Weekly Blog

I recently finished The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman for the second time. The fact that I have read the book twice tells you something of its importance. This book was published in 2020, and I first read it in 2021. But the book is so compelling that I decided I wanted to read it again.

On Sunday we looked at the story of the Syro-Phoenecian woman. I don’t know about you, but I had to wrestle with this text a bit!

Today I want to give a few practical recommendations and tips for getting the most out of your Bible. You may have a favorite version (of hopefully a few versions!) – but how can you get the most out of your time reading these translations?

Today I want to introduce you to a Bible version you have probably never heard of – but one that is well worth reading! I am speaking of the NET bible. NET is an acronym standing for New English Translation. But it is much more than just another translation in English. Let me highlight a few reasons I would encourage you to try the NET Bible in your own study.

Today I want to give a few practical recommendations and tips for selecting Bible translations for use.

Given all that we have covered in these blog posts, how do we select a bible translation to use today? That is the topic I will cover in the coming weeks.

In recent weeks we have looked at three major types of transactions – essentially literal (word for word), dynamic equivalence (thought for thought), and paraphrase. Today I will look at two verses, using four translations: the NASB (one of the strictest ‘essentially’ literal translations, the NIV (one of the more strict of the dynamic equivalence translations), the New Living Translation (one of the looser of the dynamic equivalence translations), and the Message Bible (the most popular paraphrase).

The final translation theory we will consider is what is known as a paraphrase. This time I put the word “translation” in quotation marks because this theory is not even really a traditional translation as much as it is an attempt to render the main ideas of the original document in a fresh, but extremely loose way. Thus some would not even consider these translations, while others refer to them as “free translations”.

The second translation theory we will consider is “dynamic equivalence”. Once again, I put this phrase in quotation marks because this theory exists on a spectrum. Thus, some will call a particular translation “dynamic equivalent” while others might call it a paraphrase.

When considering translating from one language into another, the first translation theory to consider is “essentially literal”.