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Why Jesus Left · Relish: a Christian podcast

• 0:02
  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
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  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
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  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what
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  we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life well ron how
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  are you doing today doing well don how about you i'm doing all right are you
• 0:21
  in the swing of things yet we're getting there okay ready to go sunshine and
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  the nice This weather is getting nice,
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  getting used to it, you know.
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  That's one of my few puns I can use for golfers is, are you in the swing of things? Yeah.
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  So, anyway. And then soccer.
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  Yeah, we're dual sport in the spring, so that's trouble. Oh, yeah.
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  And junior to boot. So, yeah, you've got plenty of things on your plate.
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  I do. Okay. Well, I'm glad you took this on and are willing to do this,
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  even with all the other stuff on your plate.
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  I enjoyed doing it for sure. Well, you're doing a good job.
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  Thanks. Okay. So I'm braced here, Rowan. I'm ready for whatever you got. All right.
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  Wouldn't it have been better for Jesus just to stay on earth with us and fix what we break? Yeah.
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  Ah, Jesus. I don't think I've heard that question. Jesus, the great handyman.
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  Well, from our perspective, that definitely would have been easier.
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  Yeah. And then we could say, oh, yeah, well, Jesus, Jesus is taking care of this and Jesus is.
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  But is that who Jesus really is? I guess I think the best thing that he fixed, he fixed upon the cross.
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  And it always is a good reminder to me of who he is when I go to Philippians
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  chapter two and remind myself of who he truly is.
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  Of course, I've got a big sticky note on top of it for some reason.
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  Because he really isn't. I mean, while Jesus is the one who takes care of our
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  sins and he knows what we need,
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  I could see where having Jesus around to fix things sounds like a good deal for us.
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  But in reality, all the fixing has been done and we need to go with the flow he's given us for now.
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  So the first part is that your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
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  Who being the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something
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  to be grasped but made himself nothing taking on the very nature of a servant
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  being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man.
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  He humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross.
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  Therefore God exalted him beyond being a handyman that's Donnie's to the highest
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  place and gave him a name that's above every name that at the name of Jesus
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  every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
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  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
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  So, Jesus, while he is able to heal our hearts, our minds, and cleanse us of
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  our sin, is really not our handyman, our spiritual handyman.
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  Instead, what he did upon the cross paved the way for us to continue in him, but in a different way.
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  We go to John chapter 14 and we see that he's on a mission to get us to a certain
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  spot so that when he leaves,
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  as he did after 40 days, he actually gives us a counselor that takes that role
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  of being here with us every day.
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  And so verse 25 of chapter 14 says,
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  all this I've spoken while still with you, but the counselor,
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  the Holy Spirit, whom the Holy, the father will send in my name,
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  will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I've said to you.
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  So the role of the Holy Spirit then is that next piece that's with us all the
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  time, rather than Jesus having to be with us all the time.
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  In chapter 16, the role of the Holy Spirit is actually gone in too much deeper.
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  I tell you the truth, it is for your good. This is verse 17.
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  No, verse 7, excuse me. That's what happens when you scribble in your Bible,
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  then things don't read quite as well. I tell you the truth.
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  It is for your good that I'm going away. Unless I go away, which means he had
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  to go away, the counselor, the Holy Spirit, Paraclete is the Greek in that spot, will not come.
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  Paraclete is the one who comes alongside.
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  Paraclete means the one who comes alongside us. will not come to you,
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  but if I go, I will send him to you.
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  When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment,
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  in regard to sin because men do not believe in me, in regard to righteousness
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  because I'm going to the Father where you can see me no longer,
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  and in regard to judgment because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
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  So while in our minds, it would be nice to have Jesus present with us,
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  physically walking with us all and helping fix the things going on in this world.
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  In reality, the Bible paints that Jesus has done his work upon the cross.
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  He set things up for our redemption, shall we say our fixing,
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  our being, and the Holy Spirit is now present in the role that Jesus played
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  while he was here in the flesh.
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  And so, I guess you could almost say Jesus is still here.
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  Yeah. But he's here through the Holy Spirit. Yeah.
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  God's still here through the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Yeah, he had to leave so that his Holy Spirit. Yeah.
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  Yeah, I think it's important to read this passage that Jesus himself was saying
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  it was important for him to leave so that the Holy Spirit could come. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Cool. I like that. Why are there so many other religions if the Bible is the only one that's true?
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  Because there always have been. There always have been.
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  And true religion and counterfeit religion, you can't,
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  okay, if you didn't know what a Ralph Lauren bag looked like or a Gucci bag,
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  would you be able to identify the counterfeit?
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  So what happens if you are a, okay,
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  say you're a authority on money and you study the real so that you can inspect
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  the counterfeit and be able to recognize the counterfeit.
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  But in the same way, there's always been many religions.
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  We go back to chapter 11 and you see what was going on before at the Tower of Babel.
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  There was all one language.
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  But that religion that they were practicing was not Christianity. It was not godly.
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  There's always been many religions.
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  But you can tell the real legend from the counterfeit by what is transforming
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  lives, what is bringing people comfort, what is walking with people in their times of trouble.
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  I have a note in Romans that, here
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  we go, that we have a very special God because of how he prays for us.
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  No, that's not it. It must be 8, 12.
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  We have a God who does for us what no other God will do for those who appreciate him.
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  I can't find it right off. Isn't that awful? Here it is.
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  Chapter 15. May the God,
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  15 verse 13, I think is an evidence that the God we serve is different than
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  other gods because most gods are wanting you to do for them.
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  It's a very selfish, self-centered system.
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  Whereas Romans, in Romans, Paul talks about, may the God of hope fill you with
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  all joy and peace as you trust in him.
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  This is a God who created all things and hopes the best for it.
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  In fact, hopes the best for it to such an extent that he is willing to give
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  of himself time and time again.
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  Look at the Old Testament, how many times God stepped out and was willing to
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  intercede for his people, to bring them back.
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  And then at a point in history where he'd been silent for 400 years,
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  the prophets didn't hear anything from God for 400 years, between the time of
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  Malachi and the time of Matthew, when Christ came on the scene,
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  he slices through history with his very own son who would give his life to get us back on track.
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  What kind of God, what kind of religious system has given to that extent,
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  has hoped to that extent in its followers. It just doesn't happen.
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  I have a note here. There is no other religion with a God of hope in any pagan
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  society or religious society.
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  Can you read that? No, Nope. Can't read that either.
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  I may have to redo my notes because now I can't read them any longer either.
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  So I'll have to be bigger.
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  But the idea of a God of hope, the God of hope business is not present in any other religion.
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  You have to go through stages or you have to reach a certain level.
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  And nearly all of them have that kind of thing going on.
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  But it's a selfishness on God's part. We have to appease the God.
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  And that's not really where God's heart is.
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  He wants us to please him, but not appease him.
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  He wants us to live as a reflection of who he is, not a reflection of what we think.
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  And that's why we have the Bible, the whole thing.
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  It paints a God. Yeah, he's jealous. He wants to be worshiped.
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  But it's for our benefit that he manifests rather than his own, which is wild.
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  And then I go back to the Philippians 2 part where his son was not so proud
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  or full of himself that he would not empty himself of all deity to be down here on earth.
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  And be Jesus, sacrifice for our sins. That's pretty major.
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  You don't see that in other religions.
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  So Christianity is unique. We have a God of hope. Yeah.
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  That's a good question. Yeah. Why do people translate the Bible in so many different ways? Oh, man.
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  Why do people have so many translations? That's an excellent question.
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  Well, almost every time we go to translate the Bible, we have an unspoken agenda
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  that we want people to think of God like we do.
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  And we want them to worship like we do. Yeah. And so when you take from a original
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  language and you put it into a dialect or language,
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  you're going to have to take a word that means something in that background
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  and then mirror it in another culture with a word similar.
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  So hairbrush, hairbrush in Hebrew might be one thing, but is it a brush of hair in the English?
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  And that would be pretty easy to say those would be a good translation,
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  but it could be something other than that.
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  In fact, there are some words when Wycliffe Bible translators have gotten into
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  different places, like a word for grace did not exist in certain cultures.
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  So how do you create a word in their dialect that means something given without
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  anything expected in return?
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  Yeah. Freely given without any expectation. That's grace. Yeah.
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  And if it's not in their concept, you've got to teach it and make it happen.
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  So that even subtly happens in our English translations.
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  I happen to have known the translator of the book of Hebrews for the 1977 to 1984 edition of the NIV.
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  And I knew him personally. So I had a lot of faith in his, at least his translation of Hebrews.
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  And then also, you know, he had a lot of faith in the group he was working with.
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  So that's why I still, to this day, use the 1984 version of the NIV.
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  What happened then over time, that committee changed and changed the personnel
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  that were part of that central committee.
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  And as that changed then
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  their approach to scripture changed and what it's used
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  for changed and so thus the translation got modernized and changed so the intent
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  behind the translation to that in the the like the 19 uh 2011 version of the
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  niv is much different well you have all these movements,
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  the CSB, the HSB, the Holman Bible,
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  the ESV.
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  ESV's translation is so geared that they want to do word by word translation
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  from the ancient language to the English.
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  And that is really a good motive for translation, right?
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  But it don't read good at all. It doesn't read smoothly at all.
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  It's wooden. It has hiccups in it, I guess I'd say. It's not stylized.
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  So it's hard to read. And if it's hard to read, it's hard to memorize.
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  King James. It was a beautiful translation because it's so poetic.
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  It has all that ancient poetry of the Shakespearean language.
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  And so it's easy to memorize, but it's hard for us to understand.
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  So it'd be nice to have something different than that.
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  Eugene Peterson, God bless you, Eugene, evangelical preacher with a heart to transform lives.
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  And he did the message. And if you ever get, you should have,
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  every Bible study should have one person with the message in it.
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  And we have a Bible study that meets every week and has one guy has the message.
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  And you hear, I, you hear Eugene's part heart.
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  Have people know who Jesus is. Yes, it's a paraphrase.
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  It's not word for word, but his crafting and stylizing of the language has you
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  yearning to know more about Jesus. Bottom line.
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  Yeah. And so all these translations usually have a particular motive behind them.
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  And then you just need to know the motive, be able to live with it.
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  If you like it, If it gets you deeper in the word, that's great.
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  If you don't like it, learn Greek and Hebrew. I mean, that's easy enough, right?
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  How many years of college do you have to go? Get Greek and Hebrew.
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  Or a good strong concordance so that you can go back and dig into those words
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  and know what it means in the original language.
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  So that you get those layers off of it that are often put by a translator.
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  Yeah. So that's why we have so many translations.
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  And ESV is good for study of word-by-word translation.
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  You can't get better than that. RSV was good.
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  The new RSV is okay. The ESV, I think, exceeded it in word-by-word translation.
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  But it's just so hard to read. Yeah. So what Bible would you give somebody that's new to the word?
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  Oh, man. They're so hard to find, but I still go back to the 1984 NIV.
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  And, you know, it's not perfect. I don't want to make it sound like it's perfect.
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  It isn't. I even know where the flaws, several of the flaws are.
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  I've got them marked in my Bible.
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  I still like the way it reads.
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  If I knew the person was going to be a student of the word, an ESV,
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  If I knew that they just needed to get in the word, probably a CSB Yeah Or a
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  message, the message Yeah If I just wanted to wet their whistle on what the word says Yeah,
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  Yeah Yeah, good translations out there, many of them And then there's some that are not, so Yeah,
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  should we just leave that one
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  there we can talk about that that could be a whole nother set of questions.
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  All right well we'll wrap it up thank you for your time Don,
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  it's good Rowan I appreciate your time as well thank you guys for your time
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  as well I hope you enjoyed and we'll see you next time thank you for joining
• 18:53
  us for this podcast feel free to become part of this ministry by sharing it with others.
• 18:57
  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and His calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.