The Ethics of Baptism - Col 3.1-17

The following is part of a seminar I did for a congregation in the midwest a few years ago on the Epistle to the Colossians. Prior to this lesson I reviewed our lessons on chapter 1 & 2. I offer it here in the prayer that it may bring a blessing. When reading this remember it was an oral presentation.

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Briefly review how Paul moves from the Supreme Savior in ch. 1 and the Sufficient Savior in ch.2 to how we are to respond in our lives: we become Selfless Servants. That is we live out the meaning of baptism each and every day.

I. A WORLD OF DEADNESS! (3.5-11)

”Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” (NRSV)


In 3.5-11 Paul reminds us of our unredeemed nature or as the NIV calls it the "sinful nature.” That is the part of us that is in rebellion or at odds with God. He is talking about us as we once were in our state of deadness. He is speaking of the “life” before our redemption by the Sufficient Savior's blood. He is saying that some of us are still living in the old world, living our lives as if we have never been converted -- an impossibility according to Paul . . . or should be!

Paul says in v.5 we are to "kill" the earthly nature that keeps rearing its ugly head. Listen to him, "Kill off, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil, lust, evil desires and greed which is idolatry." Most of us assembled here will quickly, and defensively, distance ourselves from any such activity and declare before all: "That is not me! I am innocent of that kind of life!"

Perhaps we should slow down though and take serious stock?? Are we not often a greedy people? We Christians, often, pride themselves that we don't fornicate and have never had a drop of beer. However, what about our anger? Fits of rage? Our malice towards one another? What of our slander of one another? and what of the coarse language that frequents our lips (v.8)? These things: anger, slander and lying, are evidence we have surrendered to the sinful nature we claim to have cast off in the name of the Christ at our baptism.

Every time I have known of a church split (and having lived through one I speak of experience here) it really had more to do with some brother's or sister's anger or malice (animosity) toward a fellow Christian as any doctrinal issue. If our lives are characterized by these things, Paul says, we lied to God when we came to be baptized into Jesus' name.

II. "IN" THE SELFLESS SAVIOR, BECOMING SELFLESS SERVANTS! (3.1-4,
12-17)

”So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

I have mentioned baptism several times now because the Apostle has been discussing, I believe, "post-baptismal" life or what might be called "resurrection life" in Christ since 3.1. All the things in 3.5-11 are things that are contrary to the life of one who has undergone baptism in the Lord's name. Beloved, living as a citizen of the Kingdom of God is more than joining a church, attending worship services, placing money in the collection, or going to Bible class. It is even more than making sure our "doctrine" is perfect (and we know that it never will be for God alone is perfect). No! Living in the Kingdom is to undergo conversion. It is to undergo transformation. It is to go From death To life!

Let me see if I can illustrate what Paul is talking about here in 3.1-4. Ernst Gordon wrote an engrossing work titled THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE KWAI. It is a saga relating his ordeal of three years being held prisoner by the Japanese in World War II. It is a good commentary on religious experience as I see it. At first many in the camp turn to God and were confident of rescue. There were pious affirmations of faith. But as time passed, with harsh and brutal treatment, the rescue did not materialize. They turned on each other. They fought, stole from each other, and refused to care for the sick and dying among them. They were according to Gordon the "living dead."

But something happened in that camp. A few moved past shallow faith in God as a quick fix artist and began to live a mature faith. They stopped bickering and practiced sacrificial love. Gordon himself was nursed back to health by fellow prisoners who refused to eat so he could have their meager rations. In fact one inmate actually starved to death so Gordon could live. One underwent an undeserved execution in order to keep the whole group from being killed. Some even found ways to be kind to their captors.

Gordon says "selfishness, hatred, jealousy, greed were all found by us to be ANTI-LIFE! Love, self-sacrifice, mercy and creative faith were the ESSENCE of life. These were the gifts of God to men." Brothers and sisters is that not what Paul is talking about: the old way of life with its anger, malice, slander, and selfishness is ANTI-LIFE. But Gordon and his fellows underwent conversion of sorts. It was a life altering and mind changing event and process -- that is what Paul says has happened to us. That mind altering and life changing occurrence was baptism.

Notice carefully v.1ff "Since you have been raised with Christ . . . For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God . . . Christ IS your life" (vv. 1-4). These anti-life things cannot be part of the Christian because the old dead person that was full of anti-life was killed, buried and raised by God up. God raised us up and brought us to LIFE in Christ. The life of a Christian, post-baptismal life is resurrection life. It is life free from the dominance of sin and death. Paul is reminding us of the language he used already in 2.21:

"having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead."

Here in these verses then Paul is making clear what the life of a baptized person should look like. What the life of one who confess Christ to be the Supreme and Sufficient Savior is to be a Selfless Servant. He says in essence baptism is not just an ending of the old sinful person but it is the beginning of the new person. It is entering the New Creation. In baptism we underwent a transformation so radical -- more radical than that of Gordon's -- we experienced CONVERSION! Conversion from one who acted and thought like an enemy of God to one whose life is so much like Christ's that it is said to be "hidden in Christ."

If we understand that we were once dead but are now alive IN the Savior, then we know we have no life of our own for "Christ is our life." We are to by like him. If Christ is my life then how can I let anger,
slander and other anti-life situations dominate my life ... these were killed and buried in the watery grave! We learned in ch.1 and 2 that Christ has defeated those "powers" at the place of victory, his Cross. Paul says this cannot be for one who has experienced being resurrected from the dead by the power of God in baptism.

This point is so important and I have struggled on how to illustrate it. This is not perfect but maybe it will help. I have something, in my pocket, that was alive but now it is dead. I plan to bring it back to life before your very eyes. This is a parable of sorts on Paul's point of coming to life in the Savior. Here it is. It is a genuine leather glove. It once had life as a cow. But the cow died and became someone's steak and my glove. I cannot bring this glove back to life as a cow -- but I can give the glove life. Let's see if it can be done by commands (this is how some think life is imparted): GLOVE, LIVE! Nothing is happening. Let's try threats: Glove, come alive or I will throw you into the fire! Nothing. The Glove is DEAD. Its motionless and lifeless. How can a dead thing, whether a glove or a human being, respond to a command or a threat? It cannot! The point here is that one cannot live as God would want . . . no matter how hard they try (and Paul seems to think we prefer to go our own way).

I want to try a radically different approach. One that demonstrates the difference between man's effort and God's power and grace. Watch carefully as I place my LIVING HAND INSIDE THE DEAD GLOVE. It responds now. It moves. It does productive things. My mind and the glove are connected and it “obeys” even without my verbalizing a command. But its life is not the old life of "cowness" but the new life of "handness." Life flows into the glove from without . . . from me.

Do you see any connection to Paul? The old, dead person cannot change her status. Commands nor threats will do it. Only by being filled with Christ the Supreme and Sufficient Savior will do it. Only then can we have life because then and only then “Christ is your life." Paul says if we have faith in the Crucified One that will bring us to the baptismal waters and there God will crucify the death that reigns in our bodies and then he will raise us from the dead to a new life just as he did Christ. Like the glove we will come ALIVE when we are clothed, filled and hidden in Christ. It is a life full of grace. It is a life full of peace. It is a life that forgives each and every fault we see in others, with no strings attached, as Paul says:

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony”

You see if we cloth or "glove" ourselves with Christ, we will start to look and act like the Savior we claim to follow when we enter the waters of baptism.

CONCLUSION

Beloved, Paul has been talking about the radical nature of conversion. His question to each of us is this: "have I been truly converted?" Have I been transformed? Did I undergo a change of life? Have I gone from Death to Life?" Baptism is far more than getting our sins forgiven, though it certainly involves that. Baptism is where God recreates us in his Son. In baptism I claim to give God control of my life. Baptism, the great reformer John Calvin wrote, takes only a moment to do but takes a lifetime to live. What an insightful thought. Our Christian life is a bapitsmal life, a resurrection life hidden in Christ. The goal is to be as responsive to the Savior as the glove is to my hand. That means we, like Gordon, must go through a life altering and heart changing experience through the power of God in baptism. Through his living in us we can be all he wants us to be -- when we choose to follow him and live out our baptism.

Offer Invitation

"by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them." (Col 2.14-15)

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Legalistic Grace

For some time now I have been concerned about "our" (perhaps only my own) understanding of the "doctrine" of grace. It is true that we, as a people of God, have sometimes not grasped the depth of grace in our preaching and teaching. Preaching often tended to focus on a handful of subjects (i.e. not passages of Scripture per se but topics): right church, baptism, instrumental music, Spirit dwelling through the word. These lessons tended to emphasize human ability, human works and human perseverance. Along the way, as K.C. Moser opined, Jesus became "the forgotten Man." Some were even so bold as to say that God in his grace "gave the Plan" so that man could save himself. E. M. Borden's famous sermon "Jacob's Ladder" has been reincarnated in many a preacher's oral discourse.

I grew up in the acrid environment described in the previous paragraph. In many ways things have changed . . . for the better! I rarely hear a sermon (or read an article) that has the same self-righteous grit of some from a previous generation. Many have come to embrace salvation by grace as a DOCTRINAL teaching. Many have fervently embraced grace and with equal zeal, rightly, repudiated legalism. But I have a gnawing anxiety . . . have we simply embraced legalistic grace?

What might "legalistic" grace be? Legalistic grace reduces this to a mere doctrine. Mere legalistic grace sees basically a forensic transaction in which the legal accounts are cleared so we will not go to hell in the afterlife. Legalistic grace is essentially "fire insurance." It is something we "believe" or "affirm" . . . it is not, however, the essence of life. Legalistic grace is grace held as a “proposition” but has not moved from an intellectual idea to the fabric of being.

Legalistic grace is not biblical grace. Grace in the New Testament is not merely pardon but POWER. What kind of power? What is it for? It is Holy Spirit power. It is power to be set free from the "powers" that enslave us to live and behave an UNredeemed manner.

It disturbs me . . . greatly . . . when I see my beloved brothers and sisters, many who violently repudiate legalism, treat a brother or a sister in ways that scream that they have embraced nothing but legalistic grace. Is it not ironic that we, after several years of preaching grace and teaching grace, can still sling mud with the best of the pagans?

Now this is hardly a new problem. People have always found it easier to embrace a "doctrine" rather than a "life." Paul writes to a group of Christians in Galatia and tells them "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other" (5.15). The antidote to living like a pack of unredeemed wolves is the GRACE of the indwelling, empowering, Holy Spirit (5.16-25).

I freely confess that I have, and continue, to struggle with legalistic grace. I want nothing to do with legalism. Yet I continue to reveal my slavery to the stoicheia of this world each time I engage in bloodletting with my brethren. Several NT epistles directly address the matter of simply "getting" along in the church. Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Corinthians, Romans and Galatians all address this issue of living grace in one way or another. They all call the church away from legalistic grace to a gracious LIFE. In light of the Cross, the very essence of grace, we embrace the way of humility, love and service. This is directed not only to the world but to the church. The "doctrine" of grace means we become, like Jesus, suffering servants for all around.

Grace does not mean no more dialogue about controversial subjects. It does not mean no good brotherly "debate." What it does mean is that I am so permeated by the Spirit of Holiness that love, joy and peace dominate my discourse. It means that when a brother or sister has a more "conservative" idea . . . or a more "progressive" one . . . we love and season our communication with the grace we have received. Brother and sister "hunting season" is banned in the kingdom of God!

My question is, have we embraced "Legalistic Grace?" Is John 3.16 and Ephesians 2.8 our favorite texts but we behave like the brothers and sisters at Corinth? If the acrid atmosphere remains but the "rhetoric" of grace has returned we have good evidence that we have not embraced Biblical Grace but Legalistic Grace. The wolf pack mentality shows we have fallen for a Doctrine but rejected the Life. Biblical Grace is not mere forgiveness but deliverance from an unloving life.

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Gospel Racial Reconciliation: Compass Points for Beginnings

This past week in our class "Restoration Theology," my friend, and mentor, John Mark Hicks and I introduced the students to the history and theology of black Churches of Christ and race relations. This is always a challenging section because the history of race relations can be dismal. I do not apologize for making students wrestle with this material ... indeed we could easily spend the entire semester on it and still not come close to covering the material that really needs to be covered. It is difficult to be a doctor when you do not know "where it hurts" the same is true for we who claim to be disciples of the Prince of Peace. I shared what follows with our class, and I share it with my blog readers, as nothing but "compass points" to help us with points to begin Gospel reconciliation. If I understand Paul that would mean every single person that has been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Here is what I shared ...



In light of our readings this week the question must be asked: how can we move forward? How can we become part of the solution? How can we join the mission of God? These are questions I have wrestled with since the mid-1990s at least and nothing I have to offer is revolutionary or magical. In fact some requires a great deal of intentionality, hard work and cross bearing. Yet here are a few things that I have become convinced are necessary in allowing God's Spirit to use us as instruments of his new creation. We may find that it is we, ourselves, who are being challenged to the core of our being and the work of God's Spirit begins with us.



1) We must become intentional in our prayers about reconciliation. Through prayer we must become people who repent and confess our participation in systemic evil. This is a must. We too easily excuse the status quo. Yes the problem is huge, bigger than any one of us. But the buck stops here.



2) We must experience a hermeneutical shift. Churches of Christ have long had a "canon within a canon" and preachers probably have an even smaller one. I know a church in which I surveyed the sermons done in a five year period. In that five year period there were a grand total of four sermons from the "Old Testament." One was on Hannah on Mother's Day, a sermon on Joseph, a sermon on David and a psalm. This, in my opinion, is simply unacceptable. Our traditional dispensational hermeneutic has gutted vast resources for equipping the saints with kingdom eyes. Consistent engagement with not only the Hebrew Bible but also the Gospels confronts us repeatedly with the narrative of God's siding with the oppressed, the redemption of the slaves, the caring for the widows, orphans and aliens. Confronts our lack of vision for the cosmic mission of God. Recovering the biblical narrative as a whole is of absolute necessity and must begin today. Solid, theological, expository preaching through Exodus, Deuteronomy, Amos, and Jonah to name but a few.



3) Along with a hermeneutical shift, we need to look at the narrative through multiple lenses. All of us are captive to our own cultural biases and presuppositions that reside deep within our ethnic background. We need to discover just how richly textured the biblical text is. I will use an embarrassing personal example: in 1995 a very good friend of mine (Robert Birt and about the same time Alisha Pierre) talked about the "black" people in the Bible. One of them was the "Ethiopian" Eunuch!! It had not occurred to me that this flesh and blood man was not "like me." So get a book like Walter Arthur McCray's The Black Presence in the Bible. In fact here are some resources that can shape our reading of Scripture and the history of the early church: Africa, Scripture and Christian History. Two years ago I did a class in February (black history month) called "Forgotten Roots." In that series I told the stories of the Ethiopian, Ebed-Melech, Fred Gray and others.



Note also that in Scripture unity is often racial rather than doctrinal. Throughout the wonderful book of Ephesians the ethnic divisions established and maintained by the fall are destroyed through the work of the cross. Paul's emphasis in Ephesians has nothing to do with Baptists or instruments and everything to do with Jews & Gentiles (ethnic/racial division) both living as one new race. Baptism destroys the ethnicities of the old fallen order! We preach baptism the question is do we live it?



4) Become a student of black history and integrate it into your story. Until the mid-1990s it never occurred to me that black history in America was significantly different than white. Again my impetus for this was Robert Birt. If we do not know who Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Martin Luther King Jr then our vision is skewed at best. These people are not just part of Black history but they are people who shaped American history. They rank along with Washington, Jefferson and Franklin. Engage writers who are African-Americans. Birt challenged me to read Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America by Lerone Bennett Jr. which is something of a classic. I did, and I have never been the same. So I recommend reading Bennett for a broad survey but is only a good beginning point. Read Deirdre Mullane's Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing for an intro into the vast diversity of black culture (that is anything but monolithic). A good book with a much narrower focus is Richard Hughes Myths America Lives By. We must be intentional in learning to "see" and "hear."



5) Become an intentional ambassador for the ministry of reconciliation. Paul says that the Gospel is the gospel of reconciliation. Attend an NAACP meeting. Make sure you participate in the Martin Luther King Jr prayer breakfasts. Integrate, intentionally, multicultural sermon illustrations. For example when talking about the inevitable theme of freedom for July 4th integrate the story of the Amistad. Or if you are preaching from Mark 8 on following the Messiah's Footprints the story of William Wilberforce fits powerfully. I told the story of George Wallace as an example of the "Ethics of Baptism" from Col 3.1-12 which focused on the power of God to transform our fallen defaced image into the renewed brilliant image of God. The fallen Wallace screamed with a baseball bat in hand "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." But he underwent a "baptism" - shot, paralyzed and converted. When he died Jesse Jackson and Coretta Scott King attended his funeral. A great example of one who put off "anger, rage, malice" and clothed himself with "compassion, kindness, and humility" which led him to confess there was "no Greek or Jew." Being intentional about our illustrations does not mean they must all be 'black."



6) Become intentional about personal relationships. Cross the race and culture barrier on a personal and interpersonal level. When was the last time you had a person of another race sitting at your table for dinner? Make Gospel reconciliation a priority one on one.



These are a few things all of us can do as we seek to become instruments of shalomin God's fallen world. These are not exhaustive but they are places to begin and the one who is likely to do as much changing as anyone is ourselves.

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Gordon Fee on "How To Read the Bible For all its Worth"

Today I was perusing my friend Darin Scott Little's blog, Casting Nets. He offered a video from one of my favorite authors, Gordon Fee. Fee has impacted my thinking from the moment I opened his book with Douglas Stuart, How To Read the Bible for All its Worth, in 1988. It is, in my opinion, a book that not only every minister should study deeply but every Christian as well. Below are two videos, one longer as you can see, of Fee made many years apart. The first is a portion of a series of lectures he did for ministers and the second is a recent and extensive interview. Enjoy and be blessed. We must become better readers of God's word.

Gordon Fee: HOW Should We Read the Bible



Gordon Fee: How TO Read the Bible ... Good Stuff ... Love the Shakespeare analogy



Pray with the ancient sage, Ben Sira, that the "great Lord is willing" to fill us with "the spirit of wisdom" so we can meditate on "his mysteries" (Sirach 39.6-7)

Shalom

P.S. I have learned that this Casting Nets is also the blog of Jeremy O'Clair. The post I pulled the first Fee video from was written by Jeremy. I apologize Jeremy for overlooking that.

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Ancestry of the King James Version #8: Old "English" Scripture

Setting the Stage
Here are previous contributions in this series on the Ancestry of the KJV: Ancestry of the KJV #1: A Literal Translation?; Ancestry of the KJV #2: Mythology, Archeology & Translation; Ancestry of the KJV #3: Making Books in the Ancient World; Ancestry of the KJV #4: ABCs of Biblical Languages; Ancestry of the King James Version #5: More Greek Thoughts & Literal Translation; Ancestry of the King James Version #6: The Septuagint; Ancestry of the King James Version #7: The Latin Versions.

Christianity in the British Isles is ancient. It is unknown when it arrived, or by whom, but by the time of Tertullian(AD 160-225) and Origen (AD 185-254) Christianity had already taken root in Roman Britain. The British Christianity was sufficiently thriving to send three bishops; Eborius of York, Restitus of London, and Adelphius, to the Synod of Arles in 314 to discuss the Donatist controversy. St. Alban was the first martyr for Christ, that we know of, in Britain during the reign of Diocletian [1]. One of the most famous Christians from Britain was the heretic Pelagius. The imperial armies left Britain in 407 AD but Roman culture continued for some time. However, in time, the memories of Rome faded into the past as Britain went through a series of invasion and migrations from Saxons, Jutes and Vikings.

In these early years the Bible was known, studied, and loved by disciples of the Lord but not in anything we would recognize. The Bible of Roman Britain was in Latin. Manuscript masterpieces of Jerome's Vulgate were produced in old England. As Roman culture faded so too did the dominance of Latin among both the "clergy" and "laity." Pictures on stained glass became the Bible for the common folks and remained so for centuries. Poems such as the Dream of the Rood were sort of creative retellings of portions of the biblical narrative.

Caedmon, Anglo-Saxon Poet (d.c. 680 AD)

The Venerable Bede tells the story of the unlearned and ungifted cow herder for the monastery at Whitby named Caedmon. One night Caedmon left a party out of fear of having to contribute by song to the merry making. Falling asleep in the stable Caedmon was visited by a heavenly messenger who called out "Caedmon, sing me something." In the spirit of Moses the cow hand protested and yet was commanded again to sing. Caedmon replied "what must I sing?" To which the reply came "about the beginning of created things." Caedmon woke in the morning met with the leaders of the monastery and sang a powerful and beautiful song. Caedmon was admitted into the monastery and he learned Bible stories and turned them into vernacular poems and songs for the masses. Bede tells us that he learned all he could "ruminating over it, like some animal chewing the cud" he would turn the story into "the most melodious verse." During the remainder of his life Caedmon sang about the creation of the world, Adam and Eve, the history of Genesis, the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest, especially the incarnation, passion and resurrection of Jesus [2]. A portion of his hymn to creation reads (with interlinear)

Now we ought to praise the maker of the heavenly realm
Nu sculon herigean heofonrices Weard
the might of the Creator and his understanding,
Meotodes meahte ond his modgethanc
the works of the Father of Glory, how he, the eternal Lord,
weorc Wuldorfaeder, swa he wundra gehwaes
established a beginning of each wonder.
ece Drihten, or onstealde.

Caedmon could not read or write. He learned the stories of the Bible from the monastery from the Latin Vulgate. Since that is all he knew the songs he produced reflect that translation. Thus in his songs about Daniel he included for the Anglo-Saxons of his day material he believed to be Scripture - The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men.

Caedmon's poetry was imitated by other poets whose names have now been lost. These poets gave the Anglo-Saxons (along with Caedmon) their first traces of the Bible in their vernacular. Surviving examples of these early biblical works are Daniel and Judith [3].

King Alfred the Great (849-899 AD)

Alfred's reign was a remarkable one in the history of what we now call England. He defeated the Vikings and lead a sort of Renaissance in Britain. Writing about 894, Alfred noted that even among the clergy there were few that could read or translate Latin. Alfred, a very pious and learned man, wanted to help the clergy and translated a number of works in Anglo-Saxon Gregory's Pastoral Care, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, the first fifty psalms of the Psalter and various other liturgical works such as the Lord's Prayer. A great, and entertaining, telling of his career is Asser's Life of King Alfred [4]. Here is the Lord's Prayer from the time of Alfred with a literal word for word "translation."

Uren Fader dhick art in heofnas
Our Father which art in heaven
Sic gehalged dhin noma
Be hallowed Thy name
To cymedh dhin ric
Come Thy kingdom
Sic dhin willa sue is in hcofnas and in eardhs
Be Thy will so as in heaven and in earth
Vren hlaf ofer wirthe sel us to daeg
Our loaf over substantial (?) give us today
And forgef us scylda urna
And forgive us debts ours
Sue we forgefan sculdgun vrum
As we forgive debtors ours
And no inleadh vridk in costung
And no lead us in temptation
Als gefrig vrich fro ifle
But free us from evil.[5]

The sharp eyed reader will note that the Lord's Prayer, as used liturgically in Alfred's day, did not include the doxology most have come to know in the King James Version.

Aelfric (10th Century AD)

Aelfric was "the greatest of Old English prose writers and the most important figure of the history of the Bible in the English vernacular before Wyclif"[6]. It was in his ministry as a priest that Aelfric frequently give scriptural translation in the course of his homilies from the Vulgate. Throughout his career Aelfric would render into Anglo-Saxon (Old English) the biblical story which he called "the naked narrative" the Creation story, Joshua, Kings, Job, Esther and the Maccabees. A version of Judith is sometimes ascribed to him as well. Here is a sample of from the Wessex Gospels, the Parable of the Sower from Matthew 13.3-8. I will leave it untranslated to give the native flavor of the text.

Sothlice ut eode se sawere his saed to sawenne. And tha tha he seow, sumu hie feollon with weg, and fuglas comon and aeton tha. Sothlice sumu feollon on on staenihte, thaer hit naefde micle eorthan, and hraedlice up sprugon, for thaem the hie naefdon thaere eorthan diepan; sothlice, up sprungenre sunnan, hie adrugodon and forscruncon, for thaem the hie naefdon wyrtruman. Sothlice sumu feollon on thornas, and tha thornas weoxon, and forthrysmdon tha. Sumu sothlice feollon on gode eorthan, and sealdon waestm, sum hundfealdne, sum siextigfealdne, sum thritigfealdne.

Conclusion

The conquest by the Normans in AD 1066 dealt a near death blow to Anglo-Saxon culture. The conquerors spoke Norman French and brought about such changes in the language that the old Anglo-Saxon itself became unintelligible to the masses. But towards the end of the twelfth century vernacular preaching began to be revived and would bear fruit in the Lollard Movement of John Wycliff.

As we can see from this brief look at a few significant moments in the Ancestry of the King James Version the beginnings of the Bible in our language was a long and perilous journey. The "English" of that time is as foreign to most of us as are the Greek and Hebrew originals of the biblical authors. We give thanks to God for these men who are now part of the great cloud of witnesses encouraging us to treasure the gift of the Word of God we have in Scripture.

The image above is of Caedmon's hymn.

Notes:

[1] Alban, a pagan, offered hospitality to a fleeing Christian. Alban learned the faith from this anonymous disciple. Alban was arrested by soldiers and ordered to sacrifice to the gods. The new convert refused saying "I am now a Christian and am ready to do my duty." He was murdered for his testimony. See Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, edited with an Intro by Judith McClure and Roger Collins (Oxford University Press, 1969, 1999), pp. 16-19.

[2] All quotes from Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, pp. 215-218.

[3] See Geoffrey Shepherd, "English Versions of the Scriptures Before Wyclif," in Cambridge History of the Bible, vol 2, pp. 368ff.

[4] See Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources, translated and with an introduction and notes by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge (Penguin Books). For our purposes there is a fine selection of Alfred's renderings of the Psalms.

[5] Text from G. L. Owen, Notes on the History and Text of Our Early English Bible, and its Translation into Welsh, p. 28.

[6] Shepperd, "English Versions," p. 374.

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