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Meirav's posts with tag: christian
This has got to be one of the most encouraging things I have ever read - someone who has found a way of giving a sense of hope and purpose to convicts in what would seem a totally hopeless situation.
And reading this I found myself thinking how easy it is for us to think that convicts in prison are worse than we are, whilst in reality the difference between them and us is that they've been caught and punished.
Here's something good I found on Chris Skinner's site and am reproducing here with his permission:
Was The Apostle Paul Anti-Semitic?
Anti-semitism is a shameful fact of Church history and Bible translators have done a lot to fuel this. One of the most dreadful mistranslations of Scripture can be found in Pauls first letter to the Thessalonians.
14 Ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: 15 Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: 16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.
If this translation is accurate, it raises some issues. The Apostle Paul himself was Jewish and remained so even after his Damascus Road conversion and he had a passion for the salvation of his people (Romans 9-11). He has not abandoned his people and turn against them. Nor did he cease being a Jew and become a "Christian". The fact that he contrasts "us" with "the Gentiles" in verse 16 enforces this point.
The Greek word often translated "Jew" ("Judaioi") is also the same word for Judeans. These were Jews living in Judea. In some instances, the word "Judaioi" is used to refer to "Jews" as opposed to Gentiles. In other instances, it is used to refer to Judeans within the land of Israel. The context can be used to decide which group the writer has in mind. For example, in John 7v1 it states that Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews [Judeans] sought to kill Him (NKJV). If the writer intended to mean all Jews everywhere sought to kill him, he would not have walked in Galilee either. Later on in that same passage it refers to a group where "no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews [or Judeans]. The "no man" that would speak openly were also Jews and therefore it makes more sense to translate this as "Judeans". It was this group that persecuted Yeshua, not the Jewish people as a whole. This is referring to a localised group composed of some Judean Jews and not to all Jewish people in all times and places.
I was very excited to discover that the book "Christianity is Jewish" by Edith Schaeffer is once again available - last time I tried to get a copy it was out of print, but it is now available from Wesley Owen so at long last I've been reunited with a book that drastically changed my outlook and opened my eyes to see what the Bible really is about. It is a book that challenged my then rather woolly thinking and got me to realise that there are intelligent people who take the Bible seriously as truth!
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