"Discipline" - an unhelpful translation?

Here's a passage which I find really unhelpful when you're going through a hard time, but which shouldn't be...

And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.’

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined – and everyone undergoes discipline – then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:5-11, NIV

So what? We're meant to endure hardship as discipline? Try telling that to the woman whose child has died – that it's God disciplining her! How's that a “word of encouragement”? It's stupid, pastorally insensitive, and just plain wrong. We don't live under the law. We don't believe in a God who gives us petty material rewards for obedience and punishments for disobedience. Maybe that's the way it worked in Leviticus, but not for the Christian.

There are two problems here. The first is the word “discipline” - most translations seem to use it in Hebrews 12, but I don't think it's warranted.

Discipline: the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience.
παιδεια: upbringing, training, instruction.

The Greek word which we translate as “discipline” doesn't quite mean that though. “Training” would be a better translation – it's the idea of an adult training a child. Sometimes that involves punishing disobedience - we suffer because we do things wrong. Sometimes, like with hard physical training, it's difficult and painful when we do it right as well. The word used for "discipline" here carries both ideas - it's the same word translated “training” in 2 Timothy 3:16. The passage isn't saying that all hardship is discipline. It's saying that God uses hardship to train us, like any kind of training can be hard, but we respect it and work with it.

The NIV translators generally did a great job – it's just about the best translation of the Bible into modern English. But they had a shocker when it got to Hebrews 12:7, and most other translations didn't do a lot better...

“Endure hardship as discipline – God is treating you as his children.” (NIV)
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.” (ESV)
”Be patient when you are being corrected! This is how God treats his children.” (CEV)
”Endure what you suffer as being a father's punishment; your suffering shows that God is treating you as his children.” (Good News)
If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons;” (NJKV)

The NRSV is probably the most helpful of the major translations here, except that it still uses “discipline”; “Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children...”
I think Eugene Peterson pretty much nails the sense though in the Message:

God is educating you; that’s why you must never drop out. He’s treating you as dear children. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children.

The idea is that we should endure difficulties and hardship because God uses them to train us. God is our Father. He hasn't let go of us; he isn't leaving us to the ravages of chance or punishing us for our own weakness. He knows what he is doing, and he is training us to trust him, even in and through the difficult times. Now that's a comfort, and an encouragement to keep going!

Yet More Wordle

Continuing on from my last post, here are some more Wordle images from the text of the ESV translation of the Bible. I'm using the ESV because it's fairly literal - so it gives you a good idea of what the underlying words are in Hebrew and Greek. Although I'd rather use a translation which is gender-neutral when the underlying text is gender-neutral, the ESV is much more readily available in electronic format than the NRSV.

Anyway, here's a Wordle image for the gospels:

And here's Paul's letters:

Here's one for the rest of the New Testament:

Which can be subdivided into the General Letters:

And Revelation:

Here's one for the whole NT:

Advent Sermon - 2 Peter 3:8-13

Here's a sermon I preached earlier in Advent on 2 Peter 3:8-13...

Harvest Sermon

This is the sermon I preached at Harvest. The passage is 1 John 3:11-19.

As it's Harvest today, here's a quick quiz. Hands up; first hand up with the right answer gets a Harvest bar.

Question 1: What grows in fields that is one of the main ingredients of bread? (corn / wheat)

Question 2: During the Jewish harvest festival, people weren't allowed to live in houses. What did they have to live in instead? (tents / tabernacles)

Question 3: What do the Americans call their Harvest festival? (Thanksgiving)

Question 4: One of the things Americans do at Thanksgiving is they act out the first harvest festival some of the settlers had in America. But when is the first harvest festival in the Bible? (Cain and Abel)

Question 5: How did it end? (Cain kills Abel)

Now that's a bit disturbing, isn't it? The first harvest festival in the Bible was with two brothers, Cain and Abel, both farmers, and it ended with Cain killing his brother.

That's because there are two ways to give – two ways to give, and the passage we read earlier talks about them.

The first way to give is the way Cain did. Cain gave because he was a good person. He gave, but he didn't love. He gave because he thought that would show he was a good person, and then maybe God would accept him. Cain gave because he was good. And what happened? God wasn't pleased with him, but he was pleased with Cain's brother Abel. So Cain got angry and ended up killing his brother.

You see, sometimes when we give, the giving is really about us. It is us saying we are good and generous and decent. And the shock of the first harvest festival is that God isn't pleased with Cain. So Cain gets angry because he thinks God owes him one. But we can't make God like us by being decent people. Giving stuff at harvest doesn't mean that God accepts us. Cain giving at the first harvest festival was meant to show how good he was, but actually showed how evil he was, because he ended up killing his brother. Giving because we are decent people actually ends up showing that we aren't.

The other way to give is the way Jesus gives. At the Jewish harvest festival, people were meant to give the best of what they had, and the first bits of their fruit and so on. And that's what God did. He gave us the best of what he had to give, he gave Jesus. And Jesus gave himself for us even though we're not decent people. That is how we know what love is. That is the way we should be giving – not giving stuff because we're decent people and to show that we're good, but giving ourselves, because God is good and that's what he did for us. And so we give our money and our stuff not to earn God's favour but because we have already given ourselves to God who has given everything to us.

So when we see our brothers and sisters in need, like we have done in the video, we have pity on them, and we give to them because nothing we have is ours any more – it's God's, and he loves them. And we don't just love them with the things we say, we actually do something about it. And yes, it's the people in the video, but it's also one another in this congregation. It's brilliant when I see people really giving of themselves to look after each other here, and I'm going to be even more encouraged when I see that even more.

Because if we're actually doing that, says John, that's evidence that we're really Christians. It's God's love shining through us.` It's like putting a candle into a candle jar.

God's love shines out like a light. And when that love is inside us, it shines out. It's God's love shining still, but it's shining through us and it maybe looks a bit different because of our situation and what we're like, but that light shines. And if we see the light shining in people, that tells us there's a candle inside. When we see people loving one another like Jesus does, that shows us that they really know Jesus – that they've really got that light inside them – that they really know they're loved and accepted by God, and so they are loving others.

Not loving others because they should, or because it's the right thing to do, or to try to make God happy with them, but loving because God's love is living in them.

James 5 - praying for the sick

One of the most difficult passages in the New Testament in some ways is in James 5. Here's the NIV...

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
James 5:14-16, NIV

Any attempt to argue that this passage doesn't say that anyone who is sick will be healed sounds either like special pleading or like finding contradictions in the Bible. Of course, part of the problem is the translation, and pretty much no English translations manage the same nuances as the Greek...

Is anyone in you weak/sick (the Greek can mean either)? Let him call the elders of the church and let them pray on him, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the wearied / ill person (the Greek can mean either); and the Lord will raise him...

It looks to me as if the first bit is a general statement which is deliberately ambiguous. It might be talking about physical sickness; it might be talking about physical or moral weakness or weariness. And the promised help is salvation / raising, which might be talking about physical healing, or it might be talking about final salvation.

There is then a clear application to the case of people who are ill because of sin (for example because they rightly feel guilty, and the guilt has led to all kinds of stress-related problems), and they will be healed. By verses 19-20, the passage is all about bringing people who have sinned back.

My conclusion from this passage is that the passage itself does not promise immediate physical / medical healing for everyone who gets the elders to anoint and pray, except in the case of sickness that is directly due to sin. Of course, God still does sometimes heal physically and medically in other cases, but he doesn't promise here that he will do so. What is promised is something far better. What this passage promises is that God will sustain and keep his people going when they are weak and get the elders to pray for them, and that they will finally be saved and raised from the dead; if they ask the elders to pray for them then like this then no sickness or weariness or sin committed in the past can stop them from being saved.

Edwards - some quotes

True virtue never appears so lovely, as when it is most oppressed; and the divine excellency of real Christianity, is never exhibited with such advantage, as when under the greatest trials: then it is that true faith appears much more precious than gold! (ref to 1 Peter 1:8)

there never was any considerable change wrought in the mind or conversation of any person, by anything of a religious nature, that ever he read, heard or saw, that had not his affections moved.

And the impressing divine things on the hearts and affections of men, is evidently one great and main end for which God has ordained that his word delivered in the holy Scriptures, should be opened, applied, and set home upon men, in preaching. And therefore it does not answer the aim which God had in this institution, merely for men to have good commentaries and expositions on the Scripture, and other good books of divinity; because, although these may tend as well as preaching to give men a good doctrinal or speculative understanding of the things of the word of God, yet they have not an equal tendency to impress them on men's hearts and affections.

Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections

Wordle - Nice Pictures

Someone pointed me to Wordle, which creates nice pictures from words.

Here's one I did of the book of Ephesians, in the NIV.

And here's my personal favourite - from 1 Peter in the TNIV:

Piper, the Prosperity Gospel, suffering and evangelism

Well, John Piper really really really doesn't like the prosperity "gospel"...

Shocking stuff. But it reopened the bit of my mind that had been mulling on the context of 1 Peter 3:15-16 for a while.

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience
1 Peter 3:15-16, NIV

They're so often trotted out as the standard verses for evangelism, and so often we ask why evangelism in the West is so much harder than evangelism elsewhere, and we completely ignore the context of those verses.

But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened." But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.
1 Peter 3:14-18, NIV

The opportunities for real evangelism that are talked about in 1 Peter 3 are the opportunities that come from the way that we suffer for doing what is right. And by and large, the church in the West is not willing to suffer for doing what is right. And so we don't get the people asking us for the reason for the hope that we have in the same way. And so evangelism is so much harder.

I've only led two people who weren't already Christians to Christ. In one case, someone close to me was regularly attempting suicide. In the other, my gran had just died. Evangelism works through suffering.

(more stuff on why the Prosperity Gospel is wrong here)