Gird Up the Loins of Your Mind

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1 Peter 1:13 (Margin) Holman Christian Standard Bible

¹³  Therefore, when you have the loins of your mind girded ready for action, be serious and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

 

Our church has started a plan this year of reading the whole Old Testament in one year. I encourage you to adopt it. I encourage you to discover YouVersion.com for yourself. I first tried it several years ago, and it had so many features that I finally gave up in disgust. Judson Nelson, my brother-in-law, helped get back on it in a meaningful way a year ago. Thanks. Jud!

However, install it on your phone and sign into it. It has well over a hundred different versions of the Bible The second language I learned as a kid (English was my mother-tongue) was Afrikaans. At one point in my life, I learned the Lord’s prayer in Afrikaans. At the end of its Sabbath worship service, the church urges all its members to pray the prayer out loud together, “In any language that you wish.” So, I started praying it in Afrikaans. Well, after 60 plus years, I didn’t trust my memory. I checked out YouVersion.com, and after some experimentation, I found at least five different translation versions of the Afrikaans Bible! I have no clue how many English versions it has, but there are many.

As you open YouVersion, it gives you the verse of the day. At the bottom are several icons representing various popular features, one of which is “plans.” Click on that one. Click on the button “Find Plans”. One of the plans is “Bible Projects | Old Testament in a Year.” If you start today, you have only thirty-six sessions to catch up.

This morning, we read Genesis 12-14. It starts the story of Abraham. In chapter 14 Lot is captured by a Persian invading army and carted off with his wife and children towards Persia. In Abram’s entourage, he has 318 trained soldiers. Together with his allies they spring a night surprise attack, and he defeats the reveling invaders and recaptures all of their loot including the people they were taking back to sell as slaves in Persia.

What never ceases to amaze me is the size of Abram’s household. If he has 318 troops, he must have had well over a thousand people, including wives and children, etc. In other words, this was no lonely Bedouin camp with a dozen or so people camping out in the desert. He also had his troops ready for action so they could set out at a moment’s notice.

Our verse encourages us to have girded up the loins of our minds, ready for immediate action—in other words, be ready to fight to retain the grace we have been so graciously given. God has freely given us a vast store of His grace. Let us be ready to defend it at all costs until He comes.

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[1] https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FGNQHGXeC4TKxHrX6_XoXvOTERRJdyNqx5rfu9x4-BHI.jpg%3Fwidth%3D900%26height%3D471.204188482%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D34adac866fccb5d199143cdfe0f3a2124974bf2b

 

Our Father in Heaven

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Matthew 6:9 Common English Bible

⁹ Pray like this: Our Father who is in heaven, uphold the holiness of your name.

 

Our church uses a liturgical style worship in its 9:00 service, following loosely the Revised Common Lectionary. The actual liturgies are written locally by people who gently try to correct some of the perceived Adventist departures from common modern norms. For example, the Adventist church has prayed the Lord’s Prayer publicly in unison for a long time—certainly as long as I can remember. It has always used the words found in the King Jame version of Matthew 6: 9-13

“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. …”

At one point I learned that in twentieth century English the word “which” is usually used for animals and inanimate objects and “who” is used for persons, so I unilaterally switched to “who” when I pray the Lord’s Prayer, but I never promoted it generally:

“Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. …”

But then as “thee” and “thou” fell into disuse, the NKJV has it as

“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. …”

However, in our liturgical service, I don’t remember adopting that version. In our service our pastors tried to switch everything possible to gender neutral. Longstanding terms for God such as “Lord” and “King” were dropped and replaced by the gender-neutral term “God”. In fact, masculine pronouns like “He,” and “Him” were replaced by never using a pronoun for God, even though the English sounds uncomfortable. There were a number of persons who tried using “She” and “Her” on an equal basis with “He” and “Him.” But that never caught on.

Several people expressed strong resistance to the use of “Father.” Some went so far as to indicate that they had experienced a terrible father who abused them continuously while they were growing up. They stated categorically that they would not be a Christian if they had to use “Father” when referring to God. All agreed that they couldn’t use “parent:” it just didn’t cut it.

After a protracted church board meeting at which I was not present, our liturgy appeared with the first part of the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our holy Guardian God, hallowed be Your name. …”

Using “Guardian” instead of “Father” really sounds awful to me. I get mental images of the whole foster parenting situation where guardians have abused their foster children. I also get images of a prison situation where prisoners are guarded in a cruel and heartless manner. It totally erases the loving care that many fathers have had for their children—some notable exceptions are inevitable in a sinful world. However, Jesus chose to use “Father” in His prayer and throughout His ministry. He was more aware of men who have abused their fatherly position than we are; yet He used “Father” consistently. 

I mentioned my feelings about “Father,” to both our head pastor and the current writer of the liturgies. I was politely ignored and dismissed. When I am liturgist, I consistently replace “Guardian” with the word “Gracious”. It’s not that my choice is superior to theirs: it isn’t. It just relieves me from using the offending term without disrupting the service. No one has mentioned noticing it so far.

Heavenly Father, thank You for ignoring our petty feelings and foibles and exercising true fatherly love and grace in Your dealings with us. May Your kingdom come soon.

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.quotationof.com/heavenly-father.html