Badn English Drives Mde Bonkers

Bad English eats at me when it comes out of the mouth of educated people as it too often does these days.  I don't have such a reactio to people who simply speak English the way they learned it as children if they had no opportunity to learn otherwise, I don't even really notice it and would certainly not wanto to make an issue of it.   But when college-ed7cated people say "I could care less" or "If I would have known" or "{I was laying down when..." and so on, it's  very hard to take.

We've heard that the French have an agency that protects their lan\\

guage, I why don't we have something like that for English?  We wouldn't havew had the abominable English in the NASB if we did.

And I wouldn't be having to deal with the bad English in some of the books I've been listening to, which I'm very sure were not the original speech of the writer but added by editors to "update" it for modern readers or listeners.   Did Bunyan really write "if the crows would have been able to ..." ?  I doubt it.  But I have to be subjected to it because of some "well meaning" editor who doesn't know it's bad English.

That's all I'm going to say.  I've probably already committed the sin of unkindness

Does Matthew 5:32 Allow Divorce for Adultery?

 Well, here I go again.   I've had this objection to the accepted understanding of a biblical passage for a long time, though I've thought maybe I'm just not getting something about it that would change my mind, and since it came up again I wanted to see if I could get to the bottom of it once and for all.   

This is Matthew 5:32 where Jesus says "But I say unto you that if a man put away his wife, save for the cause of fornication, he causes her to comitt adultery..."

This verse is interpreted to mean that forniicatiobn is a legitimate reason for diverose.  I don't read it that way and I wantedd to know if everybody does or if some see it the wsay I do.  I foudn a three part series on this passage by John MacArthur and it seemed from some of the early statements he makes that he might end up saying what I've been thinking so I listened to the whole thing and he finally gets to a direct statement about that verse at the very end pf Part three:

JOHN MACARTHUR - Divorce and Remarriage, Part 3 (Matthew 5:31-32) - YouTube

that's Parrt 3, I thought I had Part 1 but I guess I lost it.  If you start at the f beginning it will roll over to the second and then the third parts, but maybe starting at part 3 is enough anyway for my purposes.

Throughout his discussion he mentions many times that there was only one legitimate reason for divorce given by Moses or by Jesus or by any of the New Testament writers, yet as he quoted passage after passage I saw nothing that seemed to me to say anything like that.   Where does it say divorce is  not condoned except for the cause of sexual sin or fornication or adulter?  Nowhere.  What am I missing?  The ONLY place it seems to be said, and he finally seems to be saying this too, is in Matthew 5:32, "He who puts away his wife, except for the cause o fornication, causes her to commit adulter."  

And that is the common interpretation that I just don't see at all there.  What I see there is a simple logical point:  if the cause of the man's putting away his wife is fornication, which is the same thing as adultery, as MadArthur also makes clear, then of course divrocing her isn't going to cause her to commit adultery becaused she's already committed it.  It's a simple logical point.  If you divorce her for any other cause THEN she will commit adultery by remarrying, but if the cause IS adultery, just logically speaking you won't cause her to commit it by divorcing her.   The man she marries will commit adultery in marrying her and the husband who divorces her will commit adultery when he remarries, but the woman who is divorced for committing adultery won't be made to commit it by the divorce because she's allrady committed it.

I read that verse over and over and over again and that's all I can get out of it.  It's a simple logical point, it is not an "esxception clause" to the prohibition on divorce which is otherwise all-encompassing.

MacArthur's discussion otherwise is his usual terrific thoroughly biblical discussion.  I learned a lot from it and I'm impressed at his seweing it as part of the discussion about adultery which starts in verse 27.  I think he's right about that.  

But I've still got my objection to the interpretation of verse 32 and I continue to be pe rather bewildered at anyone's every getting that interpreation out of it.   MacArthur makes a great case for even adultery's not being a legitimate reason for divorce despite what he sees as this exception clause that appears to allow it, but nevertheless I don't think it allows it and I stil ldon't see how anybody gets that out of it.

The Disease of the Modern Bible Versions

 Deceptions that affect great numbers of Christians are like a virus that makes the whole body, the body of Christ, sick.    This metaphor just occurred to me and I hope it's not silly.   Seems like I'm some sort of virus detector, not that I always get it right, but I get it right enough to be always in some state of distress about the state of the Church.   Yes I'd like to know I'm wrong if I'm wrong but so far when I do my best to investigate some of my strongeest alarm reactions I end up being convinced even more that I'm right.

I have my o9wn little limited bailiwick, it's not as if I'm alert to all the ways the Church is compromised these days.  I didn't know anything about the book Jesus Calling for instance, I had to research it recently after becoming aware of its great influence in the Church.  I hear about teachers like Joel Osteen and Beth Moore but I don't delve into their influence until I'm forced to.  I'm so put off by such a popular book as the Shac that it took me forever to get around to learning what it's all about, and not to any depth either, just the bare bones.

So I'm sensitive to these viruses only within a very limited sphrere.   The fact that the woman's head covering was abandoned on the basis of a totally bogus argument is very distressing to me.   There are others who agree with me that First Corinthians Eleven is about a literal head covering that applies today as well as it did for the whole last two millennia, but we are all marginalized in the Church.   The false teaching has captured the biggest and best names in the Church and the seminaries.

Samew with the Bible versions.   While I'm getting an ulcer, as it were, ove these things, the seminaries are teaching the pathogen instead of the remedy.  The churches are suffering from the new Babel as so many different translations are used by the members of the congregation.   But there are also congregations where a particular translation is favored by the leaders and  and that at least makes for less confusion, but by my virus detector they have usually chosen a bad one.   

And by a bad one I mean one that is based on the Greek manuscripts foiseted on the Church by Westcott andHort.  

It makes my ulcer throb painfully to hear someone say for instance that there are four literal translations of the bible, listing the King James, the New King James, the English Standard and the New American Standard.   Yes they are faithful translations except for some bad bad bad ways of construing the Greek text as JW Burgon makes clear in his book The Revision Revised but the bitgger problem is that the Greek manuscripturs are wrong, a Trojan Horse delivered to the Church by two misguided men.  The King James and the New King James are based on the trustworthy Greek texts, although the New King H  James is compromised in other ways, while the ESV and the NASB are based on Westcott and Hort's corrupted Greek texts.

Burgon jshows how.  His books should be better known, though I know that he isn't given the recognition he deserves while Westcott and Hort get the approbation they don't deserve.;

It turns my stomkach to hear a good Christian preachers mention that a couple of lines in the pasasge about the pool of Bethesda are in doubt because they aren't in the "earliest and best" Greek manuscripts and are understood to have been added later.

it makes me sick to hear Martyn Lloyed Jones, one of the best of the best in his time, mention that the passage where Jesus tells His disciples that they couldn't drive out a demon because that kind only go9 out by prayer and fasting.  Jones mentioned that "fasting" is not in the earliers and best manuscripts.  

This is a slander on the Christian Church that was made up by Westcott and Hort.  They favored these bogus heretical and possibly forged Greek manscuprtives and thnerefore explained how they don't have some of the best known passages wse find in the King James as having been added  later by overzealous scribes.    This is saying that those translators were adding to scripture, a horrific sin according to the bible itself.  How did W and H get away with that?  No, the fact is that certain pasages were left out of the "early and best' mansccripts they liked so much because the heretical possessors of them left them out.   Burgon saiy the Church had recognized this line of manuscriptus as heresies.  or the produ ction of heretics.    Later it becomes a distinctr possibility that they were later forgeries.  The fact that they exist aqt all is testimony against them since to have survived from the early years means nobody ever read them.  AAnd they weren't read because they were recotgnized to be false.

This is one of the ways today's Church is comprompised.  The translations too are bad, accordinbg to Burgon, just plain bad English because Westcott and Hort had a deficient understnading of Greek according to him.  So we have to suffer through phrasing sthat are abomiable English on top of being assaulted with the attack on Bible inerrancy in the accepted idea that our best known passages were added later.  

..on is the main critic of the new manuscripts and translations, but Chris Pinto has also done documentary films that expose the problem.   I think it's Tares Among the Wheat where he goes into most detail about the problem, one of the films in his series on the history of the Bible.

By the way I think I should add that I probably shouldn't go on about my  being a virus detector as if I were in some special position on these subjects, it's just that I do have strong almost physical reactions when I encounter them and I do think I'm right in those reactions, but I certainly don't think I originated the observations, I had to research these things to have the opinions I have.  I've given my ousources for the head covering in the blog on that subject and it's J W Burgon who is the main source of the k,nowledge I have about the bible versions, although Chris Pinto has added a lot.  I'm just one of the receptrs of the information and I try to disseminate it, which is a joke since I just hang out here writing mostly to myself.

And I'm also arrogant enough not to give the Lord thanks for His gift if I do have a good virus deteector.  May He enlighten me.  Soon Lord.

The Sabbath and the Lord's Day

Because there are so many references to Sabbath observance and Sabbath-breaking in Ryle's books I realized I need to know more about the history of this practice.   I've accepted the contemporary understanding that Jesus is our Sabbath rest so that the observance of the day itself was ended with His first coming but the seriousness of these old saints I've been reading about does make me stop and wonder if they had a better understanding of these things than we do.

So I looked for videos at You tube addressing the subject of the Sabbath.  I specifically looked for J C Ryle on the subject ut didn't find anything.  Then I decided to look for talks on the Ten Commandmenets as a whole and found the Puritan thomas Watson on that subject.   I listened only to his discussion of the fourth commandmenet and fouhd him laying out the importance of Sabbath observance with the same passion I was hearing in the eighteenth century preachers Ryle was writing about.

\It's very convicing, it's full of a deep reverence for God And a plausible explanation of the scriptural grounds for continuing the obserfvance into the Christian era.  

S I needed to remind myself of today's interpretation hoping I could find somethinjg of a comparable depth and value.  I did.   John MacArthur.   Two talks, one on the Sabbath and the next on the Lord's Day.

\https://youtu.be/DxQ4ffL7caU?t=12

All I'm going to do here is give the links to thes different interpretive systems though it needs more discussion.  \\

Why Sunday Is the Lord’s Day (Selected Scriptures) - YouTube

I wWhy Sunday Is the Lord’s Day (Selected Scriptures) - YouTubeas struck by Watson's final statement on the fourth commandment where he talks about the consequences of what  he, and apparently the Puritans in general, considered to be a serious sin.  Hardening of hearts, searing of the conscience, and the begetting as it were of more sin.   Sincew that's what's been going on in today's culture and I've been pondering the connection with feminism because of what I heard about a study by Wayne Grudem that found feminism at the start of many church deteriorations into apostasy, Watsons's comment made me wonder if our abandonment of the Sabbath in today's cultures had a similar role.     After hearing MacArthur I gave up that line of thought and I'm glad of that in one way, for sure, but also was hoping to find a solid basis for understanding the path of deterioration not only in the culture but in the churches.   Maybe feminism and liberalism are enough.\\Anyway here are some other discussions about the Sabbath. 

 Thomas Watson on the Ten Commenments, whree I listened to the chapter on the Sabbath, the Fourth Commandment:

The Ten Commandments (Part I) | Thomas Watson | Christia

And here's Voddie Baucham on the Fourth Commandment

 Audiobook - YouTube

The Books that Could Revive the Church I*f Only People Would See their Value

What gratitude I should have for God's provision of so many great Christian sources on the internet, at You Tube yet, in audible form, what a blessing to someone like me who is going blind and can no longer read.  Ryle's "Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century" has been such a valuable gift I'm aware of  how much it deserves my thankfulness and how little I have of that thankfulness.  I can only ask God to give me the gratitutde He deserves for this amazing provision.    At eighty I have no idea how much time I have to learn from these things but it's an enormous mercy that I've been given this boost to my determination to try to get my Christian life onto a more serious path.   Even a little effot is worth something though I wish I could dive into it as if I were much younger.

Now I'm reading Ryle's book "Holiness," which I read at least in part some years ago, and it's going to be another great boost to my Christian life.   It's interesting to be reminded of the historical context of the Holiness movement which was in full swing in his day, from whith the concept of the Higher Life was born.   It makes me aware that there were many errors in that movement and that I've3 tended to reduce it to the simple apprenension that most Christians live at a very low level of what scripture holds up to us as the true life in Christ.   No it was a much more complicated and scripturally questionable movement.   Ryle is certainly the one to show the right way to pursue the deepedr life which is laid out in scripture.

Holiness (Part 1) | J C Ryle | Free Christian Audiobook - YouTube

I just discovered that there are also works byu Samuel Rutherford at You Tube including his Letters which Ryle has mentioned in passing are regarded by many as the closest thing to inspired writing to be found among Christian teachers, so after listening to his book on holiness I want to go there next.

If more Christians gave up today's shallow silly and heretical teachers for these old teachers what a huge boost to the power of the Christian Church we could see in our day.  

Many Mansions and Other Vexed Issues

 J. C. Ryle's book on the great Christian leaders of the Eighteenth Century is so inspiring it makes me want to abandone everythig and sp[end what little time I have left trying to become more like anyu of these men.   As Ryle makes clear, it is certainly not that England in the eighteenth century was generally known for its high standards of Christian life but these men represent a revival that brought the level tup to something extraordinary.   Doctrine and Christian life, holinjess etc. wree at a height of near perfection, in these men and probably many of those who were converted under them.     If there are Christians who live at such a level today I don't know of any of them.

But that isn't what i started out to write here.  I'm near the end of the book, on the last of the men he's going to discuss, a John Fletcher, and he's introduced this man with a remark about the meaning of  Jesus' assurance His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them, and that in His Father's house are many mansioions, which He follows with the remark that if it were not so He would have stold them, which I always thought very odd. 

Itg is certainly odd in the context of the usual  understanding of the concept of many mansions as we encounter it today, which has prommpted more recent translations to render it "dwelling places" as if "manions" was a translational error, simply because they can't make any sense of it and think all Jesus meant was the general message of preparaing a place for His disciples to live.  

But I rarely accept the idea that the eminent scholars and holy men who put together the King James Bible wcould be charged with an error of translation., so I assumed it must  mean more than just a dwelling place, there must be a reasons why the term "mansions" was chosen, mansions meaning of course very large houses.    Why would He tell them there are many large houses in heaven, and add to it that if it were not so He would have told them?     There would be no reason to add that if all He meant was a dwellibng place or a place for them to live.  So what is meant by mansionjs or very large houses?

It hit methat what it must mean is that there will be different groups in heaven who live together in their own large houses.    What groups?   What came to my mind was groups of people with different spiritual gifts or shared understandings of some sort.    The latter comes closes to what Ryle shows was the accepted meaning of the passage in his day, that it will be different theologies that occupy the different large houses, Calvinists, Arminians and so on.  He aalso mentions that the idea had been distorted to include outright heresies as having their own houses, but of course he denounces that idea as heretics are not going to be in heaven at all.    However, there will certainly be people who are definitiely Christians who nevertheless differ in some points that would make them compatible roommates with each other but not so much with people of other theologists.

I don't know if that view is going to turn out to be the correct one but  it doesn't make sense of the term "mansions" which today's interpreteters want to throw out because they don't understand it.  I'm very glad to see it justified by Ryle and now I'm looking forward to finding out just how we will be allotted our place in group living quarters.And this reminds me that in discussing a couple of the men earlier in the book he quotes them using the word "knowledge" of Hosea 4:8 to refer to knowledge of God or knowledge of Jesus Christ, while I've noted that at least three teachers I'm aware of have interpreted it to refer to knowledge of such things as poisons or other threats to human well being.    I should have given the qhole quote before this but since I can't see well enough togo back and include it I'll add it here:  it's where God says "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."   This gets interpreted in terms of threats to our safety, lack of knowledge of our enemies or of pollutants that can harm us and that sort of thing.  But as I've pointed out the context of the passage is the sins of the people and the destruction they are bringing on themselves by their lack of knowledge is God's judgments.   We are destroyed by our lack of knowledge of what we need to know to be saved or what we need to know to avoid the wages of sin which is death.   

So not only does it seem that there is a much lower standard of Christian life even when we're talking about the best of the best , but there's a low level of biblical interpretation.

I also noted that in the days of the men Ryle is writinbg about, and perhaps in Ryle's day too, the Sabbath was considered to be set aside as a day of rest and worship throughout the culture, just as it was in America until sometime in the sixties or seventies, I forget when, at which time businesses all startedd staying open and Sunday was no longer any kind of special day.    Sabbath-breaking was a sin in the eyes of the men Ryle is writing about.   How far we've come from such standards of life.  It makes me wonder if along with abandoning the head covering for women our abandonment of the Sabbath is another reason for the deterionarition of the CChurch in the West that we should recover if we have any hope of regaining God's favor.

More about Beth Moore

Her talks are man-cenetered, meaning human-centered, rather than about the bible, r, she preaches to men when scripture saysz a woman should not havew any sort of authority over a man, and a couple other points:\

What's the Problem With Beth Moore? - YouTube

TGhis one goes into more detail.

about how she imposes her own concdenerns on the scripture rather than letting the scripture be the authority, about how she teaches smen when scripture is clear that women should not, and so on:

Beth Moore's wild unbiblical teachings: Michelle Lesley interview - YouTube

This critic starts out saying how Beth Moore is cute and funny aand seems to be sincere about her blove of Christ and the women she teaches, but after hearing about the men in Ryle's book which I reported on in recent posts I don't want any more cute and funny preaching from anybody.  I want sober serious deep soul-searching praching, about Christ and Christ alone,, with our human examples kept to examples and not made the main point of the teaching as it seems to be with Moore.

And I'm still flummoxed by a couple of her teachings in which she just makes no lobical sense at all, the one called The Art of Growing Up which I mentioned before, and another where she gets all carried away about the meaning of the word "compelled" which has about zero relevance in the very passage she is supposedly teaching from. Maybe I'll eventually try to lay all that out.  Fortunately most of her teachings seems to have more coherence than that.