What is commonly referred to as the Second Commandment can be found in two places in Scripture.

You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. – Exodus 20:7, Deuteronomy 5:11

A friend of mine posted a status update on his Facebook wall, where he called into question the use of the acronym OMG (Oh My God) by Christians and its apparent condemnation in Scripture. Unfortunately he had to delete his status update because so many of his friend were offended, feeling like they had been called out for breaking the Second Commandment.

I have a few thoughts on this topic and I would like to share them. I do not believe “God” is God’s name. In fact, a good theology teacher would admit to you that we do not really know what his name is. According to most, it seems to be YHWH which is usually pronounced Yahweh (Ya-Way). This comes from Exodus 3:14. There are no vowels in written Hebrew — well there weren’t any vowels when the Old Testament was written. So the pronunciation of YHWH is a tradition. Most decent theologians should admit that the true pronunciation of YHWH is lost. Many believe that the Jewish nation was so afraid of using God’s name in vain, that they used the vowel sounds of the Hebrew word for Lord and transposed them onto YHWH which is where we get Yahweh. They did this to be extra careful not to actually say his name (in case it was in vain).

There is one other place in Scripture where God refers to himself by name. But it is not YHWH, if you look at Exodus 34:14 God says, “for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” God’s name might not actually be “Jealous” it could be a “you are what you eat” thing. You can call God, Jealous, because he is jealous. I am not going to get into what he is jealous of or even if it is his actual name, it’s merely an interesting place in Scripture where he names himself.

Presently, we refer to God as “God” and treat that as if it were his real name — but it clearly isn’t. So I have a couple of questions…

1. Is saying OMG breaking the 2nd Commandment? In other words, is the mere reference to God breaking the 2nd commandment if it is done in vain?
2. Is saying OMG but meaning “Goodness” or “Gosh” more acceptable?

I would love to hear your input on this. I am really torn on this subject. Personally, I try not say “God” in vain… but I am not entirely convinced that it is wrong either.

This great short video by Jim Zangmeister asks the question -- Is God Good?

(via RansomTV)

Ed Stetzer has a great article over at Between The Times where he discusses the differences in today’s society and how we have moved away from a “tribal” culture which has largely been the glue that has held the SBC together. Stetzer believes, “we must look for something else to be the gravitational pull of our cooperation since methodology no longer has that ability.”

Unfortunately, he got the answer wrong — saying,

The Baptist Faith and Message is our confessional consensus. Formulated and approved by the convention, it should fix the boundary for churches and entities that call themselves Southern Baptist. . . . If indeed we have a consensus, and we do, let that be the center point of our working together.

That’s right, our gravitational pull – the thing that keeps us all united and connected – is the BFM.

I would have thought it was Jesus. Then again, Stetzer is not really talking about being a follower of Christ, he is talking about being a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. So maybe he is not wrong after-all.

I have not done a Words Not Found in Scripture post in a while, so I decided to pull out a quick one for everyone. Today I would like to talk a little bit about the word “pastor”. In the modern Evangelical Christian Church the Pastor is basically the CEO. He runs the show, his vision is cast and the people are expected to follow. We as Christians put a lot of faith in our pastors… which is a little scary, considering the word only occurs in our English translations one time – and probably should not occur at all!

According to Merriam-Webster the word “pastor” is defined as…

A spiritual overseer; especially : a clergyman serving a local church or parish

The English word is dated to around 14th century and is used once in the entire Bible (NASB). The Greek word it is translating is ποιμην (poimen). According to BDAG ποιμην means:

1. one who herds sheep, shepherd, sheep-herder
2. one who serves as guardian or leader, shepherd

The Greek word actually occurs 18 times in the New Testament. The majority of those times is in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In these books the word is used to refer to actual shepherds, sometimes the word is used in a parable spoken by Jesus, and sometimes the word is used to refer to Jesus himself (as the shepherd gathering his sheep).

The word occurs three times outside of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John:

1. And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers… – Ephesians 4:11
2. Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant… – Hebrews 13:20
3. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. – 1 Peter 2:25

As you can see two of the three times are referring to Jesus (once as the “great” Shepherd).

What do we do with Ephesians 4:11?

I think the word in Ephesians 4:11 would be better translated as “shepherds”. Especially since it is translated as “shepherd” every other place in the New Testament. I find it interesting that Paul mentions a few types of people God has put in our lives to help equip us to serve — Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds (Pastors), and Teachers. Ephesians 4:11 is the only time that we see ποιμην being used to describe a type of Christian. Regardless, we seem to ignore several of these types and focus on the one we know (and understand) the least about — Pastors.

If pastors are the shepherds of Jesus’ church, then they should be the ones who reflect Jesus’ shepherding the most. Jesus was a far cry from the CEO’s of today’s churches.

What do you think a Christian shepherd should look like?

A tweet came across my feed yesterday that sparked my interest. Dr. Alvin Reid from SEBTS retweeted Ed Stetzer, writing:

Immediately I wondered what all the hublub was about. Apparently John Piper invited Rick Warren to speak at the Desiring God 2010 conference and some people are pretty upset about the whole ordeal. Last night’s live episode was an attempt by Piper to explain why he invited Warren.

It does not matter to me why Piper invited Warren or even that Warren is speaking at the conference. I have no primary qualms with Piper or Warren. But as I was listening to Piper’s apologetic, I keyed in on a quote that he gave from Warren.

Zero Faith in Politics . . . if politics were the way to change the world I would be a politician. The only thing that is going to change the world is changing people’s heart’s through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I could not agree with this statement more. This is truly how I feel about the United States government and all governments – I have zero faith. I do not believe that the American republic will save us, I do not believe that a socialized America will save us. I have no concern for how egalitarian or how communist a government is.

There are people who survive and thrive around the world – people who do not live in capitalism. I find it hard to believe that our government is the best answer to government. All forms of government are run by men. With men you will find corruption, failure, dishonesty, and greediness. That is not to say that all things done by men is evil; you will also find love, compassion, and a desire to do good.

My point is this, with Jesus there is hope – true faith can thrive and survive in him. When we place our faith on politics and government, we will eventually find that our houses have been built on shaky ground.