Category Archives: Culture

Everybody is yoked

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“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” — Matthew 11:28-30 esv

Wednesday nights at CPCC we’re looking at “famous verses of the Bible” and this verse from Matthew is certainly one. We had a fantastic discussion of it, and i encourage you to meditate upon it. For instance, notice that Jesus speaks of “HIS yoke” when He gives out this invitation. Everyone is harnessed to some master; everyone serves someone or some thing. And some “masters” are harder than others. Men are born enslaved to sin (Romans 6:6). When men are born again, they are set free from sin’s mastery, to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, as “slaves of God” (Rom. 6:22).

Did you ever hear these Bob Dylan lyrics (c. 1979)?

Gotta Serve Somebody

You may be an ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

REFRAIN:
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You’re gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody….

Consider who you serve. Is it Jesus Christ as your Lord?
pdb

Jehoshaphat

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One of my daily emails comes from Oxford University Press, publisher of a grammar reference work called Garner’s Modern American Usage. Their tip of the day recently surprised me, discussing the proper spelling (and pronunciation) of a name from the Bible. Here’s the entry —

Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day: Jehoshaphat.

“Jehoshaphat,” the name of a king of Judah mentioned in the Old Testament, is often misspelled “Jehosophat” ….

The name is properly pronounced /ji-HAHSH-uh-fat/. The mispronunciation /ji-HOH-suh-fat/, popularized in Yosemite Sam’s habitual interjection (“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat!”) in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, is based on an erroneous reading of the word (ignoring the “-sh-“), coupled perhaps with the influence of Jehovah (/ji-HOH-vuh/). (Yosemite Sam seems never to hit the books.) But the phrase became so ubiquitous that the interjection would call undue attention to itself if pronounced in any way other than Yosemite’s. Not many people today use the phrase.

The reference never answers the real question: why exclaim that Jehoshapaht was jumping??

pdb