Early in my walk with Christ, something so simple turned me away from being as close to the Lord as I wanted to be. That was the fact that I could not understand the Christian manual!
Now the reason it turned me away is because I was ignorant to the fact that there were other versions of the bible outside of the King James Version (KJV). I thought that was the only version of the Bible. My pastor at the time only preached from that version, my “Baby’s First Bible” was in that version (which doesn’t make any sense now that I think of it), and my parents Bibles were in that version. I’d listen to my pastor talk about the importance of reading the Word for ourselves but in my mind I could help but think “sir…none of them words makes a bit of sense to me”. The “thee’s” and “thou’s” intimidated ya girl! I just couldn’t digest it.
There was one evening while I was living with my grandmother that I had gone to hang out with a friend. This friend was an atheist and began to tell me all the reasons why they were an atheist and why Christianity did not make any sense to them. They were dragging Christian’s all threw the mud and were basically calling them stupid and blind. Something that stuck out from this friend’s rant was that their mother was Christian and that GREATLY frustrated them. They went on to talk about all the accomplishments that their mother achieved and how their mother would give all glory to God. They didn’t understand that, and they felt that their mother should’ve given herself more credit.
Once we had departed to go to our homes for the night, I was really thinking about that conversation hard. I think of my grandmother as rather “accomplished” and with her being the strong Christian woman she is, of course gives all glory to God as well. With this knowledge, I decided I would ask her some questions.
Our conversation went something like this:
Me: “Grandma, do you really believe God is behind all the good things you’ve accomplished in life?”
Grandma: “Yes, I do!”
Me: “So… you don’t give yourself credit at all? Like you worked hard all those years and don’t give yourself even a little bit of credit?”
Grandma: “I can’t take any credit! I had nothing to do with my blessings! That was all God!”
Me: “I just don’t think it makes sense for you to have done all that you did and not take any credit at all.”
Grandma: “Where is this coming from?”
Me: “I mean I’m just saying…”
Grandma: “Evette, are you saying you don’t believe in God?”
Me: “I mean… I don’t know.”
Grandma: *frantically grabs her bible from her bedroom* “Okay.. uhh.. Oh Jesus help me right now… Here, I’m gonna show you the story about doubting Thomas, he was a lot like you.”
Me: *raises eyebrow* “Mkay…”
Grandma: *opens her New International Version (NIV) bible with commentary up to the story of doubting Thomas* “Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve—"
Me: *reading ahead* “Wait, wait, wait… these words make sense. What kind of Bible is this?”
Grandma: “It’s called an NIV Bible. That means New International Version.”
Me: Can you get me one?
And it’s been history ever since. The commentary on at the bottom of the pages REALLY changed the game. I had continued reading that passage and other passages and I was just so happy to be able to read the Bible and understand it! It was refreshing and really caused my walk to be stronger.
If you struggle with reading the Bible because you don’t understand the KJV, I got you girl.
I've read about three easy to read versions of the Bible. One is the literal Easy-To-Read version (ERV). I discovered this version while trying to have a Bible study with my 11-year-old sister. I ended up liking it myself! Another good version is the English Stand Version (ESV). A lot of my sisters-in Christ read from this version and love it. And lastly is my fav which is the New International Version (NIV). I will probably always read from this version of the Word of God. I truly understand it and it's the version that I was able to understand first.
Along with your bible, I do want to add that getting a commentary will also help you to better understand the Bible. A commentary is a further break-down of the Scriptures. There’s different types of commentaries that I’ll discuss in a later post but to keep it short, a Bible commentary can either be the literal explanation of how the Bible fits into your life or the break down of what exactly is happening in a passage of scripture.
Alright Blooming Believer’s! Thank you so much for hanging on up to this point! Comment any other easy to read bible versions that you know or share a story of how a version of the Bible may have impacted your life.
I LOVE YOU!