Beware of the Good News Bible

[Watchman4hm]

Written By Terry Watkins Good News Bible Exposed!

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[gideons300]

Brother, with all humility, and with no put-down intended here, I have always said that a man stranded on a desert island could have a worn amd water-loggedcopy of The Living Bible or The Message Bible wash up on the shore and even that man could be thoroughly equipped to battle satan (and win!), stand tall on the last day and fully expect to hear that blessed "Well done thou good and faithful servant."

I am not aware of this particular translation, but I have read many different versions, and the truths we need are in all of them. It is not the version that is our difficulty. It is our flesh. We need to stop fearing that we cannot trust this translation or that one, and just believe what the words clearly tell us. We have dissected the word of God to the point we have no confidence in much of it, and bemoan the fact we are not scholars of Greek or Aramaic, so that we might know which passages belong to us. With our confidence shaken in the word, our faith languishes and we are left in the sad state we find the church today.

God is able to speak through a donkey, and is certainly able to make sure a man or woman hungry to live their lives out to the glory of God is fully equipped as to the HOW of it. God told us this:

"The eyes of the Lord search too and fro across the whole earth, seeking those on whose behalf He might show HIMSELF strong."

When we finally believe that He will empower us, deliver us, if we cry out to Him for being set "free indeed" from the grip of the flesh and the sin that follows it, our very loves will be shaken, so great will be the power of God upon us.

When we as His people realize that forgiveness did not do away with the verse that says:

"Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity"

and we get serious, even desperate, about how to walk holy and pleasing before Him all day, every day, God will amaze us in how quickly and surely He responds.

Blessings, dear brother

Gideon

 

[gideons300]

Here is a series of verses taken from Romans 6 in the Good News Bible.

"For since we have become one with him in dying as he did, in the same way we shall be one with him by being raised to life as he was. 6 And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin. 7 For when we die, we are set free from the power of sin. 8 Since we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that Christ has been raised from death and will never die again—death will no longer rule over him. 10 And so, because he died, sin has no power over him; and now he lives his life in fellowship with God. 11 In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus.
12 Sin must no longer rule in your mortal bodies, so that you obey the desires of your natural self. 13 Nor must you surrender any part of yourselves to sin to be used for wicked purposes. Instead, give yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life, and surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes."

If we would do nothing more than just believe this to be truth, our lives and the world around us would be turned upside down. Please note that we are to yield ourselves to God, not as miserable sinners saved by grace, but now we are to yield ourselves as those who are ALIVE, FREE, with the power of sin brokenfrom our hearts.

We have new natures. It is time we learned we can put them on. Our refusal will have far more dire consequences than errors in translating certain verses of certain versions.

Blessings,

Gideon

 

[MikeBigg]

It is worth reading the wiki article on the Good News Bible - so you can know where it came from and the reasons it was produced:

Good News Bible - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The GNB was the first Bible I had when I first became a Christian. Some of the verses I memorised back then, I still have in my head in the GNB. One that comes to mind is 2 tim 3:16.

It may not be a perfect translation - it is more of a paraphrase after all - but I think it is a reasonable usable Bible.

 

[K2K]

I have owned and operated a Christian books store. And one thing that is a must is a fair understanding about the purposes of the different translations. The Good News, Message, and New Living translations are not word for word translations. They are intended to provide easy reading. And as gideons300 pointed out, a person can still be lead to Christ from reading those Bibles.

Still a person might ask, 'why do we have them if they are not word for word accurate'? Some people (perhaps especially new believers) find the Bible boring. The Message, which is the least word for word, was written to be somewhat enjoyable to read. And there are also people who are less educated, so the ease of reading is important to them also. And there is another good use for them, and a reason I keep copies of them, and that is because they take my focus off the word for word part and make it easier to see the over all message and story. We often get way to caught up in the word for word accuracy, and miss the mountain because of the trees, so to speak.

Then there are Bible like the NIV which are a middle of the road translations. They should be a little easier to read and still stay fairly close to the words. Indeed, some feel that they might actual give a better translation, because words don't usually translate accurately from one language to another, so perhaps a phrase catches the meaning better.

As for me, I generally prefer the NASB, which is consider one of the best word for word translations. I find that is also very easy to read, and reads in American, which is the language I speak. So I personally find it very comfortable to read and fairly accurate.

Still, if you really want to do some word for word study, it is not even a good translation. If you get a interlinear Bible, which really focuses on word for word translation, you will find that all the regular Bibles don't really come that close at all. So I have a couple of those also, which I sometimes referacne.

And before ending this post, I want to point out that I learn more from talking to the Lord and listening to what He has to say, than I do from any of the translations. However, He takes me to the Bible most everyday to explain something. And you can find the Lord even without a Bible. Araham did. Moses did. Still, the first word I ever heard Him speak to me were, "READ YOUR BIBLE". So I do know that He feels that reading the Bible is important. But it's not the Bible but the Lord that we are looking for!!!

So if I am going to say "beware" it's going to be concerning knowing and not knowing the Lord, not concerning the translation. Indeed, there is a group that has what they call a New World Translation, and the Lord has me hook up with them regularly to minister to them. I have not found one of them that know the Lord! Still I got one of their Bibles, and it is not very good in my opion, but you could still figure out that the Lord is there and available to be inquired of by you. You can still find that He took on flesh and died at the croos for you, forgave you, loves you. You can still find the Lord by reading their Bible, but not by listening to them!!!

So let's not be like them. Let's us the Bible to point people to Jesus Christ, and you can use the Good News translation to do that! After all, it was written for that purpose.

 

[Faulty]

Why use these "more exciting" versions at all?

If the objective is to do your best to more accurately understand what God says about Himself, then you need to get as close to what He had written as possible.

However, if the objective is to more closely understand what a group of men (or a single individual) think about what God said about Himself, then use a paraphrase and let someone else do the thinking for you.

It all depends on what level of truth the individual desires.

 

[Watchman4hm]

With as you say "all due respect", the corruption in the GNB is the reason we get people trying to cram False doctrine down our throats like we see in another thread here..Gideon with all due respect you need to stop craming your one dimensional look down everyone's throat here as well..You seem to have come to some conclusion we all need to hear you, hear you, hear you, as though you've stumbled upon something the rest of us aren't aware of..Its tiring and borders controlling like some other posters here have done which I have defended YOU against...Maybe some of you need to ACTUALLY READ THE ARTICLE and how THE GNB purposely mistranslates things to twist scriptures from the translators heretical misgivings..Be blessed.

 

[probinson]

I skimmed the article. IMO, It's more about how the GNB reads compared to the KJV, and any slight variance from the KJV is described as a "mutilation", or some other such colorful, hyperbolic term.

Meh.

 

[Watchman4hm]

I skimmed the article. IMO, It's more about how the GNB reads compared to the KJV, and any slight variance from the KJV is described as a "mutilation", or some other such colorful, hyperbolic term.

Meh.

If your inferring its a KJV only mindset then you defiantly did "skim" it Pete...The blood is so important to tie the sacrifices of the lambs of the OT to the NT LAMB OF GOD!..Many other things are important as well that are purposely mistranslated..

 

[MikeBigg]

Maybe some of you need to ACTUALLY READ THE ARTICLE and how THE GNB purposely mistranslates things to twist scriptures from the translators heretical misgivings..Be blessed.

I did read the Bible. I found it ironic that it compared the GNB against the KJV, which has its own flaws.

In my evangelism I often meet and speak to people who are not that well read; people who don't read for leisure unless it is the TV guide.

To give them what that article suggests is the better version is simply not the right thing to do. My first choice for them is the NIV, but I have also used the CEV (I think its the common English version) which has a lower reading age requirement and is more recently translated than the GNB.

I would consider giving the GNB in these situations.

I'm a little bit promiscuous with versions - I read the NIV, NASB, ESV, NKJV and NLT - I'm currently listening to (rather than reading to) the NRSV in dramatised form. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

I did like K2K's response. It seemed balanced and experienced.

Regards,

Mike

 

[jiminpa]

If your inferring its a KJV only mindset then you defiantly did "skim" it Pete...The blood is so important to tie the sacrifices of the lambs of the OT to the NT LAMB OF GOD!..Many other things are important as well that are purposely mistranslated..

That article was written by Terry Watkins and pasted with reference from his AV1611[dot]org website, so yeh, it is precisely a KJV only hack piece. I won't even keep the URL intact to link to it, that site is such a libelous mess, full of blatant lies against Christians, that the author has been notified of yet refuses to correct.

 

[gideons300]

Why use these "more exciting" versions at all?

If the objective is to do your best to more accurately understand what God says about Himself, then you need to get as close to what He had written as possible.

However, if the objective is to more closely understand what a group of men (or a single individual) think about what God said about Himself, then use a paraphrase and let someone else do the thinking for you.

It all depends on what level of truth the individual desires.

Then using this logic, we can use that same argument against every single version. If we are really serious, perhaps we need to get copies of the dead sea scrolls, learn greek and aramaic and bypass all of man's influence. The truth is there in the word, the truth that promises to set us free. When we finally get tired of griving the Holy Spirit with the way we live, to our amazement, we will see that even in the worst of the translations or even paraphrases, the truth stared us in the face all along. We just refused to believe it.

We seem to forget there are multituides who try to read the Bible and for one reason or another, it is like death to them, a closed book, so their Bibles sit gathering dust. They do not understand it and thus other versions may offer them hope, and a light into truth, even if a paraphrase. I would rather them devour the Message Bible, rather than avoid the best translation available. God speaks to His sheep where they are.

Should we strive for accuracy? Of course. But not at the expense of ignoring the Bible altogether because it is simply not understood. Far better we start believing what the word clearly tells us, that God's will is that we know how to possess our vessels in sanctification and honor, no matter the translation, than fighting about which version we will use if we are REAL Christians.

Blessings,

Gideon

 

[Faulty]

Then using this logic, we can use that same argument against every single version. If we are really serious, perhaps we need to get copies of the dead sea scrolls, learn greek and aramaic and bypass all of man's influence. The truth is there in the word, the truth that promises to set us free. When we finally get tired of griving the Holy Spirit with the way we live, to our amazement, we will see that even in the worst of the translations or even paraphrases, the truth stared us in the face all along. We just refused to believe it.

We seem to forget there are multituides who try to read the Bible and for one reason or another, it is like death to them, a closed book, so their Bibles sit gathering dust. They do not understand it and thus other versions may offer them hope, and a light into truth, even if a paraphrase. I would rather them devour the Message Bible, rather than avoid the best translation available. God speaks to His sheep where they are.

Should we strive for accuracy? Of course. But not at the expense of ignoring the Bible altogether because it is simply not understood. Far better we start believing what the word clearly tells us, that God's will is that we know how to possess our vessels in sanctification and honor, no matter the translation, than fighting about which version we will use if we are REAL Christians.

Blessings,

Gideon

It's a dead and closed book to them because they are unregenerate. 1 Corinthians 2:14 makes this clear. The same chapter makes it clear its the opposite for the regenerate.

Is the answer to go away from accuracy to make the dead understand? If you think so, I'd love to see you explain how, and also why the compromise is acceptable to you.

You'd rather have them devour The Message? Since the dead cant understand scripture, but they follow The Message, then what does that tell you exactly concerning The Message?

 

[Yitzchak]

Then using this logic, we can use that same argument against every single version. If we are really serious, perhaps we need to get copies of the dead sea scrolls, learn greek and aramaic and bypass all of man's influence. The truth is there in the word, the truth that promises to set us free. When we finally get tired of griving the Holy Spirit with the way we live, to our amazement, we will see that even in the worst of the translations or even paraphrases, the truth stared us in the face all along. We just refused to believe it.

I am actually in favor of what you propose here. At least the general principle. We should bypass all of the English versions and go back to the original languages.It is downright silly that people who are converted to Jesus would not place understanding the Bible as one of their top priorities in life. We seem to have a much higher standard for secular pursuits.


Those who study the Bible in a serious way , if they are humble , will admit there is much that they still do not know. But we should at least have the self respect to give it an honest effort. The way the scripture teaches it , we should be diligent about our study of scripture.

For those who are too lazy or have some sort of mental block against serious study of the scripture. It makes no sense that they should think of themselves as teachers to the rest of the church concerning what sound doctrine is.

 

[MastersPiece]

Written By Terry Watkins Good News Bible Exposed!
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... I adhere ONLY to the King James Bible - it is the closest word for word translation from the original Greek & Hebrew. In addition, the Lord gave me an amazing revelation of some hidden messages & truths in the KJV which He would not have been able to show me in any other version.
The NIV is just as bad as the other versions and is literally missing scriptures - in addition, the publisher of the NIV bible also publishes the satanic bible! What Do the NIV, Satan, and Gay Sex Have in Common? <-- click link.. ummm, yikes

I'm not saying that there isn't some of the contents of the Word of God in these other versions, but they definitely do not hold the full truth of God's word in them. I was using the NIV when the Lord told me to switch to the KJV. Which Bible verses did the NIV delete? <-- click link

 

[Yitzchak]

Why use these "more exciting" versions at all?

If the objective is to do your best to more accurately understand what God says about Himself, then you need to get as close to what He had written as possible.

However, if the objective is to more closely understand what a group of men (or a single individual) think about what God said about Himself, then use a paraphrase and let someone else do the thinking for you.

It all depends on what level of truth the individual desires.

I agree. just imagine doing this with the instruction manual for fixing our car. If instead of handing out the accurate manual , the car dealers handed out some comic book version that was less than accurate because it seemed more fun.

 

[gideons300]

It's a dead and closed book to them because they are unregenerate. 1 Corinthians 2:14 makes this clear. The same chapter makes it clear its the opposite for the regenerate.

Is the answer to go away from accuracy to make the dead understand? If you think so, I'd love to see you explain how, and also why the compromise is acceptable to you.

You'd rather have them devour The Message? Since the dead cant understand scripture, but they follow The Message, then what does that tell you exactly concerning The Message?

My dear brother, are you trying to tell me that the millions of Christians who have a hard time understanding the Bible because they are uneducated, or not theologians are doomed to hell? Are the illiiterate doomed as well?

Our problem is not nearly so much understanding it, as believing what it tells us. Shall we throw out all paraphrases and make everyone read our version that is most palatable to us, when we ourselves do not know the people who translated it? In some cases, it is very important to be accurate, but in most cases, the new testament was letters read in churches and none had copies to "dissect". There were no chapters and verses, and it seems the early church did quite well, and in truth put us to shame. I assume that many could not ever read. And yet these uneducated men and women turned the entire world upside down in one generation. We have "correct translations". They had on fire hearts.

Brother, of course accuracy is desired, but the big picture, the important stuff, God wanting to set His people free from the power of darkness, even the weakest of the translations is quite precise. We just don't want to believe it.....yet.

You are apporaching it from a mind point of view, but it is a matter of our hearts, not our minds. If what you say is true, then God help those who simply find the truth as written in any of the versions difficult to absorb and understand.

May I share a few verses from the Message Bible and see if it might click with any here? So often we have read the same scriptures over and over that they lose their potency, and we can become numb to its truth.

Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church.

"I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You're not cold, you're not hot - far better to be either cold or hot! You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, 'I'm rich, I've got it made, I need nothing from anyone,' oblivious that in fact you're a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless. "Here's what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that's been through the refiner's fire. Then you'll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You've gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see."

The people I love, I call to account - prod and correct and guide so that they'll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God! "Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you. Conquerors will sit alongside me at the head table, just as I, having conquered, took the place of honor at the side of my Father. That's my gift to the conquerors! "Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches."

Revelation 3;14-22

Pretty darned good stuff for a paraphrase. God loves us enough to spank us when we stubbornly refuse to listen to Him. The Lord wants us to believe Him, to put on robes of righteousness that He died to be able to give us. He wants us to finally see the truth of who we are in Him, but we cannot until we get sick and tired of failing and trying to excuse it by citing God's grace somehow making it unimportant.

When we finally are hungry.....starving.....for being obedient loving children of God, doing whatever He desires of us, empty vessels fully yileded to the master potter's hands, when it breaks our hearts to continue sinning, over and over, living like natural men, fleshly men, then, and only then will we have our eyes opened to the truth. And what is that truth?

Jesus came to set us free indeed.

Blessings,

Gideon

 

[Faulty]

Familiarize yourself with 1 Corinthians 2 and you won't have to guess or obfuscate concerning anything I said. It'll be clear.

And no, you may not share with me any verses from The Message.

 

[gideons300]

Familiarize yourself with 1 Corinthians 2 and you won't have to guess or obfuscate concerning anything I said. It'll be clear.

And no, you may not share with me any verses from The Message.

Then you may want to read it in the King James. It is found in Revelation 3. Either way the meaning is clear.

How can we say that no matter how we sin after our conversion, that there is no danger for a Christian, no chance of our missing heaven? Repentance is key, and it must not be a one time "I am sorry for being a sinner" but a lifelong hatred of the old man that continues to sin and sees losing his life to find the life God offers us as too "restrictive and extremist".

Do we not see? This very letter to the Laodecians ought to be a wake up call for us,, whether we think it applies to our present condition or not. What does being spit out of the mouth of God entail? I am not bold enough to claim I know it, but I do not want to find out first hand what it means, do you?

Contrary to the lie we have been fed, God does not see us through rose colored glasses, ignoring the sins we have no real desire of defeating. Our repentance must be deep, hard, and thorough. If we sin til the day we die, and each time, we break before Him in contrition and shame, God will always abundantly forgive. BUT, if we build again what He destoyed, and love our own self centered lives, with no desire to rid ourselves of the actions that bring shame to his name and our repentance is shallow and half hearted? Danger lurks there. MUCH danger. There are no guarantees for this person, other than a fearful looking for of judgement, and it will be deserved. The time for half-heartedness is over. It is "all in" time.

Peace, brother.

Gideon

 

[NorrinRadd]

I am actually in favor of what you propose here. At least the general principle. We should bypass all of the English versions and go back to the original languages.It is downright silly that people who are converted to Jesus would not place understanding the Bible as one of their top priorities in life. We seem to have a much higher standard for secular pursuits. ...

It's a nice idea, but not possible. From what I've heard, once upon a time basic instruction in Greek, Latin, and maybe Hebrew was a normal part of every school kid's education. To the extent that was ever true, that time is long gone. Now, many Christians think they "know Greek" because they can pluck a few words out of a Strong's Concordance. Even most pastors don't have the kind of education in the original languages you propose. Every single Christian would need to enroll in a series of *good* college courses in Greek and Hebrew.

Then they'd need strong training in textual criticism so they could evaluate for themselves whether certain passages do or do not rightly belong in Scripture.

And they'd also need a ton of instruction in the cultures and literary styles forming the background of the Scriptures. Those things require at least as much "translating" as the raw "words" of Scripture.