What Bible Translation Should I Use?
Could you spare a minute or so and let me know the Bible version you might recommend that is similar to the New King James version but different?
I have already, in hard copy, the New International Version, New Living Translation, New King James, and The Message, which I know is a paraphrase!
I’m currently using and have significantly marked up a New King James version which, of all things, happens to be an Andrews Study Bible with all the Adventist notes on the bottom of the pages. I cross reference it myself often and enjoy the simplicity of it.
I know Nikki reads from a particular version very consistently on the podcast. I was wondering what hers is?
Having Adventist notes on my current Bible has been both amusing at times and helpful to see the stark differences between where I am now and where I was many years ago!
Blessings to you!
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Nikki usually reads from the English Standard Version (ESV). It is a good version, but frankly, even though our pastor uses it when he preaches (he studies in Greek and Hebrew), he actually corrects its renderings every now and then. His corrections almost alway line up with the New American Standard 1995 (NASB95) version. That is the version I use for studying.
There is a new version which has just come out in the past couple of years called the Legacy Standard Bible. It was produced by a team of scholars and linguists based in The Masters Seminary. It is very similar to the NASB95 version, but it has updated a few words, especially the names of God. For example, in the NASB, wherever the word LORD (in all capitals) is used, in either Testament, that capitalized LORD represents the Hebrew YHWH, or Yahweh. The LSB uses Yahweh instead of LORD so that we know we are dealing with the personal name of God. Interestingly, our pastor ALWAYS says Yahweh when he reads Scripture out loud, whenever he encounters that word translated LORD.
That is one example of the more accurately updated renderings. The LSB is a version most similar to the NASB95, and the NASB95 has usually been considered to be the most accurate word-for-word translation.
The NIV is a “thought equivalency” translation; it is not as word-for-word as the NASB, but it takes the original Hebrew and Greek and renders them in more updated English phrases that are easier to understand, and it “flows” a bit better in English than does the NASB. (The NIV is the version I used when I studied my way out of Adventism. The Bible I used then is one of my treasures even though I now study in the NASB.)
The ESV is sort-of between the NASB and the NIV: it is more word-for-word than the NIV, but it still renders phrases in more easy-to-read English syntax.
Nikki and I are planning to switch in the podcast to the LSB. We may go ahead and finish Revelation using the ESV as we have been doing when we read the text, but when we are done, we’re planning to switch to the LSB.
All to say, the NASB95, the ESV, the LSB, and the NIV are all good translations.
So….enjoy! The Bible is such a new book for us formers, isn’t it?! It is itself a joy!
Help! How Do I Talk to My Adventist Friend?
I have a dear friend who is Adventist. How do I reach out to him so he can know the true Jesus Christ? He is upset with me when I share your videos with him.
Please send me questions or anything that I could ask him regarding Adventism, comparing it to the Bible.
I am really looking forward to your help.
Thank you so much for your videos; they teach me a lot and strengthen my faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: It is really hard to reach Adventists with the truth of Scripture unless they want to know. I will give you a couple of suggestions, and I will also give you some resources.
First, here is a link to an article that explains the differences between the Adventist worldview and a Christian, biblical one. Both use the same words, but the definitions are different, and often neither the Adventist nor the Christian understands that they are actually using different vocabularies. Here is the link: What Is Seventh-day Adventism?
Second, have you found our podcasts, Former Adventist Podcast? It’s possible that he might listen to these and begin to see the differences between what he believes and what the Bible says. In these we talk about how we believed as Adventists but how we had to retrain our understanding through contextual Bible study. Our series on the 28 Fundamental Beliefs of Adventism are grouped here: https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2021/10/04/inspecting-adventisms-fundamental-beliefs/. You might find these podcasts helpful as well.
Third, the best way to understand Adventism and to help an Adventist understand truth and reality is actually to study the Bible with him. Adventists are not taught to do contextual Bible study. They are taught to use proof-texts taken out of context and made to support their ideas, but in context the texts don’t mean what the Adventists say they mean. If possible, I would attempt to set up a regular time to study the Bible with this person, even once a week. This is how my husband and I began to see that Adventism didn’t teach biblical truth; our neighbors studied with us, simply reading through whole books of the New Testament, one chapter a week, and talking about what we read. We used no outside commentaries, and we had to support whatever we thought the chapter was saying with passages from Scripture. I can’t tell you how often our neighbor Mel would look at us and say, when we offered an idea, “Where do you find that in the Bible?”
We finally realized we were getting our ideas from the prophet, Ellen G. White, and we had previously had no idea those ideas came from her. We thought they came from the Bible, but the Bible did not say them!
I would start with Galatians, move on to Hebrews, to John, to any of the epistles—and just take the time to simply read and study together.
Finally, although we are not currently publishing a printed version of Proclamation! magazine, all our back issues are online here: https://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/
We have also added your name to our weekly Proclamation! email updates. You may need to add the email address LifeAssuranceMinistries@gmail.com to your contacts in order for the email not to be directed toward your Spam folder. These emails will arrive every Friday. Archived articles are available at ProclamationMagazine.com.
You have already found our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/FormerAdventist/featured
Also, you might like to subscribe to our podcasts here; many say these help them unpack the Adventism hidden in the recesses of their minds: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-adventist/id1482887969
Please feel free to email any time!
I Need More Information about Adventism and Its Differences
I’m an Australian who has been attending an Adventist church for the past four or five years. I’ve attended consistently for about three years, and I was baptized just over a year ago. I really got involved more when COVID happened, and then we had major flooding in our town (our home was impacted), and that’s when I made the decision to be baptized—but I’m beginning to see why I hesitated for so long.
I was raised reading the Bible but never attended church. My family were Anglicans so I had the true gospel message.
I recently read Steve Hassan’s book Combatting Cult Mind Control, and prior to that I was thinking that Adventists were probably a cult…certainly there are cultish tendencies, and the history of Adventism is rife with evidence of cultic behavior. I see that now.
My biggest concern is that my husband has been Adventist since he was a child…We both have children from previous relationships. When we met he wasn’t attending church, although he still had faith in Adventism. Since COVID hit the world, he very much fell back into the doomsday mindset, and he is heavily involved in the church now and is currently an elder. We’ve never had an easy time talking about faith. I don’t know how to talk to him about this, and I don’t feel I am knowledgeable enough to discuss my reasons for wanting to leave the church. Every time I try, he gives me proof texts that I don’t quite understand as it’s all convoluted the way Adventists twist them…I do see tiny cracks in his convictions, but I don’t know how to have those conversations, and I don’t have enough knowledge of how he understands the Bible…
I don’t agree with EGW’s works doctrines, but when I attended church on Saturday (as I’m now calling it!!!), our preacher read from John 15:5-17 and Luke 17:7-10 and somewhere in 1st Corinthians to talk about works and following the law. Now, I don’t know if maybe I am wrong—maybe I do need to follow Adventist law even though I don’t believe in Ellen as a prophet.
Could you please point me in the direction of some more explanations about prescriptive and descriptive texts as I’ve heard spoken about by Colleen and Nikki on the podcast? Also, I need more information on the differences between Adventist interpretations of the gospel and the Christian understanding of the gospel. At this point anything will help. I’m lost and I’m scared, and I think the fact that I’m scared goes to show that there is something not right about the way Adventism makes you think and feel. I have contacted a counselor who specializes in religious abuses and cults, so hopefully this helps.
Sorry this email is a bit all over the place; that’s how my head is feeling about all of this, and I don’t know how to make it cohesive. I have wanted to write for several months but I didn’t know what to ask for. This is my first tentative steps away from the undue coercion that I have experienced.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing. You are definitely not alone!
We have online resources that should provide a lot of help.
I see that you have found the Former Adventist Podcast. That is a good resource to help you understand and unpack your Adventist worldview. I will, however, give you some links and resources in addition.
First, Adventism does not read Scripture IN CONTEXT. That alone changes the meanings of the texts as they use them to support their pre-determined views. Second, Adventism interprets the Bible using Ellen White’s definitions and interpretations instead of a normal, grammatical-historical reading of the words. In other words, Words matter, and context is everything. This article by Nikki will help lay out the “rules” for how to approach and read Scripture: My Rules for Understanding Scripture. We have to remember to read Scripture as we would read any other book. If we do, those proof-texts the Adventist pastor uses will take on completely different nuances. Read in context, those texts do NOT support the use of the Decalogue as a rule of faith and practice for the church.
Importantly, Christians who are born again and indwelled by the Holy Spirit are not less moral than people who follow the law. In fact, having the Author of the Law indwelling us gives us even more detailed and personal conviction of how to apply Scripture and how to live by trusting Jesus instead of self-indulging. Morality does not come from the law; morality comes from God.
We have to understand the biblical covenants in order to understand the proper role of the Sabbath. It was the sign of the old covenant God gave to Israel. In the church, we have a new “remember” command: the Lord’s Supper which we do in remembrance of Him.
Go back and listen to the Former Adventist Podcast episodes 26, 27, 29, 31, 33, and 35 to hear us talk through the covenants; they continue on beginning with #37 and go through Hebrews with us. The old and new covenants are very different. On this side of the cross, we are no longer under the old covenant.
In a nutshell, “prescriptive” texts are texts that give a command; descriptive texts are passages that describe events; they tell stories or give accounts. They are not direct commands. Importantly, the commands of Scripture have to be understood first as they were given to the first audience. For example, God told Israel in the Law that they were not to mix fabrics: no linen and wool, for instance. Women were to go outside the camp for purification, and so forth. Those commands have to be read in CONTEXT. They are given only to Israelite women who are under the Mosaic covenant.
Jesus, however, fulfilled the law, as He Himself said in Matthew 5, and now we are under a new covenant established in His blood. We no longer live by the Mosaic covenant of which the Ten Commandments are the very words (Ex. 34:27, 28). Now we live under the Law of Christ. The commands given in the New Testament are for believers; those who have not trusted Jesus with their sins and believed in His finished work of death for our sins, burial, and resurrection, are not born again. The New Testament commands are NOT commands telling unbelievers how to be good or to be saved. They are commands given to those who have already believed, and they describe how to learn to trust Jesus and live as a true born again believer.
The gospel is clear and simple and is outlined clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4. The Adventist “gospel” includes keeping the law and has an incomplete atonement. In Adventism, Jesus could have failed and was not almighty God in the flesh. The Adventist Jesus did not complete the atonement on the cross but continues it in heaven in the investigative judgment. This is a false gospel.
Adventism has a completely different worldview than the Bible teaches. This article will help you get a basic idea of the Adventist worldview compared with a biblical one: What Is Seventh-day Adventism? I also want to direct you to our podcast series on Adventism’s Fundamental Beliefs. We explain what the Adventists are saying and how those beliefs contradict Scripture. You can find them collected in a group here: https://blog.lifeassuranceministries.org/2021/10/04/inspecting-adventisms-fundamental-beliefs/
I want to suggest that you get a notebook and begin, literally, to copy into it books of the Bible in context. I suggest you begin with Galatians and then move on to Hebrews and to John and so forth. The word of God is living and active and powerful, and it straightens out our Adventist confusion. The gospel is simple: we are born spiritually dead in sin, by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:1–3), but by grace God has made us alive with Jesus when we believe and trust in His taking our imputed sin into Himself on the cross. When we believe Him, we literally pass from death to life (Jn. 5:24), and we are born again and sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who GUARANTEES our eternal future (Eph. 1:13,14).
Here are a couple of videos that will help explain the gospel and the Sabbath and will show the reality of being in the new covenant:
Also, although we are not currently publishing a printed version of Proclamation! magazine, all our back issues are online here: https://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/
We have also added your name to our weekly Proclamation! email updates. You may need to add the email address LifeAssuranceMinistries@gmail.com to your contacts in order for the email not to be directed toward your Spam folder. These emails will arrive every Friday. Archived articles are available at ProclamationMagazine.com.
You might also enjoy our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/FormerAdventist/featured
You have already discovered our podcasts here; many say these help them unpack the Adventism hidden in the recesses of their minds: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/former-adventist/id1482887969
Please feel free to email anytime. †
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