A converted prisoner in the Joseph Harp Correctional Center, Lexington, OK, who is a careful Bible student, grows in the “knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Now I learn he also is studying the Greek New Testament! I am amazed! He writes wanting to know why there is a “mistranslation of basileia” in the NKJV in Revelation 1:6: Christ “has made us kings and priests to His God and Father.” Jerry’s point is that basileia means “kingdom,” not “kings.” The explanation is that the NKJV scholars, and the 54 KJV scholars before them, followed the Greek manuscript P, which has the word basileis, “kings.” Furthermore, the context in Revelation 1:6 calls for “kings,” not “kingdom.” It is awkward to say that Christ “made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father” (ASV). Much smoother it is to say Christ “made us to be kings, to be priests unto his God and Father.” If someone insists on following the Greek manuscripts that have the word “kingdom” (as A), then parallel to “kingdom” would not be “priests,” but a “priesthood” (hierateuma, cf. 1 Peter 2:5, 9), and making the translation Christ “made us a kingdom and a priesthood.” But the translation “kings” (of P) is parallel to “priests” and so a translation would be Christ “made us to be kings, to be priests.” I am sorry I did not use those words in my printed translation of the New Testament. A parallel …

A friend keeps on loving, and is a helping brother when trouble comes (Proverbs 17:17). There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). Faithful are the wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6). Perfume is pleasing, but better is counsel for the soul from a friend (Proverbs 27:9). According to Webster, a friend is “a person one knows well and is fond of,” an “intimate associate,” a “close acquaintance,” and the word is also “applied loosely to any associate, or, as a term of address, even to a stranger.” According to the Greek New Testament, two different words describe Webster’s two English definitions of a “friend.” A hetairos friend may be “someone whose name one does not know” (B-G-D, 314), as a worker hired from a market place, dissatisfied with his wages at day’s end, to whom the employer says, “Friend [hetairos], I have not been unfair with you. Did you not agree with me for twenty cents [a denarius]?” (Matthew 20:13). A hetairos friend was not one of “the invited guests” at a wedding dinner, but a stranger, to whom the host said, “Friend [hetairos], why have you come without a wedding garment?” (Matthew 22:12). In itself hetairos has no warmth of affection. Sometimes the word was used merely as a way to start a conversation, as Jesus, in the garden of Gethsemane, spoke to Judas, “Friend [hetairos], do what you came to do” (Matthew 26:50). But when Jesus spoke of Lazarus, whom Jesus loved (John …

A careful Bible student writes: In Genesis 35:23-26, the 12 sons of Jacob are listed. Dan is named there but not Manasseh. In Revelation 7:5-8 the 144,000 sealed from all the tribes of the children of Israel are named. Here Manasseh is named but not Dan. I am wondering why. Thanks for your help. Manasseh was not a son of Jacob; instead he was “the first-born of Joseph” (Joshua 17:1), and so he was a grandson of Jacob. Some Greek copyist made a mistake by inserting the name “Manasseh” in Revelation 7:6 instead of “Dan,” who was the fifth son of Jacob (Genesis 29:32-30:6; 35:22-26). Perhaps they inserted “Manasseh,” because he, along with his brother Ephraim, became very prominent in Israel’s history (Joshua 16:1-10; 17:1-12), more prominent than Dan. “Ephraim and Dan, being the principal promoters of idolatry, are left out in this enumeration” (Adam Clarke’s comment on Revelation 7:5-8). However, a Bohairica manuscript has “Dan” in Revelation 7:6. I noticed years ago the insertion of Manasseh (not a son of Jacob) and the omission of Dan (a son of Jacob) in Revelation 7:6, and I had written a question on the margin of my old Greek NT text in 1953: “Each tribe has a quota? Dan none?” But Dan had a quota (Joshua 19:47-48). I should have made the correction of all English translations in my translation but I overlooked it. Jacob had tried to change the number of his sons from 12 to 14 by claiming the first …

A well-meaning, prayerful church bulletin editor has cited two verses to encourage every reader to “Start Your Day the Right Way… PRAY: The prayer of faith will cure the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your sins one to another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous has powerful results (James 5:15-16 FHV). Encouragement for daily praying is good advice, as Paul’s example shows: “Fervently we are praying night and day to see your face” (1 Thessalonians 3:10), and Paul’s instruction, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). But the citation of James 5:15 as being applicable today is an example of not “interpreting correctly,” of “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). We cannot say today that “the prayer of faith will cure the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up” (James 5:15). Sadly, some good people in our time do not realize that miraculous praying and healing ceased after the death of the last person died who had received the gift of healing by the laying on of an apostle’s hands (1 Corinthians 12:9; Acts 8:18; Romans 1:11). Today, in the 21st century, no apostle is available for hand-laying, and consequently all miraculous healing by prayer ended near the end of the first century. The right application of James 5:15 has to come from James 5:14: “Is any sick? Let …

Paul’s words “Christ is all and in all” (Colossians 3:1l, KJV, ASV), represent a mighty reversal on his part in outlook and in conduct: Formerly I was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, … the worst of [sinners] (1 Timothy 1:13, 16). I persecuted [Christians] to death, binding and delivering to jail both men and women (Acts 22:3-4). Educated “at the feet of Gamaliel, having been instructed according to the strictness of [his] fathers’ law” (Acts 22:3), and “breathing threatening and murder against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1), he was on the way to being a famous rabbi. However, after he saw Jesus in the sky, and having experienced “the bath of the new birth” (Titus 3:5), he had become a “new man” (Colossians 3:10, and he wrote about his new outlook: But the things which were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ’s sake. More than that, I count all things to be a loss because of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost all things for him, and count them as dung, that I might gain Christ, and be found in him (Philippians 3:7-9). Not only did Paul forfeit earthly advantages and respect from his fellow Jews, he also lost the love his kinfolks had for him. The grief at the loss of family affection stayed with Paul, after his conversion to Christ, the rest of his life. Baptized at the age of 33 (cf. W.M. …

A question has come about Matthew 5:17-19: Do not think I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Indeed, I assure you, until the heaven and earth disappear, neither the smallest letter in the law, nor the smallest part of a letter, shall pass away before all things are fulfilled. Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches them shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does these commandments and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said that he had come into the world to fulfill “all things written about me in Moses’ law and in the prophets and in the psalms” (Luke 24:44). Yes, Christ was “the goal of the law” (Romans 10:4). But after Jesus had “fulfilled” the law, he “took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14). In his death, Jesus “set aside the law” (Ephesians 2:15). No one today is to be married to Moses, but “be married to another, to the one who was raised from the dead” (Romans 7:4). If one is married to Moses (representing the Old Testament) and to Christ (representing the New Testament) he is guilty of bigamy. A woman married to two husbands at the same time “shall be called an adulteress” (Romans 7:3). But before Jesus had fulfilled the law and the prophets, he made it clear that the …

For your meditation I submit the following verses from the HFV [Freed Hardeman Version, 4th ed.] about JESUS. “Some of the Greeks who had come to worship at the feast went to Philip (of Bethsaida in Galilee), asking, ‘Sir, we want to see Jesus.’” “No other name under heaven is given among men by which we must be saved.” “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” “Have this mind in you, which also was in Christ Jesus. Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal to God something to be held on to, but he emptied himself. He took the form of a slave, being made in the likeness of men, and, having been found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” “Therefore, God exalted him to the loftiest height. He gave him a name above every name, so that every knee in heaven, on the earth, and under the earth, should bend at Jesus’ name, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the praise of God the Father.” “My heart overflows with a pleasant subject: I speak of the things … touching the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.” …

A Gospel preacher asks, “Why did you translate the Greek word for ‘kidneys’ in Revelation 2:23 as ‘minds’?” The Gospel preacher doing the asking has more than an average interest in the word “kidneys,” since he suffered for years with defective kidneys, and now his loving mother has gone to the hospital and had one of her kidneys removed and placed in him. As a result, all who have been edified and saved by Don Ruhl’s preaching (Klamath Falls, OR) are smiling and praying that he will have no more health problems. No one thinks that Jesus literally “searcheth the reins and hearts” (KJV, ASV). Physically and literally, “the reins [the kidneys] and hearts” are very important. But non-literal hearts, both God’s and man’s, are meant in these two verses: And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Jehovah that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart (Genesis 6:5-6). It is clear then that, when Jesus searches hearts he is talking about a man’s mind, for “as he thinketh in his heart so is he” (Proverbs 23:7, KJV), and when Jesus “searcheth the kidneys” he is talking about a man’s mind. Also, non-literal kidneys are mentioned in Psalm 7:9, “God trieth the hearts and reins” (KJV), and also in Jeremiah 11:20; 17:10; 20:12. Kidneys (kelayoth in the Hebrew, Psalm 7:10, nephrous …

In the Old Testament three hundred and thirty two predictions of the coming of Jesus have been counted (Floyd E. Hamilton, The Basis of the Christian Faith, p.157). Three hundred and thirty two pieces of marble, assembled by many different sculptors over some 1,500 years, most of whom never saw one another, could not produce a beautiful statue, but only something ugly, fantastic and grotesque. However, if a super-overseer sent out a plan for the three hundred and thirty two pieces of marble to local sculptors, the result would be a beautiful statue. So, God, as a super-overseer, sent out “pure words, as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6), words “from God” to “men” (Scripture writers), who were “moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21), words describing the most beautiful life ever in human flesh in 332 ways hundreds of years before he was born. Of the 332 Old Testament predictions about the coming of Christ, Jesus’ Biography in the Psalms is restricted to the 21 passages in the book of Psalms certified in the New Testament as predictions, and to three others (Psalm 22:1; 24:7-10; 31:5) that are believed to be predictions. I. Jesus’ Pre-fleshly Existence God, apparently in a heavenly conference “before the world existed” (John 17:5), to carry out his “eternal purpose” (Ephesians 3:11) to save sinners by a human sacrifice “as of an unblemished and spotless lamb” (1 Peter 1:19), apparently asked, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for …

Many of us have read enough to be resigned to the fact that we shall leave this life with unanswered questions about the soul and spirit. However, what God has revealed we ought to find out. The Soul My mother taught me that my soul is my immortal nature, a part of me that survives the body. What she taught is the most important thing knowable about the soul, but there are other meanings. The elemental meaning of the word “soul” (nephesh) is that which breathes: “To all the beasts of the earth and to all the birds of the air and to all creeping things on the earth, wherein is the breath [nephesh] of life, I have given green plants for food” (Genesis 1:30). The first time that most versions insert the word “soul” (nephesh) is in Genesis 2:7: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul [nephesh]” (KJV). I used to think that the word “soul” in Genesis 2:7 referred to man’s immortal nature. Most of the Bible occurrences of the word “soul” (nephesh) do refer to man’s non-material, immortal nature. I have counted 24 instances, but the context of nephesh in Genesis 2:7 (including Genesis 1:20, 21, 24, 26, 30) shows that Moses was saying that man, like the fishes, the birds, the beasts, and creeping things, is a living breather. In Job 41:21 (v. 13 in the …

Mariolatry (Gr. Maria, Mary, and latreia, worship) is the “worship of Mary.” Something is worse than the worship of Mary, namely, slander. A university professor writes that Mary was a “sexually questionable woman.” Gregory Alan Tidwell has refuted the professor: To insinuate that she [Mary] was morally loose is insulting not only to this godly woman, but to the very act of the incarnation. What Scripture describes in terms of tender beauty is transformed into a scandal of the gutter. A miracle of untold wonder is explained away as a tale of common filth (Gospel Advocate, April, 1993). If Jesus was born of two earthly parents, he was wholly human, and no more divine than the rest of us. If Jesus was wholly human, he was not raised from the grave, nor can he raise anyone else. Christianity without the virgin birth is reduced simply to a social Gospel for this life only. However, as infidels attempt to destroy the beautiful history of Jesus’ virgin birth, the Catholic Church (both Roman and Orthodox) exalts Mary above all women, above all the angels, even to the status of deity, in seven ways: 1. Because the Catholic Church holds to the false doctrine that all babies are sin-infected even before birth, which would include Mary’s baby Jesus, their theologians were forced to invent the “Immaculate Conception” doctrine that Mary herself was the one exception in all history to be born sinless. If Mary were born sinless, she would have no sin to …

David’s inspired words, “Indeed, in iniquity I was born and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5), have caused some people to say that babies have inborn sin. Other verses, however, show that the meaning is, “Indeed, into a world [of iniquity] I was born and my mother was a sinner when she conceived me.” In parallel, one could say, “I was born in a potato patch, and on a farm my mother conceived me, but I am not full of potatoes.” Becoming a mother in itself is not sinful (Genesis 1:28; 1 Timothy 2:15). But all people as they grow up do sin (Romans 3:23), Jesus being the only exception. And each person does his own sinning (Isaiah 53:6). They who say that babies have inborn sin need to address the fate of children who die in childbirth, or die as little children; is heaven refused to them? Other words from David are misused to prove that babies have inborn sin: “The wicked go astray from the womb; they turn aside at birth, speaking lies” (Psalm 58:3). David knew that the literal meaning is false, as shown by another statement from him: “But you [God] brought me from the womb, and caused me to trust on my mother’s breast. … From my birth you have been my God” (Psalm 22:9-10). This latter statement likewise is false literally, for babies do not trust God on their mothers’ breasts. And another psalmist wrote impossible words about babies: “Upon you [God] …

A question comes about 1 Corinthians 6: 12: “All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be made subject to any.” A similar statement is in 1 Corinthians 10:23: “All things are lawful, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful, but all things are not upbuilding.” The word “All” in the statement, “All things are lawful,” would include a man living in “fornication” with “his father’s wife” (1 Corinthians 5:1), but Paul’s condemnation of such, “Expel the evil man from among you (1 Corinthians 5:13), shows that fornication is not in Paul’s list of “All things” being lawful. Similarly, Paul did not include ‘”having lawsuits” among “brothers” in his statements that “All things are lawful,” for he also wrote that “lawsuits among yourselves” is “a complete defeat” (1 Corinthians 6:7, FHV; “an utter failure,” NKJV). They are “lawful” but neither “helpful” nor “upbuilding” (1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23). The immediate context of “all things are lawful” (1 Corinthians 6:12) is in the next verse: “foods.” So Paul was saying that though “all foods are lawful,” some are not “helpful,” and he would not allow himself to be “made subject to any” of that kind. A vegetarian makes himself subject to his own law about “foods”: “a person who eats no meat, and sometimes no animal products (as milk, eggs, etc.” (Webster). Thus, there are two kinds of Christians: “One believes that he may eat anything, but …

The title of the earliest known copy, from the 4th century, of the last book in the Bible is The Revelation of John. In the 8th century a copyist enlarged the title to The Revelation of John the Theologian, a title reflecting non-inspired words about God, and does not teach that John was Spirit-inspired to write the book (Acts 1:8; 2:1-4). In the 17th century the 54 scholars, giving us the King James Version, changed the title to The Revelation of St. John the Divine, an erroneous title in two ways: (1) the “St” (an abbreviation for “Saints”) leaves the impression that John had been set apart from other Christians by his having attained sainthood, and (2) leaves the impression that John had been set apart from other Christians by becoming a “Divine,” a “man skilled in divinity; a theologian” (Webster). As to the first error, all Christians are “saints” from the day of their baptism (Acts 18:8; 26:10; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 16:1). The word simply means in the New Testament that a sinner has “set himself apart” (hagiadzo) to live for Jesus. Theologians formulated the idea that one cannot reach sainthood until an announcement comes from the pope at least 25 years after the person’s death. Biblically, if one does not reach sainthood in this life, he is doomed, for only the Judgment comes after this life, not a second chance (Hebrew 9:27). As to the second error, a “divine” (a theologian) writes “in words which man’s wisdom teaches,” while John wrote …