Genesis 4 (New International Version, ©2011)
Genesis 4
Cain and Abel
1 Adam[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.[b] She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth[c] a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.Footnotes:
- Genesis 4:1 Or The man
***
GJ - The apostates of the NIV business, and it is a rockin' business, have chosen to do a Living Bible style version with anti-Biblical notes. This note (a) is offering the concept that Adam was not a real person but just the Hebrew word for "a man."
2011 NIV Adam[a] made love to his wife Eve and she became pregnant...
KJV Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
1984 NIV Genesis 4:1 Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man."
NKJ Genesis 4:1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, "I have acquired a man from the LORD."
VUO Genesis 4:1 Adam vero cognovit Havam uxorem suam quae concepit et peperit Cain dicens possedi hominem per Dominum
LUO Genesis 4:1 Und Adam erkannte sein Weib Eva, und sie ward schwanger und gebar den Kain und sprach: Ich habe einen Mann gewonnen mit dem HERRN.
The nasties in WELS like to claim, without knowing me, that I do not know Greek. My publications suggest otherwise. WELS graduates do not know Greek or Hebrew or English.
All previous translations used "Adam knew Eve and she conceived," but the New NIV uses Jes/Ski approved language which short-circuits the metaphor and cheats the readers. I can only guess how many Jes/Ski victims will make future Bibles even worse.
33 comments:
It's important for the WELS to continue using a gender-neutral translation like the new NIV because we wouldn't want the congregants to ever get the idea that men ought to be fathers, and women mothers, with mothers staying at home until the last child is in the first grade. According to the leftist-feminist doctrine, men and women are economic units, and women need to be making money outside the home, and not take breaks to have kids.
Already the leftist-feminist doctrine has worked so well since the 1960s that today there is a higher percentage of white women in the workforce than men. Also, it is not surprising that alien conservative cultures that value children have moved in, and now Americans must dial 1 for English. Soon we'll have to dial 2 or 3 for English, and one for Spanish and 2 for Portuguese.
John Braun in the April 2001 WELS "Forward in Christ" (pp. 28-29) compares the ESV and the new NIV. His article implies that the WELS will be using two translations in the future--the new NIV for evangelism and church services, and the ESV for study and scholarship.
Of course, I'm not surprised that being gender-neutral would be a priority for the WELS. Even the magazine subtitle "A Lutheran Voice" reminds me of the pan-Lutheran feminist group "Voices, Vision" headed up by theologian Dr. Marva Dawn.
Of course, evangelism will only remain a priority in theory in the WELS. Ironically, the quickest way to get a pastoral visit is to suggest at church over coffee and donuts that the pastor (and last pastor, and the pastor before that, ad infinitum) doesn't do enough evangelism. The pastor will come visit and ask that in the future you only make smalltalk about the weather and such since you've definitely crossed over the line trying to get the pastor to do the one thing he hates doing more than sin.
"...the pastor (and last pastor, and the pastor before that, ad infinitum) doesn't do enough evangelism."
bruce-church,
Please explain what you mean. Every time a confessional Lutheran pastor gets in the pulpit, he's "doing evangelism." Luther translated 2 Timothy 4:5 as "Do the work of an evangelical (i.e. gospel) preacher."
Pastors might suppose that their fathers, grandfathers, etc., never did evangelism, or led by example in doing evangelism, but in many cases churches can't survive for long without pastors taking up the mantle and doing some evangelism themselves.
Catechesis, The usum loquendi of the word "evangelism" means handing out flyers, going to the mall to talk to people about the Gospel, etc. While reference to the Greek word that is the source of the English word is interesting, it is besides the point. Worse, it might be used by pastors as an excuse for not doing evangelism in the sense that people understand that word. If pastors start using this end-run to get out of doing evangelism, we might have to choose another synonym for evangelism that has no Greek etymology.
http://www.sacklunch.net/Latin/U/ususloquendi.html
Pr GJ.
New NIV uses Jes/Ski approved language which short-circuits the metaphor and cheats the readers
Right on. We know that a man can make love to a woman without him knowing the woman intimately and deeply.
The Biblical term is a lot richer than simply saying Adam had sex with Eve.
The term includes sex but it is a lot lot deeper than that.
I no longer have NIV in my library, it just dumbs down the reader.
LPC
bruce-church, thanks for the reply.
Re: "...churches can't survive for long without pastors taking up the mantle and doing some evangelism themselves."
That's quite a statement. Can you back that up with some examples?
Re: "'evangelism' means handing out flyers."
Sure you don't mean "Handing out flyers means 'marketing'?" The "usum loquendi" of the word "evangelism" to the layman may mean handing out flyers, but that's not the biblical sense of the term "evangelism."
Catechesis, Yes, I have examples. Take all the micro-synods and the entire ELS synod minus some of its larger parishes. A high number of its congregations have under 50 members, and they are getting older every year. It's common knowledge that the ELS leadership fears the synod won't be around in another generation. It's hard to put a number on it, but I'd dare say that most of the ELS pastors would rather close up shop than evangelize. Moreover, there are many churches that used to have their own pastor but now are part of a dual or triple parish. When those tiny churches die, they go out with a whimper, but there are many thousands of them, and little to no sustained evangelism was ever done to save them. Look in the WELS or LCMS directory and go and ask any church under 75 members if they expect the church to be around in a generation without doing any outreach efforts, and they'd agree they'd be closed. Finally, there are 500+ churches in the LCMS who can't afford to call a pastor and have a permanent vacancy. They are served in some form, but most often there's no evangelism, and they don't expect to be around in a generation.
Today I heard about a shut-in widow who is not visited by the pastor. Her husband was always there to help with the church, in every way. He was a skilled tradesman who helped out in that way too. It is common that the "conservative" pastors do not get off the computers enough to do minimal visitation of their own members. A house-going pastor has a church-going congregation. Neglected or not, the members do not think a sermon is a chance for the minister to blame them for the lack of membership growth. The "witness" of the pastor is pretty clear when he copies sermons and refuses to visit. I see the Little Sect going away soon, followed by WELS, then Missouri.
I believer there are more and bigger reasons why churches don't or aren't growing numerically than that the pastor isn't hanging flyers Saturday mornings like some Jehovah's Witness. Maybe it just comes down to AC V "the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God,
Let's be careful not to lay guilt trips on faithful pastors who do visit their members and share the faith with strangers when and where God gives opportunity, but do not see numerical increase on the membership stats. The results are up to the Holy Spirit.
I don't think BC wants to disclose a lot of details, so I will just add that he is talking about the type of pastor who expects a top dollar salary plus benefits but does not exert himself at all.
Or, consider this - a pastor spends his daytime boozing, talks about Church Growth as if he founded it, yet will not visit a dying member with communion. If he has the right relatives, he is rewarded with more calls.
DNA fidelity means everything, and faithfulness to the Word means nothing. Someone who trusts the Word of God will use it at all times in a variety of circumstances. Holy Mother Synod says, "Trust in the latest tricks we borrowed from Willow Creek," so the Old Adam takes over from there.
Fair enough. I can see that.
On a positive note, following your thoughts, if the men were trained properly--and they are not--they would be eager to apply themselves to the Word and the Word to their work. They would not judge the results but work on fidelity to God's Word and the Confessions. Starting with the efficacy of the Word makes the ministry enjoyable and fulfilling, even with all the challenges.
WELS and Missouri are now creating parasitic "missions" to draw their own members away from traditional congregations, to pile them up in Osteen/Groeschel clones. The Missouri guys who shared the spotlight with Jeske should be burned at the stake, figuratively speaking. But nothing will happen there either.
The Olde Syn Conference is training people to leave the Lutheran Church. One glimpse of this was Bishop Katie and Ski running into former Jeske members who are not groovin' at Granger Community Church. Nothing wrong with that, among apostates, but I caught and published the Tweet. Awkward. But once again, no one really cares.
The Olde Syn Conference is not a prison. People can leave when they wish, and they are leaving in droves. Statistically speaking, no one in ELCA wants to join WELS, Missouri, or the Little Sect on the Prairie. Few want to get a rabies shot in order to join the CLC.
"top dollar salary plus benefits"
Greg, in your opinion and experience, and if I may ask for the opinion and experience of your readers, what does that translate into in dollars and cents?
I am not sure. That depends on where they live, non-cash income (housing, utilities), etc. A huge increase to move to California would be swallowed up by costs there.
Clergy, except for the worst false teachers, are underpaid. Parochial teachers are also underpaid. Don't worry folks, with the way they are all treated, there will be few church workers to pay in the future.
Dr. Jackson, Yes, you're right about how I witnessed a pastor, who demanded he be paid according to synodical guidelines, did no evangelism for 17 years. The church shrunk each year, but toward the end of his tenure it shrunk faster because his salary became more burdensome, causing members to flee to other congregations. At that point he wanted the church to sell off some of its property and/or become a dual parish with another church that was in the same point for the same reason. During one of his sermons he decried the fact that there were hardly any visitors Sunday after Sunday, but of course he never lifted a finger to make sure there were (nor did he visit members much). Thanks to him, our church was as invisible to the community as a church can be.
I've run into this before in person, and in blog comments, that someone puts up a lot of resistance to the idea of a pastor doing some evangelism at the mall, or canvassing door to door. But their visceral reaction against evangelism or canvassing really just shows it comes down to they don't want to witness to the world, or "be like the Jehovah's Witnesses." When a pastor is securely kept in the middle class by his congregation, this attitude is especially troubling.
This attitude is one reason that Church Growth is so tempting because pastors know they should do outreach, but they want to stay on church grounds and they don't want to spend extra time on it, so the church service becomes evangelism and worship at once, killing two birds with one stone--all the while staying put. So that's another reason canvassing and evangelism should be done separately so worship stays worship and evangelism and canvassing remain separate.
FYI (and correct me if I'm wrong, all of this can be found on-line or in your voters meeting minutes):
According to the suggested salary schedule, an LCMS pastor with 15 years experience in the South Wisconsin District would be paid a base salary of $65,245 (includes housing).
According to the WELS compensation guidelines a pastor with 15 years experience would be paid a base salary (not including housing) of $38,997.
As a point of comparison for those trying to decide whether to take the pastor or teacher track at MLC, a WELS pre-school teacher with 15 years experience would be paid $35,439. And don't forget to add an extra three years of schooling to pay for that MDiv.
Liveable wage? I suppose anything is "liveable." ("...having food and raiment let us be therewith content.")
Isn't it interesting, anyone ever heard a Church Growth WELS Mission Counselor berate WELS pastors for being a "maintenance pastor" and that he should be doing door-to-door evangelism to get more people to join his church?
Either way, whether it's movie theater worship or D. James Kennedy "if you were to die tonight..." cold calls evangelism, both focus on quantity not quality. Quantity (i.e. results) is up to the Spirit. Quality (i.e. correct teaching) is up to the presenter.
There are many ways to "do evangelism." In many areas of the U.S. Saturday morning cold calls are the least "effective" way of telling people about Jesus. So many people, so little time.
And why aren't the parishioners inviting their Friends, Relatives, Associates, Neighbors, to experience the joy of the gospel, which they hear in every Sunday sermon? Certainly, they have had opportunity to chat with a FRAN experiencing a life challenge, which the gospel would address.
This is interesting. Let's say you're a student at MLC and your classmate decided to go the teacher-track route to "public ministry" while you decided to go the pastor-track. Your classmate graduates and receives a call to teach pre-schoolers (full-time). Meanwhile, you go on the seminary and after four years, you receive a call to be a parish pastor. All things being equal according to the base salary of the current WELS compensation guidelines, here's what your pre-school teacher classmate will be paid (remember he/she started getting a salary four years earlier after graduating from MLC):
$30,171.
Here's what you will be paid:
$31,207
A difference of $1,036.
Now get going on paying off those student loans! And don't forget, your pre-school teacher classmate got a four-year head start on the WELS pension plan.
"...his salary became more burdensome, causing members to flee to other congregations."
What a sad commentary on that congregation. I suppose his salary was in the six figures range.
Catechesis, The congregation started out with 110 people (average Sunday attendance) paying his $35,000 salary plus $7,000 for high-priced synod health insurance and pension, which works out to $381 per person. 17 years later he adds two kids and his salary goes up the scale to $44,000 and insurance and pension hits $12,000 per year, but the congregation shrank to 45 average attendance, so that's $1,244 per person. The church's entire budget was $100 grand, so that's $2,222 per avg Sunday attendee. When it reached $800 per person just to pay the pastor's salary is when congregants started fleeing. Yes, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Your comments are of the same sort that pastors throw up whenever outreach is brought up. However, if the pastor is at all interested in passing the church down to the next pastor in the same or better condition than he found it, evangelism and outreach is required. Also, if the congregation doesn't see the pastor doing both cold and warm case evangelism, in most cases they won't do much evangelism either--even to friends.
Cold case evangelism may be the least fruitful per visit, but one can do so much more of it than warm case evangelism, so cold case evangelism might yield more fruit overall. Also, if you win one cold case person over, he's got friends he can witness to.
Not everything that evangelicals do is bad--like Kennedy's going door to door to get his first church started. Another example is I told a WELS pastor that there were people in the congregation that had piano skills, and perhaps the congregation could pay for them to take organ lessons so the congregation would have more organists. Also, that way they could cover for other congregations in the area when their organists were on vacation. I said I got the idea from evangelicals who pay for people to take lessons so they would have plenty of people to play synthesizer and band instruments. At that he scoffed at the idea and discarded it. One can tell that pastor didn't appreciate our Lutheran musical heritage, or he thinks that organists just grow on trees. If they ever did grow on trees, they sure don't anymore!
I know pastors who only think in terms of money, like the calculator salary examples you provided. Here's the thinking of one such pastor--how he expressed it to me and in congregational meetings. He considered "evangelism" to be an extra duty, and the congregation would have to pay him extra if they wanted him to do it. However, they were already paying him according to the synodical code. He wasn't impressed by that since he said other church bodies pay their pastors more. However, other churches are not based mainly in the Midwest where salaries are lower. Also, instead of comparing himself to well-off churches and synods, he could have compared himself to the average pastor in America whose salary is only $28,000! He was making 1.5 times as much as that with a better pension and health benefits to boot.
I can say I described the situation above to one of the many Preuses, and his immediate reaction was the pastor in question was a more of a hireling than a pastor.
I know that pastors and even seminarians worry too much about their salary and pension and retirement, but I think they do real damage to the church because even at seminary, they'll never stick their neck out when their is a disagreeable situation that needs addressing--like G.A. at the WELS seminary or initiation at Northwestern College (R.I.P). They just have their eye set on a comfortable lifestyle. May a pox be on them!
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in closing I would like to quote the Rev. Jackson, moderator of this blog:
"Clergy, except for the worst false teachers, are underpaid. Parochial teachers are also underpaid. Don't worry folks, with the way they are all treated, there will be few church workers to pay in the future."
I rest my case.
Oh, one last thing. This is why WELS don't grow:
a) women can't vote
and
b) you can't pray with your Missouri Synod grandmother
So why isn't the LCMS growing? Women can vote and they can pray with anyone.
Women vote in WELS, usurp authority, teach men, and are ordained. But WELS is also shrinking fast.
Pray with anyone? WELS leaves DP Benke in the dust.
Who was first to have a woman write the editorial in the synod rag? WELS!
Who was first to produce a gay video featuring future WELS workers? WELS.
They are the cutting edge of apostasy and should be growing faster than kudzu on warm, rainy day.
"It is a puzzlement," as the King of Siam said.
"It is a puzzlement," as the King of Siam said.
So true, so very true.
"For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?" - Rom. 11:34
AC V "the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God,
A confessional Lutheran pastor and parish may be doing it all right - the "perfect congregation" with right doctrine and right practice - but it may not be God's good pleasure that numerical, statistical growth occurs. So, let's stop obsessing over numbers, shall we?
Touché, Dr. Jackson.
Catechesis, I agree. But I find it disengenuous that you speculate on why the WELS won't grow and then defend lack of numerical growth in others, correctly, to the will of the Holy Spirit.
Friends, opponents, and synod-minders all: numerical growth is meaningless in defining the true Church, which is known by these marks - the Word preached in its truth and purity, the Sacraments administered according to the Scriptures.
Once the Shrinkers got everyone using numbers as the marks (notae) of the Church, the fix was in.
Numbers are not real, relational, or relevant.
Sound doctrine is literally "healthy" doctrine. The question is whether the church or congregation is healthy, and that can only be with healthy doctrine, never with false doctrine based on horrible translations.
Turmoil and the cross accompany sound doctrine, yet the lower-archy tries to use calm and cover-ups as marks (notae) of the true Church. The confuse Holy Mother Synod with the true, invisible Church.
The apostates know - change the agenda and everything follows. They will also drop in a Latin term every so often, to impress others.
arkos, I was just passing on what I hear from others re WELS in general and the church I know in particular. There are other reasons (that I hear from others):
c) the Bible is infallible
d) 6-day creation
e) in-fighting among the membership
f) too much emphasis on the day school
g) decisions made by the ruling clique, which has been in power for years
h) not enough "ministries" for kids
i) sanctuary lighting too dim
j) worship is boring
Do you have 30 minutes? In this interview with a hipster pastor at Catalyst West 2011, Eugene Peterson offers his comments on what it means to be a pastor (Warning to WELS viewers, Peterson leads participants in prayer at the end of the interview. Do not pray along or at least don't let anyone see you praying along.) Comments?:
http://vimeo.com/21067990
Peterson recommends "Diary of a Country Priest." If you don't want to read the book, put the movie in your Netflix Queue:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Diary_of_a_Country_Priest/60034263?trkid=2361637#height2007
A subtle clue that your pastor is becoming secularized: Does he call the room where he prepares for his pastoral duties (i.e. sermon and Bible study preparation, etc.) a "study" or an "office"?
Also, does he do pastoral visitation or "counseling" in his office. One old bishop said the surest sign of a pastor leaving the ministry soon was spending all his time "counseling" in his office, none of it with pastoral calls.
Iver Johnson did a lot of counseling in his office, until he was caught. Then he married the church secretary and divorced his wife of 50 years. WELS is very particular about who can participate in a new hymnal.
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