This is for all my friends sending out messages with the Message Bible, Living Translation, this poetic bible or that paraphrase. The word of God has 3 important scriptures that we must all keep in mind.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2 Tim 2:15 (King James Version)
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Matt 4:4 (American Standard Version)
For, verily I say to you, till that the heaven and the earth may pass away, one iota or one tittle may not pass away from the law, till that all may come to pass.
Matt 5:18 (Youngs Literal Version)
In the statement of faith of most of our churches, there is something like this “we believe the Holy scriptures, the bible to be the Word of God, and are without error in their original manuscripts.”
Paul said, we must correctly divide, and understand the word of truth, Jesus said every word expressed by God is what is needed to live. And again Jesus said, the Old Testament Law (“law”, common term used at that time to refer to the first 5 books of the bible) would not lose even one dot of an letter I, or cross of a letter T. That is how important God’s word is.
It is “in style” to use a lot of modern translations, sometimes for study, to add clarity to the word, or to help with a hard passage. But it is also big business to come out with a new exciting bible version. Each one is copyright protected, and has to say the verses in a different way, than did another version. These paraphrases of the bible are basically commentaries, without letting us know they are commentaries. For those who do not know what a commentary is, it is a bible study tool that interprets the scriptures for you, based upon extensive study, history, archeology, anthropology, but finally the opinion of the author.
These paraphrased, easy to read bibles provide the writers interpretation of the scriptures, not necessarily what the scriptures in the original language stated. That is is the problem. To many of us, are not studying any more, but are using these (commentary) bibles to spoon feed us, reading what sounds good, but is not what the original scriptures state, and is not the Word of God.
If Eve messed up by adding “touch not” to God’s commands in the Garden. And the devil removing a few words from “…He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” in order to deceive Jesus. Why do we think saying God’s word in a different way, than what He originally said, is a good idea?
This is the devils move again, He wants the modern church to depend upon, and read inaccurate paraphrases of God’s Word. These are not the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. But instead paper swords that will fail in battle, and not stand in time of testing. They open us up for misinterpretations and worse, wrong doctrines, based upon something God never said in the original language. Greek and Hebrew are wonderful languages, very accurate, and have a much fuller, detailed range of expression, than English does. I am not telling to that you cannot understand God’s word if you do not read ancient Greek or Hebrew. But I am saying that we cannot depend upon weak or even worse, wrong translations of God’s Word. Please use only accurate translations, there a number of goods ones today.
I leave you with these two warnings from scripture.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Matt 15:19 KJV
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. Rev 22: 19 KJV
If you disagree, remember we are in the last days, our only weapon in the Armor of God, is the Sword of the Spirit. Of course the enemy wants to remove it from our hand, without our our knowing we now have a paper sword instead.
(versions used, KJV, ASV, YLT)
