A place to snark and vent about CoC doctrine and/or our experiences in the CoC. This is a place for SUPPORT and AGREEMENT only, not a place to tell someone their experience and feelings are wrong, or why we disagree with them.
Ivy wrote:What is the latest sexy version in cofc circles? Are they still using the NKJV?
My congregation was using NKJV, but now they've switched to ESV some years back. Some folks still use other versions, of course. The sermon slides are mostly ESV now unless using other versions to compare. The NLT will often be used for that, mocked as not being accurate, but then used because it's the most clear way of making the point being made.
Ivy wrote:What is the latest sexy version in cofc circles? Are they still using the NKJV?
My congregation was using NKJV, but now they've switched to ESV some years back. Some folks still use other versions, of course. The sermon slides are mostly ESV now unless using other versions to compare. The NLT will often be used for that, mocked as not being accurate, but then used because it's the most clear way of making the point being made.
ESV....I had to look that up!!! I am really out of touch.
Ivy wrote:ESV....I had to look that up!!! I am really out of touch.
Ha! It's like an easier to read version of ASV. I think they're based on the same text. Before the changeover, several people were using ASV in my congregation. Then ESV became most popular. There are still some ASV users and plenty of NKJV users (once you've memorized every verse in NKJV wording, it's hard to switch to ESV wording). I think one family uses KJV, but I don't think they believe it to be the only accurate version as some fundamentalist groups do. I think they started using it because their kids needed more higher level reading practice, and KJV is pretty hard to read.
There are some other oddball versions used by a few people, but I can't remember what those are. They're versions most people have never heard of. But with the advent of phone/tablet Bible apps and internet websites, you can access almost any version you want for free. Pretty cool. I remember one visiting preacher (who was fairly young - our preacher had trained him when he was just out of college about 15 years ago) said, "Now if you will open your Bibles... or your Olive Tree app."
Ivy wrote:ESV....I had to look that up!!! I am really out of touch.
"Now if you will open your Bibles... or your Olive Tree app."
Haha, I've also heard "Please take out your phones and turn with me to..."
"If I had to define my own theme, it would be that of a person who absorbed some of the worst the church has to offer, yet still landed in the loving arms of God." (From the book 'Soul Survivor' by Philip Yancy)
True story. My first job, after getting out of the Navy in 1968, was working in management for a national retail clothing chain. I want through the training process as an asst. store manager in Atlanta, then Fayetteville N.C.
Then I Was promoted to store manager and transferred to Greecille SC to open a new store. The store was close to Bob Jones University. Several Bob Jones students worked for me part time to help with their expenses.
I hired this really nice guy to work as a salesman. He was in his later twenties, married with a baby. His wife was also a student at the university. He'd been a full time minister for a few years. He'd returned to the University to get his Masters Degree. Bob Jones University is even a more conservative Bible fundamentalists school than c of C schools.
About thirty minutes before closing one evening we were just hanging around talking. His name was James but we called him Jim. We started talking about funny stuff that happened at Church. He just listened for awhile and then said, "Well, I did have an incident that happened to me in the pulpit. I was about to start my sermon and I lost my train of thought. I was fumbling through my Bible looking for the scripture I wanted to read and I said into the mic, in front of the congregation, "Take out your Peter and turn to the Bible."
I didn't even know what I'd said. He said I heard some giggling, snickering, and a little laughing. I looked at my wife, who was sitting close to the front and her face was bright red. After the service she told me what I'd said. He said he apologized to the congregation for his mistake at the next service, without saying more than he had accidentally misspoken in a prior service when he'd lost his train of thought.
Cootie Brown wrote:"Take out your Peter and turn to the Bible."
To really appreciate this you have to know a little about Bob Jones University, and that Jim was a preacher in that environment. Bob Jones University is about as hard core far right conservative fundamentalists as it gets. Even married students were not allowed to hold hands in public while on university property. They had private security guards at the front gate armed with fully automatic weapons. I'm not sure who they thought was going to attack them, well probably the government.
To identify them a ultra conservative far right extremists fruit cakes might not be strong enough. Jim's face even turned red while he was telling us.
Ivy wrote:What is the latest sexy version in cofc circles? Are they still using the NKJV?
My congregation was using NKJV, but now they've switched to ESV some years back. Some folks still use other versions, of course. The sermon slides are mostly ESV now unless using other versions to compare. The NLT will often be used for that, mocked as not being accurate, but then used because it's the most clear way of making the point being made.
Most NI CoC preachers in the past used the American Standard, then the New American Standard, but many now use ESV, which is supposed to be the most reliable. I especially like the ESV because in Deuteronomy 32 ("the Song of Moses") it's clear that the Jews were henotheistic. They believed that there were multiple gods but that "the LORD" was their god. Other versions use the Masoretic text here (ESV uses the Septuagint Greek as its source because the Qumran text (aka Dead Sea Scrolls) backs it up. The Masoretic (Hebrew text from the 3rd-5th centuries AD) seems to have deliberately changed it (from "sons of God" to "sons of Israel"). I wouldn't say they were trying to hide anything, just that they may have thought "Sons of God" was an idiom. Regardless, the passage talks about how the "Most High" divided up the nations according to the number of his sons, and how the LORD received the descendants of Jacob as his inheritance. So "the LORD" (Adonai) is one of the sons of the Most High (Elyon).
To most liberal Christians, this isn't a big deal. They understand that people's beliefs changed throughout the time the Bible was being written. But to a fundamentalist, it should either make them become a liberal Christian or an atheist. I say "should." Mostly what it does is have them looking for ways to explain it away, usually by saying "this is a difficult passage" like all of those other "sons of God" passages. If you say it's difficult, you can ignore it as being not especially important.
