The STRANGER in your house
I know I said that my next post was going to be on WHY the differences in Bible translations, but I need some more time to digest the info I’ve collected. So, as a brief interlude, I ask if you have two sewer pipes in your house – one outbound, and one INBOUND.
Here’s one of my favorites – I get it in email about once a year by someone who thinks it’s new. It’s not, but it IS good.
A few months before I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new
to our small Tennessee town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated
with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our
family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome
me into the world a few months later.
As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young
mind, he has a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors:
Mom taught me the word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the
stranger? He was our storyteller.
He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures,
mysteries and comedies. If I wanted to know anything about politics,
history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood
the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family
to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me
cry.
The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn’t seem to mind.
Sometimes Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing
each other to listen to what he had to say and she would go to her room
and read her books. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to
leave.)
Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the
stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was
not allowed in our home… not from us, our friends, or any visitors. Our
longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned
my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush.
My dad was a teetotaler who didn’t permit alcohol in the home, not
even for cooking. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular
basis. He talked freely about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant,
sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I now know that my
early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger.
Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom
rebuked… and never asked to leave.
More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with
our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he
was at first. Still, if you were to walk into my parents’ den today you would
still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to
him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name? We just call him TV.
— Author Unknown
I still offer my ’shoot your TV service’ if anyone wants to take me up on it.
Are there really differences between Bible versions?
The International Bible Society has a handy chart that shows how different Bible versions try to convey God’s word. They list many popular versions and where they fall on their method – ‘Formal Equivalency’ (word for word), ‘Dynamic Equivalency’ (thought for thought), or ‘Paraphrase’.
<NOTE: IBS has changed their pages and removed the comparison chart and page from their site. If I can locate another, I will put it here.>
YAY- The wayback machine at web.archive.org had it.
Do we really have the real Bible?
Most Christians will say that they believe the Bible to be inspired by God, and that it is true.
What does that REALLY mean, and do YOU really believe it?
2nd Timothy 3:16 tells us that ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God, and Proverbs 30:5 says that every word of God is pure. We are also told in Psalm 12:7, Psalm 100:5, Psalm 117:2, Matthew 5:18, and Matthew 24:35 that Gods word will endure forever.
I realize that it is somewhat circular reasoning, using Bible passages that tell us that the Bible is true, so it goes back to your ‘decision tree’ of belief. IF God exists, AND He wants us to know about Him, THEN He gave us His word. SINCE He gave us His word, THEN it must be available to everyone, ELSE God is not just. FOR God’s word to be available to everyone THEN it must be available through the ages. (I may expand on this concept later if needed)
Up to now, I really haven’t stepped on any toes. That changes now.
Do you or anyone you know believe that the Bible ‘contains’ God’s word? Or that it was
perfect only in the ‘original autographs’ and transcription errors prevent us from finding out what the originals actually were? Or that there are ‘mistranslations’ and that you need to check multiple bible versions and lexicons to find out what God meant? If that describes you, then you should have a magic marker with your bible so that you can cross out anything that doesn’t belong and ‘fix’ what is wrong.
Is that harsh? Nobody would really cross things out of the Bible? Isn’t that what is happening in many of the mainstream churches that allow sodomites in their congregations (or even pulpits)? Shouldn’t they be honest about it and remove those passages, since they ‘obviously’ don’t belong? What about divorced preachers & deacons? That family that sits on the right near the back, you know the one, their 15 year old is pregnant, their 17 year old is covered with tattoos and piercings, the father’s shop is so dishonest that no church members recommend it, and the mother pops zoloft like they were candy so that she doesn’t have to deal with any of it – but the preacher won’t talk to them because his father was one of the charter members of the church and they contribute to the building fund. Knowing that the Bible is very clear about people that deal deceitfully with Gods Word, wouldn’t they be better off not claiming to follow the Bible at all?
But how do we know what God really MEANT to say?
The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33) so it should be easy to figure out what God meant, because He SAID what He meant. God’s prophecies and instructions were given by WORDS. Not images that the feeble mind of man had to decipher, but WORDS. If you think that the prophets ‘interpreted’ God when writing, take a look at their description of HOW they were instructed by God in 2nd Samuel 23:2, Ezekiel 1:3, Jeremiah 1:4, and Jeremiah 1:9. They were always instructed WHAT to say and write. Sometimes they didn’t even understand what they were writing, but wrote because they were instructed (Daniel 12:8-9). It stands to reason that if God created everything by speaking, that He would use verbal communication to commune with us. Note also that God promised to preserve His WORDS forever – not His meaning, message, plan, images, etc. but WORDS. Jesus says that every ‘jot or tittle’ will endure beyond heaven and earth, and knowing that a ‘jot’ or ‘tittle’ is like the dot on an English i, you can infer that EXACTLY what God SAID will be preserved FOREVER. If you’re not convinced that the WORDS are important, look up ‘Words of God’ in Naves and study those passages.
So, we don’t need to figure out what God meant, but only what He SAID
Any church that claims that ‘proper’ interpretation can only be done by those trained for it is WRONG (2nd Peter 1:20). Leave it at once and don’t ever look back!
At this point, you can eliminate any bible version that does not directly translate words from one language to another, but instead tries to give you a ‘thought for thought’ paraphrase. Over-educated people call it ‘dynamic equivalency’ and when you run that phrase through your universal translator, it will come out as ‘what we think it means’.
Next time: Are there really differences between Bible versions?
