Sir, it's about your Bible.

There's one Sunday School lesson I've always wanted to do: How did we get this Bible that I hold in my hands every day? Now, I don't mean to discuss the whole turning trees into paper and paper into books route. I have something different and more important in mind...

The summer before Eva and I got married, I worked in a Christian bookstore. People would come in to buy 'a Bible' and be a little overwhelmed by all the translations and editions that we had on the shelf. People would just grab something off the shelf (usually the cheapest) and head towards the counter. Besides, all those Bibles are the same thing, right?

I know I think rarely about how privileged I am. I have several Bibles on my shelf - King James, NIV, NASB, study bibles, reference bibles, award bibles... Meanwhile there are parts of the world where believers are lucky if they have a single Bible in their whole family. Still other people cannot read the Bible in their native language. Truth is, I could be one of them if it weren't for the sacrifice of many people in the past...

And how should we differentiate between all those translations on the shelf anyway? What makes an ESV different than an Amplified (sorry, ick)? Why are nerdy people always ranting about 'the Greek'?

A couple things prompted this post:
1) First off, Mars Hill Church in Seattle has switched from the NIV translation of the Bible to the ESV early this year. The lead pastor there, Mark Driscoll, has produced a really stellar PDF outlining their reason for the shift.

2) Also, this week the guys over at Pulpit Magazine (led by Nathan Busenitz) are taking a detour to talk about the King James Version Only 'controversy'. The writing on Pulpit is always fabulous and thought-provoking.

3) I've been taking time each day to read some of John Piper's biographical writings over on DesiringGod. Just so happened the other day, I was reading all about William Tyndale and the quest for an English Bible.


So, give this stuff a read... And perhaps we'll all treasure that Bible in our hands a little bit more.