Dishonor where honor is due

Sneak preview, What About Women?, new this month from keytruths.com.

Few people mourned its passing. Few even knew that Today’s New International Version existed. Most Christians who did hear of the TNIV during its short but tempestuous life fled from it in fear.

I’m a little late in stepping up to speak. Still, I want to thank God and the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) for the Bible version the Lord put in my path during the years he was transforming my understanding of women, his kingdom and his Word.

Succumbing to the firestorm

In 2002, the same folks who had produced the wildly popular New International Version introduced a translation of the New Testament targeted for young adults. They called it, Today’s New International Version. Instantly, the TNIV became controversial. Influential leaders derided and castigated the newest member of the NIV family, for this one reason: Translators had taken the huge step of seeking to reflect the gender inclusivity of the Bible’s original languages.

Curiously, other recent translations have taken a similar step without drawing the attention or the wrath that the TNIV sparked.

In 2005, the TNIV translation of the entire Bible was introduced. Due to continuing negative publicity, it never sold well. Meanwhile, the 1984 NIV continued to dominate the Bible translation market.

In 2009, the TNIV was laid to rest and plans were announced for an updated NIV. The new NIV, released in 2011, has also been criticized – though not as widely or loudly as the TNIV. Again, the issue is its gender-inclusive language.

Do any translations perfectly capture what the original Scriptures say? No. If we expect them to do so, it’s because we have a flawed understanding of language, of translation and of the Bible texts available to us. Do we need to challenge translation bias and translation error when we find it? Yes, we do.

I’m appalled, however, at the tone and the content of the charges made against TNIV, the new NIV and the translators who produced both. The rhetoric reflects a pattern that we in the conservative US church culture have adopted and excused since the waning days of the Second Great Awakening.

In the first three decades of the 1800s, people across our young nation met with God and experienced a mighty, sweeping move of the Spirit. Christians, many of them newborn, sang together, prayed together, preached together and took communion together under the big revival tents. But then, they returned to their homes and churches to do some things that deeply grieved and quenched the Spirit. For one thing, denominations that agreed on the foundational truths of the faith began to attack one another savagely over differences in doctrine.

When the Spirit of God packed up and left, the church didn’t get the message. Still today, instead of practicing godly encouragement, exhortation and rebuke, we continue to bite and devour one another. How devastating for us all!

The translator you must seek

The TNIV came along just when God was dealing with me on the very subject of gender and his Word. Distressed by the false accusations then being made against the TNIV, I purchased a copy, read it, studied it and began quoting from it.

I’ve also continued to read, study and quote from other versions, including those whose gender terminology hides the Bible’s inclusiveness. I urge you: Don’t be afraid of any legitimate Bible translation. Certainly, it’s good to recognize a translation’s leanings. Most important, remember: You cannot understand the Word apart from the Spirit. He is the translator you must seek.

Do not think that you need a seminary degree or a certain Bible version to hear God accurately. You need humility and faith in the Lord Jesus. You need a seeking heart and a willingness to obey what he says. In short, you need unhindered Spirit-to-spirit communion with the God who honors his word and his name above everything else.

You also need connection with others of like heart – not people who have all the same views as you, but rather people who are pressing in wholeheartedly to know the truth. They may understand some things differently from you. That’s okay. In fact, it’s good. Iron sharpens iron. We need each other to affirm what the Spirit is saying, to wrestle toward the fullness of it, to bring into the light what the enemy is determined to hide.

Giving honor

I honor the TNIV translators for their courage in breaking with centuries of tradition in order represent God’s Word more accurately in modern English. I honor the Committee on Bible Translation for including evangelical Bible scholars with different views on gender. I honor the scholars for working together with integrity and holding each other accountable as they sought, to the best of their ability, to render the Word accurately. I honor them for their decision not to abandon gender inclusivity when leaders in the conservative church culture tried to force them off the road. I honor the other Bible translation teams who have followed God into this same difficult terrain.

I honor the TNIV, short-lived as it was, for its fresh, important – and sometimes awkward – expression of God’s truth. Pioneering always has a rawness about it that calls for polishing and refining. But the rawness and the risk bespeak a willingness in the hearts of people to go with God.

Excerpted from chapter 4, What About Women? A Spirit-to-spirit Exposé. © 2013 by Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Love and honor go both ways

Sneak preview, What About Women?, new this month from keytruths.com. Excerpt from “A Marriage Blessing”:

God designed marriage to picture the mutual submission of Christ, the sacrificial Savior, and the Bride whose delight is to honor him.

In a marriage that reflects God’s kingdom, love and honor go both ways.

Husband and Wife, I bless your marriage with being a multi-faceted picture of God’s relationship with his people. I bless you with not trying to paint the picture as you think it should look or as your church culture may have told you it should look, but rather giving God permission, moment by moment, to paint the picture through your marriage that HE wants to paint. Paul described one facet of the picture: “For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church” (Eph. 5:23 NLT). Genesis 2 describes another facet of the picture: “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him’” (Gen. 2:18 NLT).

Husband, be blessed to walk in increasing revelation of what being “the head” means – and what it does not mean. We’ve thought it meant, “having authority over.” Yet, look again. Ephesians 5:23 says, “Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” Jesus is Lord. He is Lord of the church. Yet Scripture does not equate Jesus’ headship of the church with his lordship and authority. Rather, “Christ is the head … he is the Savior,” who “loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). The Greek word translated head can mean “source” or “origin,” and Jesus’ sacrificial death is the source of our life. Colossians 2:19 describes Jesus’ headship this way: “The source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body” (MSG). Husband, fix your eyes on Jesus, and follow him. “Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). In relating to your wife, especially, be blessed to learn the kind of headship the Savior practiced: Walk in life-giving love.

Wife, be blessed to walk in increasing revelation of what being “a help” means – and what it does not mean. We’ve thought it meant “serving under.” Yet, look again. The Hebrew word for “helper,” ‘ezer (ay’-zer), is used 21 times in the Old Testament. Every time, it describes one who brings aid, reinforcement and rescue – one who proves himself or herself strong in behalf of someone else. In Western movies, people desperately needing help would cry with joy, “The cavalry is coming!” What the cavalry was to those people, the Lord has created you to be to your husband. But there’s more! Most of the time in Scripture, the word ‘ezer is used of God himself: “We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield” (Ps. 33:20). “Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Ps. 124:8). In John’s Gospel, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as the Helper. Wife, be blessed to walk by the Spirit and so to become the same kind of helper to your husband as the Holy Spirit is to the church.

I bless you, Husband, with not usurping the role of Jesus in your wife’s life. I bless you, Wife, with not usurping the role of the Holy Spirit in your husband’s life. At the same time, I bless you both with so cooperating with God in the picture he is painting that each of you, in very real ways, reveals God to the other and to everyone around. As each shows love and honor to the other, you are doing it to God. As each shows love and honor to the other, you are reflecting the image of God.

Excerpted from chapter 13, What About Women? A Spirit-to-spirit Exposé. © 2013 by Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

Good grief

We don’t say as much, but in our church culture, we often count expressions of grief as sin, and suppressing grief a virtue. We expect the God-fearing mourner – whether ourselves or someone else – to skip mourning and instantly assume the role of comforter.

Eager not to dishonor God, distress others or embarrass ourselves, we have thus perfected the art of short-circuiting grief.

Notice how the American Heritage Dictionary defines short circuit: “A low-resistance connection established by accident or intention between two points in an electric circuit. The current tends to flow through the area of low resistance, bypassing the rest of the circuit.”

A quicker way to a desired end sounds like a good thing – especially when the quicker way appears to avoid pain. But when an electric current finds a shorter path of very low resistance, the current becomes very strong. Damage, overheating and fires result.

Thus, in electricity, short-circuiting temporarily takes a shorter route to complete a circuit. Yet soon, short-circuiting destroys the circuit and shuts down anything dependent on it.

In a similar way, short-circuiting grief may temporarily appear to resolve it. Yet denying and stuffing grief – thus taking the path of least resistance – only strengthens the “current” beyond what you were wired to handle, bypassing resolution, impeding healing and causing damage you would not have suffered if you had given yourself permission to grieve.

Short-circuiting grief never moves you past grief. Rather, it shuts you down. It leaves you stuck in the very place you’re trying desperately to avoid.

Read the entire article.

Agreeing with dishonor

Sneak preview, What About Women?, new in June from keytruths.com.

One of the aha! moments in my life came when I heard Arthur Burk teach on the subject of honor. Only then did I begin to realize the damage in my life, and in all the Body of Christ, created by our agreeing, actively or passively, with dishonor. Now, if I had to describe in one word the sin of the conservative US church culture with regard to women, I’d say, dishonor.

In some eras and places, women have been treated with open disdain by church leaders. What About Women?, coming in June, includes examples – stunning statements by respected leaders throughout the centuries, declaring women shameful and inferior strictly because of their gender. In the last 150 years, the denigration of women by leaders in the church has taken a more duplicitous turn. Often, putdowns have been cloaked as compliments; dishonor, disguised as praise.

In our day, dishonor has become even more discreet. It may hide inside humor. It may masquerade as a genuine concern for someone’s good. Certainly, it may be directed toward men, as well as women. Recently, my son-in-law Logan and I both experienced something that jarred our spirits, but we didn’t know why. The words spoken to us didn’t seem out of line, yet, independently, each of us sensed that we’d been talked down to. When I asked God, “What was that?” he said, “A patronizing spirit.”

To patronize is to “treat with an apparent kindness that betrays a feeling of superiority.” That’s it. That’s what we had felt. Now, I’m learning by the Spirit to recognize a patronizing or condescending attitude. Always, that spirit conveys dishonor.

Why didn’t I see it sooner? Like many women in the church, I had been taught to smile and accept statements that ostensibly compliment, while firmly putting me in my place. I had believed that doing so is part of godly submission.

Yet Titus 2:15 says, “Do not let anyone treat you as if you were unimportant” (NCV). “Do not let anyone despise you” (TNIV). “Don’t let anyone put you down” (MSG).

To accept dishonor – and especially to agree to live in an atmosphere of dishonor – is unhealthy, unwise and opposite to what God intends. To allow constant putdowns – whether said jokingly or “innocently,” or inferred without words – is to invite abuse. Regardless your gender, treat other people with honor, and firmly refuse dishonor, by the Spirit of the living God.

Adapted from chapter 14, What About Women? A Spirit-to-spirit Exposé. © 2013 by Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.

“Patronize”: Oxford Dictionaries,
http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/patronize
, Copyright © 2013 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

The God of Jerry

“I remembered that you are leaving for your trip on or about the 1st of May. If I haven’t missed you, please know that you & Jerry are covered in His protection and ‘underneath are the everlasting arms …’ Becky”

Jerry and I had looked forward for months to visiting our younger daughter Amanda and son-in-law Sam, who live in northeast France, just minutes from the Belgium border. After reading the email from my friend Becky, I looked up the passage she had referenced. It’s from Deuteronomy 33.

“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, ‘Destroy them!’ So Israel will live in safety; Jacob will dwell secure in a land of grain and new wine, where the heavens drop dew.

“Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will tread on their heights” (vv. 26-29).

I’ve loved the assurance, “underneath are the everlasting arms,” ever since I first discovered it during some difficult college days. What’s more, in recent weeks, God had stirred me to explore what it means that he is our help. How striking that this passage about the everlasting arms also speaks twice of the profound blessing of God’s help!

Three days after Becky’s email arrived, Jerry and I landed in Brussels, Belgium, about 8:30 a.m. Both jetlagged, we boarded a train inside the Brussels airport. After changing trains in downtown Brussels, we would travel to the Belgian border town of Mouscron, where Amanda would pick us up.

When we disembarked at the Brussels Central station, a helpful rail agent told us which train went to Mouscron, when it left and what platform it left from. Armed with that information, we decided to make a pit stop. We took turns guarding the bags and going into the restroom – yet Jerry’s backpack was stolen right out from under our noses.

The theft

As I headed into the restroom, Jerry took off his backpack and laid it with the other luggage. Then he took his passport and holder from around his neck and slid both down into the backpack. Also in the backpack were 100 British pounds and 100 Euros, a credit card, a change of clothes and some other items.

I exited the bathroom, eager to tell Jerry that using the facilities cost 50 cents. Digging in my coin purse, I provided the change he needed and also helped out two women who didn’t have the proper coins. After Jerry entered the restroom, I noticed his backpack wasn’t with the other bags. Uneasily, I wondered if he had worn it into the restroom. When he emerged without it, we were both panic-stricken.

We stood in a large open area. Our other four bags were there, grouped together. People were coming and going, but the backpack was nowhere to be seen. We talked immediately to the same rail agent who had already helped us. He told us to report the theft to the police. He also said to check later with Lost & Found at the train station. He said that, sometimes, a thief will take the valuables and leave the rest. However, when he explained the situation to another rail agent, the second man rolled his eyes. We knew what that meant. Bye, bye, backpack.

Still in shock, we got on the train to Mouscron. We knew we could get into France (no passport checks between France and Belgium). But after visiting our children, we planned to spend a few days in London and fly home from there. Jerry did need his passport to get into England, as well as to fly home.

Aboard the train, we spent a long, hard hour-and-a-half traveling through beautiful countryside. Jerry kept worrying about not getting to take me to London. I kept praying we’d done the right thing by traveling on to Mouscron before reporting the theft to the police. I had not wanted to lose the hours we’d planned to spend with Amanda. Also, I felt it important to have her with us to help us navigate the language barrier, Belgian governmental etiquette, etc.

Amanda met us at the Mouscron train station and took us to the police station, where we filed a report. It was a Saturday, and the US embassy was closed. We planned to travel back to Brussels the first of the week to start the application process to replace Jerry’s passport.

The help

Into the afternoon, when we finally reached Amanda and Sam’s house, Sam had lintel soup almost ready for us to eat. While Amanda completed preparations for the meal, I sat at the kitchen table, opened my Bible to Deuteronomy 33:26-29, and told her, “This is the word God gave me for this trip: ‘There is no one like the God of Jerry, who rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty.’”

As I read the passage aloud, my soul felt shaken and violated. But in my spirit, I literally felt upheld, as if by everlasting arms. “The Lord wants to show us that he is our help,” I said.

Meanwhile, Jerry had signed onto the Wifi at Amanda and Sam’s house. Since arriving in Europe that morning, my phone had worked, but Jerry’s had not. Via Wifi, Jerry was able to get his email, however. And there, he discovered a surprising message from his boss, John. Someone had called John to tell him Jerry’s backpack had been found at a Brussels bus station!

We were elated – but then frustrated. Jerry called his boss, only to find that John didn’t know any more than what he had said in the email. The Belgian caller had not identified himself or told where he was calling from. So we had no idea who had the backpack and what was or wasn’t in it.

John gave Jerry the number from which the call had come. Dialing it, we reached a Brussels police station, but the person who answered knew nothing about Jerry’s backpack. We tried to call the Lost & Found number the rail agent had given us. At first, we couldn’t get the call to ring through. Then, we got no answer.

Sunday morning, Amanda called again in our behalf. That time, the person at the Brussels police station who answered knew exactly what we were asking about. Yes, they had the backpack. What’s more, it had been recovered with everything in it – including the passport, the money and the credit card!

The agent de police then apologized profusely for not being able to reach us sooner! We were deeply grateful that the police had gone to such lengths to try: On recovering the bag, they had found a business card with Jerry’s cell number on it. They had called the number, but because his phone wasn’t working, the call went to voice mail. In the Atlanta airport, just before boarding the plane to Brussels, Jerry had changed his voice message, saying he was traveling out of the US and giving the phone number of his boss, John, for any callers who might have business needs. Someone at the Brussels police station listened to that lengthy voice mail message in English, wrote down John’s US phone number and called him. Bless them, Lord!

The Brussels police kept the backpack and its contents locked in their safe until Amanda, Sam, Jerry and I traveled there on Tuesday to reclaim it. That train trip, we enjoyed. Further, the four of us enjoyed a delightful day together in the Belgian capital. Jerry and I also saw the inside of our second Belgian police station. Most tourists don’t get that experience or, if they do, they don’t come out celebrating.

“Blessed are you, Jerry! Who is like you, a person saved by the Lord? He is your shield and your help.”

We have no idea how a backpack that we know did not walk away by itself from a busy city train station was recovered by police at a bus station with everything intact. But we can testify: The Lord our Help rode in like the cavalry. He worked a miracle in our behalf.

Why now?

We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church – Q&A 5

Why now? Why do you think God gave you this message now?

Photo courtesy of Bettina Schwehn at http://www.uniqraphy.de

We’re in the midst of the 150th anniversary of the four-year Civil War. The year the tide turned in the war was 1863. So this year, 2013, marks the 150th anniversary of that turning point. I believe this anniversary provides a crucial window for a different kind of turning – a turning, and a returning, of the church.

Whenever God brings something to light, he also pours out “a spirit of grace and supplication” on those he wants to respond. In this time, God is giving his people grace to see what we haven’t wanted to see so that, at last, we can become who we truly are. In this time, God is giving us courage to break free from destructive patterns that have kept generations in bondage, crippled the US church and sabotaged spiritual awakening for a century-and-a-half.

Always when God gives grace, he also gives us freedom to accept or reject it. If we accept that grace? If we dare to confess from our hearts? Let me summarize the outcome with one more quotation from We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church:

“At last we realize: The uncomfortable, the difficult, the devastating aspects of confessing and repenting aren’t a plot to do us in. They’re God’s way of removing the veil so we can see and reflect his glory—splendor we cannot imagine or describe.”

What’s the most crucial issue?

We Confess! The Civil War, the South, and the Church – Q&A 4

What would you say is the most crucial thing that needs to be seen and dealt with?

 

When people think of the Civil War, the South, and the church, the first issue that comes to mind is racism. Slavery was certainly the key justice issue when our nation divided and went to war. Racism continues to be a huge issue. It needs to be faced, and the church should lead the way in doing so. Also, God is revealing other justice issues that have been hidden in plain sight. Typically, these justice issues involve our collusion in treating whole groups of people in ways that are dishonoring and unloving and often downright mean.

The reason we haven’t been able to address these justice issues successfully has to do with what I call “unrighteous roots.” We need to see the tangled root system of ungodly attitudes in our lives and our generations, and to let God uproot these attitudes, if we want to be who God has made us to be and to do what is right and just. Roots such as pride and greed, power and fear have got to go.

Yet none of these issues is the most crucial. The most important issue we need to address is so pervasive that trying to see it is like trying to see the air we breathe. I don’t think we can see it until God, by his Spirit, makes it visible. The problem is a deep double-mindedness that has plagued us for generations. It comes from confusing loyalty to Christ with loyalty to things we connect with Christ.

The church in the South fell into this double-mindedness after the Second Great Awakening. A large percentage of the population had become Christian, but the society as a whole had become obsessed with cotton. Christians began to confuse loyalty to Christ with loyalty to the South. When the voice of the Spirit said something different from the voice of the culture, the church ultimately chose to follow the culture. Today, we as Christians are often trying to serve Christ with divided hearts – and don’t even know it. We do not see where our true loyalties lie. That’s the key to resolving all the other issues. When our hearts wholly belong to the Lord, he will show us how to redeem all the rest.