"Reverend Ike" was a preacher on the radio. EVERY sermon he asked, "how much blessing do YOU need? If you need $5 of blessing, send $5. If you need $10 of blessing, send $10. But, if you need the kind of blessing that comes from $20 of blessing, then everybody needs to send $20."
In addition to good preachers, listening to Christian apologists can be very interesting as well. I do quite a bit of watching YouTube videos of such people, and they can really add to what one knows of the Bible. One that I like listening to is a man that is/was a cold case detective that for 35 years was an atheist. His name is J. Warner Wallace and his YouTube channel is called "Cold Case Christianity."
He spoke of going to church with his wife one day and the minister speaking of Jesus as a "really smart man." That piqued his interest enough to buy a inexpensive Bible, just to read Jesus' words more than anything. However, as he read the Gospels, he came to the conclusion that they REALLY appeared to be authentic eye witness accounts of Jesus' life and ministry. That eventually led to him becoming a Christian.
Another good apologist is Frank Turek, and his YouTube channel is called "Cross Examined." In addition to his YouTube channel, he has written a book entitled, "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist," in which he presents scientific evidence to show that science hasn't yet "proven" anything better than what the Bible teaches about the beginning of the universe and beginning of life.
"if I send 10 dollars to the Church of the Bleeding Heart of Jesus, located somewhere in Los Angeles, California, next week they'll say my prayer on the radio and all my dreams will come true. So I did...and the next week I got a prayer... for the girl...well, you know what kind of eyes she got."
Yep. I don't see how anyone can look at nature and not see this world was created by an intelligent being.
I can't speak to all translations, but if I remember right, the ASV of 1901 had a list of something like 20 or so Biblical scholars that worked on the translation. Those scholars were from the U.S. and from Britain. I would "presume" that they may have had good agreement on how the ASV should be translated.
As for myself, I have a number of Bible versions, but for the most part, I deal with the ASV and if I'm uncertain as to what a word or phrase means, I then turn to the NASB.
Yeppers...
...and as a serious, amateur photographer, I like to tell people that I get to see evidence of God each and every day.
Evidence is a always tough thing to come by. Somewhat like looking at a lot of things the media says and what is legit information and what is misinformation. One has to look at the whole situation and try to figure out what is true.
In addition to the type of bible translation (literal vs. idea), many modern translations have an agenda in changing scripture. Much like what is going on with the UMC church, corruption exists in translation that softens certain verses for many modern ideas. They don't usually change things that are difficult or impossible to get away with (yet!), but they soften words everywhere they can get away with it. All in support of whatever cultural ideas humans think they know better than God on (individualism, feminism, etc.).
Often they try to hinge what they want to sell on a single verse instead of the Word as a whole, this makes it easier to slightly change a word and the meaning to deceive. One thing that is cool is to go to the biblegateway.com and put in a single verse and then click on the "see it in all English translations" link. You can often determine by reading all of them what the different translators thought of the original text. You can even count them up and find out that 20% thought this and 80% thought that, and who knows, maybe the Holy Spirit will lead you to believe the 20% are correct.
I'm a big fan of the NASB. I hadn't had a lot of experience with the KJV until recently, but I am a fan of it as well. I'm a fan of most translations that haven't been corrupted by the modern thinking. I've been working through a commentary written 300+ years ago (Matthew Henry) that I've really been enjoying lately. It is available on the web in concise and longer versions.
You would be right to point out that it also has biases from its day as well, it does. Going back to the Hebrew and Greek would be great if I knew them, and better yet, the them of the day they were written!
My wife and I spent two days in the Museum of the Bible in DC a couple of weeks ago. A very educational experience. I highly recommend it.
Agreed. The 'genesis' of everything we see doesn't seem like it could be due to a random lightning strike of the muck a billion years ago. I believe in God, but the details and mechanics get murky for me.
Same. Grew up in church, was devoted Baptist for most of my life. Even taught Sunday School a time or three...the whole nine yards.
I've never doubted there's a God, but I've come to believe the bible, and all other works similar to it are simply works of man, designed to explain the unexplainable, we the added bonus of using the precepts as a means of controlling people.
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