New Living Translation

Being a good Ballymena man and loving a bargain, I was very pleased to pick up a good solid compact bible for a fiver over Christmas. I was reading through Colossians in the NIV and found the language quite awkward. I didn't really seem to be able to get past the words to the nub of the message. (I am sure some of you feel like that when reading my often very verbose prose!!)So looking at different versions and value for money I decided on the New Living Translation. I have found it to be very helpful and it is bringing the Scripture to life to me in a new and fresh way.

I particularly found several verses jumped off the page in this version in Colossians which they weren't doing in the NIV. The first was Colossians 1v28. In this version this is expressed "...everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Christ." What a challenge for us as Christians. When you are paying for your groceries at Tesco do you ever think of telling the cashier that Jesus loves them? How many opportunities do we miss on a daily basis? Note that it says EVERYWHERE we go we tell EVERYONE about Christ. WOW!!

The second verse that popped off the page was ch3v2 "Let heaven fill your thoughts." How often do we really think about what heaven will be like? It was said of the Puritan Rihard Sibbes "Of this man let this just praise be given, that heaven was in him before he was in heaven." We often hear it said of some that they are too heavenly minded to be any earthly use. This is totally unscriptural. The passage in Colossians uses heaven as a motivation for us to live godly lives. Thinking on heaven puts perspective on all our problems here and should motivate us to live lives in which we do not get so tied to material wealth.

(http://articles.christiansunite.com/article3023.shtml Here are some tips from the Puritan Richard Baxter on how to do this.)

The Lord bless you all.

Andy.