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Grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!

My wife and I have now been married for four years, I thank God for the blessing of marriage and family. In the middle of April, we went on a weekend family trip to Kalajoki, which turned out to be a nice place, just an hour from where we live, with a beach and paths along the coast. It wasn’t really the high season, we could see icebergs out at sea, but it was still quite warm in the sun. The goodness of God was shown in giving this opportunity for a time of refreshment in the beautiful nature, away from the work and cares around the house.

I have been mostly working on translating the Canons of Dort into Swedish, and Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotionals.

The Canons of Dort, I would describe as the original behind the Five points of Calvinism (TULIP) that not many have read. They address these five issues which were disputed in the Netherlands and still are today. This is an important foundational document to have translated into Swedish, in that they lay down these doctrines, soundly and officially, and also answer errors and objections after each heading.

Although the document is from the 1600s, it is not outdated. After each heading where the doctrine is laid down, there is a section where they respond to errors and objections and answer them from the Bible. These are the same objections that are still popular today, the same objections and questions that we have to answer time and again. On the one hand, we have those who are against Calvinism without really knowing what it is and also have their own ideas on what God’s sovereignty and election means (or rather make them mean something else than “sovereignty” and “election”), on the other hand, we have young – or new – Calvinists who may not always be that accurate in their understanding of these doctrines. In that sense, I also believe these points are more helpful than the TULIP acronym, especially as this acronym cannot be translated into Swedish either. The Canons of Dort date back longer and are more of an “original source”.

I am not only translating from English. There are also original Latin and Dutch versions that I compare with. Needless to say, I do not understand Dutch, but being a Germanic language, it has some similar words to our Swedish words, so it has at least been somewhat helpful to take a glance at them and find what word I can use in Swedish when I do not know an optimal translation of certain Latin or English words. Some theological terms are simply not used in Sweden and have to be re-invented. But it takes a bit more time than usual translating, but being a weighty, important document, I want it to be thoroughly done and done correctly. The woman who helps with proofreading happens to be Dutch as well so it will probably be particularly helpful if she can go through them and provide some corrections.

The Morning and Evening devotionals (morning and evening devotional for each day of the year, by Charles Spurgeon) are something I started translating for publishing on Evangeliecentrerat.se, which they will continue to publish there as I translate them. But we also intend to, God willing, print the entire book here, once the complete “year” has been translated. I am right now in June.

In April, I preached three sermons from Ecclesiastes, spanning from chapter 10:20 to 12:11, and almost made it to the end of the book. In sections 12:9–11 the author, Solomon, affirms the divine inspiration of all the words of wisdom provided in this book, referring to the One Shepherd, which they all come from. All Scripture is breathed out by God.