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I’m sometimes asked why I quote from the translations I use. Sometimes I browse translations to pick one which best reinforces the point I’m making, but I don’t always. The English Standard Version (ESV) is the one I carry and is the default for most of my quotes. Is it the best? I defer to a Bible translator who, when asked which was the best translation said, “You tell me which verse you’re interested in, and I’ll tell you which translation I like!”

Sometimes I use the New International Version (NIV2011) if I want to use gender-inclusive language, which it works hard at. (Sometimes, however, the meaning gets lost. For example, 2 Corinthians 5.17 reads in most translations something like, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation…” In the NIV2011, it reads, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come!” I don’t think that quite gets it.)

Often I use The Message (MSG) if I want to get our attention as with today’s closing quote.

A recent translation for me is The Passion Translation (TPT) by Bruce Simmons. Like The Message it uses everyday language although Bruce also works hard to stay close to the original languages. Sometimes the footnotes alone are worth having TPT in your toolbox. For example, when talking about the wise men in Matthew 2, a TPT footnote is the only reference I’ve seen to the fact that these wise men are most likely descended from contemporaries of Daniel! We know that Daniel was chief of the wise men, and he could have taught them the prophecies, some of which he wrote. 

As we discuss translations, I hope you know that there is no value in NOT reading a particular translation. Often when I’m teaching a seminar on daily time with God I suggest some translations to start with. Nearly always someone comes up afterward to tell me they don’t like, and don’t think I should recommend, a particular translation. I usually (kindly, I hope!) suggest that they not read one they don’t like, but I strongly recommend that they read one that they do approve of!

As always, however, the bottom line is not which translation we read but which one we put into practice!

These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. (Matthew 7.24 – 27, MSG, emphasis mine)

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Yesterday I wrote about the math competition I help judge every year, and the emphasis was on the futility of trying when you don’t know what you’re doing, when you haven’t trained.

This year, the competitors were unusually verbose. Some years, those who have no idea how to solve the problems don’t write many words. This year, there were a plethora of words on papers which received no credit.

Why didn’t they receive credit? Because nothing they said was true or relevant to the problem. And mathematics is one of the few arenas left in the world of education where we don’t have to reward students for trying or for writing a bunch of nonsense.

Mathematics is still concerned with truth. And when we look at papers, they are coded so we don’t know the students’ names. Not their names, not their race or gender or age or grade. We are concerned only with the truth of what’s written there. Students’ sincerely believing that their answers are correct doesn’t make them correct.

Friday I saw some of the most beautifully written solutions, neat, organized, demonstrating, for example, how to get those 10 numbers that I wrote about yesterday equal. Unfortunately, good mathematics proves that they can’t be made equal under the processes we gave them.

There is truth in a world that doesn’t believe in facts or believes in “alternative facts,” or among people who believe that all religions are essentially the same. Either Pilate’s view of the world is true or Jesus’. Either Jesus is the Truth and the Son of God or he’s not.

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (John 18.37, 38, ESV)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14.6 – 9, ESV)

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On Friday I participated in an annual ritual now known as the Soifer Mathematical Olympiad, in which middle and high school students attempt to solve five increasingly difficult problems. I spent the morning in the room with the 140 contestants clarifying what they didn’t understand so I have a feel for what many of them were experiencing.

Here’s problem #1 (easy) so you have an idea what was going on:

Given numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. In a step, you may add or subtract 1 from any two of the numbers. Is there a series of consecutive steps that in the end produces ten equal numbers? (Go here for a complete set of problems. Solutions or critiques of your solutions provided upon request.)

Questions from the students included, “What am I supposed to do?” Answer: “If a series of steps can produce 10 equal numbers, show how. If it can’t, explain why.” Another question: “Do I add or subtract 1 to two different numbers?” “Answer: “What does the problem say?”

Bottom line: many of the students were in shock because it’s the first time in their educational experience that they’ve been asked to do something they can’t do. The math questions they are used to are on the order of, “Given a right triangle with legs 8 and 15, use the Pythagorean Theorem to compute the length of the hypotenuse.” 

Our problems require them to write an essay. Spoiler Alert! The answer to #1 follows: 

The sum of the given numbers is odd, and the allowed steps increase the sum by 2, decrease it by 2 or leave it unchanged. Hence, the sum remains odd. On the other hand, the sum of 10 equal integers is even, and therefore the equality of ten numbers cannot be achieved.

40 students got #1 right, meaning over 100 students didn’t solve #1 or anything else. This parting comment from a stunned 4th grader (a little younger than the target population!) sums it up:

What’s our lesson? Some of us would say, “Of course, it’s not by trying it’s by trusting Jesus to save us from our sins.” But it’s more than that. We are saved to something, not just from something. 

[Jesus] gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2.14, NLT)

But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. (1 Peter 1.15, ESV)

In the words of Dallas Willard, it’s not by trying, it’s by training. The students who wrote the top papers didn’t get there accidentally—they’ve been studying and practicing for years. To change the metaphor, if all the weight I can lift on a certain exercise is 50 pounds, trying harder won’t get me to 100 pounds. But over time, training will.

John Ortberg suggested that if you want to practice patience, for example, why not select the longer checkout line?! Memorizing and meditating on scripture for problem areas helps too. Change is not instant, but growth does occur over time…when we train.

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. (Mark 4.26 – 28, ESV)

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12.2, NIV)

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I’ve been writing the past two days on the map and compass, stimulated by a delightful story from Seth Godin. Check it out here if you missed it. The lesson was that the wrong map won’t stop you from reaching your destination if your compass is good. I suggested that we should not be so hard on fellow believers whose maps are different from ours if their compass (loving and following Jesus) is on track. Yesterday, I advocated honing the compass (skills) in our discipleship training rather than focusing solely on our map (knowledge).

Here’s one more thought, gleaned from my friend Tom who spends a lot of time mentoring alcoholics and other substance abusers at our local Rescue Mission: some folks just need a new compass! He works with men who are on their third time through the 1-year rehab program. They know the map! And they’ve been at least shown the new compass and encouraged in some of the spiritual disciplines that would help keep them on track if they engaged in them.

But their existing compass, the one which draws them back to their old friends and old ways is strong. We need to help them not only practice the disciplines, including time with God, scripture memory, and engagement with a community that will support a God-centered lifestyle, but we also need to help them jettison the vestiges of the old life. Let the new community replace the old one, for example. Help them build the “fences” that will keep them away from temptation.

So it’s embracing the new compass and throwing away the old one. Nothing earthshaking here, but perhaps a good reminder of what we all need to do…for others and ourselves.

Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. Enjoy the companionship of those who call on the Lord with pure hearts. (2 Timothy 2.22, NLT)

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I hope you all realize that these blogs often reflect my “thinking out loud,” and don’t always represent fully formed positions that I would live and die for. Yesterday and today I’m writing about the map and the compass, and my ideas are very much a work in progress. But I’m excited at the possibilities.

Yesterday, I relayed the story of a soldier who traveled 600 miles, finding his way home using an irrelevant map. The point of the story was that a useless map accompanied by a working compass would often do the trick. My application was that our “maps” may differ (our traditions, our theology, our denominations, for example), but God may still use us to get the job done if our compass is right–that is, we’re following Jesus.

Today, I want to use the map/compass metaphor to suggest that sometimes our process of helping believers reach maturity over-emphasizes the map at the expense of the compass. There are important things to be known, for sure: for example, Jesus as God-man, loves us and died on the cross for our sins, and salvation is by grace through faith. These principles should certainly be part of everyone’s map.

But the compass is often neglected. Before the map/compass metaphor, I would have said knowledge AND skills. Are we teaching believers to have daily time with God, for example, and helping them memorize scripture and pray effectively so they will be strong (2 Timothy 2.1) and ensure their relationship with God is strong? It’s not just the map of things to know, it’s the compass of how to live.

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11.1, ESV)

Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.19, 20, MSG, emphasis mine)

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I’ve said before that I read Seth Godin every day, and often his principles apply to ministry, mission, or my life with Jesus. He published a story on April 21, 2019, and I decided to save it without even knowing what I would use it for. But as I was filing it, the application came. See what you think.

Seth wrote,

Steve Pressfield relates this magical story: A Ghurka rifleman escaped from a Japanese prison in south Burma and walked six hundred miles alone through the jungles to freedom. The journey took him five months, but he never asked the way and he never lost the way. For one thing he could not speak Burmese and for another he regarded all Burmese as traitors. He used a map and when he reached India he showed it to the Intelligence officers, who wanted to know all about his odyssey. Marked in pencil were all the turns he had taken, all the roads and trail forks he has passed, all the rivers he had crossed. It had served him well, that map. The Intelligence officers did not find it so useful. It was a street map of London.

Seth applies the Pressfield story: Happy endings come from an understanding of the compass, not the presence of a useful map. If you’ve got the wrong map, the right compass will get you home if you know how to use it.

Often we get exercised because someone doesn’t seem to be using the right map. “They don’t go to our church!” “They’re not in the right denomination!” “Their theology is all wrong!” (Of course, you understand that people from different churches, different denominations, and different theologies are saying that about one another.)

In the middle of all of it, God’s work gets done. People come to Christ listening to preachers I would never listen to or responding to approaches I would never use. People I don’t agree with are feeding the poor or running hospitals in third and fourth world countries. Why? Because regardless of their map, their compass is working: they love Jesus. And God honors and blesses their efforts. (Please see my blog on the Holy Spirit.)

I know this metaphor has limits just as the Pressfield/Godin story and application have limits. But I believe we’d be closer to fulfilling God’s work in the world if we spent less time refining our own or critiquing others’ maps, and spent more time heeding our compass: our day-to-day relationship with Jesus.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13.34, 35, ESV)

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. (Isaiah 30.21, ESV)

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Navigator Joe Bernardy just wrote about “awestruck” and said that we who are familiar with the Bible don’t experience it as much.

We should be awestruck by the resurrection that we just celebrated Sunday. The early disciples certainly were! As I shared Monday, Andy Stanley pointed out that we wouldn’t have Christianity today if it hadn’t been for the resurrection. There would have been no one to start it!

Years ago, some friends of ours were reading the Bible aloud with another couple, brand-new believers (or “pre-believers,” I don’t remember). Our friends told this story:

We were reading Acts 5, the story of Ananias and Saphira who lied to Peter about how much they had received from the sale of property. When confronted separately they both dropped dead. When those of us who grew up with this story hear it, we think, “Serves ‘em right! They shouldn’t have done that!” But the account closes with, “So great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things.” (Acts 5.11, NKJV). The response of the couple, unfamiliar with the Bible, was a startled, “Well, I guess!!”

The ability to be “awestruck” or “astonished” is something I’m working at. 

When the Apostle John, good friend of Jesus, saw Jesus in his glorified state as recorded in Revelation 1.12 – 16, his awestruck response was simple:

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. (Revelation 1.17, NKJV)

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Every now and then I see a vehicle on the road, sometimes a large semi, sometimes just a van, and it has a sign on the back: safety is my goal.

The sign strikes me as weird. If safety were your goal, why don’t you leave it in the garage? Your goal is probably to move cargo from one point to another, perhaps on time, and yes, safely. But the goal can’t be safety. I’m not the first to come up with this objection:

Jesus gave us a mandate in Acts 1.8 that was anything but safe. Persecution started in Acts 4; Stephen was martyred in Acts 7; James, in Acts 12. Paul’s journeys were marked by opposition in every city.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1.8, NIV)

We have the promise of Jesus’ power and his presence, but we have no promise of safety. If safety is our goal, we can’t do the mission.

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, NIV, emphasis mine)

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My friend Henry Brown challenged me on Saturday’s blog entry where I appeared to attribute no value to the Sunday morning service. In case you didn’t see our exchange, Henry wrote:

I’ll challenge you on that point, my friend. Education and training are one of the purposes of the church, but so too is worship and discipline. You know the verse from the Topical Memory System – Do not neglect gathering together, and all the more as the day draws near. Wish I could find it.

I responded:

Good word, Henry, and yours is the second challenge! June’s was the first. I didn’t mean to imply that there was no value to the Sunday morning service. I mentioned inspiration and motivation. There is also education (if people are listening to the sermon) and value in being together. (Hebrews 10.24, 25 is the Topical Memory System verse you’re looking for.) Rick Warren has worship as one of five purposes, which is another way to say that Sunday worship is not the only purpose of the church, the point I was trying to make. Thanks for reading and for keeping me honest!

Speaking of meaningful worship services, we just heard Andy Stanley via video at my son’s church on Easter Sunday. He forcefully made the point that Jesus’ resurrection matters: it’s the foundation of the church. The link above takes you to the version as it was released last year. It’s worth the 30 minutes. And it was fun being in a packed venue with people of all ages–mostly younger–who were enjoying the music and the testimonies of two men, one of whom had been homeless, who were baptized. So, yes, I’m in favor of Sunday morning worship services!

And I’m in favor of you, my readers, challenging me. Let’s work together to build each other up.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27.17, NIV)

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10.24, 25, ESV)

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I’ve spent extra time this year meditating on both the cross and the events of Holy Week and on the resurrection and events accompanying it. The cross was unimaginably brutal. How Jesus got through it and the scourging preceding it is a mystery.

By contrast, the post-resurrection appearances have a whimsical quality about them. I think Jesus was having fun!

Suddenly, the earth shook violently beneath their feet as the angel of the Lord Jehovah descended from heaven. Lightning flashed around him and his robe was dazzling white! The guards were stunned and terrified—lying motionless like dead men. Then the angel walked up to the tomb, rolled away the stone, and sat on top of it! Matthew 28:2 – 4 (Passion Translation NT)

This had to be a fun day in the heavens. Jesus was already gone from the tomb. The Father said, “OK, let’s put the plan into action. They won’t know he’s gone if we don’t roll away the stone.” So he sent two angels. Fun duty. 

In Matthew 28.5 – 10, the women’s emotions ran the gamut:

• Breathless and terrified (v5)
• Deep in wonder, filled with joy (v8)
• Overwhelmed (v9)
• Still with fears (v10)

Along the way, Jesus suddenly appeared in front of them and said, “Rejoice!” They were so overwhelmed by seeing him that they bowed down and grasped his feet in adoring worship. Then Jesus said to them, “Throw off all your fears. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. They will find me there.” Matthew 28:9-10 (Passion Translation NT)

Why did he appear to the women first? Maybe because the disciples fled the scene but the women stayed on. John was at the cross, but none of the others.

Real people. Real emotions. Real uncertainty for a time. Jesus is having fun! And he’s always sending. “Go and tell.” He could have done that himself, but he sent the women first.  

Then there’s the story of Jesus’ appearing to the two folks on their way to Emmaus. This is a great story and underscores how much fun Jesus was having since the resurrection! (Luke 24.13 – 35)

• He appeared incognito
• “What things?”
• “Why are you so thick-headed?” Then he walked them through the entire Old Testament. (I wish we had the text of that sermon!)
• He pretended to go on past the village
• He revealed himself in the breaking of bread
• Then he vanished (only to reappear back in Jerusalem after the two returned (on foot!) to Jerusalem

Finally, he meets them in Galilee, “And when they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.” Then he said to those doubters(!) and to us:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28.18 – 20, NIV)

He is risen! Happy Easter!