Terry Pruitt's Blog

Byzantine Text 1995   Καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ. Ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Ἀμήν.  Matthew 6:13  BYZ  Nestle-Aland 28  καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ. Matthew 6:13   NA28 Terry’s Translation And you (our Father) do not lead us into temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. Matthew 6:13  Translation is an art which draws upon theological and interpretive skills as well as linguistic and textual preservation skills.  Recently the lead pastor of the Roman Catholic church, Pope Francis said that the phrase in the Lord's prayer asking God to not lead us into temptations "is not a good translation."    Rather, Pope Francis advocates what he considers a better translation, “Do not let us fall into temptation.”  At least part of the reason is theological, because Pope Francis says, it...

I have not done it in many years, but sometimes I have just opened my Bible in a random fashion to see what God had to say to me.  It was sort of a modern take on the casting of lots or Urim and Thurim .  How do I know God's will?  Let's roll the dice so to speak.  I would hesitate to say one should never do this.  One is reading God's Word.  That is good.  In recent years a funny story has crossed my path a couple of times.  A young man want to know what to do with his life so he opens his Bible in this random fashion and the Scripture Matthew 27:5 about Judas is what the page opened to and the eye caught, "...and he went and hanged himself."  Feeling discouraged by such a dark passage he decided to try again and get a more positive Scripture passage.  He opened the Bible this time and came up with Luke 10:37 which told him "You go and do likewise." I have no idea whether that story is real or not.  I'm guessing it is not. ...

Reading Matthew 23:16-23 helps us see how we are slack in giving respect for all aspects of God's creation.  While we might not use God's name in vain, we might not speak well of our fellow man.  These are beings created in God's image.  Jesus tells the Pharisees that the have it wrong when they teach that swearing by the Temple brings no obligation, but swearing by its gold does.  Jesus points out parallel teachings they have, where they teach about limits of the Law.  Jesus points out how the sacred has relationships and effects to other things.  We might see that we have not been recognizing the holy and the sacred in our own lives. Another teaching of Jesus in this section has to do acting to advance justice, mercy, and faithfulness.  Justice is seeking the right.  Mercy acting forgiving, not giving punishment that someone deserves.  Faithfulness is being true to virtue and duty when it is costly to do so.  These are in contrast w...

In Matthew 23:6-15 , Jesus talks about the dynamics of being a religious leader. When we are religious leaders there is a temptation to exalt our own reputation. There is a temptation even in obeying to do it for the motive of stroking our ego. In my home in the Ozarks it was the practice the churches I grew up in to not use titles like Reverend. Pastors were often called brother, but then again other men in the church could be called brother and the women sister. It seems that brother could also be used as a title of honor also. The intent is to not do that though. After completing seminary I have found it a challenge to find a traditional ministry with the honor that is common in American Protestant churches. So my heart is sometimes seeking honor exactly in the way that Jesus warns against. My own heart has a subtle desire to seek honor and a not so subtle anger in response to dishonor. This is another call to the life to live daily repentance. I've been listening o...

The Bible sees the human as wholistic. The greatest command addresses the whole person in loving God. “And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deut. 6:5 KJV) As we look at people to whom we minister we must use the wholistic approach. Tim Keller points out in his book on suffering that the western cultural mindset is to approach suffering by solving it through the use of a specialist. If you have a marriage problem one goes to a marriage counselor. If one has a legal problem one goes to a lawyer. Suffering of neglected children is solved by social worker. Each type of suffering is solved by a particular type of specialist. However, when we suffer it is complex and affects the whole person. When people grieve we often think of grief primarily as an emotional symptom that needs to be relieved, solved, or endured. Grief is the emotional response to loss, however, as Christians we must rightly see the whole perso...

For years I have been focused on Thanksgiving being about the good things that happen in my life. That is true, we should be thankful for those good things when we are blessed by God. I have founded it harder and wiser to also be thankful when things do not go my way. This is a favorite passage of one of my daughters. I was always surprised by her attraction to it. I heard a sermon podcast on it this past Monday about this passage. "I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet...

It is not clear where the teaching comes from but I have often heard that the word 'go' in the Great Commission is not the command.  The supporting evidence given is this, the word 'go' is not in the imperative.  Certainly grammatically the word 'go' is a participle so the imperative is not a choice.  That may sound like an open and shut case, the word is not in the imperative mood so therefore it is not a command.  While this is true that the word 'go' is not in the imperative, it is a participle, so what does that mean?  In New Testament Greek (Koine Greek) the participle often has an enriching function in the sentence.  One of the main uses of the participle is to combine two or more actions as a combined action.  While we can't do this in English to the same extent as New Testament Greek can, if we say "he ran the ball to the end zone and won the game" we usually would think that the act of running the ball was how he won the game.  Thi...

I bought the book Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography by Iain H. Murray for a family member.  Initially she told me she liked it but as she read, she got frustrated.  She actually gave up on it and gave it to me.  I just finished reading it myself.  It took a while.  The book lacks direction is one of its main faults.  Rather than guiding and interpreting the life of Jonathan Edwards, it seems like the author accumulates many facts.  Murray seems to go into depth on issues which for me which would have served the average reader better by summarizing the issue or by excising the material altogether.  This book best serves someone with a strong interest in history and lover of detail.  If you desire to learn a bit of church history, historical theology, or be inspired by a great Christian man, you should look for another biography.

I took Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek in seminary.  I am maintaining my Hebrew and Greek by continuing to use those skills.  I translate my preaching passages.  I use Bible Works which I highly recommend.  It is my favorite Bible software since as they advertise, focus on the text.  Sometimes I'm being overly literal, so the English is poor, but it helps to figure out how Hebrew is different that English.  They just do things differently with language sometimes.   ‎  אִ֛ישׁ הָיָ֥ה בְאֶֽרֶץ־ע֖וּץ אִיּ֣וֹב שְׁמ֑וֹ וְהָיָ֣ה׀ הָאִ֣ישׁ הַה֗וּא תָּ֧ם וְיָשָׁ֛ר וִירֵ֥א אֱלֹהִ֖ים וְסָ֥ר מֵרָֽע׃   (Job 1:1 WTT) There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job and he was a man who was whole and straight and feared God and turned from evil.  Notes:  The location is east of Israel.  ‎  וַיִּוָּ֥לְדוּ ל֛וֹ שִׁבְעָ֥ה בָנִ֖ים וְשָׁל֥וֹשׁ בָּנֽוֹת׃   (Job 1:2 WTT) And there was born to him seven so...

In his book The Master Plan of Evangelism Robert Coleman points out the example of Jesus in his ministry as individual instruction, small group instruction and preaching to large congregations.  These three are at least helpful in considering how a church should organize the discipleship ministry of the church.  Making disciples is a direct command in Scripture (Mt 28:18-19).  Jesus’ example of making disciples when working with individuals, small groups, and larger gatherings is strategic for the modern church. This blog post focuses on one to one discipleship.   Richard Baxter (1615-1691) in his book “The Reformed Pastor” describes how he traveled from home to home teaching the catechism.  He had a clerk arrange appointments for the members of the parish.  Rev. Baxter would visit each family in the parish. The church provided printed catechisms which he left with his congregation members.  His approach was to talk with all members of the ho...

Πόθεν πόλεμοι καὶ πόθεν μάχαι ἐν ὑμῖν; οὐκ ἐντεῦθεν, ἐκ τῶν ἡδονῶν ὑμῶν τῶν στρατευομένων ἐν τοῖς μέλεσιν ὑμῶν; (Jas. 4:1 NA28) Where do wars or conflicts come from in you? Do they not come from the pleasure you find in war making in your members? (James 4:1 my own working translation) We have conflict and fight with each other because we like it. I know people often are the victims of other people's love of the fight, however, we have to be constantly vigilant of our own hearts. We have to be aware of our own instinct to dig someone else, to go head to head, or to just compete in an unhealthy way. In recent years people have often thought that war comes from lack of resources. That may be a contributing factor, but the heart of mankind is the real source. People often think poor communication techniques or lack of empathy is the reason we have personal conflict. Communications techniques can help, but often our heart will turn good techniques on t...

If we go to a clothing store, we expect choose according to our taste and preference.  There are practical concerns like size and season that may inform our choices, but we can buy any article of clothing in the store.  It need not be our size or fit our marketing demographic.  I can buy a pair of jeans that would be more suitable for a young man in his twenties.  Besides the functional issues, clothing choice is a matter of style and taste.  These define what we want to communicate about ourselves.  It is our choice.                          There are other decisions we make in life that define our story.  If we accept or reject a marriage proposal, it has a great deal of impact on our life story.  If we are able to choose between two career paths that appear to be significant, meaningful work, that choice will influence our income, our life-work balance, our mobility, our...