Literal Bible translations are best

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An esteemed NT scholar of our day, Dr Wayne Grudem, recently restated why he uses word-for-word (literal) Bible translations and not the “dynamic equivalence” (idea-for-idea, eg, NIV) translations. I whole-hearted concur with Dr Grudem on this!

“I cannot teach theology or ethics from a dynamic equivalent Bible. I tried the NIV for one semester, and I gave it up after a few weeks. Time and again I would try to use a verse to make a point and find that the specific detail I was looking for, a detail of wording that I knew was there in the original Hebrew or Greek, was missing from the verse in the NIV.

“Nor can I preach from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would end up explaining in verse after verse that the words on the page are not really what the Bible says, and the whole experience would be confusing and would lead people to distrust the Bible in English . . .

“Nor would I want to memorize passages from a dynamic equivalent translation. I would be fixing in my brain verses that were partly God’s words and partly some added ideas, and I would be leaving out of my brain some words that belonged to those verses as God inspired them but were simply missing from the dynamic equivalent translation.

“But I could readily use any essentially literal translation to teach, study, preach from, and memorize.”

~ Wayne Grudem
(General Editor of the ESV Study Bible, 2008)
[gleaned from Eric Kohlwater’s blog – thanks brother!]

Thinking is vital to Christianity

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In 2 Timothy 2:7, the Apostle Paul explicitly directs young pastor Timothy to think: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.” It is not enough to hear the Word of God, or read the Word of God; you must think over the Word of God — not to pass judgment upon it, but to know and grasp it, to gain (as Paul writes) understanding.

How do we come to understand God’s Word?

First, is our obedience to the exhortation to think. We must exert our brain. We must go beyond mere reading or even studying, to be intentional about pondering and carefully considering what God has revealed to us in His written Word. In some passages, this is easily done; in others it is more challenging. Given this command to think, I encourage you to MEDITATE more over the things of God. Thomas Manton says this about the distinctive of meditation (and its aim);

“The end of study is information, and the end of meditation is practice, or a work upon the affections. Study is like a winter’s sun that shineth, but warmeth not; but meditation is like blowing upon the fire, where we do not mind the blaze but the heat. The end of study is to hoard up truth; but of meditation, to lay it forth in conference or holy conversation. In study, we are rather like vintners that take in wine to store themselves for sale; in meditation, like those that buy wine for their own use and comfort. A vintner’s cellar may be better stored than a nobleman’s. The student may have more of notion and knowledge, but the practical Christian [who meditates] hath more of taste and refreshment.”

Second (and thankfully), we approach the place of understanding only by God’s help. Did you read the verse carefully: “…for the Lord will give you understanding….” He commands thinking, and He enables our understanding. What a marvelous God we serve!

pdb