This is a typewriter. It is how Uncle Luther composes his blog posts.

Occasionally, I’ll have some poor misguided soul come to me for advice or answers to the questions that plague them. Why anyone would want to do such a thing is beyond me, but I figured as long as folks keep coming to me, I might as well blog their concerns and my answer. So, brace yourself folks for the first edition of “Dear Uncle Luther.”

Dear Uncle Luther,

Is being poor a sin? I attend a church that teaches weekly about God’s desire for us to prosper financially, yet I’m not seeing any results. Am I doing something wrong? Is my faith too weak to earn the type of money the other members of the congregation are blessed with?

Thanks for your help,
Bankrupt in Birmingham

Dear Bankrupt,

Let me assure you, being poor is not a sin. Whoever it is that makes you think that has a pitifully small view of God.

God is not an ATM machine. You don’t put your good works in and get financial wealth out. The philosophy being taught at your church is not Biblical— it is called Karma— which is a Hindu concept. It is actually a form of hedonism, where the highest goal is pleasure and happiness.

True Biblical teaching on wealth is as follows:

1. God owns it all.
2. We are given money so that we can be good stewards of that money.
3. Our true riches are found in Heaven.
4. We are to give all we have to the service of God’s Kingdom and to the poor.
5. It is almost impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, Christ taught that it was easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for the wealthy to inherit eternal life.
6. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

If you are in a church that is not teaching these Biblically sound economic principles, please find a new church.

God Bless,
Uncle Luther

photo credit: mpclemens

“Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid.” -John 14:27

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. –Isaiah 43:1 & 2

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. The flame shall not consume you. -Isaiah 41:10

No fear exists where his love is. Rather, perfect love gets rid of fear, because fear involves punishment. The person who lives in fear doesn’t have perfect love. –1 John 4:18

For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” –Romans 8:15

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. -2 Corinthians 12: 9 & 10

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” –Matthew 6:34

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? –Psalms 56:3 & 4

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? -Psalm 56:8

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. –1 Peter 5:6 & 7

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah. –Psalm 46:1-3

It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.” –Deuteronomy 31:8

You are my hiding place; you will save me from trouble. I sing aloud of your salvation, because you protect me. –Psalms 32:7

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation. –Psalm 42:5

God is my savior; I will trust him and not be afraid. The LORD gives me power and strength; he is my savior. -Isaiah 12:2

“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” –Jeremiah 32:27

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? –Luke 12:25 & 26

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. –Philippians 4:6-8

When I lie down, I go to sleep in peace; you alone, O LORD, keep me perfectly safe. –Psalms 4:8

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalms 46:10

Some fundamentalists believe the King James Version of the Bible is the only accurate version and the only one inspired by God.

Imagine you arrive late to church one morning and quickly slipping into a pew next to a friend in the back. You notice fairly quickly that something is strange. You can’t understand a word the preacher is saying and it isn’t because you’re in the back of the church. He is speaking passionately, and hammering a point home, but he’s speaking in another language – and he isn’t stopping.

After about 10 minutes you lean over to your friend and whisper, “What is this all about?” Your friend whispers back, “Before the sermon started, he announced that from now on he would be delivering all of his sermons in Aramaic, because that’s the language Jesus spoke.”

That’s well and good, but last you checked, nobody in the congregation spoke Aramaic. You bear with it for a while because you want to be obedient to your pastor and be a good Christian, but after about three weeks of going to church and not understanding a single word, you give up and sleep in on Sundays. Afterall, if the point of the sermon is to communicate God’s truths, your pastor certainly isn’t meeting anybody’s needs by speaking a nearly dead language.

Far-fetched? Perhaps. But there are a considerable handful of churches that do this week in and week out. I say considerable handful because this is a relatively small group, but not an insignificant group, particularly in the South. These are the folks who believe the King James version is the only valid English translation. In fact, some members of this group even go as far as to say the King James version is divinely inspired, even above the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts.

If ever there was a sacred cow in need of becoming a hamburger, this one is premium quality. This is a subject that has much debate surrounding it and both sides of the issue have a wide array of arguments. Being that this is a blog post about sacred cows and not a dissertation on translation techniques, I’ll spare the details relating to how the King James was translated, printed, and the textual arguments for and against. I want to focus on the obvious, or at least what seems obvious to me and why I am calling the King James version a sacred cow.

Do you know anyone who speaks 15th century English? When you are at work conducting business, has a client or colleague ever uttered these words: “This selfsame day, we shall hasten to make ready our covenant with one another.” Probably not. It isn’t completely unrecognizable, but it is archaic. It is not effective communication.

What makes the King James only view problematic is that people are putting an old translation on a pedestal that is, in my opinion, higher than God. The New Testament, for example, was written mostly in common Greek – the vernacular used by the average Roman citizen. If God didn’t desire to deliver His message in an archaic form, it is incredibly doubtful that He would choose to preserve His message in an archaic form. Also, if God wanted it in 15th century English, why not just send Jesus during the 15th century and have Him speak English?

Instead, the timing of Christ’s coming was perfect. He came when the Romans had colonized and established a common language for commerce. He came at a time when the Romans had built roads connecting the entire empire. He came at a time that would be perfect to reach the maximum number of people in a world- changing manner. It would appear from what we see in the Bible that God’s primary concern was healing a broken world and communicating His message to all people.

Yet despite that, we have a group of Christians today who would like to obscure a message Christ and His disciples died to deliver. As I said in a previous blog post, the intent of the Bible was to communicate God’s message. When that communication begins to fall on deaf ears because the audience doesn’t understand the language, it is time to deliver the message in an intelligible form. Paul said to the Jews he became a Jew and to the Greeks he became a Greek. Being able to relate to the surrounding culture was paramount at the time of Christ. To uphold a middle-English translation as the only one that can be used flies in the face of what the Scripture inside the leather binding actually says. They probably don’t realize that because they can’t understand what they are reading.

Some of you might be asking, “What’s the big deal? It’s only a few thee’s and thy’s.” Is it? Let’s take a look at some obscurity you might find a bit amusing. This is from 1 Corinthians 6 in the King James.

“O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged.”

What is this saying? If we read it using our modern understanding of the words, the above passage might seem a bit perverse. Now let’s look at this same passage, in a more modern translation.

“We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians, and opened wide our hearts to you. We are not withholding our affection from you, but you are withholding yours from us. As a fair exchange — I speak as to my children — open wide your hearts also.“

The Bible deals with some very complex issues. At stake to the reader, is all that matters in life and death. When a reader either can’t understand the text at all or could easily misinterpret something because they can’t get around the language, it can be tragic, particularly when there are other translations out there, yet we have some Christians who would put a guilt trip on people for reading a different translation. For what?

Come off it. Seriously. There is no language of God. The text we have is written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. One would think that if God were concerned about the language, He would have had the original authors write in the same language. God’s concern wasn’t language though, it was content. It was communicating the message in the clearest form possible to the intended audience. If God can do it that way, we should as well.

A few thoughts for the KJV only crowd: When we send missionaries out into other countries, do they need to take a dictionary with them as well and teach the people 15th century English so that they will be able to understand the superior text of the King James Version? Also, you say that the KJV edition from 1611 is the true inspired version. How many have actually read it? Let me quote for you a familiar passage from that version. Read it and judge for yourself if it is an effective form of English to communicate God’s message to people in a modern setting.

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among vs (& we beheld his glory, the glory as of the onely begotten of the Father) full of grace and trueth. Iohn bare witnesse of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that commeth after me, is preferred before me, for he was before me. And of his fulnesse haue all wee receiued, and grace for grace. For the Law was giuen by Moses, but grace and trueth came by Iesus Christ. No man hath seene God at any time: the onely begotten Sonne, which is in the bosome of the Father, he hath declared him.”

Let me close by telling you a couple of things I like about the King James. It’s free. That’s part of why we see so much of it. The copyright on this version expired a long time ago, so it is the one most likely to be freely distributed. It is also fairly close to being a word for word translation, which can be extremely helpful sometimes when studying the Bible. As translations go, it isn’t bad. But it also isn’t a god unto itself.

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