Yesterday, on the door of a local restaurant, I saw a sign very much like the bottom one of these two: (I didn’t get a picture of the one I saw, but the wording was more or less the same.)

How would you translate it? You may not know Japanese, so I’ll give you the choice of two options: Read more about Literal translations

Today I was preaching on the mission of God and salvation history, and decided at the last minute to throw in a good example of (a) how God always seeks to restore relationship with those estranged from him, and (b) the principle that, because God does this, we should too. It’s one of my key themes, and a great verse which highlights it is 2 Samuel 14:14. David has become estranged from his son, and Joab sent a woman in to change his mind and gain forgiveness. The climax of the woman’s argument, in every English translation I have checked, goes like this: Read more about Today in Bible translation horrors

So this morning in church we looked at 1 Corinthians 16, and, in what I think is probably a first when teaching on stewardship, everyone there decided to increase their giving. How did I do it? Read more about With regard to the collection for the saints

I don’t have much intelligent to say about the recent CofE vote. These days I’ve learnt better than to blog when riled up about something. But I do have a comment about the use of Scripture.

Eddie quotes Jon talking about the verse beloved of those in the “yes”-camp, “in Christ there is no male or female”. He makes some good points, that we should listen to the whole counsel of Scripture, that we need to consider it alongside the fact that Paul did write 1 Timothy 2, and so on. And one really bad one: that we need to consider the verse in context. Read more about Straying from the context

I have heard many pastors and preachers tell of how much they love reading the Bible, how it’s a living word to them, and how every time they read it, it comes alive to them and they get something new and fresh from it. I have a dirty secret; that doesn’t happen for me. Yes, I love reading the Bible, but what generally happens is that I pick it up, and I go: I know this. I’ve read it, many many times, forward and backwards, in English and Japanese, Greek and Hebrew. This is not new information for me. Read more about The Bible isn't new to me

Reading about the translation of Jn 3:16 in the Japanese Sign Language Bible reminded me of something that’s been sitting on my ever-expanding “wild ideas” list for quite some time now: we need a new translation of the Bible into Japanese. Or possibly two. Read more about Why we need another Japanese Bible translation (or two)

I’ve been thinking a lot about Mark 2 recently; the paralysed man being led to Jesus by his friends. There’s a lot of richness in their: how Jesus recognises their effort, ingenuity and love in bringing this man to him, and Jesus calls that faith; how the paralysed man has no choice in his situation but his friends decide (unilaterally?) to create an encounter with Jesus, in effect lending their faith to him. Using our faith to set up encounters between Jesus and the people we meet is, basically, what we’re trying to do here. But that’s not what I want to talk about. Read more about Mud and tiles

When Jesus rose from the dead and appeared first to the women, he must have known that, in those days, the testimony of a woman would be considered half as valuable as that of a man. He must have known that the disciples would not believe them.

In fact, if he knew those things and he knew what he was doing, then he must have appeared first to the women because he knew that the disciples would not believe them. Read more about To the women first

As a student of linguistics*, a lover of the Bible, a missiologist interested in contextualization, and a frequent transgressor of the Eleventh Commandment, (“Thou shalt not hold strong views on controversial issues”) it’s no real surprise that I have a thing or two to say about the Son of God translation fracas. It seems very reminiscent of the equally silly debate about whether or not Bible translators should use the word Allah for God in Arabic translations of the Bible. Read more about Theologically acceptable translation

I love Japanese, but it’s a confusing language sometimes. The Japanese word hato is used to refer to both the horrible grey birds that steal your sandwiches and then poo on you, and the lovely white birds that used to fly out of the Olympic flames until the Koreans accidentally barbecued them. Read more about Words don't have meanings