Pastor Treglown, in his article, talked about communication—how God communicates with us both by His Word and also by His Son, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Thinking about that topic, then, of the Bible as God’s communication to us, gives me the opportunity to answer a question I get all the time: what translation of the Bible should I use?

The short answer is: no translation is “bad,” so if you already have a favorite translation, don’t feel like you need to change! But if you’re looking for a favorite version, or maybe you just want to understand a little bit more about Bible translations, here’s a little information about some of the most common Bible translations you’ll run into:

ESV/NASB/KJV: These translations tend to be the most “literal”—that is, they try to translate every word in the Greek or Hebrew in a consistent way. These translations also strive to follow, as much as possible, the original word order—which means they frequently can be difficult to read in English (especially the KJV, which also uses older English); however, if you want to know more precisely what the text says, these can be helpful translations. (Note: the ESV is what we use most frequently in worship at Faith.)

The Message/An American Translation/GNB/NLT: These translations are sort of the opposite of the last category—they aren’t afraid to change word order, and instead of aiming to capture the meaning of each individual word, they try to paraphrase the thought of each phrase or sentence into English. This makes these translations far easier to read, and that’s a good thing! However, the trade-off is that you’re relying more than with other translations on how the translator understands the meaning of the text, and so you’ll find that these translations can differ much more from each other than other translations. 

NIV/CSB/NRSV: These translations are sort of a middle-of-the-road kind of translation—they’re not as literal as the ESV, but they’re not as loose as the Message. Many find that this is a good balance for personal reading and study.

NA28/BHS: You probably haven’t actually heard of these translations—because they’re not translations! Rather, they’re the most recent Greek (NA28) and Hebrew (BHS) editions of the Bible. Why do I bring them up, then? Because if you’re ever reading your Bible or comparing translations and don’t understand something or don’t understand why different translations translate something differently, you can always come to one of us pastors—because part of our seminary education was learning Greek and Hebrew so we could answer just those questions!

Whichever translation you choose to use (or translationS!), know that the best translation in the world, if it just sits on a shelf unopened, does no one any good. But Scripture opened and read and heard and studied—about that, God says through the prophet Isaiah:

…as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isa 55:10–11)

-Pastor Duncan