Author Archives: Clarke Morledge

About Clarke Morledge

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Clarke Morledge -- Computer Network Engineer, College of William and Mary... I hiked the Mount of the Holy Cross, one of the famous Colorado Fourteeners, with some friends in July, 2012. My buddy, Mike Scott, snapped this photo of me on the summit.
July 10, 2013

Teenagers with Disabilities: Amplifying Our Witness

By Clarke Morledge
Ben Conner's latest book, Amplifying Our Witness, is a wonderful primer in doing ministry to an often neglected community: adolescents with developmental disabilities.

Ben Conner’s latest book, Amplifying Our Witness, is a wonderful primer in doing ministry to an often neglected community: adolescents with developmental disabilities.

How many young people today do you know that wrestle with Asperger’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, or Down’s syndrome? How many parents do you know are utterly consumed by the developmental challenges faced by their teenage sons and daughters that keep them from fitting in with their age group?

Benjamin T. Conner has been a long time friend of mine in Young Life in Williamsburg, Virginia. Over the past few years, Ben has been leading the Capernaum ministry, a branch of Young Life dedicated to reaching out to adolescents who struggle with developmental disabilities. In his latest book, Amplifying our Witness, Ben cites an alarming statistic: nearly 20% of all adolescents today are diagnosed with some type of developmental disability. One in five teenagers today deal with issues that make them noticeably different from the rest of their peers. How can the Christian community effectively minister to these young people in need, as well as the families that seek to support them?
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2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Topics, Witnesses

July 4, 2013

The Septuagint and the Original Old Testament?

By Clarke Morledge
The first part of the Book of Genesis, from the Septuagint, the early Old Testament Greek translation used by the early Christian church.

The first part of the Book of Genesis, from the Septuagint, an early  Greek translation of the Old Testament, which served as the “Bible” of the early Christian church before the completion of the New Testament.  Is this translation the closest thing we have to the “original” Old Testament?

“I noticed sometimes the quotes of the Old Testament passages in [the Book of] Hebrews do not exactly match the wording when I go back and look up the verses in the Old Testament. I am just wondering what is going on.” This was a question sent to our pastors for our summer Bible study series on the Book of Hebrews. I do not know who asked the question in our congregation, but I want that person in my small group. What an awesome question!

The problem is that when you read a number of Old Testament citations in the New Testament, the New Testament writers are actually quoting from the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint. Most of the Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew, so it comes as a shock to people to learn that this ancient Greek version of the Old Testament is referenced quite a bit in the New. Critics of Biblical faith will ask if the New Testament writers are at best sloppy when quoting from the original Old Testament, or are they downright fraudulent and terribly mistranslate the Old Testament by relying so much on the Septuagint instead of the original Hebrew?

Get your thinking caps on. This is really a good question.
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June 27, 2013

Rosaria Butterfield – Hospitality and the Unlikely Convert

By Clarke Morledge
Rosaria Butterfield - An unlikely convert to Christian faith, touched by the art of hospitality.

Rosaria Butterfield – An unlikely convert to Christian faith, touched by the art of hospitality.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past fifteen years, you probably know that American public opinion has been shifting dramatically within the past few years to support same-sex marriage.

Given the current cultural trajectory, many observers remark that it is inevitable that gay and lesbian marriages will become widely accepted, at least legally, across large sections of America. Many critics of a traditional reading of Scripture regarding homosexuality argue that  finally “the train has left the station” regarding same-sex marriage. Many would say that Evangelical Christians should join in and affirm the trend as a matter of promoting civil rights, as was the case with racial issues in the 1950’s and 1960’s. How does someone who holds to a high view of the authority of Scripture respond to these challenges in a Christ-like way?

Enter in Rosario Butterfield. She was a lesbian professor at Syracuse University, who was for years convinced that Christians publicly supporting an exclusive approach to traditional marriage were a threat to democracy and human rights.  She was an activist who was horrified by what she saw as “homophobia” and worked aggressively to try to stamp it out. But something unlikely happened along the way.
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June 20, 2013

A Harbinger of Typology Gone Awry?

By Clarke Morledge
The Harbinger. Popular New York Times Bestseller by pastor Jonathan Cahn. Fact or fiction?

The Harbinger. Popular New York Times Bestseller by pastor Jonathan Cahn. Fact or fiction?

“Have you read The Harbinger?” The wife of the elderly couple in the restaurant asked me with great curiosity and concern. “I am not sure what to think of all of it, but it sounds like a prophetic warning for America!”

Sometimes going out to lunch can get you into trouble. As we were finishing up a meal with some friends and getting ready to leave, this couple at another table wanted to have a “conversation” with me. Well, it was more like a monologue than a dialogue. I was thinking that this would be brief, as my wife and friends had already left the restaurant, but this couple just kept going on and on about this “Harbinger” book, among other topics. I needed a rescue but there was none to be had. My wife was understandably upset, by this time waiting on her crutches outside the restaurant. After I finally left the couple as they were still in mid-sentence, I was sorely rebuked by my wife for leaving her stranded in the parking lot, after she had recently undergone foot surgery. Ouch. I had messed up. Boy, was I in trouble!

But I was not the only one in trouble. As I did a little more research later into The Harbinger, I realized that there are probably a lot more folks in trouble!

You see, I do not have cable TV, so I’m am pretty clueless about what passes for pop culture and the round-the-clock news cycle these days. But apparently, a Messianic Jewish pastor, Jonathan Cahn, has written a blockbuster novel, The Harbinger: the Ancient Mystery that holds the secret of America’s Future. As of late June, 2013, after 75 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list under the paperback trade fiction category, The Harbinger, sat at #19. That is quite remarkable for a book written by an evangelical Christian author.

Now, the book may indeed be a great story if you like that particular genre, mixing non-fiction into primarily a fictional story. The problem is that it is sometimes hard to figure out the line where the non-fiction ends and where the fiction begins.
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June 11, 2013

What’s a “Melchizedek”?

By Clarke Morledge
Abraham meets the Priestly-King Melchizadek. Dieric Bouts (1464-1467), The Church of Saint Peter, Leuven, Belgium.

Abraham meets the Priestly-King Melchizadek.
Dieric Bouts (1464-1467), The Church of Saint Peter, Leuven, Belgium.

So, what is “Melchizedek” all about? Is a “Melchizedek” the level above the “Parking Deck”? No, not quite. In the Christian New Testament, the writer of the Book of Hebrews makes the priesthood of Melchizedek a central theme in that letter.  Jesus the Christ is also our high priest, standing in the order of Melchizedek.  So where does Melchizedek come from?

Originally, there are just a couple of obscure references in the Old Testament to Melchizedek, someone who has no described ancestry and no known descendants. He just appears and vanishes in the biblical scene quickly. Contemporary speculation abounds about Melchizedek, ranging from the writings of Joseph Smith to the Urantia book of the New Age Movement…. Mmmm….Is the writer of Hebrews just making things up as he goes along, making too much of a big deal over an insignificant character?
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3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Apologetics