The Living Bible

Scripture

The Lord’s promise is sure. He speaks no careless word; all he says is purest truth, like silver seven times refined.

~Psalm 12:6, TLB

Quote

You will gain more insight by reading various translations than by reading commentaries.

~Ya’akov

Some people, including a lot of preachers, hate modern translations and they have a special hatred for paraphrases. The so called “Fundamentalist” have three problems: [1] No fun, [2] too much dam-nation and [3] not enough mental. Are we actually afraid of the truth? Don’t you want to know what God is saying? Some of these narrow minded pseudo bible scholars base their entire theology on one misunderstood verse. We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ not the faith of Jesus Christ. Jesus had perfect knowledge, He didn’t need faith. He was God and God doesn’t need faith. At the risk of be ridiculed, I am going to tell you: I read every translation I can get my hands on and I have not found a bad one yet. I am reading the Psalms in the Living Bible and Romans in the Message. If you tell me you understand Romans completely, I will know for a fact that you are being intellectually dishonest. I can guarantee you that if you had the courage to read Romans in the Message, it will change your life.

A couple of days ago I read the verse in Psalms 12:6 and immediately, I highlighted the verse and began meditating on it. Dr. Taylor did not corrupt this verse, he made it come to life for those of us who are not scholars. The LORD’s promises are sure. God does not speak careless words. Careless words do not come from Him. His word is pure truth. How is it that I get convicted of my sin when I read a paraphrase? I think the answer is the clearer the truth, the greater the conviction. In others words, the more I understand the truth about my sin and self, the more I am convicted.

I was feeling the weight of my sins the other day and I began meditating on who is the CHIEF OF SINNERS. Paul claimed this title in 1 Timothy 1:15 but was he more sinful than myself? I find that a little hard to believe. Actually, when it comes to guilt, Jesus became the greatest sinner because He literally became sin for us. Of course Jesus never committed a sin. I don’t know about you but the older I get, the more clearly I see my sin and it is humbling. It makes me want to hit the mute button. Jesus went silent because he was innocent but we sometimes go silent when we are overcome by guilt. So you read whatever makes you feel good but I will read what convicts me of my sin. A Greek NT will not convict me because I cannot understand Greek. This is exactly why people love the KJV, they don’t understand what they are reading and they want to keep it that way. Some of it is out of fear of being persecuted. I have heard popular preachers read the KJV and then make all the word changes from the NASB and I am thinking–Why are you wasting all that precious time? They didn’t want to be criticized by the KJV only crowd. I could care less. I grew up on KJV and I can quote more from it than any translation but I read others and I preach from the one I think is the clearest to those to whom I am speaking.

Today is the last cool day according to James Spann so you better enjoy it. Restaurants are opening up: the grand kids and I ate at the Wagon Wheel in Eva yesterday. It was nice to sit down and relax instead of getting our food through a window.

DRIVE-IN Church has proven to be a blessing at GRACE POINT and my thinking is that we will stay with it through May. We are going to have get our announcement made earlier {10:00} so we can start taping at 10:15. It’s about to get warm and we want to beat the heat. We are going to honor LAW ENFORCEMENT on May 24 so if you are in law enforcement, we welcome you as our special guest on May 24. Our Sheriff will be our guest speaker.

We are taking our mid-week service inside. It is a win/win because for the last 7 weeks it has been a one man show. Honestly, I will be shocked if more than 20 show up.

God bless you, hope you have a great day and a great week. Remember to love your neighbor.

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