Cash. Credit cards. Debit cards. Customers will soon be leaving home without them, or so we hear. But will the switch to a wallet-less society be as quick as the industry is predicting? Many consumers are still confused as to how this cashless society will work. Pay for purchases with their smart phones? It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie. Never mind that just thirty years ago, the idea that we would pay all of our bills without ever writing a check and pay for everything else with one card would have seemed preposterous. We have to pay with everything via currency we carry around in our wallet. Right?

Wrong. According to Gartner Research, mobile payments are on the climb-up 38% from 2010. As businesses battle to see who will be the first to find a way to get your cash without you handing it to them, consumers are still resistant to letting go of plastic. There are several ways your mobile phone can now process transactions, according to VoucherCodes. The company described these "payment wars" in a recent infographic.

• Mobile card readers. PayPal, Square, and Intuit Go Payment are just three of the many businesses providing credit card readers that plug into the headphone jack of smart phones. This is ideal for small businesses on the go, wishing to allow customers to pay via credit card. It also allows consumers to continue to use plastic, although you may find yourself explaining the security of the devices to your customers. By the year 2015, these mobile point of sale systems are expected to gross $670 million.
• Near Field Communication. While this capability is still not available on all cell phones, near field communication allows you to pay via your cell phone without ever having to remove a method of payment. One major hold-up is that NFC is still not available on the iPhone, but it is rumored to be included in the next model, expected to be released later this year. To use NFC, you simply store your payment information on your phone, enter your pin when you're ready to pay, and tap your device to any NFC-enabled payment system and payment is done. The merchant can print a receipt but the information will also be stored on your phone. By 2016, payments via NFC are expected to reach $320 billion.
• Direct Carrier Billing. This uses your cell phone number and a PIN to make purchases. Direct carrier billing already happens when you purchase something via cell phone-this simply allows you to pay for everything that way. Services providing DCB include Zong, Boku, and BilltoMobile. With a transaction fee of 40% to 90%, this payment method will likely never go far.
• Online Wallets. Since 2000, consumers have been using PayPal to transfer money for online purchases and personal transactions. Amazon Payments and Google Checkout have tried to get in on the action, too-no surprise, since PayPal processes $315 million a day.

Likely the future of payment will be a combination of most of the above. As a small business, you'll benefit from accepting as many payments as you can afford to handle, since consumers will seek out those merchants who accept what they have to offer. As customers toss checkbooks and cash aside in favor of plastic, it's good to know even the smallest business can get a free card reader and begin accepting credit.

A senior EU source told this website following a meeting of the club in the Val Duchesse stately home in Brussels on Thursday (19 April) that the new supremo would have more power than either Herman Van Rompuy or Jose Manuel Barroso do today but also more "democratic legitimacy" because he or she would be elected by MEPs. In other reforms, the new figure would "streamline" the European Commission into a two-tier structure.

The new super-president would also chair General Affairs Councils (GACs) - monthly meetings of foreign ministers which discuss internal Union affairs.

The EU Council President post was created by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. But the Lisbon architecture is messy, with Van Rompuy, for instance, overseeing recent debate on EU fiscal reform, while Barroso's commission puts forward its own ideas and implements final decisions.

"I have heard experts who say that it [the Van-Rompuy-Barroso merger] could be done without changing the [Lisbon] Treaty ... there is no appetite for a new Treaty," the EU source said.

The reflection group was formed by German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle in Berlin in March. It plans to meet two more times before the summer recess and to circulate a discussion paper at EU27-level in September. The other countries in the club are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain. The French minister did not attend Thursday's session, however.

The Val Duchesse event also covered debate on "eurobonds" - the idea of mutualising EU government debt, a controversial one in Germany, where voters are hostile to paying more to borrow money so that weaker economies in the south can pay less. "It could be acceptable for new projects but not to guarantee bad ones from the past, or old bad debt," the EU source said.

Dr. Darrell Bock, professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, worked on the Luke-Acts portion of the translation. Bock told The Christian Post that although the word "Christ" does not appear in the text, the meaning of the word is still present in the form of the term "Anointed One," which was frequently used in its place.

"I do think there can be value in laying out Scripture in a fresh way so people hear it afresh, provided it does not take liberties with the text," said Bock. "Every effort was made to be careful about how this was done. This is not an effort to conform to American audiences, but is simply rendering the text in a way to makes its meaning clear."

Dr. Erik Thoennes, professor of biblical and theological studies at Biola University, told CP that the process of translation "is as much of an art as a science. "Languages are constantly evolving so it is helpful to provide translations that reflect those changes that time invariably brings," said Thoennes. "Translations should never merely conform to modern audiences or transform the meaning to fit contemporary thinking, but they do need to help modern readers understand the intended meaning of the original authors."

Thoennes also told CP he felt that given the art of translation, different versions of the Bible can fulfill different needs.

"If reading for the big ideas and general flow of the stories and dialogues, a less literal approach could be helpful. This sounds like what The Voice is trying to accomplish," said Thoennes.