KJV, ESV, NIV, NLT, NASB, RSV, NRSV, the Message—What's the Difference? If the people we serve are to be a people of the Book, they need to be a people who know the Book. Of course...
Why Are Our Bibles Different? Wait a minute… why does your Bible have lowercased lord while mine has capitalized Lord ? That was a question one of my small group members asked as we studied Ge...
Years ago, the story goes, a San Diego bank hired a private investigator to track down a bank robber and retrieve stolen funds. The search led to Mexico. The investigator crossed the border and then, ...
Imagine a remote village in Africa. No modern Westerner has ever set foot there. The natives live off the land, using the same ancient methods and tools as their forefathers used for the last thousand...
We like to think of the Bible possessively—my Bible, a rare heritage, a holy treasure, a spiritual heirloom. And well we should. The Bible is fresh and speaks to each of us as God’s revelation of hims...
Leader: God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. People: You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. Leader: True to your word, you let me catch my breath and se...
Rather than translating the culture, then, we need to try to enter the culture. When people want to study the Bible seriously, one of the steps they take is to learn the language. As I teach language ...
If you could reduce the gospel to one word, most scholars would choose metanoia—the Greek word translated “repentance” in the New Testament… Most of the time we translate both “meta-noeo” and “meta-no...
When we tell a story, a lot goes without being explained. For example, I might say, “After I finished speaking, I looked at the audience. They were all smiling. Someone in the back shot me a big okay....
1 John 1:9, Romans 10:9-10, Hebrews 4:14, Matthew 10:32, 2 Samuel 12:
I missed that confession is not just a commandment, not just one of the “steps to salvation”—it is a means of God’s grace. The word confess, which means to assent or agree, is the English translation ...
Luke 1:46, Luke 1:39-56, Psalm 145:3, Psalm 48:1, Psalm 34:3
Another Bible translation says that Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord” (NKJV, emphasis added). What did she mean by magnifies? When you look at something through a magnifying glass, it looks much...
(Scripture quotations below are from ESV unless noted otherwise.) Liturgical Context On this Third Sunday of Easter, the Revised Common Lectionary texts harmonize with the epistle’s praise of Jesus...
Context The body of the letter continues in chapter 3. If it were not for chapters 4-6, we could even believe that Paul was about to close this letter after we read what appears to be a benediction i...
Genesis 12:1–3, Exodus 3:1–12, Isaiah 53:, Matthew 22:15–22 , John 4:1–42 , Acts 17:16–34
The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi...
This is a translation of the first section of the Shema using passages from the English Standard Version (ESV). As an observant Jew, it is likely that Jesus prayed this prayer at least twice a day. ...
How Will We Preach and Teach from Proverbs? Reading, let alone preaching, from The Book of Proverbs comes with its challenges. Sometimes those sayings can seem just plain obvious and not much help ...
A House for All People Every summer my church hosts a week-long summer camp where children experience the beauty and majesty of the Lord. The first year we sent our daughter to it, she loved it and l...
Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered Abram and the way that God may send us out on a journey, waiting to see his will without knowing the destination. Today we move forward to Saul on...
In the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah responds to the tragedy and suffering of the fallen city of Jerusalem. The proper response to a tragedy of this proportion is to offer up a lament. The book begin...
Scripture scholars contend that the original language of the Beatitudes should not be rendered as "Blessed are the single-hearted" or "Blessed are the peacemakers" or "Blessed...
Beatitude is a strange but compelling word. It comes from the Latin word beatitudo, which is a translation of the Greek word makarios, meaning blessed, favored, or flourishing. The Beatitudes show us ...
The biblical writers and reciters make extensive use of metaphors, parables and dramatic actions. Jesus does not say, “God’s love is boundless.” Instead, he tells the story of the prodigal son. He doe...
Pastor John Ortberg tells the story of a friend of his (also a pastor named Skip Viau) who was attempting to tell the resurrection story in a children’s sermon. He asked the question, “What were Jesus...
J.B. Phillips was a successful pastor and prolific author in the mid-twentieth century. He was a colleague and friend of C. S. Lewis’s, and it was Lewis who personally endorsed Phillips’s translation ...
Isaiah 2:4, James 1:19-20, Proverbs 20:22, Matthew 5:9, Luke 6:27-29, 1 Peter 3:9
Many of those who have committed their lives to ending injustice, simply dismiss Jesus’ teachings about nonviolence out of hand as impractical idealism. And with good reason. “Turn the other cheek” su...
Galatians 6:7, John 15:5, Matthew 13:23, Isaiah 28:24-26, Proverbs 12:11, Genesis 2:15
One of my favorite sections of Home Depot is the power garden tool department. Even though I have all the tools I need, I still like browsing through Home Depot’s collection of power mowers, chainsaws...
Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:14, Psalm 33:9, Isaiah 45:18, John 5:17
John Walton argues in The Lost World of Genesis One that rather than concerning material creation, the creation account in Genesis one concerns functional creation, because that is how ancient reade...
Genesis 1:2, Isaiah 45:18, Psalm 104:5, Jeremiah 4:23, John 1:3
Scholar John Walton points out that when Genesis 1 calls the world before creation tōhû, it is a modern cultural misunderstanding and mistranslation to think that it is describing the world as “formle...
Isaiah 11:6-9, Daniel 7:13-14, 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, 2 Peter 3:10-13, Mark 1:15, Acts 2:38
N. T. Wright relates a story from Josephus that illustrates the meaning of "repent and believe" in the first century. Around AD 66, Josephus made a military expedition to Galilee to put dow...