THE BIBLE FOR THE DUMB

The Princeton Review educational testing service measured one indicator of the historical decline of comprehension by the American public by comparing the vocabulary used by Richard Nixon and John Kennedy in their televised debate of 1960 with the vocabulary used by Bill Clinton and George Bush in their 1992 debate. Their study found that the level of vocabulary in the presidential debates had slipped from a tenth-grade reading level in 1960 to a sixth-grade level in 1992. (Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas had debated at an eleventh-grade level in 1858.)  

By the year 2000, things were worse: In the debates of that year, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7); Al Gore spoke at a high seventh-grade level (7.9). (from The Hoover Institution)

The Hoover Institution went on to say, "Our contemporary politicians, who find it necessary to speak to us as sixth and seventh graders, in turn, looked sophomoric when compared to Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, whose scores in their debates, respectively, were 11.2 and 12.0 in 1858." 

In my humble opinion, things have sunk so low that our current vice president Kamala Harris speaks at an infuriating condescending level to adults that's too low to measure on the Princeton scale. It's so bad that if I had ever given a speech like she does in my junior high school English classes or my high school speech class, my grade would have been an "F" and rightly so. 

There's no doubt that the American public has been and is being dumbed down year by year. My own personal indicator is a question I often ask people since it's connected with my book, "Truthspeak," a book whose intellectual roots are the novel, "1984" by George Orwell. The answer to my question, "Are you familiar with the book, "1984?" is, much more often than not,"No." It's come to be a classic work few today have read or heard of. 

And this brings us to a Bible called "The Living Bible." It's a paraphrase by Dr. Kenneth N. Taylor. It's important, as you will see, to note that it's a paraphrase.

One reviewer wrote about "The Living Bible,' "The growing popularity of the Living Bible was one of many signs of the dumbing-down of American English that took place during the twentieth century. The trend was noticed by linguists as early as 1931, when Edward Sapir observed that the technology of mass communication has led to 'the insidious cheapening of literary and artistic values due to the foreseen and economically advantageous ‘widening of the appeal.’ All [linguistic] effects which demand a certain intimacy of understanding tend to become difficult and are therefore avoided.”  The rate of decline accelerated during the 1960’s and 70’s.

"Taylor’s method and its 'exciting results' involved the dumbing-down of the biblical text to a grade-school level, and this was in keeping with the linguistic and educational trends of the time." 

 

A "Bible" on the grade school level for adults? When the child becomes a young adult and goes to college, the odds are that he will look upon the Bible as a puerile book, a book meant for children, not adults. He will put it on the level just a bit above "Dick and Jane Go to the Farm." He will never know the depth of the Gospel of John nor the intellectual heft of Paul's epistles.

Besides that, there's an inherent danger in all paraphrases: there is no way that the one doing the paraphrasing can keep his own proclivities, opinions, and doctrines out of his work. It is impossible and there's no way around it. It will invariably happen. Therefore, the Bible will not be allowed to speak for itself. The paraphraser becomes the fallible human filter through which the Word of God must flow.

Avoid the paraphrase. Choose a translation such as "The New American Standard Bible." But no, never a paraphrase.

THE MAN WHO RULES THE EVANGELICAL WORLD FROM HIS GRAVE

 Charles Finney (1792-1875) was a revivalist who led America's 2nd Great Awakening. He's the father of many of the terms we use today which present an inaccurate gospel. These are words that many in evangelical circles use without thinking because they've heard them tossed around with reckless abandon through the years, tossed so many times in so many churches, in so many books, in so many tracts that they've become embedded in our minds. 

These terms are ubiquitous, terms such as, "Accept Christ as your Savior," "Give your life to Christ," "Make Christ the lord of your life," "Abandon your sins," "Ask Jesus into your heart," and "Confess your sins," et al. We could also point out one of the all-time favorites, the ABC method of  "Admit you are a sinner, Believe in Jesus, and Confess." 

Finney said, "Do whatever it takes to induce a conversion." Today that would mean, if it will induce a conversion, turn down the lights; if it will induce a conversion, use dry ice. These are manipulative, man-made techniques and whatever is man-made to manipulate is way, way off the reservation from the Scriptures. They should be classified as gimmicks. 

 People repeat the above phrases disguised as the gospel without asking, "Are any of these statements in the Bible?" Or more particularly, "Are any of these requirements in the Gospel of John, the only book in the New Testament written to unbelivers to persuade them to trust Christ as Savior?"

When they read the Gospel of John, they will find that they can't find any of those declarations in the book. Not one. Instead of "steps to salvation," we find one and only one--"believe" ninety-nine times in John and almost 200 times in the entire New Testament. So, salvation is through faith alone which is trust alone in the power of Jesus alone to forgive YOUR sin and give YOU eternal life. 

"Believe" or "trust," must have a content, so, what is the content of saving trust? The Bible is clear: one must believe that Jesus is God (Jn. 8:24); that Christ died for his sins (this implies, of course that he knows and understands that he's guilty of sining) and rose from the dead. That's it. Over and out. No asking, no confessing, no pleading, no tears, and no forsaking of sin. Salvation's one condition is to believe in Christ alone apart from works.

In evangelism, it's important to understand that knowing a bunch of facts about Jesus does not equal being saved. A person my know that Jesus was born of a virgin in Bethlehem; that Jesus died on a cross and even that He rose from the dead. (A Roman Catholic friend of mine told me that while he was studying to become a priest, he believed all of those things, yet was lost. Those were just facts to him.)

The issue for him and all of us is, "Do you, believing and understanding those facts, trust Him, and Him alone to save YOU?" That is the accurate gospel.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO REVERENCE?

I won't give the "entertainer" any more publicity than she's already received, so she shall remain anonymous.  Her recent public appearance brings up the question, is anything sacred anymore in America? Are we giving our approval for desecrating  and mocking historical artifacts revered for their connection with the past? In my opinion, the answer is "Yes," and there is a biblical connection to our thinking together on this important matter. 

The celebrity in question is a sight to behold on that September night, all decked out for her irreverent stunt before a live audience. First of all, when she comes on stage, you would say that she has been successful in defeating anorexia. I'm putting it nicely that her weight is way, way out of control and dangerously so. Enough said. You get part of the picture.

I say part of the pictrue because we need to note the way she's dressed. I use the word "dressed" loosely because this obese woman is by no means modest. She's dressed in such a way that you wouldn't let her in your home and in days gone by, she would have been arrested for indecency. Enough said on that account too. 

You get the picture. If that's not insulting enough to normal people, to complete the picture, she's holding a flute. You might be thinking, "Well, that's at least something normal about this whole thing, she's going to play the flute for her eager fans. 

This is where irreverence enters. The flute she's holding is on loan from the Library of Congress to her for this night of revelry. It's a historic flute and a valuable one because of the person who owned it way back 200 years ago. It's the flute that was a gift to none other than the Father of the Constitution given to him in celebration of his second inauguration "by the French flute maker Claude Laurent. The Library of Congress has maintained the 200 year-old flute in its vault for decades before allowing [her] to play it onstage." (Scottie Andrew, CNN, Sept. 29, 2022) 

During her performance, to accompany her flutist skills, she does a lewd dance to the music she's playig. Picture all that and the picture of that night is complete except to mention that the crowd applauded the whole thing. People eagerly approving the profane display of the descration of our history. One other thing worth mentioning--this took place in Washington DC.(!)

There's a biblical connection straight out of Daniel 1:2 and 5:1-4. In Daniel 1:2, the Bible tells us what appears to be an incidental detail but it's not. The detail given is that after Nebuchaddnezzar defeated Jerusalem, he brought some of the vessels from the house of God to the house of his god and into the treasury of his god.  It's like in a movie where a lady comes into her house from shopping and puts her keys on the dining room table and the camera focuses on the keys. You know that those keys in some way, some how are going to be important later on.Where she places the key is not an incidental detail. 

In Daniel 5, Belshazzar, the king, holds a huge banquet and is drinking when he had an idea and that was to mock the God of Jews by sending some servants to the museum where they had been on display to get those sacred vessels and drink from them, thus making through their use of the vessels libations to their gods. It was irreverent and choreographed to mock Jehovah. This is where the hand writing on the wall comes in to announce an immediate judgment. Lesson: God is not to be mocked. You lose when you mock God. God wins.

The irrevence to our Father of our Constitution done in Washington DC was a choreograhed mockery of our past and of our Founding Fathers. We can assume that they aren't stupid--they knew what they were doing.

And so we see that Daniel lived at a time in which nothing was sacred, all was grist for a mockery mill. What God calls sacred, we find mocked: marriage is mocked, human life as valuable is mocked, people who hold biblical values are mocked, and the list goes on and on. 

What did Daniel do, living in a day and place where nothing was sacred? He remained faithful and publicly so as we see in Daniel 6:12 in which a stealth law was passed expressly get Daniel. It concerned his praying and the stealth law was that there was to be no one praying except to the king. Daniel's response was to pray, especially where the authors of the law could see him.

Daniel is an example of what we need--more men to be public disciples of Christ..