Understanding Confusion

Mark 4:13 “And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?”

Have you ever felt like a stranger in a strange land? Have you ever felt like everyone around you is speaking a different language one that you don’t quite understand? I imagine that that is what many felt like when Jesus was out there speaking in parables and they just didn’t get the message.

I understand their confusion because that’s what gets me confused when I see fifty different translations of one verse in the bible. That is why I only read the King James Version because it is the most understood version by ME. Take for example the simple verse below:

King James Bible
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

New International Version
For God is not a [God] of [disorder] but of peace--as in all [the congregations] of the [Lord's people.] 

Isn’t that basically changing the words of God?

New Living Translation
For God is not a God of disorder but of peace, as in all the meetings of God's holy people.

English Standard Version
For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,

Berean Study Bible
For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints,

Berean Literal Bible
For He is not the God of disorder, but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints,

New American Standard Bible 
for God is not a God of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.


There were too many more to list but you get my meaning, right? Why all of the translations?

Here I go digging and researching. I apparently am not the only one confused by so many translations, apparently hundreds of years before me there was confusion on the rewriting of the original bible.
http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/

This link led me to more digging and understanding. Not that my brain can store all of this information but on some level, I’ve had it stored already for many years, go figure. I found it interesting that the original bible contained 80 books instead of the ones we’re fed, 66. 

“Up until the 1880’s every Protestant Bible (not just Catholic Bibles) had 80 books, not 66! The inter-testamental books written hundreds of years before Christ called “The Apocrypha” were part of virtually every printing of the Tyndale-Matthews Bible, the Great Bible, the Bishops Bible, the Protestant Geneva Bible, and the King James Bible until their removal in the 1880’s”

Not everyone was happy with the inclusion of the Apocrypha. Before my internet days I had read the Apocrypha and had no idea that they were part of the original KJV of the bible. I didn’t have the enormous amount of information at my fingertips as I do today. 

I found this paragraph most interesting from greatsite. Com:

“As Christians, we must be very careful to make intelligent and informed decisions about what translations of the Bible we choose to read. On the liberal extreme, we have people who would give us heretical new translations that attempt to change God’s Word to make it politically correct. One example of this, which has made headlines recently is the Today’s New International Version (T.N.I.V.) which seeks to remove all gender-specific references in the Biblend whenever possible! Not all new translations are good… and some are very bad.”

And this:
“Let’s be ever mindful that we are not called to worship the Bible. That is called idolatry. We are called to worship the God who gave us the Bible, and who preserved it through the centuries of people who sought to destroy it.”

I think people miss this point entirely thinking that the book is to be held as a sacred piece of paper even if it was a newly printed version of all that they believe in. That made total sense to me; we are not to worship the Bible we are to worship God alone. I think that is a fact many lose sight of in their search to be Christ-like and preaching ‘the Word’.

In conclusion I’ll end with this: We must decide whom it is we worship. Do we worship words, man or God? We are allowed free will so really we can worship whom we want, do what we want and believe what we want. But remember, your soul is counting on you to do the right thing whatever that means to YOU!

The Fog

Pss. 71:1 “In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.”

The heavy fog sneaked in on the sixth of January, a cold eerie evening. Hanging around smothering the atmosphere blinding any visual sight of land out there in the icy frost. The seventh day of January felt like a suffocating mass filled with darkness, fog looming in a mirage of moisture. I only wish that I were exaggerating. 

My day began with the Lord piercing through the mist to allow me to see Him while the demon fog was filled with trying to cloud my mind. The dark one seems to be mounting an army trying to attack the Christ bearers of this world.

The bellows of satan's bowels were unleashed in a comment section of a facebook post that had me immediately praying for the lost soul. 

Kiler wrote: death and suffering have been our constant companions.
I am talking about real suffering
If you can sit around all day and write and play on fake book
If you can type you ARE NOT SUFFERING
I am talking about tripping over dead bodies suffering

I thought for sure that this man must live in war-torn Iraq living in the throes of an ISIS assault but upon further inspection of this man he is from Oregon. It startled me to think that in Oregon, he is tripping over dead bodies? Boy, my writing talent went into overdrive with the possible stories hidden behind this obscured soul.

These comments were targeted at me and you can only imagine what he unleashed on others as he spewed his hatred. His anger filled rant on an innocent beloved author had me reminded of the fog that hung around for most of the day yesterday. This was the culmination of a darkened day.

I was instantly reminded of the reason I steer clear of Facebook and all the antics. As I try to casually visit once a day, I’m always smacked with heinous behavior. No matter how good and precious you are to the Lord, satan is always one step in front as it has been since the beginning of time as he lured Eve away from innocence.

The fog was a pretense to hinder my sight. This morning I rose and while the sun was not shining, the Son had already risen and welcomed me to the oncoming day. I breathed a sigh of relief in knowing I am always welcome in the sight of the Lord. 

I notice the world walking around in a fog, preoccupied with what satan has to offer. A click here, a post there, subliminal thoughts here, a judgment call there all wrapped in a fraudulent ornamental box carried off to the masses.

Invisible to the multitude, ignored by many, passed over by the bountiful and forgotten by the manifold, I am alone in my wanderings, never alone in my wondering and embraced by the Almighty. While this New Year of change surrounds me, my words have become plentiful, my thoughts have been laid bare to the naked eye for all to see, and I’m growing daily, replenished by the Light of the Lord while the sun is shielded by cloud cover. 

As you ride ambiguously in the cusp of the unknown, you seem to be catering to the confusion. When you find yourself veering off the beaten path remind yourself daily that God is not a God of confusion. If you don’t see harmonious love surrounding you wherever you may walk: a store, a park, or possibly your church, or whatever you read or see, ask God for guidance and know that you are not and never will be alone in this world. Don’t allow the fog to veil your soul.

Dan. 9:7 “O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against thee.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Disillusion

Ps. 35:4 Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul: let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.

Disillusion
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp
***

You say you love
but do not know
the meaning of the word.
you say you care but can not bear
all things that you’ve heard.

You say you need
but do you know
the necessity of your own
you say you want
all things they haunt
and never make a home.

You say you see
all of me
but do you really know.
the depth and breadth
of my soul, to no one
will I show!

You try to beguile
this is true,
you are not what you seem.
You give you take
the heart of me
but will not dim my beam.

A ray of light
shines forth from me
no longer a part of the fusion.
I walked away to
a brighter day as
you wallow in disillusion.

Confusion~ Conflict

Ps.71:1 In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.
***

What a roller coaster of a ride. I have my ups and downs, my twists and turns, my corkscrew of a loop and then I live life like a straight and narrow path has been set before me as I walk along the road of life.

Sounds like a writers life, doesn’t it? Sounds like a novel. Ironically, this week in F2K, (the free writing workshop that I mentor) we’ve been working on conflict. Conflict in a story is essential, I guess, just like in life.

If we had no conflict in our story they would be boring beyond belief, no one would read a word of it, or at least they’d get so far into the story, realize there is nothing happening and decide to put the book down.

So I’m wondering, without conflict and controversy in our lives, would our lives then be boring? Sometimes which bread to buy can be a conflict on my weekly shopping trip. Although not really bread but the decision of what meals to make for seven days can stir in me a conflict.

And now I’ve come upon a fork in the road. Which do I take? The easy one that leads me to where *I* want to be, to achieve the things that *I* want. Is it all about me, me, me? No, it’s not and never is about me and what I want, it’s about a decision, made by God, and do I listen to him in his offering of settling the conflict, or do I go against what he is telling me and follow the path that I want?

A yo-yo, that is what I feel like, dangling by a string bouncing up and down wondering when the worn out string is going to snap. We in class like to use the inverted check mark.
Should be a yo-yo but really it wouldn’t define the uphill battle that the inverted check mark provides.

You start out slow going up the hill, conflict arises, you move onward and upward,  /\ , pace it nice and slow, throw in more conflict, reach a peak upheaval, then slowly resolve the conflict to give a to-die-for ending. This can be used in short stories also. You don’t want your story all cozy as a laz-e boy recliner, you want the lumpy sofa with no added pillows for cushion.

That’s my life, a lumpy sofa that needs refreshing. I like to have a plan in place, you know an outline, but when someone comes in and erases the entire central part of my outline, I need to try and figure out the outline all over again. Have a plan and stick to it. Sure, upon revision you can edit out or add to, but stick to the plan, or scrap the whole thing!

Do we go to Omaha or do we not? Does he listen to God and his heart or that of people? Does he buckle to man or rise in the Spirit. His choice. I’m just a yo-yo.

Confused? Join the crowd.