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NASB | Judges 11:39 At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her according to the vow which he had made; and she had no relations with a man. Thus it became a custom in Israel, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Judges 11:39 At the end of two months she returned to her father, who did to her as he had vowed; and she had no relations with a man. It became a custom in Israel, |
Bible Question:
So...if I understand correctly...when I spell God with an 'o'...I am profaning His name? I guess when I actually say it, I am...what? blaspheming? Actually, the way I always understood it, the tetragrammaton of the Jewish scriptures was God's name, which the Jews were very careful with, to the point that we don't really know how the name was pronounced...thus we have Jehovah and Yahweh. So, this posting and your e-mail got me to wondering about the Messianic Synagogue. I visited a site, and found that the...uh, denomination? movement?...claims to believe in Jesus, and the New Testament, as well as the Old. That sounds promising. But do you really need to present your faith to the rest of us in a such a way that really serves as an accusation that all the rest of Christendom is profaning the name of...uh, G-d? Now, I know that you don't, Cheri. Your postings have shown you to be kind and loving. This G-d thing just seems to me to represent another divisive influence within the body of Christ, if indeed the Messianic Synagogue movement is within the body...I'm not saying they aren't, just saying I don't know enough about their doctrine to be able to have an opinion on the point. It seems like every denomination has its own unique 'hot-buttons' where they think they have the truth and the rest of us are off-base a little bit. It would be funny, if it weren't so sad...I saw a church once that had a sign out front that had the same name as the church I attended at the time, and they weren't far away; I had passed it many times before without really noticing it. So I asked someone about it, and the reply was..."oh, those are the one-cuppers." When sharing Communion, the group believed all had to drink from one cup. What a point to split a church, huh? I did notice that when I visited the MJ site, they also used the "G-d" device to name God. I further noticed that you included the "o" in one of your last postings to John on the subject. So...studybibleforum experts, what name are we to use for God, and are there any we should forbear using? Lev 24:16 Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. |
Bible Answer: Monday greetings, halroy! I enjoyed your post and believe you made some good points well. Particularly was I arrested by your remarks in paragraph six about the "one cupper" group, because of an experience that dates back, and that was way back! to my college days in Nashville, Tennessee. In the environs of Nashville in those days was a certain denomination (although they claimed to be THE CHURCH and thus eschewed the label of denomination and looked with disdain upon anyone who applied the term to their "true church," which with remarkable vigor they asserted themselves to be) -- there was, then, this certain denomination which got into a squabble concerning how the element of the fruit of the vine (grape juice, in this instance) ought to be administered. About half the church elders noted that in 1 Cor. 11:25 Paul quotes Jesus as follows: "This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it in remembrance of me." So they reasoned that since the demonstrative pronoun "this" is singular, and so is "cup," that the congregants must therefore employ a common cup and pass it amongst themselves. But about an equal number of the elders took the view that this was much too legalistic a view and held for using the tiny individual cups served from a tray made expressly for serving the communion in this manner to the congregation. After many meetings and much talk, they came to a deadlock, with approximately half the congregation siding with the one-cup elders and the remainder with the multi-cup elders. ..... So, instead of splitting the church physcially into two groups, each group meeting under separate roofs, they hit upon the idea of remaining physically under the same roof, with the multi-cuppers sitting to the left of the center aisle and the uni-cuppers to the right, sort of like dividing the sheep from the goats. I was, as I mentioned, a college student in Nashville and soon moved from the area, so I never did learn how things eventually worked out between the uni-cuppers and multi-cuppers, but the memory of this incident has stayed with me for lo these fifty-odd years. .......Before I bid you good day in this post, halroy, I would like to append a comment on the next-to-last paragraph of your interesting post in which you pose the question of what name we are to use for God on SBF. I would suggest that we do what most other Christians and reliable English translations of Scripture do in this respect: in general discourse simply refer to Him as God, so that even the poor dyslectic will be able to transpose the letters he sees as doG and know that we are speaking of God. There are exceptions, certainly, and we must be reasonable. God has many other titles, many of them highly descriptive, that appear in our most trusted and revered English translations. For example To dare change the pattern prayer of the Lord Jesus that appears in Matthew's Gospel from "Our Father" to "God" is not only fatuous and inane but constitutes a tampering with the sacred text. This we should never do! ..... I won't attempt to lay down any hard and fast rules on this subject, and indeed such an attempt would be pointless and presumputuous of me. My point in my former post was not meant to play the role of judge and juror on this or any other subject, and any Forum reader who thinks so is missing the entire point of the post. One of the responses (not yours) that my former post elicited was something to the effect that since Jesus was a Jew, we should not be insensitive to His Jewishness. Of course we shouldn't! But that doesn't mean we should bring a verbal aura of the synagogue to SBF! Moreover, we do not live under the law, "for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth" (Romans 10:4). And, "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him" (Romans 10:12). ....... Most of us speak, write and think exclusively in English. We understand words like God, Father, Son, Jesus, Christ, Lord, and Holy Spirit. We don't speak ancient Hebrew or Greek, and most of us don't understand very much of either. Words like Alpha and Omega are well anglicized by now and most literate speakers of English know exactly what they mean. And there are, of course, other foreign words and phrases that are widely known by speakers of English. So there's really no need to make a big to-do about what I suggested regarding the use of esoteric names for the Godhead, and of certain other Hebrew and Greek words about the meaning of which very few on this Forum have a clue. My post was not intended to be a philippic but a call to exercise reason and common sense. But common sense may not be so common as one might suppose. Perhaps time will tell. --Hank |