I simply cannot believe that Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" is returning to the North Carolina Symphony in April. This was the first concert I heard after Becky's homegoing and I will forever associate the final movement ("The Great Gate of Kiev") with the believer being welcomed into glory.
Bought my ticket yesterday. Praise God for the healing power of music!
As you know, I'm an ordinary guy who has battled with being overweight for years. Three years ago my doctor labeled me as obese since I was 35 percent body fat. Labels can be difficult to shed because, for better or for worse, they can become our identity. And it's difficult to let go of that.
At the beginning of last year I weighed 240+ pounds. I told the Lord my insecurities and desire to get back into shape and he fully supported me. Moreover, he was happy to help me. 240 turned into 230, then 220, then 210, and then 200. Before I knew it I was too small for all my pants and it was such a good feeling. Fast forward to today. My overall health is much, much better. I am now 193 pounds and for the first time in decades I can see a flat tummy when I look in the mirror without having to hold my stomach in.
I am extremely grateful for the physique the Lord has given me, my sustainable progress, and my current goals. Weight loss is an investment. Fitness is something that will give back to you your whole health, including mental. I am now living a healthy life that I believe glorifies God. My doctor says I have turned my health around and reversed my age. It feels so good to treat my body the way God designed it to be treated. I am so glad I was able to persevere and come out on the other side. I am also thankful that I can share my testimony with you. I thank God because he was there from the beginning encouraging me when I felt like giving up.
I share this with you to give God the glory he deserves. If he can do this for me at 73, think of what he can do for you. He is not done with me or you yet. Begin every day by asking God for strength and wisdom. Focus on becoming healthy to be better able to serve him and his kingdom. Celebrate progress, no matter how small, as a blessing from his hand. When you struggle and fail, accept his mercies as new every morning. Do what babies do when they fall down -- get back up again.
Never give up on yourself because God is able to do anything but fail. Start with small goals and be consistent. Rely on his strength to overcome food addictions or emotional eating, always turning to him rather than relying upon your own will power. Acknowledge that every step, every ounce of discipline, every bit of strength comes from him. Meditate on verses like "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?" and "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God." Be grateful for every new day regardless of how you feel or the ups and downs of fitness.
The best way to have Christ on this journey with you is to read the Bible as part of your daily routine. Take care of your body, but prioritize your relationship with God above all. Whether overweight or lean, God values your heart, your faith, and your deeds much, much more than your outward appearance. On the other hand, when you pursue your health with the right heart, you are truly honoring him.
God bless all of you on your own health and fitness journey!
Today's steps.
Oh, I wish I could say this to everyone I meet at the gym. Don't just exist in your workouts. Likewise, as a teacher of Greek for 50 years now, I wish I could shout from the mountaintops: don't just come to Greek class unprepared to work and work hard. It should NEVER be acceptable to get a D or an F on a quiz or an exam.
If you want to build strength and see results in your waistline, then you absolutely have to train hard enough. Sadly, many people I see at the gym day in and day out do not train hard enough to see results from their workouts. I can promise you that getting gains has nothing to do with the type of music you listen to when you are working out.
It has nothing to do with how many selfies you take while at the gym.
The only thing that matters is effort.
Many of us never work hard enough -- be it in the gym or in the classroom -- to see the results we are capable of. How sad! Somebody is paying good money for you to attend seminary. And it's likely you are paying good money to belong to your gym. Your goal when you train at the gym should always be to do something that you did not do the day before. Nobody is ever going to be able to tell you whether your effort is where it ought to be. Only you know the answer. That said, we all know what effort should feel like -- and it should never feel easy. Nothing in life is worth having if it isn't a struggle to get in the first place. You have got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Training with intensity is the only way you will reach your goals. Consistency combined with intensity is where gains really come.
I remember a class I took in seminary where I barely scraped by with a D. Pride blinded me so badly that I tried to blame others for my lack of discipline. Maybe you're a student who is in the same boat today. God placed the seeds of success in my failure that semester. That failure -- along with others -- made me the man and teacher I am today. And that failure would prepare me for a life of faithfulness.
Whatever your circumstances, I'm sure you have experienced failure. One of the most limiting things you can do is to see yourself as a failure. Don't let a past failure steal your success today. Your greatest failure may be the greatest turning point in your life. If you are a student, please, I beg you, give it everything you have. Remember, one day you will be teaching the very word of God to others. Listen to the words of those who have gone before you into pulpit ministry.
John Calvin: "No one will ever be a good minister of the Word of God unless he first of all is a scholar."
Charles Spurgeon: "He who no longer sows in the study will no more reap in the puplit."
Bishop Phillips Brooks: "Learn to study for the sake of truth, learn to think for the profit and the joy of thinking."
My Bible study this morning found me in Acts chapter 6.
In verse 4 we read, "We will give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word." I might paraphrase this as, "We will continue to maintain our focus with supreme effort...."
If you're a gym goer, I ask you: "Do you have the intent to do the best you can for every single one of your sets?"
If you're a Greek student, I ask you: "When you come to class, are you fully present, and are you really trying to give it your absolute best?"
If you answered "no" to either question, let me remind you: When you follow Jesus, the God of the resurrection, you don't have to let failure define you. Instead, you can allow failure to become a launching pad that catapults you into your best days on this earth.
In Christ, your potential is unlimited.
As I sit here in my campus office I am excited beyond words to be back in the classroom this week after more than 7 weeks off. In my "spare" time I'm also working through my Greek grammar in Modern Hebrew.
What a joy! It's a great way to learn a foreign language. Here's a sample paradigm from chapter 3:
But notice this:
The present tense of the verb "to be" has no equivalent in Hebrew! Unlike many verbs in Hebrew, the verb haya lacks a Qal participle and present-tense forms. Instead, the present is either implied or expressed with particles and suffixes. However, the past and future tenses are fully functional.
So there is a verb "to be" in Hebrew. It's just omitted in the present tense, where pronouns serve to replace it. That said, Hebrew does have the infinitive of haya. Thus "To be or not to be" looks like this:
Discovering this has been the highlight of my day so far!
I was up early this morning having some fun time in this amazing book:
I'm not a huge fan of the 4th edition. The editor did an okay job, but his additional chapter doesn't add much to the topic in my opinion. Not to mention the fact that the quality of the plates is much better in the previous editions. But that's neither here nor there.
As you all know, I am a HUGE fan of the Byzantine text. In fact, in every one of my journal articles dealing with textual variants in the New Testament, I ended up siding with the Byzantine text:
(All of my journal articles are available here for no charge, by the way.) That said, I do think the Byzantine text can be wrong and in fact has been wrong. Not often, but it does happen. Case in point: 1 John 3:1.
By the way, I'm currently writing an endorsement for a forthcoming book on scribal habits in New Testament manuscripts. It will appear in this series. It's one of the most exciting works on textual criticism I've read in some time. This study confirms the findings of Royse (and others) that scribes generally tended to omit rather than add to the text. It's time, the author says, for the text-critical community to abandon its general acceptance of the canon "prefer the shorter reading." Cases of homoeoteleuton, he concludes, are especially common. This is, in fact, what I believe may very well have happened here in 1 John 3:1. To see this, it might be helpful to display the text using uncial script, following this guide:
Here now are the words in question.
It seems pretty clear to me that we're dealing with an instance of homoeoteleuton here. "What about the external evidence?" you ask. It seems to favor the longer reading, which is both early and widespread. Once again, I am being lured back to the old views of Harry Sturz: the Byzantine text is of very high quality, but when it stands alone its readings may not comport with the autographic text. Perhaps the same thing can be said for Mark 1:2 (these are my two "test cases").
Forgive me if all of this is old hat to you. Sometimes the pump doesn't need to be primed. As much as I love dabbling in textual questions, I'm sharing in the blessings of the gospel more than I have in my entire life. Sharing my faith with the people around me at the gym and elsewhere has become the most fun, exciting, and fulfilling adventure of my 65 years of following Jesus. Of course, living on mission doesn't mean we are less concerned about academics. Nothing could be further from the truth. God's word is our supreme motivation. But we do all this for the sake of the gospel. Honestly, the last thing we need is another translation controversy. A little refining? Sure. A little sanding off the rough edges? Absolutely. But a battle? I think you know me well enough to know I don't think that's very helpful.
Enjoy the Super Bowl!
My organist son sent me a link to this amazing video.
Listened to it in the dark on full speakers while driving into town. The organist is brilliant. It's in his blood. He knows his music intimately. The acoustics in that church must be amazing. The hours of learning and practice he must have gone through are staggering. This man understands how an organ works. It is an unusually clean and intelligible performance, not the usual "see how fast I can play."
The church organ is a fantastic instrument and one I sorely miss. It's an entire orchestra in one instrument. There is no greater music than classical music, in my opinion. Oh the complexities and sheer magnificence.
Lobe den Herrn!
There are many variations of the pullup. So find one you can do and then work your way up as you get stronger. Practice it every week until you hit a certain number of sets and reps. When you hit that, you can move on to a slightly harder variation. Eventually you will work up to band assisted pullups. If that works for you, absolutely awesome.
The bottom line? Don't feel embarrassed if you can't do pullups yet. The band assisted pullup is an exercise you can eventually get to I'm sure. I myself I often come back to it, as I did today at the end of my workout.
The human body is built to hang and climb. If you can't do a pullup you probably have just never been taught how to build up to it!
When I was a kid, we used to get dressified for church on Sundays. You didn't leave home without your tie -- or your Bible.
My first Bible wasn't just the great and good King James Version. It was the Scofield Reference Bible. It was the ultimate proof that you were a good Christian. I loved that Bible. I still have it. Growing up, I read it constantly. Not only that, but back in the day, VBS wasn't just fun and games. We did things called Bible drills and we even memorized verses of Scripture. Mark 16:15 was one of the first verses I committed to memory. Later I memorized it in Greek.
To this day it's one of my favorite verses in all Scripture. I often quote it to my students. And why not? It's a statement uttered by the Lord himself. It's a reminder that the earliest Christians were fully engaged in the work of worldwide evangelization. The early church did not consider missions an occasional activity. It reached out in witness. And why? Jesus had said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." How clear is that? Go everywhere. Tell everyone. As an example, let me mention my wife's parents, who brought the gospel to southern Ethiopia back in the 1950s and 1960s. Later, Becky and I had the opportunity to build on and expand their work. Our goal was to "make known by word and deed the love of the crucified and risen Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that people will repent, believe, and receive Christ as their Savior and obediently serve him as their Lord in the fellowship of the church" (1988 Lambeth Conference Declaration on Evangelism).
Becky had grown up in Ethiopia near the Kenyan border among the Burji people.
The neighboring tribe had been difficult soil for the gospel, and few evangelists had gone there. God often seems to stimulate new initiatives in this way. Eventually, our partnership with the church in Burji led to an opportunity to evangelize this tribe. There were three of us, including one of my elders from North Carolina and a 24-year old student names James, who would serve as our interpreter.
We trekked from village to village, each of which seemed to have its own customs. In the first town we came to, we were offered a cup of coffee, well, not a cup of coffee but a cup of roasted coffee beans. I had never eaten coffee before but there's always a first. James laughed so hard at my misery that he almost passed out.
After introductions were made, I would meet with the "mayor" of the town and donate a sack of high-protein bean seeds for him to distribute among the local farmers. (It was an agricultural area.)
At that point, people began to gather around out of sheer curiosity. "Who are these strangers and what is their message?" Glad you asked!
I was reminded about what Paul said about Christian missions in 1 Corinthians. Although he was an experienced evangelist, he had come to them "in weakness and in much fear and trembling" (2:3). He also came with great simplicity: "My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom" (2:2). He relied neither on ability or oratory, both highly prized at Corinth. His reliance was solely on the cross of Christ, and this he proclaimed, however weak and foolish it seemed to others. He knew it to be the very power of God (1:18).
After visiting 3 or 4 villages, the elders of the church in Burji ordered us to come out immediately due to an increase in persecution of the church there. I didn't want to leave, but they were our authorities and I'm sure they had our best interest at heart. After we returned to the states we got word that James was being hunted down because he had served as our translator. Shortly thereafter we got news that those searching for him had found him and had suffocated him in his sleep.
Again, my mind raced to Paul's teaching in his Corinthian correspondence. The cross, Paul says, is folly to the unconverted mind (1:18). Yet he was not afraid to appeal to his hearers. "We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God!" (2 Cor. 5:20). Our duty is not to judge others but to emulate the apostles and the Savior in suffering (4:1-13).
But if the early church was an evangelizing church, it was also a learning church. Converts "met continually to hear the apostles teach" (Acts 2:42, REB). Today, of course, the "teaching of the apostles" is found in the New Testament. The believer, therefore, is a lifelong student of Scripture. The teaching authority of the apostles is foundational to the ministry of the church, be it in Ethiopia or the U.S. Pastors and elders must be equipped to expound it.
This includes being instructed in the biblical languages.
And its members must read and reflect on it daily.
And so we come back to Mark 16:15. "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him," said the great English cricket player C. T. Studd at the end of the 19th century. His logic is unassailable. He eventually became a missionary on three continents.
Dear friend, may I urge you to consider committing to memory the glorious "Great Commission" passages in the New Testament, including Mark 16:15? Then say, "Today, Lord Jesus, I am willing to go ANYWHERE and tell EVERYONE about you." As his disciples, Jesus is telling us: "There is a cost to this. Can you give up control? Will you trust me when I lead you out of your comfort zone?"
Come, then, my friend, to Jesus today. Tell him what you are willing to give up for him and to him. It's a demonstration of the highest level of our trust. He has a mission for you that's outside your control and beyond your management. This is the moment to say, "I belong to you, my Lord Jesus Christ, body, soul, and spirit."
No doubt about it: Application is probably the most neglected yet most needed step in biblical interpretation. But in order to apply the text accurately, we must first interpret it correctly. And unless you know Greek or Hebrew, you are probably going to be reading the Bible in English. Understand, then, that the more you're able to compare English Bible translations, the better off you'll be in terms of the vital first step of observation. I'd suggest the following:
If you normally use a literal translation, read more idiomatic translations as well. The opposite is true too: If you normally use a translation like the NIV, then be sure to read at least one (if not several) literal translations. Plus, let me add: Even if you use a literal translation in your daily Bible reading, it's still important to compare other literal translations. I saw a classic example of this while in 1 John 3 this morning.
In verse 9, John uses a Greek construction that implies that a lifestyle of sin is in view rather than occasional sinning.
In German, the difference is between "kann nicht sündigen" (Luther) and "kann er nicht länger als Sünder leben" (HOF). Similarly, in Spanish we can say "no puede pecar" (LBLA), but we can also say "no puede seguir pecando" (so many Spanish versions). Of course, if you ask me, in my totally unbiased opinion I think the Hawaiian Pidgin translation hits a home run here:
"Dey no stay do da bad kine stuff."
Our task, then, is twofold. First, we must get into the word of God for ourselves, using all the tools God makes available to us. But then we must allow that word to get into us, to make a permanent difference in our character and conduct.
It's to that end I publish this blog!
As y'all know, I am chasing down an ultra in May. This means weight training every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. On these days I also get in my steps. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I only do steps, as I did today:
Here is my step count total so far:
Arriving home I prepared my big meal of the day. I eat the same (or almost the same) meal 7 days a week. Today's menu called for:
This meal really hits the spot. To makes things a bit tastier, I added:
Tonight, if I feel I like need a snack, I will have a Greek yogurt with 25 grams of protein and 120 calories. I also took my weekly progress photos. Folks, I haven't been able to fit into these jeans for decades. My weight is now down to 194 pounds.
The one thing I miss more than anything is being able to run outdoors. Those inane meteorologists who love to parrot each other are calling for more snow showers this afternoon and then frigid temps for the weekend. I mean, we're talking:
Keep that faucet dripping!
You know, I've never complained about the weather here in Virginia and I don't plan to start now, because, frankly, the weather here is amazing -- very green in the summer and not as humid as some make it out to be, and the fall is gorgeous with the foliage. We're unlikely to have "brutal" winters but occasionally we'll have a big snow or ice storm. Where I live all the leaves are gone by December and we don't start seeing green again until March. We have a lot of pines, though, so there's always some green. Honestly, February can stink, but that's about it. Fall and spring are the nicest times here, but in my opinion the weather is never that bad other than maybe some discomfort in summer. Camellias bloom November to January. Pansies live here all winter. And even in the dead of winter there is a variety of shrubbery with red berries that adds visual interest. By the first of May all the leaves on all the trees have reached their maximum size and our farming season begins in earnest. Then cometh the summer months: surfing at Virginia Beach and Hawaii!
A huge thanks to the Lord who makes all these things possible -- from weight loss to spring rebirth. From my home to yours, I hope you have a safe and blessed weekend!
You may not know this, but I began my college education not as a Bible major at Biola but as a music major at the University of Hawaii, specializing in trumpet performance. Music theory was taught in spades. One day our prof asked us, "What's a 'rule' in music that people have had to unlearn?" After some discussion, he made a statement I'll never forget: "You can always break the rules, but ONLY on purpose." Here are some examples that come to mind:
Let's see if we can apply this to a famous textual variant in the Greek New Testament. We are often told that Mark's Gospel ended in 16:8 -- "for they were afraid."
Others (me included) insist that 16:9-20 are original. Often you'll hear, "Ending a Gospel with such an abrupt ending breaks the rules of writing." And so it would appear. And yet is that really a strong argument against the shorter ending? When you say "Woe is me," you break the rules. When you say, "A friend gave my wife and I a really nice Christmas present," you break the rules. That's why the internal evidence is so slippery. It can often be used to support either reading in places of variation. It's the external evidence that's probative, my friends, not the internal. Even if you take only 2 canons of external evidence into account -- antiquity and ubiquity -- there is NO possible way in my view that the shorter ending has a claim to originality, not when 99 percent of the external evidence (the Greek witnesses) favors the longer ending.
So what should we make of the shorter ending that seems to break the rules of good writing? Can an author have written in such a way? Absolutely! Mark may have wanted to end his Gospel with a cliffhanger. If you feel your "but" rising up, however, I fully identify. There are only two Greek manuscripts that omit the last 12 verses of Mark. Indeed, the shorter reading is almost a singular reading.
Welcome to the wonderful world of textual criticism!😉
P.S. For a contrary opinion, see this essay over at the Desiring God website.
Arm-azing effort today!
I came, I curled, I conquered.
Exercise? I thought you said extra fries!
What exercise do lazy people do? Diddly squats!
Have a nice day!
I think you already know this, but Becky and I loved all of our visits to Hawaii.
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| The honeymooning couple. |
The aloha spirit and the culture. The dramatic scenery. The extraordinary landscapes. The diverse beaches. The wildlife and biodiversity (90 percent of Hawaii's native species exist nowhere else on earth). The year-round tropical climate. The multicultural cuisine. As I said, we loved being in the islands.
I recall watching the sunset with Becky one lovely evening in Waikiki. Becky always said that it's only after the sunset that the magnificence appears, as the colors glow and the light changes.
Neither she nor I had any idea of how true that would become after her death. Becky was my partner, my spouse, my beloved wife, my best friend, my sister in Christ, with whom I'd gone through many struggles. Now she was gone. As she passed from this world to the next, I watched the sun as it dropped behind the distant horizon until it disappeared. Slowly the last tiny shimmer of light vanished. But then came the glow. God's love and peace poured into me like the pinks and grays of a darkening horizon, all so delicate and beautiful, just as it had appeared to Becky and me as we watched the golden globe drop behind the sea. There's still grief, of course. On days like today I want to reach for my phone and tell Becky how I'm feeling and how much I miss her. Only she would truly understand. I know I could tell her anything I was feeling and that she would express love and support. But alas, Team D & B is no more. I was once half of a complete team. Now I'm on my own.
Every day I recognize I have choices. Not every widower has the opportunities or the good health I have to go on looking for new avenues of loving and serving. In the meantime, I don't want to lose any of Becky. I don't want to "get over" my deep sense of loss. Instead, I want to build those memories (like watching the sunset together) into my everyday life, helping me to become a stronger and more compassionate person.
Even after the light has faded into darkness, I am happy to breathe in the cool night air. I am content and happy to be alone.
For the record, I am not against parachurch organizations. Goodness gracious, I teach at one. But clearly a seminary is not a church, even a denominational seminary.
Churches are local bodies led by elders/pastors. Parachurch organizations usually exist independently of a local church and local church leadership. People join a church through baptism and membership, while parachurch organizations lack these as they are not designed to supplant the local church. The goal of a parachurch organization is not to replace the local church but to assist its ministry.
As you know, when I was a teenager I surfed practically every day. During the summer months the South Shore (Waikiki, Ala Moana) was the place to be. And for a while, during my formative years as a believer, I stopped attending my local church in Kailua in order to participate in a parachurch organization called the Waikiki Beach Chaplaincy. I think this was largely due to its charismatic leader and his outstanding ability to teach God's word. Services were held at the lagoon next to the Hilton Hawaiian Village's "Rainbow Tower."
On Sunday mornings we'd load up our boards, drive to Waikiki, and grab a few waves before paddling in to attend the 10:00 am service. Afterwards we'd paddle right back out again. I guess you could say I was a Jesus Freak. I even had the long hair and mariachi sandals to prove it. True, I had much hope for the local church, but she gave me too much indigestion at the time and was, you know, way too "churchy" for me.
That all changed when I turned 16. I began to miss my friends at First Baptist Church Windward. The church was a bit of a mess, but bless her, she was the church. At end of the day, I realized that the Lord himself had promised to build "my church," and so that's where I wanted to spend my energy for the rest of my days. I couldn't wait to plug back in -- choir director, deacon, youth group leader. Unsurprisingly, I felt right at home. This was my church, this was my ohana. I had left the organized church because it was filled with "hypocrites." I had returned when I realized that I was as much of a hypocrite as anybody else.
What incredibly important theology.
My faith community became beautiful again. I gave shocking grace to my bruddahs and sistas, and they gave it right back.
I will never forget the day I ran my first ultramarathon. This 32-mile gut punch went from Burkeville to Pamplin City in Southern Virginia.
A rush of adrenaline over the last 100 yards (all uphill) helped me to cross the finish line in style. Training for -- and running -- my first ultra allowed me to explore a beautiful world that I would otherwise have never discovered. I had given myself a real gift: the goal to finish a really hard race, and the satisfaction of (by God's grace) having reached that goal.
Life is like that, isn't it? Our existence on this planet is so much more interesting when we have something to look forward to outside of the routine of work and family. Ultrarunning is a sport that anyone who's in basic shape can do and enjoy. You don't have to be fast (I almost came in dead last), just willing to set goals and challenges while that voice deep within you says "You can't." Even today, training and racing are tremendous gifts God gives me and I try to never take them for granted. My amazing family has been incredibly supportive and that makes me happy.
Have a wonderful day!
Kailua Beach has an almost legendary status in Hawaii. Of course, growing up there, I had no inkling that Kailua Beach was anything special. Didn't everybody on Oahu enjoy a long crescent of silky soft sand, calm turquoise water, and a laid-back local vibe? Oh, the things we take for granted! It's literally Hawaii postcard perfection. Here's my view every morning during my daily run.
I imagine that Kailua is like Waikiki before the hotels. It never gets boring.
Visiting Oahu? Be sure to visit "my" beach!
So I'm thinking about climbing the Mettelhorn this summer near Zermatt. The climb is rated "hard" with a glacial crossing. Hikers describe it as an alpine hike that requires lots of stamina, sure footing, and familiarity with snow fields. The trail from Zermatt to the Hotel Trift is said to be well-marked as it winds through forest and pine trees. From Trift to the Triftchumme Plateau you'll encounter steep zigzags and rock steps. From the Triftchumme to the Furggji Pass we're talking loose gravel and thinner air because of the higher elevation. Finally, from Furggji to the Mettelhorn summit you have to negotiate a glacier crossing and the final scree slope. Typical comments from recent climbers include:
So apparently the Mettelhorn is not a very technical climb but a high-altitude endurance test. Here's a picture of the Hotel Trift.
And here's one of the Matterhorn from the summit of the Mettelhorn.
Stay tuned.
So you've decided to lose some weight. Chances are you're going to have to lose way more fat than you think you have to in order to get lean. So this is not for you if you're lazy. Or if you're unable to delay gratification. Delayed gratification is literally the basis of your fat loss journey. It's part masculinity, part stoicism, and part Spirit-produced self-control. But it's the most important part of your fitness journey. The strongest sign of masculinity isn't aggression. It's self-discipline.
When you went to college, you didn't expect to get a bachelor's degree in a year. It's going to take you 4 years. If you did it in 3 it's because you took summer classes. So when you start your college education, you know it's going to take time. You've got to delay that gratification.
Likewise in your weight loss journey. If you're not willing to commit 1 year, then obviously this is not for you. 9 months is really the bare minimum. It takes at least that long to make that mindset shift, get the routine down, start to see progress, and replace your bad habits with good ones. It really does take that much time.
If you're full of excuses, obviously this is not meant for you.
If you're not willing to change your relationship with food, that means you're not willing to change your identity.
If you're not willing to prioritize your health, obviously this is not for you.
If you can't do that, then you're already sabotaging your efforts.
Lifestyle is the price you have to pay.
Just bein real witcha guys.
Why not? Why not translate into English what's in the Greek? Especially if the resultant rendering makes for good English.
As you know, I've been memorizing Philippians 4.
Today I was in verse 9, which includes these two words:
The verb here is a reminder that what's called "verbal aspect" is really, sincerely a thing. Whether you call it "imperfective aspect" or something else, the idea is one of ongoing or durative action. English synonyms include:
I cannot possibly address all potential interpretive baggage here, but I'll say this: Anything in the Greek that's worth noticing is probably worth translating. And there are two things worth noting here:
No doubt the first of these ideas is fairly easy to translate over into English. To wit:
So far so good. But let's try and notch it up one level, shall we, and include the verbal aspect:
Can you see the difference?
Now I'm no expert in Spanish, but this last rendering -- it's from a version called the Nueva Traducción Viviente -- is saying something like "Don't stop practicing." Touché!
Thousands of times when reading my English Bible I think to myself, "I wonder why they translated it this way." The answer is: translation is not an exact science. Maybe that's why it's a good idea to read as many English translations as we can lay our hands on when we are studying any passage in the Bible.
Just a random thought.
Have a great day!
