Do You Really Know Your Bible?

The Holy Bible is a treasure of hidden treasures, written in a very deliberate way, through pens called men, by the Holy Spirit.  The languages used in its writing were deliberately created by God; to reveal the word of God.  Furthermore, in His sovereignty, God determined that it was good to hide things.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2

God works all things to good; even the fallacies of man. Over the ages, godly men have done their best to surrender to the Holy Spirit’s leading in collecting and translating the Holy Scriptures into the other languages of man. It is understandable that even the most inspired and insightful endeavors were influenced by their culture, and their personal way of thinking. It would serve us well to assume that the same is true for those of us that are reading those translations.

Before I get in trouble with you, let me say that this is not about the validity or perfection of the Holy Bible. The Lord’s encouragement in this article is for our desperate need to read the translations we prefer with a heart to search out the matter; with at least a mild suspicion that things might not be what they seem. It is not a matter of the infallibility of the Scriptures; but of the paradigms of both translator and seeker of the truth.

To better explain, let me share something I discovered in reading a short passage in 2Thessalonians (using my favorite translation, the New King James Version).