Prayers on the Psalms

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I have just received my copy of Prayers on the Psalms:From The Scottish Psalter of 1595 and am delighted with it! It will now be placed on my morning table alongside Reading the Psalms with Luther to aid me as I seek to pray the Psalms.

After just seeing the book in a catalog I did not realize this little volume contains a prayer from each Psalm. This makes it, like Luther’s book, immensely valuable. Some Psalms and some mornings combine to make it relatively easy to pray the particular Psalm in view. Many other days it is more difficult and having a good example is very helpful.

Furthermore, late 16th century Scotland is a good source for mature reflection on the Psalms- a day when the psalms were cherished, sung and prayed. The difficult days of the Covenanters, when so many died for the faith, was yet 40 or so years away. Yet, it is no surprise that when these Covenanters faced persecution, rejection and death, they did so with the Psalms on their lips.  These psalm-based prayers from the previous generation formed part of the soil from which grew such faith and endurance.

Lastly, I am increasingly convinced that the best way to prepare to preach the Psalms is to have been praying and singing them along the way. Thus, I am grateful for this little volume.

The Gospel is for All Christians

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While at Southern Seminary about a week ago I had the opportunity to meet Mitch Chase and to see his new book, The Gospel Is For Christians.  So far I have only been able to peruse the book, but I like what I see. The thesis is dead on and has been a key concern of my own teaching over the last several years- We must not think of the gospel simply as the way to get saved but as the way to live. The gospel is more than “the plan of salvation” (though not less). It is the explanation of and power for life.

I applaud Mitch’s effort in addressing this important theme and wanted to make sure you heard about this book.

Michael Morgan Bible Exhibit at Union University

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I recently posted a list of the items from the Green Collection which will be on exhibit at our upcoming King James Bible Festival, “KJV400: Legacy & Impact”. I can now also provide a list of the items which will be in display simultaneously from Michael Morgan’s private collection. Michael has visited Union previously with an exhibit of his old and rare psalters. The list below contains hyperlinks to help explain various items.

I was amazed at what will be on display between these two collections so I asked Michael how unusual this exhibit will be, since he is often involved with similar exhibits and has a good knowledge of them.  His answer amazed me:

This really promises to be one of the most incredible exhibits anywhere during this anniversary year. Many of the books are so exceedingly rare that the sheer fact they will all be in one place at the same time makes it a unique opportunity to experience the history of the King James Bible. Virtually every translation will be represented in first or very early editions, from Wycliffe to the Oxford Standard KJV of 1769. That’s truly amazing!

I can’t imagine another exhibit in the country which comes close to this. I do know that the Folger Library [Washington, D.C.] and the Bodleian Library at Oxford have assembled an exhibit, but except for the fact that some of those books belonged to the kings and queens involved in the process, it won’t be any more comprehensive. I can only speak for the English side, but this exhibit borders on unbelievable. Where else could there be 2 Tyndales, a Coverdale and a Taverner, 4 Great Bibles, and 2 first printings of the KJV? I hope the exhibit will be available for viewing to those who might not be registered for the conference. It would be worth the driving time and perhaps even the cost of a hotel room to see such an assembly!

This will be a wonderful, perhaps once in a lifetime, opportunity and I hope you and people in your churches will be able to take advantage of it.

Here is the list of key items which will be here from Michael Morgan’s collection:

Wycliffe NT (Pickering printing, 1848)
(a magnificent black-letter printing, a good complement to the mss. leaf to be displayed)

Tyndale/Erasmus NT, 1550
(prints Tyndale and Erasmus’ Latin versions in parallel columns)

Matthews Bible, 1549 (“Wife-Beater” Bible)
(the second printing of Matthews Bible, and the first with Becke’s controversial notes)

Great Bible, 1540
(good complement to the 1539, virtually identical but could be opened to another page)

Great Bible, 1562 (First Elizabethan Edition)
(with Altdorffer’s woodcuts, beautiful edition)

Geneva Bible, 1578 (First Large Folio Edition)
(black-letter to compete with Bishops’ Bible, with Prayer Book)

Geneva Bible 1640
(Final Edition, and first to formally omit the Apocrypha)

Bishops’ Bible, 1572
(Second Folio with revisions, display could highlight differences)

Cartwright’s NT 1618 (Catholic confutation)
(similar in scope to Fulke’s NT)

KJV Folio 1611 (“He” Bible)
(a second copy of the First Folio, could be open to highlight a different page)

KJV Folio 1616
(First revision)

KJV Folio 1629
(First Cambridge revision)

KJV Folio 1638
(First Cambridge “Standard” Edition)

KJV Folio 1660
(Field’s magnificent Bible commemorating Charles II, with huge folding engravings)

KJV 1675
(First Oxford Edition)

KJV Folio 1716/7
(Baskett’s “Vinegar” Bible, very impressive edition — huge!)

KJV 1762
(Paris’ Cambridge revision)

KJV Folio 1763
(Baskerville’s Bible, First Issue, considered one of the finest English Bibles ever printed)

Full Score of Handel’s “Messiah” 1761 (KJV Text)
(a tie-in with the music associations of the KJV)

Macklin’s Bible Folio 1800
(largest Bible ever printed — I’ll only bring one of the huge volumes, of which there are 7)

“The Singing Savior,” by Edmund Clowney

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I recently came across the article by this title written by Clowney for Moody Monthly back in 1979. It is a wonderful, powerful piece (only 3 pages) on the importance of singing in the Christian life, the Psalms and Christ. It is primarily a meditation on the fact the New Testament shows us Jesus singing the Psalms.  He explores Jesus singing the songs of lament as he bore our curse and the resulting singing of praise for His victory. Here are a few quotes:

Where Christ comes, song comes, for Jesus Christ is a singing savior. “I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the congregation, will I sing they praise” (Heb. 2:12).

If you would open a new experience of worship, meditate on the Psalms as the Psalms of Jesus.

You needn’t hum a hymn to begin your personal witness to a neighbor, but if your heart is singing praise, then your witness will ring true. And a praising church, full of gospel singing, is a church in which visitors will say, “God is among you, indeed!” (1 Cor. 14:25).

Quotes can capture the full piece. I encourage you to check it out.

Bible Exhibit at KJV Festival, Sept. 15-17

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One wonderful development with the upcoming King James Bible Festival at Union University is that a significant portion of the Green Collection will be on display. This will be the first time this amazing collection has visited the Southeast. Listed below are some of the items which will be on display during our festival with links to further information or photos on several items. This will be a wonderful opportunity to experience part of the story of the Bible’s preservation through the years. You can register for the festival here.

1.  Pictographic Cuneiform text

2.  Borders of Shara Cuneiform Text

3.  Dedication Nail

4. Student Cuneiform Tablet

5.  Multiplication Table

6.  Cuneiform Lexicon

7.  Mummy Mask with Cartonage

8.  Papyrus Roll

9.  Gold Incantation Text with Facsimile Picture of the Silver Incantation Text

10.  Incantation Bowl

11.  Select Styli

12.  A Dead Sea Scroll ms and an identical vellum facsimile of the Great Isaiah Scroll

13.  Bodmer Papyrus XXIV: Psalm 23

14.  1 Cor 10 Papyrus

Codex Climaci Rescriptus Leaves

15.  Codex Climaci Rescriptus Leaves– view a video describing the significance of this item

16.  Santi Cecelia Biblia Latina, 1 Volume

17.  Carolingian Homolies

18.  Greek minuscule Gospels

19.  Latin English Psalter

20.  Latin English Bible

21.  Coptic and Arabic Scripture

22.  Syriac, NT

23.  Armenian, NT

Ethipoc manuscript

24.  Ethiopic ms

25.  German, Biblia Historiale (Facsimile Volume)

26.  Wycliffe NT Leaf Book

27.  Latin/German Bible

Inquisition Torah

28.  Inquisition Torah

29.  Megillah Scroll

Megillah Scroll

30.  Genizah ms

31.  Block Book (Facsimile)

32.  Gutenberg Leaf

33.  Koberger 9th German Bible

34.  Golden Legend, Julian Notary, 1503

35.  Complutensian Polyglot

36.  Erasmus, Greek NT, 1516

37.  Bomberg, Biblia Hebraica

38.  Luther NT, 1524

Luther NT, 1524

39.  A COMPENDIOUS OLDE TREATYSE, 1530

40.  Tyndale NT, 1535

41.  Coverdale Bible, 1535

42.  Matthews Bible, 1537

43.  Coverdale, Diglot, 1538

44.  Taverner, Bible, 1539

45.  Biblia Latina, London

46.  Great Bible, 1539

47.  Erasmus NT Paraphrase, 1548/1549

48.  Hans Holbein, 1549 (Facsimile of notes)

49.  Stephanus, Greek NT, 1551

50.  Great Bible, 1553

51.  Geneva Bible, 1560

52.  Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 1563 (Facsimiles of Wycliffe and Tyndale woodcuts)

53.  Bishop’s Bible, 1568

54.  Bishop’s, NT, 1568

55.  Anglo-Saxon, Diglot, 1571

56.  Rheims, NT, 1582

57.  Fulke, 1589

58.  Beza, NT, 1598

59.  Bishop’s, 1602 and facsimile notes

60.  Douay, OT, 1609

61.   KJV Folio 1611 HE

KJV Folio 1611 “HE Bible”

62.  KJV 1613/11

63.  The Works of King James including his Paraphrase of the Apocalypse

Psalms translated by King James

The Psalms translated by King James

64.  The Psalms translated by King James

65.  KJV with Geneva notes

66.  KJV 1631 Wicked Bible

67.  Elzevir Greek New Testament, 1633

68.  KJV, 1769 Revision

69.  Chalners, Catholic Bible

70.  Aitken, KJV, 1782

Spurgeon on Gospel Preaching

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Spurgeon is a great example of gospel preaching always bringing the great truths to bear on the minds and hearts of his hearers. This is a great quote.

“I may not have many more opportunities of preaching, and I make up my mind to this one thing, that I will waste no time upon secondary themes, but when I do preach it shall be the gospel or something closely bearing upon it.  I will endeavour each time to strike under the fifth rib, and never beat the air.  Those who have a taste for superfluities may take their fill of them, it is for me to keep to the great necessary truths by which men’s souls are saved.  My work is to preach Christ crucified and the gospel, which gives men salvation through faith.  I hear every now and then of very taking sermons about some bright new nothing or another.  Some preachers remind me of the emperor who had a wonderful skill in carving men’s heads upon cherry stones.  What a multitude of preachers we have who can make wonderfully fine discourses out of a mere passing thought, of no consequence to anyone.  But we want the gospel.  We have to live and die, and we must have the gospel.  Certain of us may be cold in our graves before many weeks are over, and we cannot afford to toy and trifle: we want to see the bearings of all teachings upon our eternal destinies, and upon the gospel which sheds its light over our future.”
(Sermons by Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, ed. Sir W. Robertson Nicoll [Thomas Nelson and Sons, nd.]),388; preached April 9, 1882.  Spurgeon actually did live and preach for 10 more years).

The Cultural Impact of the Church

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“Only one reliable force stands in the way of the power of the strong over the weak. Only one reliable force forms the foundation of the concept of the rule of law. Only one reliable force restrains the hand of the man of power. And, in an age of power-worship, the Christian religion has become the principal obstacle to the desire of earthly utopians for absolute power (Peter Hitchens, The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith, 113).

This is a key point, demonstrated powerfully by Hitchens, which is often forgotten or ignored. The evidence is available around the world and increasingly at home. Let us, then, be the Church resisting the siren call of compromise with the powers of the world.

The Gospel, The Cure of Cowardice

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“…cowardice would seem to be a sort of fearful yielding of the soul” (Theophrastus, Characters [371-287 BC])

Cowardice “is a disease graver than any that affects the body since it destroys the faculties of the soul. Diseases of the body flourish but for a short time, but cowardice is an inbred evil, as closely inherent or more so than any part of the bodily system from the earliest years to extreme old age, unless it is healed by God. For all things are possible to Him” (Philo, On the Virtues, 26; 1st century AD).

“For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but of power, love and self-control.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” (Paul, 2 Timothy 1:7-14; 1st century AD [ESV, altered])

Considering Bible Translation, Two Recent Essays

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The method or theory of bible translation is an important and, at times, a complicated issue. It is something pastors need to consider. I have made clear elsewhere that I favor a more literal translation, rather than a dynamic equivalence approach. I don’t think dynamic equivalence translations are evil, but I think there is much to be gained in as literal a translation as possible.

Two recent essays have discussed this issue in significant detail, saying better than I could things I have wanted to say. So, I will point you to them.

The first essay is from Alan Jacobs, professor of English at Wheaton (I have previously commended his book on C. S. Lewis). This is a fairly lengthy post but a very valuable one. The issue in translation often hinges on what English today does or should sound/look like, so this analysis from a prominent English professor is significant. After referring to “an assertively egalitarian, democratizing, and anti-elitist culture like our own today,” Jacobs begins to describe how such a culture shapes approaches to translation.

Only in such a culture would something like “dynamic equivalence” models of translation be developed, because dynamic equivalence – which encourages translators to ask how we in our time and place might say whatever the Bible is taken to say – allows one to deal with difficult passages in the original text not by translating them but by interpreting their obscurities out of existence. Such passages must be cleared away, whenever possible, in order to make the crooked places straight and the rough places plain. The simple and problem-free translation then offers itself as evidence of the simplicity and problem-freeness of the biblical text itself. The translators thus stand to their readers in loco parentis: The “little children” never have to know what struggles their scholarly fathers undertook in order to protect them from the agonies of interpretive confusion.

I encourage you to read the whole of Jacobs’ essay.

Second, Jim Hamilton, professor at Southern Seminary, has written an important critique titled, “Dynamic Equivalence: The Method is the Problem.” Jim gives several good examples of the difference between dynamic equivalence translation and a more literal translation. Contrasting the way the NET Bible translates John 9:24, Hamilton writes:

People may have to give some thought to the phrase “give glory to God.” Human beings are made in the image of God. They have enormous capacity. Give them a literal, wooden translation, and they might be forced to slow down and think as they read. They might ponder. They might begin to recognize certain Johannine styles of phrasing things – if translators would give them John’s actual words.

“Promise before God to tell the truth” sounds like something we would say. It doesn’t sound like John. That is the problem.

Hamilton’s essay is balanced and well argued.

I encourage you to take time to read both essays and consider this important issue.

Ordination sermon from 1 Thess 2:1-3:10

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I was honored last week to preach the ordination sermon for Corey Cummings, a former student. I recently posted his prayer of dedication. The audio of the sermon has now been posted as well. I took up 1 Thessalonians 2:1-3:10 where Paul describes his ministry among the Thessalonians, using his practice as an example of gospel ministry. Paul describes a bold, pure ministry with great affection for the people rooted in the gospel. May we too serve in this way.