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I like to blog what I’m exercised about, and I’m really exercised about something I read the other day that seemed to imply that if you wanted to understand the scripture, you needed to read it in the original languages. Why would that writer want to plant a seed in his readers’ minds that only those who know Greek can read the Bible?

I am very grateful for those who know the original languages and have worked to provide us with God’s word in readable form. And in the U.S., there are a plethora of translations to choose from! You may notice that I vary the ones I quote from. 

But I am very disturbed at the apparent elitism that suggests the Holy Spirit can’t speak to ordinary people through the translated Word. We decry that period in history when the Bible was literally withheld from the common people, but then we effectively withhold it in our day by suggesting that ordinary believers can’t understand it. By contrast, Paul tells Timothy:

From childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3.15, NKJV)

And in Timothy’s day, what we call the Old Testament had already been translated into Greek so that Timothy could read it. So take heart! God speaks through the Word in the language we understand:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 TImothy 3.16, 17, NIV)