Stop Wycliffe, SIL and Frontiers from Removing Son and Father from the Bible!

Wycliffe Bible Translators, the largest missionary translation organization in the world has been producing Bibles which remove the words "Son" and "Father" from the descriptions of Jesus and God. These Bibles are being produced for Muslims and are called Muslim Idiom Translations (MIT). In order to "contextualize" the Bible, Jesus is now described as "God's Uniquely Beloved Chosen One", or even worse, "God's Representative." References to "Father" have been "retranslated" as "Lord." One version reads "baptizing them in the name of the Lord, the Representative and the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19)

You can help confront this by signing the petition, Lost in Translation. When you sign the petition, your name and any note you write will be sent to the heads of Wycliffe, SIL and Mission Frontiers. Clicking on the link will NOT automatically sign the petition. It will take you to the website where you can read all about it BEFORE signing. I hope you do sign it.

Wycliffe has been denying many of the claims in the petition. Answers to their denials can be found in the Fact Check, which is produced by Biblical Missiology. Wycliffe's denials raise more concerns.

By joining this effort, you will be supporting the effort to save an important ministry from apostasy and you will help the efforts of the faithful Christians within these organizations which are trying to fight this error. Many long-term missionaries have already left the organization. The church in the Muslim world is asking for your help. These "Bibles" are hurting the cause of the Gospel.

The "Babytalk Gospel"

Here is the Gospel in six statements from this morning in the sermon on Isaiah 28:1-13


i. There is only one true God who made the world and everything in it including us
ii. We brought sin into the world through our first father and every single person who followed him
iii. Because of our sin we have earned God’s wrath and maimed the world.
iv. Jesus came as our rescuing king to pay the price for our sin, live a perfect life as our representative and begin to set the world straight
v. One day (soon in God time) Jesus will return to finish out his work
vi. We receive rescue and become part of the rescue plan when we quit trying to rescue ourselves, trust Jesus to do it for us, and follow him away from our old lives of self reliance and sin.

Why the Final Party Won't Be in Earthly Jerusalem

Today I preached on Isaiah 17:7-13. The passage looks to the future of Israel, which will suffer greatly by being carried into captivity into Babylon. God tells the Israelites that the captivity is for the purpose of discipline, not judgement. He is seeking to bring them into repentance so that they will smash their idols and experience atonement for their sins.

Then, "on that day" the Lord will travel through Israel from the Euphrates River to the Nile and harvest the Israelites by threshing them (somewhat as olives are harvested from trees) and he will gather Israelites from Egypt and Assyria and they will worship in Jerusalem, on the holy mountain.

I argue that the image of Jerusalem as a destination for the people of God is simply reference to God's people worshiping him on the last day. I don't believe that the passage means that all of the members of God's family will buy a plane ticket to Israel and worship in a "holy land." The focus here is not on the land, the land is a symbol. The focus is on the act of worship.

Here's why:


1)Unless the people of God were a very small company (consider all of the redeemed through history!), they would never fit.
2)The idea that the Gospel goes out over the earth that the kingdom of God would be manifested on earth, and then all of the people move back to Jerusalem seems backward. (Acts 1:8 “…to the remotest part of the earth.”)
3)This attachment to land is a peculiarly OT focus, it seems absent from the NT, even when the “trumpet” sounds. (1 Thess 4:16; and where’s ANY mention of a return to Jerusalem?)
4)The Jerusalem mentioned in Revelation is NEW, not the old one (Rev. 21:2) and everyone agrees it comes at the end, not during a millennial reign.
5)The physical land is linked to a national entity, which has passed as the locus of God’s people, backwards in God’s redemptive plan, a return to OT Judaism which seems against all NT teaching (Gal 2:16; 4:9).
6)Jesus seems to specifically reject the view that the final worshiping place is on a mountain in John 4:21, while explicitly rejected the Samaritan error.
7)The boundaries describes NEVER fully existed and never did. Are we looking at a war which results in an Israel covering Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, half of Iraq and part of Egypt (not that I would mind!).
8)Even Abraham saw the land as symbolic as he looked to a city whose “architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:11).
9)Everything else in the chapter is symbolic:
a.Leviathan,
b.the serpent,
c.the sword,
d.the dragon,
e.the sea,
f.a vineyard,
g.briers and thorns,
h.the burning,
i.taking root,
j.blossoming and sprouting,
k.fruit,
l.the fierce east wind,
m.the threshing,
n.destruction of pagan temples [partly],
o.and possibly the calf grazing and women gathering. (15 total)

Notice how much of the passage is symbolic. Many other passages in the Bible should be considered from this view-point, such as Revelation 20. The fact that something is symbolic doesn't mean that it is not true. Symbols make non-literal points about objective realities. When we call Jesus the lamb of God, we're affirming real, concrete, historical reality, but in non literal and symbolic ways.

Marshall St. John Has Entered the Courts of the King

Marshall St. John, pastor of Wayside Presbyterian Church, loving father and husband and my friend, passed into the arms of his savior after a short battle with malignant melanoma of the lungs. His spirit was borne by angels to the throne of the father and his body will wait for the resurrection of the dead. Marshall was known for his Christ-like kindness, love for others, and his deep humility. He will be greatly missed.

The visitation will be on Monday night and the Memorial Service will be a 2 pm at Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church. The service will NOT be at Wayside because of space limitations. Please pray for his congregation, his wife, Grace, and his adult children, Becky and David.

Continued Prayer Needed for Marshall St. John

Our dear brother, Marshall St. John, the pastor of Wayside Presbyterian in Signal Mountain, Tennessee, continues to struggle with cancer. His weakness has been increasing and currently his white blood cell count is dropping as he is struggling with infection. Please pray for his healing, his faith, and his family (especially his wife, Grace). He desires from his heart to see God, but he grieves over the possibility of leaving his family and work. Marshall has a firm confidence in the finished work of Christ at the Cross. He trusts Jesus with all his heart. 2 Corinthians 5:21 "God made him [Jesus] who knew no sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

Thank you for praying.

A Reflection on Same-Sex Attraction and Celibacy

A friend sent me this, a beautiful reflection on same-sex attraction and celibacy from a Christian man who knows about this from experience. (A thank you to Bekah.)

Christians Persecuted in Vietnam

This just in from ICC. I have to admit, Vietnam and our brothers and sisters there are often not on my radar screen. Note the age of the youngest victim and pray.

Christian Worshippers Brutally Beaten by Vietnamese Police
Sixteen Degar Montagnard Christians Attacked, Twelve Beaten Unconscious, One Arrested

Washington, D.C. (August 17, 2011) – International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that a violent attack against indigenous minority Christians in the central highlands of Vietnam took place this past July, leaving sixteen men and women severely injured and one man still under arrest; his welfare remains unknown to date. The systematic persecution of Degar Montagnard Christians continues, with this brutal attack as proof of the regime’s purposeful policing, harassment, and aggressive oppression of this indigenous people and minority religious group.

On July 7, 2011, at approximately 8 o’clock in the evening, Vietnamese security forces and police descended upon a worship service in the village of Buon Kret Krot (H’Ra commune, Mang Yang district, Plei Ku city, in Gai Lai province), and began kicking and beating the attendees. Security forces threatened the villagers, stating: “If anyone worships like this way, we will return to arrest you all and put you in prison for five years.” Twelve men and four women were beaten, and of these, ten men and two women were violently beaten to unconsciousness. Police beat A Jung, a 29-year old male, repeatedly with a baton until he collapsed to the ground where they continued to kick and stomp on his stomach and back until he lost consciousness. A Jung was taken away by police and remains in custody; he has likely experienced torture while imprisoned. Other villagers were beaten with batons, firearms and tree branches, and kicked and stomped upon by the Vietnamese security forces. The youngest victim was Y Kang, a 13-year old girl.

Vietnam has a long-standing practice of policing, harassing, and arresting Christians who are unaffiliated with the government-sanctioned and only legally-recognized religious bodies in the nation. According to Scott Johnson, with the Montagnard Foundation, "The Vietnamese government has targeted indigenous Degar Montagnards for simply being members of Christian house churches, in a long running policy designed to eliminate independent Christian house churches. Hundreds of Degar Montagnards remain in prison today and in custody many prisoners are brutally tortured and even killed. There is a shameful silence from the international community, including the United Nations and State Department, as to the plight of these forgotten prisoners even while the evidence of systematic religious persecution is overwhelming."

According to Human Rights Watch, since 2001 more than 350 Degar Montagnards have been arrested and sentenced to long prison sentences on vaguely-defined charges that are considered to be subversive to the Vietnamese regime.

ICC’s Regional Manager for Southeastern Asia, Kris Elliott, said, “We call upon the Vietnamese government to cease this systematic practice of violence and persecution against Christians, especially Degar Montagnards. We also urge the US Department of State to once again designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern, as conditions for religious minorities have vastly deteriorated since the designation was lifted in 2006. A CPC designation backed by strong US policies has the potential to pave a path towards significant improvements for Christians and other religious minorities in Vietnam.”

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You are free to disseminate this news story. We request that you reference ICC (International Christian Concern) and include our web address, www.persecution.org. ICC is a Washington-DC based human rights organization that exists to help persecuted Christians worldwide. ICC provides Awareness, Advocacy, and Assistance to the worldwide persecuted Church. For additional information or for an interview, contact ICC at 800-422-5441 or 301-585-5915.