Bible Version Used in Net-Burst.Net

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It breaks my heart that I cannot quote God’s priceless Word without unintentionally offending some of his dear, Bible-loving children.

Since every Christian is so passionately loved of God as to be of infinite importance to him, I yearn to avoid even slightly offending any of his loved ones. For some devout believers, any Bible version other than the King James is offensive. My dilemma is that if I use that respected and revered version, some Christians who are equally dear to God, can feel I am giving the impression that God is out of touch and that he does not care enough to speak to them in their heart language. I revere God too much to want anyone to think that. And I treasure God’s unique Word far too much to bear having any readers find my puny words more meaningful, relevant and interesting than God’s, and yet citing Scripture in what is now archaic language can have that effect for some people.

The only truly perfect text is in Hebrew and Greek and even then some people fight over manuscripts. I could just provide Bible references and let you look them up in your preferred Bible. The practical reality, however, is that you would find that so time consuming that you would rarely bother. Surely even an approximation of God’s inspired Word is preferable to my fallible writings.

I’m a dinosaur when it comes to technology but I have finally found a compromise that, though not ideal for everyone, should please most readers: a modern version (the World English Bible, slightly modified) plus the King James Version appearing when a mouse is placed over the Scripture reference. These are about the only versions not subject to copyright. Most other versions are fairly generous in the number of quotations they freely allow but I love citing Scripture so much that I had to move to a version that gives me the freedom to quote to my heart’s content. Unfortunately, its writing style is sometimes a little clumsy and I am not a fan of the use of the word assembly for church, simply because most readers are more familiar with church. Where, to me, the wording seems a little awkward, I use another version and clearly indicate which one.

Many of my webpages, however, were written before I discovered the World English Bible and I have so many webpages that updating them all would be an enormous project. Where I use the World English Bible, it is predominately stated on the webpage. To know what is used elsewhere, keep reading.

For my two main books (virtually my first ever writings), Waiting for Your Ministry (quoted often in many of my webpages) and In Tune with God, I have used my own wording of Scripture, conservatively based on a consensus of several different English versions. Using this method for every Bible quote, however, is quite time-consuming. So between writing those books and discovering the World English Bible, I used the New International Version (© Copyright, 1984 by Biblica), which happened to be the only modern version on my primitive Bible program. It is a respected version and fits my writing style fairly well, except that in the Old Testament it sometimes capitalizes Lord and I prefer the gender inclusive language of some later editions of the NIV. Like a number of Bible versions, the 1984 edition sometimes uses language that can unintentionally give the impression to some modern readers that God is sexist. What makes this important to me is that right from the beginning, the Bible clearly indicates that Scripture frequently uses the word man to mean humanity and that the word includes women just as much as men.

    Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (NIV, emphasis mine.)

Until quite recently, this use of the word man and the corresponding pronoun he was normal in English. Over the last few decades, however, this convention has become increasingly uncommon. Such language can now have the highly regrettable effect of giving some readers a mistaken impression.

With women being of such value to the Lord of lords that he willingly endured being tortured to death for each one, I would sooner have never been born than do anything that allows just one modern woman to mistakenly conclude that he excludes her. I do not want to find myself squirming in horror before the Judge of all humanity, trying to stammer some excuse for breaking the heart of God while claiming to be exalting the Word of God.

The German translation of my webpages uses Die Bibel. Elberfelder Übersetzung © 1985/1991/2006, R. Brockhaus Verlag, Wuppertal www.brockhaus-verlag.de