Pelgrimvaderskerk (28 augustus 2011)

This Sunday I went to Pelgrimvaderskerk again.  I like the church pretty well, partly, I think, because it feels kind of familiar.  A lot of the song tunes are different but they are still similar in style, in meter, etc., which makes them seem familiar.

One of the songs this week was to a tune from the Psalter.  It was in a minor key and it is one that I always like when we sing it but I never remember to remember what it is.  And the name of the tune wasn't listed in the song book, at least that I could see.  The song books they use in church are the old fashioned kind where the first verse is written next to the tune and then all of the other verses are written below and sometimes even on the other side of the page.  It can make singing a little more challenging if you are trying to read and hear the words (to try to make sure you are pronouncing them right) and also trying to read and hear the notes, which are written in a different place (to make sure you are singing it right).

The sermon this week was on I Kings 18:3 (Obadiah would be a pretty good name for a baby, by the way--it means "servant of God"--and not a "J" in sight), Colossians 3:18-4:1, and Psalms 111:6.  The main point, I am fairly certain, was that, even in the face of adversity you ought to serve God because you ought to fear Him more than you are afraid of other things.

I did discover that I really do need to get the same kind of Bible that they use in church.  I wrote down the main verses that were going to be used and took them with me (I also wrote out the Lord's Prayer and took it along as well, to help with the memorization).  Unfortunately, I used the Statenvertaling Bijbel (SBV), since that is what I have on my computer.  This turned out to be quite different from the Nieuwe Bijbel Vertaling (NBV) that they use in church.  While I am sure that the difference wouldn't throw me that much if it were in English, it was sufficiently different that I wasn't really able to follow along at all in Dutch.

For example, the main verse for the sermon was I Kings 18:3 ("And Ahab called Obadiah, which was the governor of his house.  (Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly).")
In the SVB the verse goes:
"En Achab had Obadja, den hofmeester, geroepen; en Obadja was den Heere zeer vrezende."
"Dat Achab zijn hofmeester Obadja ontboden had.  Deze Obadja had groot ontzag voor de Heer"
The second line is from the NBV and really doesn't match that well at all.

But the Psalm was even worse:  Psalm 111:6 ("He hath shewed His people the power of His works, that he may give them the heritage of the heathen,")

SBV Hij heeft de dracht Zijner werken Zijn volke bekend gemaakt Hun gevende de erve der heidene.

NBV Hij toonde zijn volk de kracht van zijn daden En gaf hun het land van andere volken.

The one good thing was that they kept the old SBV version of the Lord's Prayer, with one tiny change (that kind of made sense) because that is the version that I have been practicing and the NBV version is really, really different.