The Emperor's {and Queen's} New Clothes

Many, many years ago there was a king and queen who were exceedingly rich and wise. They lived in the most beautiful kingdom of Edemshire. They had everything they could ever want and were totally content.

One particular thing the king and queen of Edemshire were known for were their glorious clothes. People from all over the kingdom would come to banquets and parties just to see what the master tailor had created for them. Their style set the stage for the kingdom. Everyone wanted to dress as gloriously as they did.

One day a swindler came to the kingdom posing as a tailor. Upon entering Edemshire he demand that the guard at the gate take him to see the king and queen. He told the guard that his name was Planos. He went on to say that he was a master tailor from a far off kingdom and that he had been summoned by the king and queen. The guard obliged. He thought the new tailor must have been summoned for the upcoming Jubilee.

Planos was taken directly to the king and queen. They were both very excited to meet this new tailor. Planos declared to them that he could make clothes even more magnificent then they had ever seen. Not only would the colors and patterns be splendid, but the clothes would have a special power. Planos the swindler tailor went on to explain that the clothes that he would make would be invisible to anyone that was stupid or unwise. The king and queen had never heard of anything like it. They were sold! Their curiosity got the better of them. So the king and queen gave Planos a large some of gold to get started on the new invisible clothes.

Longing For The Spirit

Heart and Flesh Cry Out

Total Recall of Sinful Nature

As I was browsing the web on the question of mans sinful nature I was delighted to find one particular post. It was from "Better Bibles Blog" regarding the gross mistranslation of the Greek word sarx. The Greek word sarx should be translated as flesh and is in most bibles. In the ever popular NIV ,TNIV and NLT however there has been a long dispute among bible scholars of their mistranslation of the word. NIV, TNIV and NLT translate the Greek word sarx as sinful nature in certain verses and body or flesh in other verses. All the while it is the same Greek word sarx. Not only is this a mistranslation it is doctrinally misleading and wrong. But there may be hope in the matter. The NIV is coming out with a new version of the NIV next year. The word on the street is that the term sinful nature will be removed and replaced with the word flesh. To read more on this click here.

Now why is this such a big deal? Because the verses take on a whole new meaning when they are translated correctly.

Get Up And Walk!

Building off the last few posts I think it is safe to say that man does not have a "sinful nature". Man is not intrinsically evil. Man was created in the image of God for good purpose. The notion that God created someone in His image to be evil means that God is evil. God is not evil, He is good. Man has chosen against his Creator to sin. It is the devil that is evil and desires to destroy us. We sometimes get talked into that destruction via the devil's deception and our choice to sin.