Pete's Blog

I'm not trying to say that women can't do it, while men can. No, God created us in His image to be respected, not objectified through lust. But as far back as I can remember, TV's always promoted men lusting, but now it's swinging 'round to women too. C'est dommage. Tsk, tsk, Bell.

Though I think the cessation of tongues speaking cannot be defended biblically, I am very wary of it in public worship. Here's a good paragraph from Mark Dever's book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church that gives a good glimpse at what Paul was thinking in 1 Corinthians:

The most obvious teaching on the purpose of spiritual gifts is found in 1 Corinthians 14. Look particularly at 14:4, which is very often misunderstood: "He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church." Some take this as a neutral statement, as if Paul is merely commenting that there are two different kinds of good edification—if you want self-edification, you should seek to speak in tongues or pray in tongues; if you want church edification, then you should seek to prophesy. But I don't think that's what Paul means here. Look at 14:1. He encourages these Christians to desire especially the gift of prophesy. Then down in verse 12, he says, "Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church." Then down in verse 19 he says, "But in the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue." Paul is saying that you have to be able to understand something in order to be edified by it. Intelligibility is necessary for edifying the church! And that, he says, is the goal of spiritual gifts. (p. 234)

A beautiful excerpt from Why We Love the Church (by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, published by Moody Publishers, Chicago, 2009):

I am sick of books about community, so I'm hesitant to write about it in this space. I've learned that community rarely feels like that mountaintop experience in college, in the dorms, at midnight, when you and your buddies are confessing your sins, talking about girls, and perhaps talking about God and solving the church's problems over cold pizza. That situation is tailor-made for community because you're all the same, and you're all stuck there with nothing else to do. It's easy to love your friends in college because they're all basically like you. Community becomes much harder when there's something on the line—like my time, my money, my ideals, my precious opinions, my ego, and my privacy.

That said, community is people arranging to pay each others' bills when times get tough. It means arranging to grocery shop for someone when that someone suddenly has to be the primary caregiver to their sick spouse all day. It means spending time with your disabled family member or friend who is rapidly declining in health, when that time isn't fun, rewarding, or especially productive. And it's about those friends staying friends with us through our cynicism and sometimes bitterness. (pp. 193-194)

It's a good read. The tone of the book is polemical, so some of the readers of my blog won't like it, but it seeks to set straight those who would dare slander my Saviour's dear bride.

Don't jump to conclusions. I'm not going to be polemical.

Deuteronomy 25:11 is a funny verse when you read it in different translations. The ESV translates it, "When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts." I italicized "private parts" because when you look at how different modern translations give us this verse, they all sound pretty much the same until it gets to talking about a guy's junk.

It's "private parts" in the ESV, the NIV, the Amplified Bible, and the CEV. It's "genitals" in the NASB, the HCSB, the NKJV, and the Message. The NLT translates it "testicles" and my favourite English translation (i.e., the one that most obscures the meaning of the word, thus being the funniest) is from our not-so-modern translation the KJV, which renders the word, "the secrets."

To add to the interesting translations, in French, the verse is translated « Lorsque des hommes se querelleront ensemble, l'un avec l'autre, si la femme de l'un s'approche pour délivrer son mari de la main de celui qui le frappe, si elle avance la main et saisit ce dernier par les parties honteuses » (Louis Segond). Take my word for it, it means the same thing as the English versions. Except this version's translation of a guy's junk is different; « honteuse » is the French adjective for shameful, or disgraced, or ashamed.

At first it appeared this was a huge sociological suggestion at how the French viewed sex (i.e., as it being shameful), but it turns out the word actually literally means "that excites shame" in the Hebrew. This made me wish that I knew something about Hebrew, but I don't, so I can't go any further in inferring what this implies about Jewish thought concerning sex and its goodness.

It's still funny, though, that the KJV translates a man's genitals as "the secrets."

A few days back, the Quote of the Day was, "Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music" (Marcus Brigstocke). Pretty interesting considering that's how a few decades in the 1900s looked.

Anyway, a friend commented,

Well everyone knows that with the advent of Tetris, children's rooms were notably more organized and tidy. Also, a similar effect can be seen with Pokémon. PETA had to introduce an entire new propaganda unit to stop people from shoving squirrels into tennis balls.

Actually that last one doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. "I choose you SQUIRRFUR!" "SQUIRRFUR uses RABIES." "RABIES is super effective." "LITTLE JOHNNY is dead."

If you have Pokémon experience, I'm sure you enjoyed this little section.

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For more laughter, today's daily Dilbert comic was awesome. Check it out.