Eastland eBulletin 1-21-07
Area Meetings
- Winter Studies — Manslick Rd & Hebron Lane
- March 8-11 — Eastland with Ralph Walker
- Remember the kid’s bulletin in the foyer.
- This morning’s speaker is Cloyce Sutton. Copies of his sermon notes are available in the literature rack in the foyer.
- Tonight’s assembly is our monthly congregational singing.
- Transportation: Norris, Boatright
- Lord’s Supper: Barbara B, Leigh & Sara P
- Meals: Pam B, Julia R, Mabel L
- Deacon: Tim P (Rick W)
- Usher: David B
- AV: John N, Nate S, Alan W
- Snow Removal: Rick W, Chuck B, Joel G
Aren’t You Glad?
By Reggie Robarts
Longevity is often an indicator of the value of a thing. If that is true, columnist James J Kilpatrick’s words have value. He was syndicated sometime in the 1960’s and is still going strong today at the rather mature age of 87 years. He is an acknowledged word-master and is highly respected in spite of his conservative positions that have moderated over the years. My poorly organized files sometimes yield up some gems and I found one the other day while shuffling through some folders. The treasure was a Kilpatrick column that I tore (literally) out of the Oct. 22, 1983 edition of the Courier-Journal. The title on this piece was, “A Dishonest and Mistaken Effort to Take Sex Out of the Scripture.” If there ever was an indictment of the National Council of Churches’ (herein after referred to as NCC) ultra-liberal theological position and utter disregard for Scripture, this is it.
As Kilpatrick states at the beginning of his article, “This particular piece of
desecration is a 112 page ‘Inclusive Language Lectionary’ intended for use by Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic churches.” A lection is a liturgical lesson for a particular day. It uses both Old and New Testament passages.
The council’s purpose is to rewrite passages so as to eliminate passages referring to gender, or as an alternative, or to spread gender around. What is the practical outcome of this kind of attitude toward the Bible? Jesus is no longer identified as the “son” of God, but rather as the “child” of God. In the egalitarian version, it is “God the Father (and Mother).” The word “king” gives way to “ruler,” and “kingdom” yields to “realm.” You see king and kingdom imply maleness and we can’t have that, can we? No longer is a promise made to “Abraham and his descendents,” but rather to “Abraham (and Sarah) and their descendents. These are but a sample of the revision and are an all out effort to erase all male/female distinctions in Scripture. It is a compromise to the radical feminists who demand equality at every level of life including the church. This is in spite of what the Bible says because the NCC and the feminists have zero respect for the authority of the Scripture.
Kilpatrick goes on to say that the rewriting urged by the NCC is indefensible. Here is one example: read Matthew 26:21-24. Jesus announces He will be betrayed by one of His disciples. Each begins to ask, “Is it I?” Jesus responds that it is “the one who dips his hand with Me in the dish,” and then says, “the Son of man goes as it is written of Him, but woe to the person by whom the Son of man is betrayed.” The NCC version reads, “The Human One goes as it is written, but woe to that person by whom the Human One is betrayed.” The problem, says Kilpatrick, with that translation is that Matthew never wrote it. It is patent dishonesty to make words mean what the writer never said when those words can be accurately and clearly translated. When one is trying to advance an agenda, honesty has little to do with his thinking.
Kilpatrick goes on to say that John never wrote, “God so loved the world that God gave God’s “only Child.” The Greek passage cannot possibly be mistranslated by anyone who sets out to do a faithful job. The words are not “only Child” but “only Son.” I don’t know what Mr. Kilpatrick’s religious inclinations are but he obviously has some convictions and respect for the Bible, plus a great regard for integrity in general.
The problem is that several generations of church-going people have been fed such claptrap as the NCC has been spewing for many years. Most have become indifferent to what the Bible says and have gravitated to a religion of “personal preference and what is right for me.” It isn’t surprising since they have not learned about a revealed standard of inviolable truth from which they cannot deviate and be pleasing to God. They have never heard such things from the pulpits of their liberal, NCC-affiliated denominations. Kilpatrick says at the conclusion of his column that surely this kind of neutering of Scripture will be summarily rejected by churches. I wonder if he were writing the same column today would he feel the same way. He would not because he was dead wrong. In the intervening 24 years since he wrote these words many churches have been caught up in that kind of thinking.
I am glad that I was taught that the Bible is God’s revelation to man and is the standard for all religious teaching and worship to be guided by. If gives me comfort to think God said exactly what he wanted us to know and to believe. We have a formidable task in trying to teach the gospel to others who have been so deluded by this modernistic philosophy. But it can be done because God would not give us a task that was impossible to accomplish. So, in spite of the obstacles we must press on and hold out the absolute truth of Scripture to those who don’t know it.
Coffee & Life
Author Unknown
Author Unknown
(Editor’s Note: This brief article has Frequent Flier Miles on the Internet. I’ve received it two or three times in the past year. Unlike a lot of the Internet stuff I get, I actually like the point this article makes — Cloyce)
A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. The conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.
Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain-looking, some expensive and some exquisite — telling them to help themselves to the coffee.
After all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.
“Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases, it’s just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... and then began eyeing each other’s cups.
“Now consider this: Life is the coffee, and the jobs, houses, cars, things, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life, and the type of cup we have does not define nor change the quality of life we live. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us.
“God brews the coffee, not the cups — enjoy your coffee.
“Being happy doesn’t mean everything’s perfect; it means you’ve decided to see beyond the imperfections.”
