Title: KEEP: it ALWAYS means KEEP
Sub-Title:Keep God"s Commandments Like a Bank Keeps your Money.
It is surprisingly necessary for us, as Bible-believers, to realize that Keep Always Means Keep. In over 250 Bible verses, nearly one-half of its uses, we have all understood "keep" to mean "obey".
But realizing this obvious fact is surprisingly difficult. What does it mean: "Keep God"s commandments, like a bank keeps your money"? We know that a bank does not "obey" our money, but can we still think that keeping God"s commandments means obeying them.
This gets even more challenging as chapter 3 considers God"s keeping in Psalm 121. We know that when God keeps us, His people, He keeps us really well, but He does not "obey" us. Can we "Keep God"s commandments like God keeps us?"
This book encourages us to think "keep" when we see the word "keep". It considers Bible passages from Genesis to Revelation to show that keep means keep, always. We read words as they are written; to think that "keep" ever means "obey" is wrong.
"I don"t know how we have missed this...", said Gary Miedema, a retired missionary to Central America. He also told me, "The message of this book is a paradigm shift that is needed. Its many chapters demonstrate keep to be essential throughout the entire Bible."
Bob DeRidder, a retired missionary to Africa, exclaimed: "I got it!" He had paused his reading of this book to examine Psalm 119 carefully, looking up its verbs. "I got it when I re-read verses 2 and 3 of Psalm 119."
Most of us will need to "get it" in our own unique, God-directed way. The obvious fact in the title hides the difficulty in seeing that Keep means Keep every time it is used in the Bible. The fact in the title will not be clear at first, since even those who love God and His word have read "keep" as "obey" in so many verses.
This book does not blame anyone for this, nor does it ask why; this book simply promotes the fact that keep always means keep. Seeing this requires a significant shift in perspective, but it is usually a thrilling realization. We see "keep" itself to be an important and valuable Bible word. Reading the Bible in the new light of what seems to be an obvious fact, opens up much that our hearts and minds can consider as God"s Holy Spirit teaches and guides.