Be Made New: Mental Health
March 3, 2024Pastor Patrick Tanton presented today's message, "Be Made New: Mental Health." A video of the message is here.
Let's dig a little deeper into the text that Pastor Patrick mentioned toward the close of his message. It answers the question: what should we think about? Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things." So, here's our list (NIV/KJV):
Noble/True
The Hebrew word for truth is emeth ( אֶמֶת). It also means firmness, faithfulness, lasting, and right. It's the word used in this passage: "The entirety of Your word is truth, and all Your righteous judgments endure forever" (Psalm 119:160). God's truth protects us as it deals in reality. God's truth is timeless (from A Might Fortress is our God: God's truth abideth still).
Right/Honest
Greg Gaines shared this list of benefits of being honest: creates intimacy in relationships, makes us more likable, promotes self-confidence, gives us peace of mind, improves our mental health, makes us better people, boosts our career prospects, protects us from danger, and is the foundation of a happy life. For more of Gaines' article, click here.
Pure/Just
Deuteronomy 25:13-16, "You shall not have in your bag differing weights, a large and a small. You shall not have in your house differing measures, a large and a small. You shall have a full and just weight; you shall have a full and just measure, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you. For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the Lord your God."
Lovely
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord," Leviticus 19:18b.
Admirable/Good Report
The Greek word in the New Testament is euphémos (as in euphemism, a gentler way of saying something) which refers to well reported of, spoken in a kindly spirit, laudable, reputable, sounding well, uttering words of good omen, speaking auspiciously, and gracious. Interestingly, the word is only used once - here in this verse (Philippians 4:8).
Excellent/Virtue
In the Old Testament, the thought of excellent carries the notion of the choicest thing available, the best. For example, in Deuteronomy 33:13, "the precious/choice things of heaven." It can also refer to glory, honor, and nobility.
Praiseworthy
The Greek word used in Philippians 4:8 for praiseworthy is epainos (ep'-ahee-nos), the roots of which are epi, on or fitting, and ainos, praise. So, fitting praise, appropriate praise; praise for deeds that adhere to God's will. In the Old Testament, the notion of a person being praise-worthy would be one who does things that praise God. The best advertisement for God is a good and decent person, the worst is a bad and indecent person.
And the opposite... (summarized)
Proverbs 6:16-19, "There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community." Don't let thoughts of these creep in.
Bonus
In the Beginning... of What?
I just started reading (and I'm very excited about) a book by Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary.
And right off the bat he gets himself in the middle of controversy. Genesis 1:1 he translates as "When God began to create heaven and earth..." I'm sure you're more familiar with the "In the beginning God created..." start to the Bible. And therein lies the first rub of the Bible.
Before I get into the meat of the matter, I'd like to ask if you've ever heard of the term "relator noun"? Me either. A relator noun is a noun that needs more information to be truly meaningful, such as "middle." Middle of what? We may have a general concept of what middle means, but without further detail it's barely meaningful. Relator nouns will get their additional meaningfulness from the context, such as "middle of the week." Sometimes as in the example just given, it's a narrow context where the extra words are right next to it. Other times the context doesn't have to be spelled out at all because the life context you're in at the moment spells it out. For example, "the end" at the end of a movie hardly needs the "of the movie" to go with it because you just finished watching the movie in real time.
So, when the Bible says "In the beginning," we have a relator noun (i.e. "beginning") that begs for a little more detail.
Here are the two different translations:
1. "When God began to create heaven and earth, the earth being unformed and void..."
2. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty..." The main difference between the two is whether or not anything existed before God created it.
In #1, it would seem the earth pre-existed. In #2, nothing seems to pre-exist.
Rather than try to present each argument, I'm going to reference two writings. This one argues for the traditional language, #2 - click here. The other argues for #1 - click here (it's actually overall an argument for #2, but it explains much about the other argument for #1 by Rashi, a revered French rabbi of the 11th Century).
I would add a couple thoughts in support of #2.
1. The Hebrew verb bara, to create, can mean create out of nothing or make something new. The kicker is that in the Bible this verb is only used when God is doing the bara-ing. Then add to this the various New Testament texts that suggest God created everything: Ephesians 3:9, Revelation 10:6, and John 1:3.
2. Today's science favors the Big Bang theory wherein nothing existed before that moment. Only the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) tells of a creation from nothing. All the others had something pre-existing.
One last comment, the #2 version ("In the beginning") is by far the more common in all the various English translations of the Bible. It was also the version in the first translation from the Hebrew in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, about the third century B.C. One could argue that the translators at that time (supposedly 72 Hebrew translators, 6 from each of the 12 tribes) were the closest in time, mind, and geography to the original Hebrew writers.
