What's in a Word?

God’s Word is an amazing thing. I can remember getting one of my first bibles with my own money…in my teen years. It was “The Living Bible,” a paraphrase, and forerunner of today’s “New Living Testament.” Mom was big on this translation (I think she still is...), as it was something totally fresh and new. (Back then, your menu options for bibles was like: King James, New American Standard, or Revised Standard Version.) Reading The Living Bible would be like picking up “The Message” paraphrase in today’s world. Fresh. New. Jumps off the page at you. But the greatest thing about it was that –after reading the King James that was given to me by my Sunday School as a child—it was like a breath of fresh air. I began to understand what the Bible said, and how it related to life.

The difficult thing about bibles is that you get one, start reading and marking in it, get attached to it, and then another version comes along you wish you had ten years earlier. I’ll stay with my New International Version at this point in life, as it is what I have memorized most of my verses from (thanks to my friend Doug), and pretty marked up, helping me find things that have made an impact on me.

Speaking of bible verses, a great verse (NIV) that I think of regarding the Word, is 2 Timothy 3:16- “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training –in righteousness—so that a man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Now listen to it from my newest favorite translation, The New Living Translation, or NLT: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”

I am so thankful that each time I open my Bible…no matter the version, I can know that it is God Himself speaking to me (“God-breathed”…”Inspired by God…”) and that it truly does give me directions to live life by. Go get a version you can connect with…and get reading!

Having the privilege of leading Celebrate Recovery is a huge blessing these days…
Life is pretty good right now…
I’m looking forward to leading worship the next two weeks at church…

Thanks for stopping by.