I wasn’t raised in church and definitely didn’t live a righteous life, but I did enjoy reading the Bible as a small child (and as an adult). I believe most of my core beliefs and values came from the Psalms and Proverbs!
Being retired I read them with the corresponding day that way my brain knew the day of the month. 31 Proverbs, 31 days for some months, works well for me!
The Passion Translation. It is a Bible that puts the Psalms, Proverbs, and New Testament in language of today. While I love the KJV of the Psalms for it’s lyrical quality, TPT puts all the precepts of Godly living in Proverbs into easy to understand language.
Just be aware that TPT is theologically unorthodox in places, so I wouldn't recommend it for deep doctrinal study. But if it gets you reading the Word...
(I find the New Living also quite good for modern readable language, if anyone wants a more historically orthodox option.)
While “theologically unorthodox” has a somewhat cloudy meaning, I would agree that it is not the standard for the Word. I have a New Living Bible, an RSV, and an NIV along with a NKJV in larger type because my eyes are getting old. I like TPT because it uses easy to understand language in explaining nuances of the Word. I have found it quite helpful in explaining Proverbs, for instance. If you have a new believer who has never read the Bible, what do you start with first to encourage them to continue?
Version, or passage? I would recommend one of the Gospels in the New Living, personally. (Or possibly another vernacular translation if it fits the person's language/dialect better.) And then maybe some of Genesis and Samuel depending on how much they'd picked up of "bible history", since it's important background to Jesus. Or the epistles maybe... depends on the person.
I was a bit vague about what I meant by unorthodox, mostly because I don't have at hand the reference to what I read were the specific problems. But I recall that it said in quite a few places, TPT added words into the text or translated in a way that favors their preferred theology, which scholars say didn't match the meaning of the original greek. They were mostly focused on the NT though, so I don't know if proverbs is so bad. (But these days, we have the ability to check multiple different translations online which makes it so much easier to get a decent idea of the likely range of valid meanings without having to learn greek or hebrew!)
I am reading a chapter of Proverbs a day out of the TPT. Tomorrow will be chapter 6.
I wasn’t raised in church and definitely didn’t live a righteous life, but I did enjoy reading the Bible as a small child (and as an adult). I believe most of my core beliefs and values came from the Psalms and Proverbs!
So much wisdom. 🙏
Being retired I read them with the corresponding day that way my brain knew the day of the month. 31 Proverbs, 31 days for some months, works well for me!
What is TPT
The Passion Translation. It is a Bible that puts the Psalms, Proverbs, and New Testament in language of today. While I love the KJV of the Psalms for it’s lyrical quality, TPT puts all the precepts of Godly living in Proverbs into easy to understand language.
Just be aware that TPT is theologically unorthodox in places, so I wouldn't recommend it for deep doctrinal study. But if it gets you reading the Word...
(I find the New Living also quite good for modern readable language, if anyone wants a more historically orthodox option.)
While “theologically unorthodox” has a somewhat cloudy meaning, I would agree that it is not the standard for the Word. I have a New Living Bible, an RSV, and an NIV along with a NKJV in larger type because my eyes are getting old. I like TPT because it uses easy to understand language in explaining nuances of the Word. I have found it quite helpful in explaining Proverbs, for instance. If you have a new believer who has never read the Bible, what do you start with first to encourage them to continue?
Version, or passage? I would recommend one of the Gospels in the New Living, personally. (Or possibly another vernacular translation if it fits the person's language/dialect better.) And then maybe some of Genesis and Samuel depending on how much they'd picked up of "bible history", since it's important background to Jesus. Or the epistles maybe... depends on the person.
I was a bit vague about what I meant by unorthodox, mostly because I don't have at hand the reference to what I read were the specific problems. But I recall that it said in quite a few places, TPT added words into the text or translated in a way that favors their preferred theology, which scholars say didn't match the meaning of the original greek. They were mostly focused on the NT though, so I don't know if proverbs is so bad. (But these days, we have the ability to check multiple different translations online which makes it so much easier to get a decent idea of the likely range of valid meanings without having to learn greek or hebrew!)