Conversational Negative Self-Talk
February 4, 2008
Most people don’t even know they’re doing it. Throughout the course of normal conversation, they bombard themselves with negative self-talk. Even people who are aware of the power of their words seem to miss some of the most commonly used derogatory comments that are made towards ourselves in the course of normal conversation. While plotting out goals and dreams we remember to stop ourselves from saying statements like “I can’t,” “I’m not good enough,” or “I’ll never be able to pull this off.” However, it’s the subtle little things that we say while on conversational autopilot that eats away at our self-confidence.
How many times have you heard someone in a conversation admit that they were misinformed in the past saying, “Oops, I lied.” Lying by definition is a deliberate and sometimes malicious intent to deceive another. If you were wrong, misinformed, or made a bad assumption, but honestly believed you were giving factual information at the time, then it was NOT a lie. You are not a liar. You did not deliberately deceive the other person. Do not use a negative term like “lied” to describe yourself. Say, “Oops, I misunderstood.” “Oops, I made a bad assumption.” Or, “Oops, I was wrong.” Unless you actually did it on purpose, it’s not a lie and you shouldn’t call yourself a liar. It amazes me how many people say “I lied!” repeatedly during normal conversation as if they are habitual liars or something. It’s a derogatory word. Don’t use it unless you really meaning it.
Translator Robs Beauty of Words
February 4, 2008
Today we are looking at one of the most beautiful words in the Bible that has been rendered almost meaningless and its power stripped by the translators. Let’s begin by taking a look at Heb. 13:22.
I beseech you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation, (Heb. 13:22) the meaning of the word translated exhortation as set forth here in Hebrews is the Greek word paraklesis.
This word paraklesis is used twenty nine times in the Bible and is translated consolation fourteen times, exhortation eight times, comfort six times and entreaty one time. This will give you a flavor of how the word is used in the King James Version it is the writers contention that exhortation may be a poor translation of the word and that comfort or comforter is the proper translation of paraklesis .
Paraklesis is defined by the dual suggestion that that which comforts, comforts from two unique positions. Consider the paraklete or the Holy Spirit (John 14:26) and also consider the Advocate parakletos (I Jo 1:2) here we have the dual nature of the paraklesis one as Comforter the other as Christ the legal defense of the Believer.
Europes New Jews
February 3, 2008
They inhabit self-imposed ghettoes, subject to derision and worse, the perennial targets of far-right thugs and populist politicians of all persuasions. They are mostly confined to menial jobs. They are accused of spreading crime, terrorism and disease, of being backward and violent, of refusing to fit in.
Their religion, atavistic and rigid, insists on ritual slaughter and male circumcision. They rarely mingle socially or inter-marry. Most of them - though born in European countries - are not allowed to vote. Brown-skinned and with a marked foreign accent, they are subject to police profiling and harassment and all manner of racial discrimination.
They are the new Jews of Europe - its Muslim minorities.
Muslims - especially Arab youths from North Africa - are, indeed, disproportionately represented in crime, including hate crime, mainly against the Jews. Exclusively Muslim al-Qaida cells have been discovered in many West European countries. But this can be safely attributed to ubiquitous and trenchant long-term unemployment and to stunted upward mobility, both social and economic due largely to latent or expressed racism.
Great Seats
February 2, 2008
And hath raised [us] up together, and made [us] sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus:
We are seated together with Christ Jesus in the greatest luxury box there is Heaven.
What a triumph we have is Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessing in God. Our seat with Christ gives us righteousness, sanctification, redemption and citizenship in Heaven. We cannot but be in awe of the gifts our Heavenly Father has given us.
The verb “made us sit together” is in the aorist tense. The aorist tense is characterized by its emphasis on punctiliar action; that is, the concept of the verb is considered without regard for past, present, or future time. There is no direct or clear English equivalent for this tense, though it is generally rendered as a simple past tense in most translations.
The Greek word for ‘made us sit together’ is sugkathizo {soong-kath-id’-zo} literally means to cause to sit down together, place together. How about that for great seats we are placed together with Christ Jesus.
‘Heavenly’ is the Greek word epouranios, a look at this word’s definition.
1) Existing in heaven
a) Things that take place in heaven
Shhhhh?
February 1, 2008
Like enough of the noise awready! Geesh, people?
No, I’m not talking about the sometimes nearly overwhelming noise pollution that goes hand in hand with living in a big city. Traffic sounds, horns, sirens, airplanes, construction noises. I’m not even referring to the eardrum-shattering volume of the concert and bar bands ? or the door-vibrating music coming from our kid’s rooms. Not even the irritating boom bass enlarging the size of the cracks on the car’s windshield next to us at the stoplight.
Yeah, the noise is bad and it seems like it’s getting worse. Sometimes I think about the warm, quite summer evenings from my younger days back on the farm when all there was to listen to was the crickets, a few frogs and maybe once in a while a coyote or two howling off in the distance. And I wonder, considering how the db level has skyrocketed over the past several years, why the heck I didn’t have the foresight to go into audiology instead of adult education. There are fortunes to be made in that career field. So who knew??
