I don't need anything else (Just taste what He offers and know it is very good!)
He lets me lie down in a tub of cool, peeled bananas,
and then shares His special chocolate chip mint with me.
We talk together and compare notes,
as we discover new stores and try new flavors.
Even though I sometimes travel the rocky road, I am not afraid,
because You are holding my hand.
You have given me a five-course meal that includes dessert,
while those that tease and mock me did not get invited.
You pour a gallon of chocolate syrup over my head,
and Vanilla scoops fill up and fall out of my bowl.
Your spoon helps me eat it all,
thankfully, Your napkins always clean my face.
For sure, God's love will wash over me every day that I breathe;
And I will sit in God's ice cream parlor forever.
Dennis Hollingsead works in the Office of Development at Andrews University. This version of Psalm 23 was conceived while teaching 5th and 6th grade Juniors at Pioneer Memorial Church in Berrien Springs, MI, and was created to make the Bible alive, relevant, and memorable using new and contemporary word pictures.
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Clever But. Misses the point. one must read Ps 22, Ps 23, and Ps 24 together to get the full impact of the true message. It covers Friday through Sunday of the Christ event. Donāt make it trivial. I waded ashore on three assault landings with Ps 23 on my lips. Try that with your version.
.P.S. In each case the Japanese had retreat three miles in land as the beach could not be successfully defended. War for us began on day two.
Did you happen to read why it was originally written?
If the children canāt relate very well to passages in the Bible due to ancient KJV words, then the concepts need to be reinterpreted so they can relate and hopefully remember! The confidence (and joy) in Godās presence is reinterpreted through each personās experience. Thank you for sharing yours.
I lived through the Great Depression. Breakfast included Scripture, most often the Psalms That was preschool to the fourth grade. The King James Version. I didnāt need blasphemy to understand or appreciate. At evening more King James and prayer at my fathers knee. The Psalms, the Gospel according to John-and the Lords Prayer were bedtime stories. Donāt sell young minds and hearts short. Christianity is more rich than ice cream or bananas.
There is nothing sacred about the KJV. It is a translation of translations, from copies that were not originals. The thoughts and concepts expressed, and carefully transmitted to the next generation, are Godās message to us. If the Bible has to be translated to reach every nation, tribe, kindred, and nation on earth, we do not need to teach all of these people groups Elizabethan English as well. The Inuit people read that a baby seal was slain instead of a lamb. Tribes in Africa used to read (and some may still read) that the New Jerusalem is made of salt instead of gold. Unless Godās concepts are framed in a way for people to understand and appreciate within their language and culture, it does them no good. I include here another version of Psalm 23, this time by a Native American who obviously internalized Godās word for himself.
The Twenty Third Psalm
George Hunt (Kiowa)
The GREAT FATHER above, a SHEPHERD CHIEF is.
I am His and with Him, I want not.
He throws out to me a rope
and the name of the rope is love.
He draws me to where the grass is green; the water is not dangerous,
and I eat, lie down, and am satisfied.
Sometimes my heart is very weak and falls down,
but He lifts me up again and draws me into a good road.
His name is WONDERFUL.
Sometime, it may be very soon, it may be a long time,
He will draw me into a valley.
It is dark there, but Iāll be afraid not,
for it is between those mountains that the SHEPHERD CHIEF will meet me and the hunger that I have in my heart all through life will be satisfied.
Sometimes He makes the love rope into a whip,
but afterwards He gives me a staff to lean upon.
He spreads a table before me with all kinds of foods.
He puts His hand upon my head and all the "tired" is gone.
My cup he fills till it runs over.
What I tell is true. I lie not.
These roads that are "away ahead" will stay with me through this life and after;
and then I will go to live in the Big Teepee
to sit down with the SHEPHERD CHIEF forever.
You beg the issue.I have five translations none of which are anything like your composition.I am surprised that spectrum saw Fit to share it.Ben and Jerry are not theologians.[quote=āSemour_Love, post:7, topic:18510ā]
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This is indeed a very strange material that Spectrum posted. I still donāt get it, why is it associated with Psalms 23, or any Psalm for the matter? The title should be something like, "Delusions of a 5th Grader"ā¦
Perhaps it is attempting to show in ārealityā various ways that God
gives us pleasurable things. Something tangible to kid thinking.
Concrete items for ācity kidsā who know nothing about āsheepā
or āpasturesā
The technique is as old as man. The idea is to get the audience to like you and then get them to like what you are selling. It works. I find that to mock Scripture to obtain insider status is blasphemy.
Common guys, itās cute. Makes a better point for kids than likening God to a shepherd. Kids donāt have clue about shepherds in Brooklyn or even Montana.
Thank you! As an adult, I cannot even remember the last time I saw a flock of sheep, even in Montana or Wyoming! Davidās original Psalm used word pictures from his culture and experience, expressing the character and attributes of God ā loving, steadfast, generous, and kind. The same characteristics can be expressed in thousands of ways. This is not mocking scripture and certainly is not blasphemy.
āA loaded banquet table in front of My Enemies.ā
I have perceived this as God allowing me to invite my Enemies
to sit down, have abundant refreshment, and become friends.
I donāt perceive this as gorging myself by myself with them
astonished, and looking on.
I was Chief Of dental surgery at Milwaukee Childrenās Hospital for five years. I was a guest on Romper Room TV and several TV shows. The key is to talk to them not either down or up. First thing is God not your sugar daddy. This blog is a take off of Mary Poppins.āA Little Sugar makes the medicine go down.ā But in this case profaned a Holy Message. Yes getting down to their level is correct but not vain.
Yes for sure. I came home from WWII with 30 percent disability, pain has been a constant.Yet I have been blest. in ten days Betty and I will celebrate 70 years of happy marriage with our three children and one of three Grandchildren. three great grand children will not be able to attend our great love fest. My professional career has been dedicated to the handicapped children, Cleft palate, Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome, The Lord has been my Shepard even when the pasture was not green.,
I am in agreement with the thoughts expressed in Tomās posts.
Thereās nothing exactly wrong with creating a lively and fun verse about the special ātreatsā that God might have for us. However, i think that the deeply loved and memorable 23rd Psalm was the wrong place to do so.
I think that this sort of childish and trivial telling of the 23 Psalm is expressive of our current post modern childish state.
You might not have seen a sheep or a pastoral scene but through art and literature anyone can imagine one. There are many things in life that you canāt experience, but even (maybe especially) children can imagine them, and thereby learn great truths, even Bible truths.
This will play a part in the forgetting of our childrenās (and cultureās) collective memory of verses and images and the weakening of traditional norms and cultural attachments and references that have been built up over the course of more than two thousand years.
