TopekaStew

I couldn't find my Bible Sunday morning. I had set it down somewhere in the auditorium, and so when I got up to preach I had to take my NIV into the pulpit. And then, in the middle of my sermon, I couldn't help myself: "What a horrible translation!" It just poured out of my mouth. And some people were offended, defensive of their translation. Let me tell you why I think Phil. 2:30 is translated poorly in the NIV. I was going to compare the structure of Col. 1:24 with the structure of Phil 2:30. Col.1:24 says, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." (Col. 1:24, ESV) My point was that there is nothing lacking in the quality Christ's afflictions. What was lacking was some kind of experiential knowledge of the afflictions. Paul's sufferings, therefore, allowed them to know something about the afflictions of Christ. I was goin...

"...above all things see to it that your souls are happy in the Lord." - George Mueller The first order of business every day, says Mueller, is to get my soul happy in God. Great advice. But I've not yet mastered the technique. One of the ways I like to do that is by thinking about glory. I don't know exactly what glory looks like. I've been asking God to show it to me lately, but he's not yet given me a big glorious experience. The Apostle Paul, however, must have had a strong vision of it: "...the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." - Romans 8:18-19 And talk about suffering! Paul knew suffering: "Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three timesI was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea...." -2 Cor. 11:24-25 So, Paul suffered much, but said it couldn't be compared wi...