards Principal Sir James) Donaldson to the third edition of Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, edited by Dr. W. Lindsay Alexander (Edinburgh, 1876). In Vol. ii. p. 170, the writer states :

Now it seems to us that the language used by the Septuagint and N(ew) T(estament) writers was the language used in common conversation, learned by them, not through books, but most likely in childhood from household talk, or, if not, through subsequent oral instruction.

*If this be the case, then the Septuagint is the first translation which was made for the great masses of the people in their own language, and the N(ew) T(estament) writers are the first to appeal to men through the common vulgar language intelligible to all who spoke Greek.

The common Greek thus used is indeed considerably modified by the circumstances of the writers, but these modifications no more turn the Greek into a peculiar dialect than do Americanisms or Scotticisms turn the English of Americans and Scotsmen into peculiar dialects of English. ²

*[Yellow highlight & italics mine] WOW!!!!!!

² James Donaldson: I owe the reference to a note by W. L. Lorimer in Exp T, xxxii. p. 330, where attention is also drawn to the position taken up by Salmasius in his Funus linguae Hellenisticae and his DeHellenislica Commentarius, both published in 1643.

Thought and Study Series – Lesson 2

Lesson 2:

2 Timothy 2:15

(AMP)

15 Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.

Lesson 1:

Mark 4:23-25

(AMP)

23 If any man has ears to hear, let him be listening and let him perceive and comprehend [the Truth].

24 And He said to them, Be careful what you are hearing. The measure ^[a] [of thought and study] you give [to ^[b] the Truth you hear] will be the measure ^[c] [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you—and more [besides] will be given to you who hear.

25 For to him who has will more [Truth] be given; and from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away [^[d] by force],

References:

Translation retrieved from http://www.biblegateway.com/  BibleGateway.com © Copyright 1995-2013 Gospel Communications International

Amplified Bible (AMP)—Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

a. Mark 4:24 W. Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s Greek New Testament.

b. Mark 4:24 James C. Gray and George M. Adams, Bible Commentary; Kenneth Wuest,Word Studies; Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament; and others.

c. Mark 4:24 W. Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s Greek New Testament.

d. Mark 4:25 Joseph Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon.

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Who Do You Believe

Here's a survey we can pose to our atheist friends:

Jesus says,

1) The devil is a liar and the father of all lies. (John 8:44)

and

2) I Am the only Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to My Father but by Me. (John 14:6)

Based on these two statements alone, who would be more likely to be telling the truth Jesus or the devil?

Do you believe there’s a devil? If not is Jesus lying?