His Plans

I was thinking about the Scripture verse on a sign I received recently as a gift:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” - Jeremiah 29:11

Sometimes I wonder what God's plan is. Sometimes it seems like maybe his plan is not as good from my perspective as it is from His. Like maybe something that is a good thing in the grand scheme of His plan might just feel exactly like a disaster to me. Sometimes I think that maybe His plans are working out a bit more slowly than I want them to, you know? Ever feel that way?

So I looked up the chapter in my Logos software to remind myself of the circumstances surrounding this prophecy. I've read through Jeremiah before, but it's been a while, so I wanted to get a refresher. What I found surprised me a lot!

I had forgotten that Jeremiah was a prophet during the time that God's people were in exile from their homeland - they had been invaded, captured, and been deported to a foreign land. It was the ultimate disaster for them! Yet Jeremiah had a message of hope for them: God's plans for you are for good, not disaster.

Of course, Jeremiah had an additional message for them: settle in, boys, because you're going to be here for a while.

WHAT?

Jeremiah's message of hope was that God was going to redeem his people... later?

It certainly was. Let's read more of that chapter:

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare....For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. - Jeremiah 29:4–7, 10-11 (ESV)

God's plan was for them to be in a seventy-year time out, and then He would miraculously rescue them. And we find out in the book of Daniel that that's exactly what happened! God rescued them exactly when He promised!

Do you think the people wanted to live in exile for seventy years? Of course they didn't. But God's wisdom, His plan, was that things would happen at a certain time, and that was the right time.

Years ago I asked a man I knew had a lot of wisdom about the Word about a Scripture from Galatians:

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.- Galatians 6:9 (ESV)

There was something I was waiting on, and I wanted to know what "in due season" meant. He told me it was like the "due date" for a baby. You can know roughly what the right date is, and you can hope for a certain date, but in the end, the baby is going to be born at a time over which you have limited control. The baby is "due" at the right time. You may want him or her to be born three months after conception, so you can see his or her sweet little face, but that's not the right time. The right time is the "due" time.

Sometimes your and my idea of the right time for God to answer our prayers doesn't match up with His idea of the right time. In general, you shouldn't try to modify the due time for a baby, and in general, it's probably not a good idea to try to influence God's "due season" for your answer to prayer. It might take longer than you want it to, but when the right time comes, God's going to make sure it happens!

Epiphany 2016

You know, year after year God has used Epiphany to effect our family in any number of ways. This year, as you will see, the Holy Spirit is clearly trying to tell my wife and me something! Read on for the details.

First off: if you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, you might want to review some of my past Epiphany posts. The short version of the story is that for the past five years, every year in my family we have a special tradition on January 6th where my wife and I, as the leadership in our home, give one gift to each family member which we hope will lead each of us to a closer walk with the Lord in the coming year.

In addition to that, every year I try to come up with something interesting to share with my family about the Wise Men, or the history of the church holiday, or whatever. Something relevant and edifying. Well, this year I realized that in my Logos Bible software installation I have access to lectionaries from several denominations, and those lectionaries contain Bible readings specifically chosen for use on any day of the year, especially holidays like Epiphany. I went through all of them to see what they have, and as it turns out, most of them had selected more or less the same Scriptures. And they were awesome.

For those from church traditions (like the one I come from) that don't use this kind of prescribed Scripture readings, generally there will be an "Old Testament" reading, a "Psalms" reading, a "Gospels" reading, and an "Epistles" reading for each date. The ones almost unanimously chosen for this date are:

Old Testament: Isaiah 60:1-6  which is a remarkably vivid prophetic description of a bright light rising and appearing over Israel and people (including kings) bringing caravans of camels laden with gold and frankincense.

Psalms: Psalm 72 in which David (who calls himself "the king" in his psalms) prophetically describes visitors from distant lands bringing gifts to one of his descendants (remember, Jesus was known as the "son of David").

Gospels: Matthew 2:1-12 which is of course the Gospel account of the coming of the Wise Men to see Jesus.

Epistles: Ephesians 3:1-12 The significance of the arrival of the Wise Men is that they were the first who recognized that Jesus was given not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles also (they were not Jewish). In this passage Paul explains that God has called him to share the message of Christ's salvation with the Gentiles as well.

I actually copied all of these passages into a Word document to print out and read to the family - if you'd like to see it or use it, I've shared it here. As in the links above, I used the New Living Translation, specifically because my daughter is still young and I didn't want to confuse or bore her with long Bible passages she couldn't understand.

So after we read through those passages and talked briefly about their significance, we moved on to the presents!

I Can Do All Things 20oz. Sports Bottle

At my daughter's school, they make a point to have all the kids bring water bottles, on the theory that well-hydrated kids make better learners. This year my wife and I spotted a cute sports bottle covered with flowers that has printed on it "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. Philippians 4:13". I explained to my daughter that sometimes there are hard things that people ask you to do - like a tough assignment in math class. God can strengthen you to complete that task. Then sometimes there are things that the Holy Spirit speaks into your heart - like showing love to someone who hasn't been nice to you. God can strengthen you to do those hard things too. She took it to school with her the next day - she really loved the multicolored pinwheel of a flower right in the middle!

A Sherlock Holmes Devotional

My son was up next. This past year he expressed some interest in Sherlock Holmes, so when I saw a book called A Sherlock Holmes Devotional I was immediately interested! Basically, the book contains a synopsis of a Sherlock Holmes story, and then a kind of "personal application" kind of thing that goes along with it. When I handed it to him I explained that we chose it for two reasons: first, we thought he would enjoy using it. But second, we wanted him to remember that sometimes you have to search out the things of God, look for clues to find them. When he opened it he immediately started leafing through it with a smile on his face - I hope it makes a big difference for him!

Dream, You Are Never Too Old Framed Art

My wife was next in line. We just moved into a new house this past year, and frankly we haven't had the chance yet to decorate it like she would like for it to be. I took a little bit of a chance (sometimes a woman's sense of taste is really specific) and got her a small piece of framed art with a quotation from C. S. Lewis, "You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream," and a partial quote from Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you to give you a future and a hope." She has often told me about certain choices she made as a girl that she has since regretted, and I felt it in my heart to let her know that it's never too late to pursue the dreams God has placed on your heart. She loved it! She found a perfect place for it as soon as we were done, and we hung it then and there. You can see a picture of it proudly displayed on our wall below:

The "Dream" framed art, proudly displayed in our new house!

His Plans Desktop Reminder

Last of all it was my turn. This year my wife collaborated with my son, and they found a triangular office desk decoration that they liked for me. And it also has Jeremiah 29:11 quoted on it! Seems like maybe the Lord is saying to my family that He's got a plan for us this year, and it's going to be a good thing!

It's really cool to see that God has laid similar things on my heart and on my wife's heart for the upcoming year. If you read my blog post last year, my gift to my wife displayed a verse that says that God would back up her plans (conceived of course from a Godly heart), and this year her gift reassures her that God has His own plans for her. The gift I received last year said that I would be blessed if I put my trust in the Lord, and this year's gift lets me know that God's plans are for good things and not for disaster. How great is that?

Epiphany was on Wednesday this year, and my daughter wanted to bring the Wise Men with her to church. I let her bring the ones from our Little People Nativity set, along with the baby Jesus, but she also brought something else: a chest from her My Little Pony toy castle, containing gold, frankincense, and myrrh. You can see it in the picture at the top of this post!

I write about our Epiphany every year, not to make us seem so cool and spiritual, but because it is a special time for us. I hope you make your own "plans" next year to follow our example with your own family. It's one of my favorite traditions from the holiday season!

"His Plans" on my desk at work

By the way... if you are interested in purchasing a base package of the Logos software I mentioned above - which is REALLY incredible, by the way - get in touch with me so I can give you my email address. If you call them and tell them I referred you, with my email address so they can locate my account, not only will you get 15% off your purchase and some other valuable books for free, but I'll get a credit on my Logos account so I can add some stuff to my library too. Win-win!

Blessed, or Cursed?

In my previous post I mentioned that I had something to say about the context around Jeremiah 17:7 - in that post I only talked about the "blessed man", but there are some things about him that we didn't see because we didn't look at the verses about a very different person the chapter tells us about: the "cursed man"!

Jeremiah 17:7 is actually part of a larger snippet of Bible poetry that starts at verse 5 and ends at verse 8. Take a look:

Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man

and makes flesh his strength,

whose heart turns away from the Lord.

He is like a shrub in the desert,

and shall not see any good come.

He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,

in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water,

that sends out its roots by the stream,

and does not fear when heat comes,

for its leaves remain green,

and is not anxious in the year of drought,

for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:5–8 (ESV)

This is what is known as poetic "parallelism". The first stanza and the second stanza contrast with each other: the former is about someone who is "cursed" and the latter is about someone who is "blessed". The reason you want to be able to recognize this is because sometimes one half of the parallel passage will contain useful information the other half does not.

For example:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

We know a number of things about the "cursed man" from this:

• He trusts in "man" (mankind) - so his focus is what human beings are able to accomplish.
• He relies on his own "flesh" - his own ability - to get things done.
• His heart turns away from the Lord.

We only are told two things about the "blessed man":

• He trusts in the Lord (he acts in a way that reveals that he trusts the Lord).
• He puts his trust in the Lord (his trust has a home with the Lord - it stays there).

But because these are contrasting parallel passages, we can infer several other things. The implications for the "blessed man" are that he also:

• does not put his trust in what mankind can accomplish, but what God can accomplish.
• does not rely on his own ability to get things done, but knows that God can do things he cannot.
• His heart turns toward the Lord.

And, of course, the implication for the "cursed man" is that he does not in any way put his trust in the Lord.

Some other contrasts that we can infer using this method (inferred parts in italics):

The Cursed Man	The Blessed Man
Like a shrub in the desert	Like a tree by water
Shall see no good come	Shall see good come
Shall fear when tough times occur	Shall not fear when tough times occur ("heat comes")
Is afraid he may run out of what he needs	Is always confident that he is well supplied (not fearful in "the year of drought")
Can only do so much before he comes to the end of his own strength	Is always able to do good ("Does not cease to bear fruit")
Lives in a parched, uninhabited "salt land" (nothing can grow in salted soil)	Lives in a place of bountiful supply surrounded by friends

For the record, I'm no Bible scholar - I only know what I've picked up over the years from hearing and reading things written by people with a lot more Bible education than I. But I think it's good to be able to "read between the lines" and discover those extra tidbits that God has left for us to pick up on!

Blessed is the Man

This is a picture of something I've seen every business day this year. It's the front of a mug my wife gave me at Epiphany, and every day I look at it and think about what Jeremiah 17:7 says. I started to notice, though, that on different days different parts stood out to me, and eventually I realized that this verse was unfolding into multiple meanings, like a flower opening up into full bloom over the course of many days. I wanted to share some of those thoughts - as you're reading, maybe something will unfold for you today!

There are a bunch of important ideas in this verse: "Blessed." "Trust." "Hope." Let's look at each of them, starting with "blessed." We all want to be "blessed," of course, but to different people that might mean different things. If your car breaks down, you might be "blessed" by a friend who is able and willing to fix it for you for free. If you run out of groceries the day before payday, you might be "blessed" by a friend who buys your lunch. Or, you might be "blessed" by someone giving you a compliment, telling you you did well on a job task or even mentioning that they like the sweater you're wearing.

Those are all excellent blessings, and I certainly think they are included in this verse (especially considering the context, which I want to look at later in another post). But I think the bigger picture, the real "blessing" of God, is much more all-encompassing. I think the blessing of God means that things will go well for you. Your life will be characterized by joy and peace, even when you hit a rough patch. God gave us a picture of what His blessing looks like back in Moses' day:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

(Numbers 6:22-26 ESV)

The words rendered "trust" and "hope" in the translation of Jeremiah 17:7 on my mug (New King James?) are related words in Hebrew - many translations actually translate them both "trust". The first one is a verb. But it's not the kind of verb like "run" or "ride" or "sing" that is something you specifically do - trusting this way can only be detected by other things you do. Your actions are affected because your attitude is one of trust in God.

The second word, "hope", is a noun. This word means confidence. You can act in trust, because you have confidence in God. It also means your security. Like living in a house with locked doors, you know that nothing can get to you without going through your God first.

But "hope" also can mean something else. It also means that your mind believes there is a chance that something good will happen. When a man on a raft in the middle of the ocean sees a ship sailing toward him, it gives him hope. When a worried wife of a soldier hears news that the war is over, it gives her hope. When a student looks at his transcript with a counselor and sees that graduation is only a few credits away, it gives him hope. Hope is something you believe, based on facts that you know. The fact it's talking about in this verse, the one which gives you hope, is God Himself. Based on that fact, you can have hope in every situation.

But the Bible tells us about one more important hope we have:

[We are] waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ...

(Titus 2:13 ESV)

Our greatest hope, the one to which all other hopes pale in comparison, is our hope of eternal life with Jesus when He returns. This is the hope that still stands when all other hopes fall... when the man on the raft is taking his dying breath without that ship ever showing up, when the wife receives visitors that no military wife ever wants to see at her doorstep, when that student unexpectedly has to quit school because of a family need - when those hopes are lost, this hope remains.

Did you notice that it does not say, "...whose hope is in the Lord?" It says that the person who is blessed is the person "...whose hope is the Lord." Jesus doesn't give you hope. Jesus is your hope. Jesus is your hope of a new better life when this one is over. Jesus is your hope of provision and comfort in this life. Jesus is your hope of joy and peace and contentment. He is your hope of all blessing. Choose to take action based on your confidence in Him. Just try it and see what happens!


(Oh, by the way... if you love the cup that inspired this post, you can get your own right here.)

Never A Bad Deal

I never thought the book of Jeremiah would make me laugh. Isn't he called the weeping prophet? But when I closed my Bible, I was chuckling.

Last Thursday we received some discouraging information from our banker. We're working on a loan to make some repairs to our house, and the appraisal came back lower than we had hoped. It won't stop us from doing what needs to be done, but it certainly presented an unwanted bump in the road. My wife in particular was pretty crushed about it, and I knew it.

I am currently in the nineteenth month of my quest to read all the way through the Bible in one year (it's been a really long year!) and that evening after getting the negative news, I picked up my Bible and simply turned to the next chapter on the list: Jeremiah chapter 32. And that's the chapter that made me laugh. "Guess what my Bible reading was about tonight, Sweetie?" I said to my wife.

"What was it about?" she asked.

"A bad real estate deal!"

Let me set the stage for you. The nations of Israel and Judah, God's people, were in deep trouble. They had finally rebelled against God past a point of no return, and they were on the brink of being completely conquered by Babylon. Some of them were already in exile in Babylon, in fact, but there were still pockets of resistance to the conquerors; one such pocket was Jerusalem itself, where the king, Jeremiah, and the rest of the inhabitants of the city were barricaded in and under siege. Jeremiah, in addition, was under arrest in the palace; the king was very upset with him because Jeremiah had prophesied that indeed, Jerusalem was going to fall to Nebuchadnezzar, and the king himself was going to face some unpleasant consequences when it happened. So in the middle of Jeremiah being under arrest in a city that was about to be invaded and the inhabitants deported, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

God told him to buy some land.

To his credit, Jeremiah immediately and publicly did what he was commanded to do by the Lord. But later on he went to the Lord in prayer, and after reviewing just about the entire history of the Jewish nation, Jeremiah asked a very logical question, but one that you wouldn't expect to hear from the lips of a faithful prophet of God. "Behold, the siege mounds have come up to the city to take it, and because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it," Jeremiah prayed. "What you spoke has come to pass, and behold, you see it. Yet you, O Lord GOD, have said to me, 'Buy the field for money and get witnesses'—though the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans." (Jeremiah 32:24-25 ESV)

It gave me a chuckle when I read that, because it seemed so unexpected. Jeremiah is all like, oh Lord, You made everything. You save people, You punish people, You do mighty signs. And then at the very end he almost whines, God, you just told me to waste money on land that's about to be taken away from me by a conquering army! What's the deal here, God? What's going on?

I don't know if you've ever felt like that... wait, yes I do know. You have felt like that sometime if you've been a Christian longer than about ten minutes. We all do. It's nice to see that the mighty prophet Jeremiah felt that way, and yet he still acted in obedience. I guess that means that being a Christian doesn't always mean that you understand what you're being instructed to do, but you're being faithful and obedient right now and asking for an explanation later, right? Food for thought.

Anyway, as I was reading through it, God's answer to Jeremiah's question hit me like a ton of bricks, and it has become my theme verse for what we're doing with our real estate. "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh," God said to Jeremiah. And then God added, "Is anything too hard for me?"

What God knew but Jeremiah did not know was that buying the land was a prophetic act. God had his prophets do all kinds of weird things in Old Testament days. Live completely naked for three years. Marry a known prostitute. And, in this case, buy land that's going to be taken away almost immediately by a conquering army. These outlandish acts were done not to be outrageous, but to make a point. The point in this case was that one day, God was going to rescue His people from Babylon, and when that happened, they would return to the Promised Land and Jeremiah's land deeds would once again be valid. What looked like a crazy act turned out to be an investment in a future only God could see. And bringing that future to fruition was not in any way too hard for God! Jeremiah's bad business deal would one day turn into a valuable investment.

Well, despite our bump in the road, we're going ahead with the plan for our house which we believe God has placed in our hearts. Just because it seems like it's not going perfectly doesn't mean it's not God's wisdom. I'm certainly not advocating making wild business deals in hopes that God will somehow magically turn them into good business deals, but I am advocating a life of prayer and listening for the voice of God. When God is behind something, it will not fail.

"Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?" (Jeremiah 32:27 ESV)

You, Youth

In my one-year trip through the Bible (which has now turned into a one-and-a-half-year trip through the Bible!), I've made it through the incredible book of Isaiah and into the book of Jeremiah, which is also pretty incredible, but in a completely different way. (Actually, I've heard so much about Jeremiah's "weeping" that I was expecting a depressing read, but it's not that way at all. You can read it for yourself and see what you think about that. He does weep several times, though.)

Anyway, I was reading the first chapter, where God calls Jeremiah to his ministry as a prophet, and I came across this:

But the LORD said to me,

    “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;
    for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,
    and whatever I command you, you shall speak.
    Do not be afraid of them,
    for I am with you to deliver you,
    declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 1:7-8 ESV)

Jeremiah was a young man at this time; likely he was in his early 20s, maybe even in his teens. God told him that that didn't matter, because when God calls you to something and you're walking in His will, He'll make a way for you to do it. Being young doesn't disqualify you... ask David, or Gideon, or any number of other young people that God used mightily in the Word!

I turned 40 years old last year; in a few months I'll tick over to age 41. Most people would not classify me as a "youth." But I remember what it felt like when I was a kid, then a teenager, then a young man, and started off on something new. It was scary! I can remember it very well because when I start something new these days, at the age of 40... it still feels exactly that way! When I'm starting something that I haven't done before, it's scary. I feel like I'm not big and strong enough to do it. I feel like I might fail. I might as well be a little kid! As I told my son recently, every grown man you see walking around, even if he's a hundred years old, still has a little kid inside there.

How about you? Do you turn into a "youth" when God calls to try something new? If you do (and come on, you know you do!) heed the words God said to Jeremiah. Don't tell God how small and weak and incapable you are. Go where He says to go, say what He tells you do say, and don't be afraid: God is with you, making your victories possible!

Moving Pictures

(Before I start... there are a lot of links in this post. They are links to Scriptures. I encourage you to click them and read the original verses. Those verses will back up what you're reading, and help you to understand and digest the post. I'm not making this stuff up! It's in the Bible!)

I'm convinced that God expresses Himself constantly through visual aids. He paints pictures in His creation. I don't think that God used the word "father" to describe His relationship to His children because God looked down and saw someone with their father and said, that's what I'm like! I think that God is the original, and earthly fathers were created by God as a picture of His relationship to us. In fact, God even called the Israelite nation His "firstborn son" and delivered them physically from slavery in Egypt, in anticipation of His "only [one-of-a-kind] Son" Who would not be delivered, but Who would be the deliverer, bringing God's people out from spiritual slavery to sin.

Israel, as the "firstborn son," was God's "physical" people. They were delivered from physical slavery in Egypt. So "son" described God's relationship to His physical people, who are the children of Abraham by their bloodline. But God has always wanted something more. Over and over, especially in the prophets, we find God describing, almost wistfully, a time when they would be "His people" and He would be "their God". Here, for example. And here, and here, and here, and here, and here. Even when they messed up, God still wanted that intimacy with them.

The Church, on the other hand, has a relationship with God like that between a husband and wife. This is God's spiritual people, who are the children of Abraham via their faith. God wanted the Israelite nation to be His spiritual people as well, and when they messed up and worshiped idols, He even went so far as to call them a "faithless bride" (see Ezekiel 16 for a vivid picture of this), quite regularly referring to their attraction to idols as prostitution. God was seeking a bride who would approach Him by faith; a husband and wife desire to please each other, but without faith, we cannot please God. If we try to approach God without faith, we will wind up turning away from Him, prostituting ourselves to some idol or another. God wants us to draw near to Him, to submit to Him much as a wife is to submit to her husband. God wants us close!
 
How vivid is the image that when Christ looks on the Church, his emotional response is the same as the response a man has when he looks at his bride on their wedding day? That new husband loves, he wants and desires. He wishes to be close to his wife, to possess her, to never be away from her! And that is the way God feels about us. God's desire is not for a slave, a vassal, an underling... God's desire is for a companion. A lover. Our relationship with God has many facets... He is our Father, He is our King, we are His servants, we are His children. But at the end of this world, in the book of Revelation, the Church is not described in any of these ways, but as Christ's bride. And God's heart desire is once more spoken: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.' " (Revelation 21:3 ESV)

His people.

Their God.

Very possessive language.

Are you the possession of God today?

Is He yours?





(A previous post with some related thoughts is right here.)

Do Angels Sing?

A few days ago I was at choir rehearsal, practicing for the Christmas production coming up in a few weeks, and someone told me that there is nowhere in the Bible that it says that angels sing, despite Christmas carols misrepresenting this passage (which, you will notice, says the angels were praising God and saying, not singing). I immediately thought of a passage I recently read in Revelation which I knew had an awful lot of praising in it, but as it turns out, in my ESV it only mentions singing one time, although they do a lot of "saying" in that passage.

So who is singing? Well, it's "the 24 elders" who sit around God's throne, and four "living creatures." Apparently there are folks who believe the 24 elders are angels, but I don't really buy that... if they were angels, how could there be "elders"? I've never heard anything that would lead me to believe that any angels are older than any others. On the other hand, what about those creatures? The description of them in Revelation resembles descriptions in Isaiah (who specifies that he is describing seraphim, a kind of angel) and Ezekiel (who also calls them "living creatures"), but neither of those prophets exactly describes the creatures as John describes them in Revelation, so I'm not sure we can consider them seraphim, or even angels at all. It could be argued that they actually are just some very unusual creatures that live in Heaven!

So that's no good, so I asked the almighty Google for answers. Here are some scriptures that people use as proof that angels sing:

Job 38:4-7 - assuming the "sons of God" are angels, which I think is iffy given this.

Jeremiah 51:48 - assuming that angels are either in the heavens or on Earth, which seems like a fairly good bet to me.

Isaiah 49:13 also mentions "the heavens" singing.

I would consider all of these good college tries at it, but I can't see any of them as being conclusive. So are angels melodious, or tone-deaf? The Bible doesn't seem to care enough to clear it up for us. I guess we'll just have to wait and see! And while we're waiting, there are plenty of places where it encourages us to sing our praises to God!

Another sermon point that turns on translation

Last night a special speaker was at my church, and one of his (admittedly relatively minor) message points hinged on Jeremiah 17:6:

For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. (KJV)

"The person who is trusting in himself and not the Lord's strength," he told us, "won't even see the good things that come by." Only problem with that was that my ESV says:

He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. (ESV)

By that reading, the good may not ever come at all! (Although if it does, by chance, he will not see it.) Apparently the ESV is in the minority when leaving out the "when," although it reads that way in the Amplified version as well (the only other version I consulted that kept the phrase but left out the "when"). The ESV has built a reputation for being very accurate, but it's hard to believe that the ESV folks got this one right and everyone else got it wrong!

Although this is a minor difference in syntax, it goes to illustrate how we should be careful about reading too much into a text without consulting a few different opinions of how the text could best be rendered.