Update 198

On Saturday, June 18, 2005, Edwin Pope will be giving the sermon, titled, “Offenses Will Come.”

The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org at 12:30 pm Pacific Time (which is 2:30 pm Central Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

I remember I was hauled around during our search for the true church. We looked at many other churches and their set of beliefs, doctrines and practices. As can be guessed, things weren’t quite right at many of the places we visited. But before too long our diligent search paid dividends at a congregation that one wouldn’t expect. All of the hard work that had been done had paid off. Or had it….?

But it was soon realized that we hadn’t found the true church. In reality it was God who led us to Him. Yes, we were in the congregation of the Church of God, but it was not due to our searching, but due to the fact that God had called us to Him. We soon learned that “No one can come to Me [Jesus Christ] unless the Father who sent Me draws him…” (John 6:44).

Well, at least we knew why He called us. Surely, it was because we had the ability to comprehend His Word and His Truth. We sat in services and were able to understand the precious gems that were being expounded week after week. Most in the world had yet to understand these profundities, though they may have read the exact same words. All of the work that had been done in the prior years in becoming a better person had paid off. Or had it…?

But it was soon realized that God calls the weak and foolish (1 Corinthians 1:27) and gives them the ability to understand Him and His Ways (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).

So exactly what did I do to deserve this? Nothing.

Earthquakes

A strong earthquake struck northern Chile on June 14, 2005, killing ten people, toppling 17 houses and sparking alarm on the country’s border with Peru. According to AFP, “The quake cut power in Iquique, 2,460 kilometers (1,528 miles) north of Santiago, on the Pacific Coast of South America. The United States Geological Survey measured the quake at 7.9 on the Richter scale.”

On Sunday, June 12, 2005, an earthquake with the magnitude of 5.6 struck Southern California, at Anza, near Palm Springs. It was felt from Los Angeles to San Diego.

Subsequently, “a major earthquake struck about 80 miles off the coast of northern California on Tuesday night, briefly prompting a tsunami warning along the Pacific coast,” according to The Associated Press.

The article continued: “The 7.0-magnitude quake [others state that the magnitude was 7.1 or 7.2] struck at about 7:50 p.m. southwest of the coastal community of Crescent City and 300 miles northwest of San Francisco… Witnesses felt buildings shaking along the California coast but there were no immediate reports of damage. A tsunami warning was briefly in effect from the California-Mexico border north to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, but was called off about an hour after the quake hit… Crescent City was the site of the only known tsunami to cause deaths in the continental United States. Eleven people died and 29 city blocks were washed away when a tsunami spawned by a quake hit Crescent City in 1964.”

On Thursday, June 16, 2005, an additional earthquake struck Southern California. As The Associated Press reported:

“A moderate earthquake shook most of Southern California Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The 1:53 p.m. quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 and was centered three miles northeast of Yucaipa in San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles… Shaking was reported from Los Angeles to San Diego and in counties to the east.”

HIV on the Rise

According to a report published on June 14, 2005, by www.mtv.com, “More than 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV, the government reported Monday. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has reached epic proportions in the United States, surpassing the 1 million mark for the first time since the 1980s. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that between 1,039,000 and 1,185,000 Americans were living with HIV when the study took place in December 2003, a nearly 25 percent increase since the last report was released in 2002… The report indicates that nearly three-quarters of Americans living with HIV are men, and about 25 percent of individuals who are HIV-positive do not even know it… The new report did find that infection rates for young females have declined over the past 10 years but have increased among males in recent years. Notably, there was a 47 percent increase in diagnoses among young adult men (20 to 24) who have sex with men, the majority of whom were black. And while HIV and AIDS reporting differs from state to state, experts say one out of every four people infected with HIV each year is under 21.”

German TV Show Blames Bush

The Washington Times reported on June 9, 2005, about an incredible German episode of a crime series (“Tatort”), which was broadcast on German public television on Sunday, June 5, 2005. According to the article, “A fictional crime drama based on the premise that the Bush administration ordered the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Washington aired this week on German state television, prompting the Green Party chairman [Reinhard Buetikofer] to call for an investigation… Sunday night’s episode… revolved around a German woman and a man who was killed in her apartment. According to the plot, which was seen by approximately 7 million Germans, the dead man had been trained to be one of the September 11 pilots but was left behind, only to be tracked down and killed by CIA or FBI assassins. The drama concludes with the German detectives accepting the truth of her story as she eludes the U.S. government hit men and escapes to safety in an unnamed Arab country.”

The article continued to explain:

“As ludicrous as it may sound to most Americans, the tale has resonance in Germany, where fantastic conspiracy theories often are taken as fact. Many Germans think, for example, that the 1969 moon landing was faked, and a poll published in the weekly Die Zeit showed that 31 percent of Germans younger than 30 ‘think that there is a certain possibility that the U.S. government ordered the attacks of 9/11.'”

Sects Danger to Catholic Church?

Zenit reported on June 9, 2005, that a Vatican official, French Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, blamed religious sects in Latin America for religious “indifference.” According to the article, the cardinal explained the conclusions for this rather preposterous claim, as follows: “…religious sects are the penultimate link in a chain that ends in indifference. That chain, he said, ‘begins with the absence of an answer through religious experience to the problem of the meaning of life.'” This phenomenon is due to “a compulsive search for transcendence,” he said, “and rejection of any authority that does not justify itself by being emotionally close.”

The Cardinal blamed, in part, the Catholic clergy for this phenomenon. He said: “Many [Catholics] received only imperatives, rules, programs and commitments to action, but they were ignorant of the proclamation of salvation with convincing force and concrete language… the [Catholic] Church is seen as having inquisitorial and bureaucratic seriousness.”

A New Temple in Jerusalem?

On June 8, 2005, WorldNetDaily reported that “The Israeli rabbinical council involved with re-establishing the Sanhedrin, is calling upon all groups involved in Temple Mount research to prepare detailed architectural plans for the reconstruction of the Jewish Holy Temple. The Sanhedrin was a 71-man assembly of rabbis that convened adjacent to the Holy Temple before its destruction in 70 AD and outside Jerusalem until about 400 AD.

“The move followed the election earlier this week of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz as temporary president of a group aspiring to become Judaism’s highest-ranking legal-religious tribunal… the group will establish a forum of architects and engineers to begin plans for rebuilding the Temple–a move fraught with religious and political volatility… The Sanhedrin was reestablished last October in Tiberias, the place of its last meeting 1,600 years ago. Since then, it has met in Jerusalem on a monthly basis.”

Israel and the USA

Reuters reported on June 14, 2005, that “Israel is trying to defuse a festering dispute over longstanding U.S. opposition to its arms sales to China and faces new U.S. demands for closer oversight of weapons deals with India… The affair has strained security ties between Israel and the United States, its main ally and provider of about $2 billion in annual defense aid, at a time when it seeks U.S. assistance to help implement its planned withdrawal from Gaza this August… Washington torpedoed Israel’s multi-billion dollar sale of Phalcon strategic airborne radar systems to China in 2000, citing concerns it could upset the regional balance of power. The United States now has similar concerns with regard to weapons sales to India… ‘Relations with the U.S. are important and critical to Israel … but at the same time Israel must uphold its independence and there should be some type of reciprocity in (defense) relations,'” according to Yuval Steinitz, head of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Europe’s Future

On June 9, 2005, Der Spiegel Online discussed the potential consequences of the French and Dutch “No”-votes against the EU Constitution. The magazine pointed out:

“So far, every attempt to save the European constitution following its spectacular rejection in France and Holland has failed. More storms are rapidly approaching. The European Union is now –finally — being forced to decide what it wants to be… Now, the constitution, designed as a showpiece for European unity and future guarantee for an expanded Europe, is clinically dead… A dam has been broken, but nobody wants to be the first to admit that the house is under water… In truth, nobody knows how Europe is supposed to find its way out of this impasse… this debate is about more than a controversial draft constitution. The questions go to the very core of the European project.

“Are the entire foundations of European unity up for debate? Will countries leave the euro and return to their national currencies, like the deutsche mark and the Dutch guilder? Will it be full-steam reverse out of Brussels and back to nation-states?

“Experts are now considering, in the event the crisis heightens, scenarios in which countries could leave the EU. And, paradoxically, the very constitution rejected by the Dutch and French would have made exiting the Union possible… A not insignificant group of European citizens are no longer willing to prostrate themselves before the altar of a Europe… Both politically and economically, fundamental decisions must now be made about the future course of the European Union. Should the EU maintain its goal of a strong political union, as desired by Germany and France?… Europe dreams of becoming a super state like the US, a world power… These are times in which extremists and populists are achieving ever-greater success with their anti-Europe slogans, and a boundless debate could greatly damage it or even lead to the collapse of what former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl — one of the great architects of EU unity — called the ‘European House.'”

The Associated Press reported on June 16, 2005:

“In a blow to their ambitions, European Union leaders decided Thursday to put on hold plans to unite their 25 nations under a single constitution, saying they needed to reconnect with their people.”

It was announced that the target date of November 2006 for ratification of the EU constitution will “with certainty” not be met. As the German and Austrian press reported, it is hoped that a special European summit will be arranged in June of 2006, under the Austrian presidency.

EU vs. Germany and France

As Reuters reported on June 14, 2005, “Britain and France failed on Tuesday to resolve major differences over the European Union’s long-term budget, leaving the bloc facing financial deadlock as well as a political crisis over its constitution. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was hard to see how the differences could be bridged after talks with French President Jacques Chirac, dimming hopes of an agreement on the 2007-2013 budget at an EU summit on Thursday and Friday…

“France and other EU member states want Britain to compromise over its annual budget rebate from EU coffers. Blair has signaled he might compromise if France gives ground on the big EU farm subsidies it receives. Paris has rejected this.”

After the first day of the summit, no agreement was reached.

The Catholic Church and the Italians

As AFP reported on June 12, 2005, “Italians voted on whether to relax a tough assisted procreation law in a two-day referendum seen [as] a first test for Pope Benedict XVI after the Roman Catholic Church called on Italians to boycott the vote on moral grounds… But many Italians said they were angered by what they described as the Church’s interference in national politics… Even some practicing Catholics said they were upset by the Church’s campaign.” Nevertheless, most Italians seemed to have followed the Catholic Church’s admonition to boycott the vote. According to Zenit, only about one-quarter of Italians went to the polls on Sunday and Monday to vote on the referendum on experimentation with human embryos. Under Italian law, more than half of the eligible voters must participate, for a referendum to be valid.

Let us notice the entire passage in Philippians 1:19-24: “(19) For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, (20) according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. (21) For to me, to live [is] Christ, and to die [is] gain… (23) For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. (24) Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.”

Notice that in verse 21, we placed the word “is” in brackets twice, indicating that there is no word in the Greek text, representing the English word “is,” and that the English word “is” was added twice by the translators.

Paul is facing serious difficulties, and he is wondering whether he should wish to die, or to continue to live. He has a desire to “depart” or die (verse 23). As the Broadman Bible Commentary explains, “to depart translates a Greek term which was used for the loosing of a ship from its moorings and also for breaking camp or ‘striking tent.’ The term came to be a metaphor for death (2 Tim. 4:6).” Paul knows that in case of his death, he would be “with Christ” (verse 23) in the next second of his consciousness, as a resurrected immortal spirit being in the Family of God at the time of his resurrection from the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17; 1 Corinthians 15:35, 42, 49-53). This would have been his “gain” (Philippians 1:21) — it would have been “far better” for him (verse 23), as his fate of being changed into a spirit being would have been sealed and unalterable. This is of course by no means saying that Paul was thinking of committing suicide. He understood that it is a sin to take one’s own life, as this would constitute murder. He knew that he belonged to God, and that only God had the right to determine when he would have to die (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 7:23). At the same time, he realizes that it is “more needful for” the church members that he “remain in the flesh,” that is, to keep on living (verse 24).

Still, though, exactly how are we to understand the phrase in verse 21, “to live [is] Christ”?

Although most translations render the phrase exactly in that way, as quoted, a few translations render it slightly differently. We should remember that the English word “is,” in verse 21, was added twice, as there is no equivalent in the Greek. This means, something has to be added in the English translation to give the sentence the intended meaning.

The Lamsa translation and the German Luther Bible, as well as the German Menge Bible, state: “For Christ is my life, and to die is gain.” This rendering is interesting in light of Colossians 3:4, which states: “When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

But what does it mean that “Christ is our life”? The Swiss Zuercher Bible renders Philippians 1:21, including the phrase in brackets: “As for me, life is [a service for] Christ, and death is gain.” The commentary of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown agrees with such a rendering: “… whatever life, time and strength, I have, is Christ’s; Christ is the sole object for which I live.”

The Broadman Bible Commentary adds the following intriguing statements: “The oft-quoted v. 21 shows Paul at his best. He stood before life and death and found both inviting. His mood is the opposite to Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be, that is the question.’ Hamlet found life such a disillusionment that he considered suicide, yet the unknown realm of death was so foreboding that he drew back. Paul did not desire death as escape from life. He saw death as entrance into the greater fullness of a life that already was full… Whatever life may mean to others, to him it was Christ, i.e., Christ gave life its meaning for him and apart from Christ it had no meaning. Death meant not loss but gain, for the good life he now knew in Christ would be not only continued but heightened. This verse seems not to imply an ‘intermediate state.’ It is precarious to argue the point, for that is not Paul’s subject here; but it is hard to see how death would be gain if it led to an intermediate state, especially if disembodied!”

A similar comment can be found in The New Bible Commentary: Revised: “[Paul] weighs up in his mind now the two alternatives and can rejoice in both. To go on living in this world is to live in constant enjoyment of Christ Himself, and there will be further fruitful toil in his Master’s service. He knows, on the other hand, that death is sheer gain, because beyond death is [at his resurrection, which will occur in the next second of his consciousness] the immediate presence of Christ.” A similar rendition is given by the Living Bible: “For to me, living means opportunities for Christ, and dying — well, that’s better yet.”

These renderings would also make sense in light of Galatians 2:20, where we read: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith OF [as it should be correctly rendered from the Greek] the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Paul is saying in this passage in Galatians that Christ, through the Holy Spirit dwelling in Paul, was living His life in Paul. Paul’s “old life” had ended, and a “new life” — that of Christ living in him — had begun. Paul encourages all of us, in Romans 13:14: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.” John revealed the same truth in his third letter, when he warned of deceivers denying and not confessing “Jesus Christ AS COMING in the flesh.” Christ is coming in the flesh, by living His life in His human disciples. Paul did not want to live his old life and to submit to the desires of the flesh. He knew that his deliverance from his “body of death” would be “through Jesus Christ” (Romans 7:24-25).

In conclusion, Paul’s statement “for me, to live is Christ” is subject to several possible explanations: Paul might have wanted to emphasize that his life was to be a service for Christ. He could have also meant that his sole purpose and motivation of life was focused on Christ. In addition, he might have stressed that Christ was living in him, that he had “put on Jesus Christ,” and that his life was used by Christ to serve others. In living such a life, Paul would become more and more perfect, “possessing more and more of him, becoming more and more like him, until on his death the process is completed in one glorious moment” (cp. Eerdman’s Handbook to the Bible) — at the time of his resurrection. As Unger’s Bible Handbook puts it: “Outwardly his one goal was Christ, inwardly Christ was living out His life through him. Living, he was blessed… Dying was ‘gain’ because it meant ‘to be with Christ,’ which was ‘far better’… To remain in this life was, however, more needful for the spiritual progress of the Philippians.”

A new StandingWatch program was posted on the Web, titled, “What to Do With Problems.”

Be Content

by Manuela Link (21)

How many people do we know who are really satisfied with what they have? Do they seem happy by cherishing, taking care of, or looking after their possessions? Or do they always seek something better, using their time in trying to find greener grass because theirs isn’t bright enough? It is not wrong to look for better alternatives and quality — but quality is not just “born”; it is built up. Sometimes we may think, “Things would be so much better if I had a higher-paying job, a bigger house, a newer car, better parents, brothers and sisters and friends… all my problems would be solved.”

Instead of worrying about what we may not have, we should be concerned about taking care of what we do have. Everyone knows that problems just don’t disappear, and that we can’t escape them. Even when we think that we have found an alternative, the problems seem to find us all over again.

Taken from a line in a song, “Tempted by the fruit of another; tempted, but the truth is discovered.” We are tempted when we are faced with the decision of possibly getting something better and newer, but in the end, even the new thing will soon become old and sometimes, it is worse than with what we started out. We should be content with what we have and work to improve it, if need be. We should not always concentrate on what we don’t or can’t have, while abandoning what is right in front of us. Again, how many people do we know who are satisfied with what they have? Are you content?