If God is love and can do anything, then why hasn't He fixed the sin and sickness of the world? What is He waiting for? Good human parents never want their children to suffer harm, sickness, or disease. Could God have created parents who love their children more than He does?
Would a mother or father who loves their suffering child say, "Though I could fix you right now, you'll have to wait because I'm busy. When I get back, I'll see what I can do. But if you haven't done everything, I told you, I will let you keep suffering." How sad that so much Christian doctrine portrays a God like that.
How would you feel if the only way you could get to know your girlfriend or spouse is by what a friend told you? If you couldn't know exactly what they said, how could you ever be sure you really know them? That is what we experience when translators tell us what they think God said. If all agree God said such and such, is that proof that He did? Is it possible that all could be wrong, and that God is more loving and wonderful than all of them say He is?
The only reason first century Greek is so difficult is because long ago the original rules of grammar were changed. We still have the original rules, but they have been misused. We need to know exactly what God said. Then we need Him to make sense of the words He inspired so they make sense to us. He is our father, and I believe He always wants us to know how and what He thinks.
Many versions of the Bible come from translators who believe God is unknowable, and some preachers declare that God is different, that He is other than His children. I disagree. God must be like us because He made us like Himself - "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." And when we understand the original Greek text of the Bible, we discover it is easy to know Him.
What prevents people from understanding God is not God's fault but man's. Though God made man in His image, man has fashioned God in man's image, thus we see a God who cannot be totally trusted, and Who can even be cruel.
It is critical to realize that every version of the Bible is nothing more than someone's interpretation of what God said. And when many versions agree that God said something, historically that has become understood as what God really said. But so often the original Greek text, when translated using the original rules of grammar, gives a very different perspective on God. It is a wonderful perspective that changes everything.
This series, The Unseen Emails: Emails to Malcolm Smith is the beginning of my published exploration into what God really meant in the documents of the New Testament. It goes places that are perfectly consistent with the Scriptures yet views them from a perspective that eliminates the contradictions that so many claims they see.
About the Author :
I began writing this book about 25 years ago. At the time, I had begun to acquire an attitude of disdain for the King James translators and those who have come since. As God began to unveil His heart and mind to me, I became angry at both Him, the Church, and translators. Why had they hidden such simple and easy knowledge? My family laughed saying God hadn't hidden anything but had been working to cause us to see it. Of course, they hadn't seen what God had begun to show me either, but neither did they feel slighted by Him. They just watched in amazement as my life began to change, usually for good, but occasionally not so good. Yet, even the bad times always turned out to be good. Later, my oldest son joined me in writing Unseen and began to undo some of the attitude it conveyed. In the last few years, my thoughts have changed dramatically. I now stand in awe of all the translators I so disliked. What the KJV translators comprehended as well as many who are alive today is now utterly amazing to me. In Unseen we explain many places where they display a misunderstanding of what God said, as well as how and why it was missed, but just because translators have misinterpreted something doesn't mean that their interpretations are not true statements. It is just that often, God's words tell us far more than we have realized. Unseen seeks to help believers understand more of what God means while not rejecting any truth they have learned from the interpretations of others. Just because something is a mistranslation does not mean it isn't true. For instance, the phrase by Peter, Casting all of your cares or anxieties upon Him, is not a translation but an interpretation of the result of what Peter was explaining. This rendering fails to give us important information if we are to experience what Peter was writing about. Embedded in the original Greek is the understanding of why we have anxieties and exactly what we are casting on the Lord, as well as how to do it. How in the world can you cast your feelings on the Lord if you don't know exactly what is causing them? Without greater understanding, it is very difficult to know how to accomplish what Peter is interpreted to be saying.
