To help on the way to Heaven
The Bible is God's word and what we humans write is not God's word, so what we really want to do is to read God's word a lot.
And whilst doing it, speaking with Him as our Father at the same time.
So where do I start, you may ask.
As always, the Bible gives us the answer.
In Hebrews chapter 10 we see that the Law; “has but the shadow of good things to come and not the things in their own fashion.” (Hebrews 10:1)
The first part of the Old Testament is called the Law and as we see here, it was a shadow of the good things to come.
Yes, the good things came through Jesus, as we see; “For the Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17)
So clearly, we want to read, not the shadow, “but the things in their own fashion” which we find in the New Testament.
Therefore, the New Testament is the place to start.
If you are not yet a Christian, starting with one of the first three books in the New Testament is a good idea.
If you are an action type of person, then Mark is the most action packed.
If you like details, then Matthew and Luke are very detailed.
If you just became a Christian, then the Gospel of John is a good place to start.
Acts shows us how the early Christians lived and in the letters there are much in depth information, where the letter to the Romans is a good place to go next.
The key to understanding the Bible is to want to do God’s will.
Jesus points this out when saying; “If any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of Myself” (John 7:17)
So to the question - Do translations matter?
There are translations, that not really are translations, but where the message is changed by purpose to push a sect.These should of course be avoided.
Further Jesus told us that “every tree is known by its fruit” (Luke 6:44)
Some translations have been made when there was a heavy price to pay to translate the Bible.
One example is the first translation from Greek to German which was made by Martin Luther when he was in hiding condemned to death for his love to Jesus.
He knew that at any moment he could be killed, and he felt that he had to get the New Testament over to the German language, so that the people could read it for themselves.
So in a record time of only 3 months he worked tiredless and translated the New Testament in what still might be the best translation ever.
Another example is the first translation from Greek to English - the Tyndale translation.
William Tyndale had to flee England and he translated the Bible whilst he was in exile.
He was living, knowing that he could be killed for translating the Bible, but he continued in order to get the word of God over to the English language.
Yes, the King was indeed so unhappy that he later purchased all copies that he could and burned them to hinder people from reading God’s word.
Unfortunately they found him and he was murdered as a martyr before he had finished the Old Testament, but he translated the New Testament and part of the Old Testament.
We know that before he was strangled and burned, at the stake, he cried with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice: “Lord open the King of England’s eyes.”
The fruit from these men’s lives talks for itself, as the reformation that came as a result, really changed many parts of Europe.
So using the rule of thumb that “every tree is known by its fruit” – these should be good choices.
Then Jesus told us that “he that loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will show My own Self unto him.” (John 14:21)
So clearly it will be easier for a person that loves Jesus and where Jesus show His own Self unto him, to get the flavour of a translation of God’s word better, then a person without that love.
Seeing the commitment of these two men, it points to a great love to Jesus, which would help to get the flavour of the translation good.
I think that it is good to go by the facts, where there is a verifiable track record that proves that the fruit was good and that there was a love to Jesus.
That these translations fits the criteria that Jesus gave us, seems beyond doubt.
Probably for these two reasons, the Martin Luther translation has been the most popular German translation and really formed the German language.
And the King James Version which in much is built on the Tyndale translation, is the most famous of all Bible translations and have formed the English language.
(The Tyndale translation is old English, whilst the King James Version is more modern English.)
Here are links to some translations:
MyBible App
If your language is English, then the King James Version is the default translation in the app – so no need to do anything.
If not, go to modules – English – Bible modules.
It is in alphabetical order, so quite far down you will find:
KJV+ King James Version.
Here are some links to another app that you could use:
Olive Tree App
This is one of the 4 free default translations you can choose in the app when installing it, so just chose KJV (and why not at the same time NKJV, see below) when installing the app.
(They might not be ticked off by default, so you need to click on them to chose them.)
Here is the direct link to the translation: olivetree.com
You can also read the King James Version Online. (It has however limited functionality compared with the app.):
The New King James Version (NKJV) can be downloaded in the Olive Tree app, see above.
New King James Version is in much a modernized version of the King James Version.
This again is one of the 4 free default translations you can choose in the app when installing it, so just chose NKJV (and why not at the same time KJV, see above) when installing the app.
(They might not be ticked off by default, so you need to click on them to chose them.)
Here is the direct link to the translation: olivetree.com
You can also read the New King James Version Online. (It has however limited functionality compared with the app.):
You can download the Tyndale Bible using MyBible (see above) or using Olive Tree (see above).
In the MyBible app:
Go to modules – English – Bible modules
It is in alphabetical order, so quite far down you will find:
TRC Tyndale Bible
In the Olive tree app:
In the app search for Tyndale - Chose Tyndale Bible.
Here is the direct link to the translation: olivetree.com
You can download the Luther Bible using MyBible (see above) or using Olive Tree (see above).
In the MyBible app:
Go to modules – German (Deutsch) – Bible modules
It is in alphabetical order, so quite far down you will find:
LB+ Lutherbibel mit Strongs, 1545
In the Olive Tree app:
In the app search for Luther 1912 - Chose Die Lutherbible 1912.
(This is a slighly revised version of the original translation.)
Here is the direct link to the translation: olivetree.com
If you want to read Greek, the Bible Study App and Desktop version from Olivetree.com have a translation that you can buy that is called the “KJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament”
In the app search for KJV Greek - Chose KJV Greek-English Interlinear New Testament.
Here is the direct link to the translation: olivetree.com
It is not free but well worth the money. (We don’t make any money by recommending this.)
It looks like this:
The beauty is that you can click on a word like the word “once”:
Here we see a detailed descripton and that the greek word translated "once" in English means "upon one occasion (only)", "once, at once", "all at once", "once for all".
A few tips:
1. All Greek words are given a number– in this case g2178. Greek words tend to have a number of different forms of the same base word, but Strong’s concordance uses the same number for all forms of the word. As such you might soon recognize a number and know which word it is, even if you don’t recognize the word in that form.
2. From 1909 and 530 means from which Greek words this comes. Sometimes like here it is a combination of 2 words and looking at them can help to understand the meaning even better.
3. AV stands for the Authorised Version = the King James Version and it shows how they have translated this word.
You will also be able to see which form a word have, like if it is third person singular, first person plural, or if a verb is present, past or future and so on.
We should maybe point out that we are not associated with any person or company to which the links above go, neither do we get any money from them or by linking to them, but it is solely to help.
