Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle, and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.Onlookers to the community of Christ-followers must be so puzzled by our endless cat-scratching and arguing over which bible translation is best.
Can't there only be one answer?
Whichever one(s) the Holy Spirit honors as faithfully rendering the heart of God.Someone in a neighboring community once told me the NIV doesn't have the blood of Christ in it. What? I live in a region that slanders each other regularly for choice of translation. I have yet to understand it.
That certainly doesn't practice the real wisdom in James 3 that is characterized by getting along and treating each other with dignity and honor.
I am not qualified to judge bible translations...which puts me on thin ice judging you for the one you choose to use to draw closer to God.
When we decide we are qualified to judge, we need to have (1) the backing of the Holy Spirit and the reasons he alone has given us, and (2) a gentle spirit with which to direct the conversation of criticizing.
Both usually absent. So the acrimony becomes the very dog-eat-dog world we began with on Day 1 in 2 Corinthians:
The tools of our trade [are] used for marketing and manipulation of each other.
We ourselves erect barriers against the truth of God by denying support to translations the Holy Spirit may himself honor.These days I read a much-maligned translation: The Message, by Eugene Peterson. Rendering from the original Greek text, he set out to capture what engaged the early readers of Scripture, to give it the rhythm and idioms of their day. When I read this particular translation, I get just as absorbed as when I read a book for pleasure. As a former reading teacher, I know immersion, absorption, and minutes spent reading take us on the journey intended by the original writer.
This writer happens to be God. All the better that I spend time on the journey.
Find your favorite. Jump in. Let everyone find their own. Honor each other in their quest to know God better.
Link: www.biblegateway.com.
Tomorrow: The heart of strangling the message of Christ.
Comments are welcome at feedyourstrength@gmail.com.
