Authentic Christian Experience

“Authentic Christian experience is not playing praise music on your car radio or placing your body in a pew to listen to a sermon. Authentic Christian experience is the process of establishing provenance, of growing into Christ. The world is not impressed that people attend church on Sunday morning. If anything, such a habit is viewed as a quaint waste of time. But imagine if every Christian in the world were living as a little Christ. Such provenance is not just a passionate transforming experience for the Christian; it’s also a tantalizing expression of the gospel to the outside world. Starbucks opens stores on the opposite street corners because of the draw of passion and authentic experience. But what is the draw of Christian faith if that faith is not practiced and experienced?”—Leonard Sweet, The Gospel According to Starbucks, 2007

 Leonard Sweet's Rapture Story

"Growing up as a kid, we were pre-Trib. So every night I prayed, “Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If He should come before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” That was my prayer. His coming was more real to me than anything else. “Come Jesus,” was how we ended off our family prayer in the evening. So we were talking about His return any minute to save us from what was coming.

I was the oldest, two younger brothers, all year apart. When I got home from school, my mother was not there and my brothers would dribble in after me. That was really a concern when she wasn't there if there was no note. We knew when Jesus came back he would take mother.  I was uncertain whether I would go or not.  I knew my brothers were not going 'cause I knew things about them.

If it became over 20 minutes that mother wasn't there and I didn’t know where she was, I began to panic. I could give it 30 minutes, but I had to have some relief 'cause I would really break out in a sweat.  The problem was I wasn't sure about my father if he was going. My mother didn't know this but he went to some movies, and we couldn't go to movies in our tribe. And so I wasn’t sure dad was going and did not want you to call him at work. Mother always took care of Dad. And if mother had gone up in the cloud and we were left, I figured I had figured I had to take care of Dad too because I was the oldest. And I knew it take care my brother.  So I was really sweating!

I had one friend that I could call 663-0180. We had to use those old rotary phones and so it took a long while.  Her name was Ruth and when she answered the phone, I hung up. ‘Cause I knew Ruth was going. I knew Ruth was going. So I've always had a tender spot in my heart for hang ups. You never know why people may be calling and hanging up on you.

But if she didn't answer and I couldn’t get anybody there, it was it was just paralyzing. One time I waited about an hour, mother hadn’t come home. I was having to take care of my brothers.  I figured, OK, it come. I'm gonna have to be responsible here. I had saved $14.00 my brothers and I had earned from doing some revivals with my mother. It was for a new suit. I figured, OK,  it's time to take it as seriously.  Jesus came back and I've been left. I'm going to have to start taking care of the family. So me and my brothers walked down to the corner store at the bottom of the hill. I bought some food for the dogs and of course the food I thought to buy were chocolate chip cookies. The dogs would like that, right? So I got dog food which was really snacks for us. When Mom finally got home, she was not happy with my spending the whole $14.00 on basically snacks that I justified, Well, somebody’s got take care of the dogs. The dogs have to eat something.

This was the highly charged atmosphere I grew up in."

transcribed from "Are You Rapture Ready?" YouTube video at https://youtu.be/osSqcFQXcEE

Criticism of King James Version of Bible

When the King James Version of the Bible first appeared in 1611, a London cleric claimed that it “sounds like yesterday’s newspaper and denies the divinity and messiahship of Christ.”  Another chaplain accused the translators of pandering to King James’s interest in witchcraft, and when they sailed for the New World in 1620, the Pilgrims refused to carry the King James Version with them.

            

    –Leonard Sweet, A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café, p. 8

The finished product did not lack for critics. Perhaps none was more forthright in his condemnation than Dr. Hugh Broughton, a skilled linguist himself who had been preparing his own revision for 30 years. When the new version appeared he replied with this colorful critique:

The late Bible was sent to me to censure which bred in me a sadness that will grieve me while I breathe, it is so ill done. Tell His Majesty that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches . . . . The new edition crosseth me. I require it to be burnt (Nicolson, p. 228).

Since the translation process is not as exact a science as some would prefer; and because literally thousands of interpretive decisions go into the making of any translation or revision of the Bible; it is inevitable there are going to be sincere disagreements where human judgment plays a part. Still, Broughton's criticism seems incredibly harsh in light of the fact that he goes on to imply that the KJV "translators might be damned on the day of judgment for their work" (Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired, p. 257).

  – Stephen Wiggins, “The Making of the King James Version”   http://grandoldbook.com/KJVinthemaking.pdf