Getting Christianity Right: Finding the Balance We All Need By R. Herbert
In our Christian lives we often come face to face with moral choices, options, and “grey areas.” Getting Christianity Right looks at some of the most common and often difficult of those areas – alphabetically, by topic – where what is right is not obvious, and we must find and maintain Christian balance. The book offers practical Christian advice for a great many situations where we may wonder, “What does the Bible say on this issue?” and “What should I do?” This book has the potential to help you improve your Christian walk in many ways – download a free copy to read on your computer, smartphone, or e-book reader, here.
A New, Free, Christian e-Book App for Your Phone or Tablet!
Completely free for download and use – with no annoying ads, hidden charges, or upgrade requests – this new Christian e-book app can transform your Christian reading on the go! The new app allows you to easily access and read every e-book and Bible on the FreeChristianEBooks.org website directly on your Android smartphone or tablet. All of the many dozens of free Christian books and Bible translations can be read in .epub or .pdf format. Scan the QR code in the image above, or visit the Google Play store here, to download and start carrying your favorite Christian books and Bible translations today!
THE WAY OF GIVING:LEARNING TO LIVE GENEROUSLY By R. Herbert
The Scriptures begin with the story of what God gave humans at the beginning of history and end with what he wants to give them at history’s end. Between these bookends of giving, the Bible teaches generosity in the majority of its sixty-six books. The reason for this is because giving lies at the very heart of the nature of God himself and the lesson for us is that if we really want to learn about God and how we can grow to be more like him, we need to learn more about how to give.
The new free e-book The Way of Giving provides an in-depth look at this core aspect of Christian living, and shows that there are many more opportunities to be generous than we often realize – even if we think we have little or even nothing to give. In fact, there are amazingly powerful ways in which we can all accomplish good through the kind of giving God encourages. Download a free copy of The Way of Giving in your favorite format for reading on computer, e-book reader, or smart phone, here.
Lessons from the Life of Jesus: Practical Insights from the Gospels has always been one of the most popular downloads on this site and is now even better! The new, expanded, third edition includes five new chapters – enhancing an already helpful book and adding many new practical lessons.
Rather than simply retelling the story of the life of Jesus, this e-book focuses on some of the details of the Gospel narratives that are easy to miss, but which can help us to better understand his life and teachings. In each case there are lessons we can learn and apply – sometimes with the potential for an effect on our lives that is well out of proportion to the seemingly small detail that conveys the lesson.
Enrich your understanding of the life and work of Jesus and take away lessons you can apply today. You can download a copy in any of three formats – .pdf, .epub, and .mobi – to read on your computer, smart phone, or e-book reader. No registration or email address is needed – simply click and download from our e-books page here.
Our latest free e-book, Take Courage! The Vital Quality Every Christian Must Have, has just been published and is ready for download in multiple formats. The topic is an important one. We live in an age when courage is seldom found and often unappreciated, but the Bible commands us to utilize courage in many areas of our lives. Take Courage! explains why courage is vitally important for every Christian and looks at how we can have real courage in our own lives. Don’t think courage is just for heroes – this is a book that may change many aspects of your life. Download a free copy (no email or registration needed) here.
When we think of Bible versions we can’t understand, most of us might think of Bibles in the original languages of Hebrew or Greek, or perhaps a medieval Latin Bible. But we often don’t realize how much our own language has changed over the centuries and how difficult it would be for us to read a Bible in English from several hundred years ago. Below, we give the example of the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6 – as it looked in English Bibles every two hundred years from the thirteenth century to today. Before the thirteenth century very little of the Bible was translated into English at all. The first complete English-language version of the Bible dates from 1382 and was credited to the translator John Wycliffe and his followers, so we begin with that time point.
Thirteenth Century – Manuscript in the Library of Cambridge University:
Fader oure that art in heve, i-halgeed be thi nome, i-cume thi kinereiche, y-worthe thi wylle also is in hevene so be an erthe, oure iche-dayes-bred gif us today, and forgif us our gultes, also we forgifet oure gultare, and ne led ows nowth into fondingge, auth ales ows of harme.
Fifteenth Century – Manuscript in the Library of Oxford University:
Fader oure that art in heuene, halewed be thy name: thy kyngedom come to thee: thy wille be do in erthe as in heuen: oure eche dayes brede geue us to daye: and forgeue us oure dettes as we forgeue to oure dettoures: and lede us nogte into temptacion: bot delyver us from yvel.
Seventeenth Century – The King James Version of 1611:
Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdome come. Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heauen. Giue vs this day our daily bread. And forgiue vs our debts, as we forgiue our debters. And lead vs not into temptation, but deliuer vs from euill: For thine is the kingdome, and the power, and the glory, for euer.
Nineteenth Century – The English Revised Version:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Twenty-first Century – The Christian Standard Bible:
Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
The differences between these Bible versions become more noticeable the further we go back, of course, and considering that most of us know what the examples above say before we started to read them, we would probably agree that we would find it difficult to read a whole Bible of the thirteenth, fifteenth, or seventeenth centuries – even if it is in English.
While it may be interesting to see and realize the difficulty we would experience in reading a Bible in our own language unless it were of recent date, we can draw a useful lesson from this. Often, Christians think that the major work of Bible translations into other languages is essentially done. The Bible has, after all, been translated into over 700 languages, and the New Testament has been translated into well over 1200 languages.
While it is true that this means the Bible has been translated into most important languages, it is still equally true that there are many thousands of dialects of these languages that still have no Bible translation. We may think that local dialects are relatively unimportant – for instance, someone in the United States speaking a southern dialect can fairly easily understand someone using an Appalachian dialect – the differences in our dialects are relatively small. But in many language groups the various dialects are just as, or even more, different than what we see in an English Bible of today and an English Bible of the thirteenth century – that you and I would find extremely difficult to read.
The moral of the story is simple. While a great deal of Bible translation work has been tirelessly accomplished by dedicated translators over the past century or so, there are many millions of people who still have no Bible in their own language or only one in a related dialect that is very difficult for them to understand. Understanding this situation can help us to pray more, and more intently, for still-needed translations, and to see the need to support the ongoing work of Bible translators in whatever way we can.
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