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Bible Translations (and Other Stumbling Blocks)

Lately, for several months now, I've been hung up on which translation of the Bible is "best." Dumb, I know. I've researched and over-researched translations, mainly just through the internet, and I've heard from some about Eugene Peterson's The Message not being the true Gospel, from others about all meaning-driven (rather than word-for-word) translations being inaccurate at best and lowbrow at worst, from others about word-for-word translations being stiff and literal to the point of incomprehensibility. Dynamic equivalence misses the point. Formal equivalence misses the point. No good translation exists. Every translation is valid. King James is the only valid option. Of course, everybody argues from a different direction, and the arguments fly past each other and into the vacuum of cyberspace. Most arguments seem emotionally charged as well, either mean-spirited or condescending if not both.

I decided a month or so ago to go with one particular translation (which it is doesn't matter) because it has a reputation for being the most "accurate" or most literal as far as word-for-word translations go. I think "seeing" the Hebrew and Greek languages in English is neat, even if it makes for harder reading comprehension. So one part of me has decided to stick with this one as my primary Bible for reading and study. Another part of me, though, continues to be distracted by how fascinating the different translation philosophies are, and how endlessly interesting it is to read from the variety of translations themselves, comparing them and "rating" them in my head.

There is really no end to this though. English speakers have (what some estimate to be) upwards of 200 translations of the Bible to choose from. (A sobering thought when one considers all the hundreds, or probably thousands, of tongues that don't yet have a single translation to read.) The exploration could go on forever, and the distraction from sitting still to actually read the inspired Word of God could go on forever. Last weekend, I heard God. Seriously. Maybe not audibly, but He pressed on my heart in such a way that I heard His voice in my conscience: "I don't care what translation. I don't care about translation philosophies. Just read My Word. The Spirit is there to guide you, to help you understand. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Listen to Him. And return to Me, Luke. Return to Me."

How easy it is to fall away. Reading about the Bible, or reading it as literature, or reading it with skepticism, or reading across translations only to compare styles, is bunk. It's nonsense, if that's all it is, and it's missing the point. Serious study is great, don't get me wrong, but the relationship comes first. Am I going to read His Word as a means of amusement, or am I going to listen to God's voice in writing and let it change me?

The heated debates regarding Bible translations--the most loud and feverish of them, anyway--are just one of so many instances of Christians bickering and fighting with one another, pointing condemning fingers, speaking with an authoritative judgment that is disgusting when it comes from the mouth of a man. (Even God as a man, who of course spoke with authority, says Himself in John 12:47 that He "did not come to judge the world, but to save it.") And I really need to watch myself so I'm not judging them, but I can't deny that I see in these diatribes a hardness of heart I desire with all my heart to avoid. These folks don't need another pointing finger but prayer, like we all do. God, give me the grace and humility to return to You, follow You, and be more and more like You each day; to be madly in love with You, so that I can say, with the psalmist, "I love you, my Strength. I delight in doing Your will, my God, and Your law is in my heart."

What does "Christian" mean?

This last week I read The Shack, which I did not want to like--I thought it was going to be like a Mitch Albom book or something (sorry, not for me)--but I found myself enjoying it immensely. Now that it is read, I feel renewed passion for God and feel provoked to know Him better. Really, many factors have contributed to my thinking more deeply about, or even rethinking, what "Christian" means, but The Shack is the catalyst for written reflection here.

For any reader who hasn't read the book and intends to, you might want to skip this paragraph (just this one!) since it spoils elements of the plot. I like to read book reviews of the books I have finished reading (usually on Amazon, along with some of Amazon's related discussion boards) to observe all the differing opinions, and with this book I notice a polarized readership, even among Christians. (The term "Christian" does not mean the same thing to everyone, but here I refer to people who, one can safely assume, would consider themselves "Christian.") That a short fiction novel would stir so many in such different ways, even among Christians, is remarkable. For author William Paul Young, working within Trinitarian doctrine, to imagine the Father as a large black woman--or even just a person with a face upon with another can look--Is this blasphemy? To fill the mouths of God's three persons--most notably, I think, Jesus--with speculative statements, like Jesus' statement, "Who said anything about being a Christian? I'm not a Christian."--Is this heresy? (Or how about this one, Jesus' lines again: "[Creating institutions] is an occupation for those who want to play God. . . . [Religion, politics, and economics] are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about." Wow.) The questionable and controversial parts of the book become thought-provoking in light of what I find to be the book's most striking theme.

Despite not quite knowing what to think about some of this book, the theme of God being personal and utterly relational is what really struck me. As often as Christians throw the phrase "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," it's easy to overlook what this phrase is communicating. The familiarity of it even dulls our senses. If Jesus is in fact God, and the person of God's three persons with whom people can personally engage and to whom they can relate--the Word of God (according to the first chapter of John)--then we have an earth-shattering realization on our hands! How can it be anything less than that?

So, what does it really mean to be a "Christian"? What does it mean to love and worship God if Jesus is the Word of God made flesh? What is the essence of what "Christians" call "Christian"? If one looks at the recorded words of Jesus, the "red letters," what (or who, actually; what Jesus) does one encounter? If one reads the New Testament and even the whole Bible in a manner that allows the four gospels' recorded words of Jesus to inform the rest (because to suspend disbelief while looking at Jesus' words in the contexts they are said is to let Jesus inform everything else; e.g. John 14:6), what does the reader face? And for the reader who takes the leap of faith to believe Jesus' words to be the truth, to believe Jesus is The Truth, what happens?

I would agree with the author of The Shack that a relationship is what happens, that the "Christian" is in relationship with God by Jesus, who is in fact God (again, John 1; verses 1 and 14: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."). To believe that the Bible is true and that Jesus' words are true is to exercise faith, and faith can only be exercised when God is already there enabling it, pursuing relationship with us. (I say "enabling" in the same way that He enables the very existence of all things; I don't intend to get into Calvinism/Arminianism/etc.) But relationships are a two-way street, and we need to pursue the God who pursues us if we have entered into that relationship!

'Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.' (John 15:4,5, ESV)

"in the world but not of the world"

In the seventeenth chapter of the gospel of John, in the Bible, Jesus prays to God about " 'the people whom you gave me out of the world' " (John 17:6; ESV for all Bible citations hereinafter): " 'I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world . . . I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world' " (vv. 11, 14). What does it mean to be (as someone once condensed it) "in the world but not of the world"?

"In the world" versus "of the world": what is the distinction? My computer's Oxford American Dictionaries provides several illuminating definitions:

world [noun; from the Old English w(e)oruld: "the age of man"; in the New Testament, a translation of the Greek kosmos: "order or world"]: the earth, together with all of its countries, peoples, and natural features
"the world": all of the people, societies, and institutions on the earth
"(wo)man of the world": a person who is experienced in the ways of sophisticated society; "the world, the flesh, and the devil": all forms of temptation to sin

in [preposition]: expressing the situation of something that is or appears to be enclosed or surrounded by something else; expressing inclusion or involvement

of [preposition]: expressing the relationship between a part and a whole; indicating an association between two entities, typically one of belonging; expressing the relationship between a category and the thing being specified which belongs to such a category; indicating the material or substance constituting something
"be of": possess intrinsically; give rise to

(Admittedly, I have done some picking-and-choosing with my definitions, and I am sure a personal bias cannot be avoided, despite my best efforts to limit definitions to those I regard as most appropriate to their use in the phrases at hand: "in the world" and "of the world" as used in the context of John 17. I invite the reader to be critical of my chosen definitions and research definitions/etymologies themselves. That being said, I am going to work with the above definitions.)

"In the world" might mean [enclosed by/surrounded by/included in/involved in] the "world," or [the earth and its order in terms of: countries/people(s)/features/(sophisticated) societies/institutions/temptations].

"Of the world" might mean [a part of/associated with/belonging to/in the category of/consisting of/intrinsically possessing to give rise to] the "world," or, to say it again, [the earth's: countries/people(s)/features/(sophisticated) societies/institutions/temptations].

"In the world": If we are in the world, the world (or perhaps we could at this point say "the way of the world") is what surrounds us, what we are immersed in, what we are inevitably involved in; the way of the world is our situation.

"Of the world": If we are not of the world, or not of the way of the world, then the world's way is something of which we are not a constituent or category, something by which we are not defined or upon which we are not dependent for our identity or being. We are not the masses, and the world's way is not our distinctive, and we do not at our essence own, yield, or contribute to worldliness.

So, if we are in the world but not of it, the way of the world is indeed the situation but not the basis for who we are. That we are of the world is inevitable yet incidental somehow; it is in some sense necessary, it seems, but not ultimate, because it must be incidental to That which we truly "are of": the true and ultimate basis for who we are. Then to what do we belong? By what are we categorized? Of what whole are we a part? And what do we possess intrinsically, what is essential to our being? The answer (if we are in the world but not of it) cannot be "the world."

Prayer

Several Sundays ago at the church I attend, a sermon was dedicated entirely to "The Lord's Prayer," which has had me thinking much more deeply about the content of this prayer, or more precisely, the meaning and intention behind this content. To think about The Lord's Prayer is to think about the notion of prayer itself: why we pray, how we are to pray, and what we are to pray for. As Jesus says in the Matthew's gospel, as a preface to the Prayer itself, we are not to pray in the presence of others to be seen and praised by them, but are to pray in secret, in the presence of God (Matt. 6:5-6). Jesus says, "your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (6:8), which sometimes makes us wonder about the nature of prayer. But He continues:

Pray then like this:
"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from [the] evil [one.]
[For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen]."
(Matthew 6:9-13, ESV; additional content of some manuscripts given in brackets)

Because Scripture is living, we can never drink of it deeply enough and will continue to see more in its words the more we read them. And who can begin to comprehend the deep mystery of experiencing God through prayer? That said, I humbly offer this brief meditation on The Lord's Prayer (as much for the writer as for the reader):

Our Father in heaven,
The Lord God is our one true Father, for which our flesh-and-blood fathers are a metaphor. Loving fathers deserve our respect and seek our love by building us up in their own; and how much more is our loving Father above deserving of honor and love! "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Our Father is in heaven, because heaven is in Him. Where He is, there can only be heaven. We have heaven in our hearts when we have Him in our hearts, and when we are free from "this body of death" and nothing separates us from Him, we can only be with Him in heaven, with heaven in Him.

hallowed be your name.
His name is honored and holy--and not only holy, but the name from Whom all holiness is conferred. His name for Himself is a statement of His fundamental and ultimate existence, and it is the statement from which all things have existence: "I AM" (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 90:2; John 8:58). His name is above all names.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
In heaven, His dwelling place, His will is always done, and it is only His will that is done. Desiring God is desiring His Kingdom, desiring His return, desiring heaven on earth, and desiring that His will be done on earth. The belief of this statement in our prayers renews His presence in our hearts; because if we treasure God's Kingdom, God's will being done, how can our hearts be anywhere but in Him? "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34).

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
What is our daily bread except those things the Lord knows we need? Our needs are met in Him, because He is sufficient. We know we are in need of nothing when we remember to submit all our concerns to him and drink deeply of His truth, goodness, and beauty (Matthew 6:33). He knows us better than we ourselves do, and He knows our needs better than we ourselves do. He meets all our needs if we keep our eyes fixed on Him, and as we fix our eyes on Him we are "casting aside all that entangles and the sin that so easily ensnares" (Hebrews 12:1-2), dismissing hypocrisy in favor of practicing what we preach, "removing the log from our own eye" before we claim we can point out the speck in the eye of another (Matthew 7:5); and the more often we practice what we preach, the more often we put others before ourselves and our faults before theirs, the more humble and forgiving--and Christlike--we are: "The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matthew 23:11-12).

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
When we desire God's presence, we necessarily desire the strength--not our own strength, but strength that comes from Him--to avoid temptation, to take off the deceitful desires of our "old self...and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God...and give no opportunity to the devil" (Ephesians 4:22, 23, 27). As we pray, we are increasingly conformed to His image, and as we are increasingly conformed to His image, our old self's tendency toward evil becomes our new self's repulsion from it.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
The Lord God is the be-all and end-all, the Great "I AM," "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 22:13). He is the sovereign King of all; His power is such that He spoke all that is into being and sustains all that is by His will; and His overwhelming beauty is The Beauty, of which all things beautiful are a symbol. The Beauty, but so much more: He is the source and the referent of all things true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). To Him be the kingdom, power, and glory, forever.

Only God can make a tree ...good.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31, ESV)

The Bible begins with the book of Genesis, and Genesis begins with God creating all things and observing it to be good. The first chapter of Genesis is emphatic on this point, as it records God seeing what He had just created as good at seven various stages of creation (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). What is this "good"? "Good," in its adjective form is defined by Oxford American Dictionaries (so it is called on my computer's built-in application) as "to be desired or approved of" and defined in its noun form as "that which is morally right; righteous." Similar to the latter, a third definition for the adjective form is "possessing or displaying moral virtue." Could it be that God's good creation is not only desirable and met with approval but also moral and right? Is this absurd?

When we look at nature, we are often awestruck. Nature might even be the paragon of that which the word "awesome" embodies, at least in the material sense (and again I turn to the dictionary): "extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear." Could nature also be the paragon of "good"? After all, God is good, and God, even more than nature (i.e. since he is supernatural), embodies "awesome."

Some of us believe the realm of matter to be at odds with the spiritual realm, taking the sinful corruption of "the flesh" to mean even a corrupt quality in the corporeal: Heaven versus Earth, body versus spirit. Plato considered ultimate reality to lie in abstraction, not the physical, material world, which he believed was a hindrance to reality (as the body is a prison of the soul, to use an example of his). I say in reply simply this: How, then, is nature so beautiful, so stirring? Why does my soul yearn at a sunset? Might I actually be yearning for the "good" that I see? Nature evidences God's goodness.

Perhaps nature does more than evidence God's goodness. Nature might be the one thing uncorrupted, the one created thing that is perfect, that is perfectly actualized in God's goodness; and so it is God's very goodness, instilled by God to make His supreme goodness, His glory, seen in the sunset and the distant mountain, heard in the ocean's crashing waves and the rustling of leaves, smelled in the fresh air of the countryside, tasted in the fruits of trees, felt in the warm summer evening breeze. Suppose the many poetic Scriptures on this subject--the words of the psalmist, exhorting all of creation to praise God (Psalm 148), of Jesus, remarking that "the very stones would cry out" if not for His followers' worshipful praise (Luke 19:37-40), of Paul, giving account of all creation yearning for God's will to be done regarding His followers' ultimate union with Him--suppose these Scriptures are not metaphors but are literal.

Consider the tree and how good it is, how moral, how perfect. Consider nature, the work of God's fingers, and recognize His goodness there, how it praises God in ways perceived by all of our five senses, making nature itself praiseworthy. But consider how its praises to God are also God's display of His love for us, that we might, by looking at nature, look from nature to Him, loving Him in return:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:3-9)

In God's Image

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27, ESV)

All people are made in God's image. What does it mean to be made in God's image? Surely the implications are manifold. But I see one facet of the question as concerning what we alone have in common with God, and all those things that set us apart from the other forms of life. Some things that come to mind are knowledge, consciousness, and individuality.

Thomas Aquinas's thinking on the concept of infinity is novel to me, but very sensible. In his explanation of God's infinitude, Aquinas does not see infinity as a matter of unlimited quantity but of transcendence; God is not "more" than everything but rather, in His simplicity and primacy, He exceeds classification, exceeds potentiality (i.e. He is unchanging), is above all things. According to Aquinas, man too has a sort of infinitude in his intellect, his ability to know things, because although we cannot know all things, our immaterial knowing transcends the material, the physical, exceeds any quantity of anything quantifiable. Our knowing is in the image of the First Knower.

Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft puts it very well when he says that what we each call ourselves, or more accurately, our own self, ("I") is in the image of what God calls Himself ("I AM"; Exo. 3:14). The reasons for this are also in God's image. No one other than the individual himself can call himself "I," says Kreeft, which makes the name a private one, and the individual's ability to have awareness of--and in turn, relationship with--himself, identifying himself as "I," is in the image of God: in the image of His consciousness (i.e. self-awareness) of and relationship with Himself.

The divine name "I AM" even implies something more; it implies Being itself. Aquinas says that God's existence is His essence; His being (be-ing) identifies God completely. " 'I AM THAT I AM' " (Exo. 3:14, KJV). God sanctified man from beast in creating him (i.e. male and female alike; Gen. 1:27) by making him a little being, a human being. Our being is in the image of His Being. (It is not the same as His Being, however, because our being (our existence) does not identify completely who we are. That we are is corrupted by what we are, precisely because unlike God, that we are is not what we are. That which makes us what we are is confined to space and time, confined in this earthly existence to the flesh, where sin can enter.)