Howie, I agree, as I said, “far be it from me to improve on Paul’s arrangement of his material”!

Once I noticed how often Paul deals with the topic of death - both ours and Christ’s - in Romans, it was my meditative attempt to lay out his thoughts. I tried to be systematic, but I did not review it rigorously for all the possible implications my rearrangement was making (rightly or wrongly).

I guess I was rejoicing in the death of death in the death of Christ, to recycle John Owen’s old book title!

Howie, I am experimenting with other translations like HCSB, because of what’s happening with the NIV, as I blogged here.

I have commented further about the HCSB over on SydneyAnglicans on a topic on the same comment - scroll down further there for more comments on HCSB.

I plan to comment further on this as time goes by. I do regret that with the changes to the NIV that we appear to be losing a standard Bible in the evangelical world. But my concern is for those congregations who have judged the ESV as being a bit too hard for their level of readers.

Hi Andy, sorry about that. These acronyms are the ones used to identify different English Bible translations.

I will identify them on a spectrum of most literal to sometimes dynamic equivalence (thought for thought, instead of word for word)...

* NASB - New American Standard Bible (best to get the 1995 update), woodenly literal;
* ESV - English Standard Version (an evangelical update of the RSV which you might have grown up on before the NIV was published)
* HCSB - Holman Christian Standard Bible
* NIV - New International Version, which now needs to be distinguished in three guises…
(i) NIV1984 - the version we all used for ages, but now (or soon) being discontinued;
(ii) TNIV - ‘Today’s NIV’ - very gender inclusive version which proved divisive for these reasons, and now being discontinued;
(iii) NIV2011 - the very recent update, 95% same as NIV, with some translational advances, and a milder but still very noticeable gender inclusivity.

All these Bibles are very suitable for study, and give much better access to the sense of the original languages than ones that use short sentences and limited vocab for poor readers, like the Good News or CEV (Contemporary English Version) or paraphrases like The Message or the New Living Translation, although these too have a place.

Speaking to you pastoring in Japan, I’d be interested to know how many versions of the Bible you have in Japanese, and as I ask that question, I remind myself how privileged we are in the English speaking world - spoilt for choice with Bible translations and Christian literature.

Opps…my name should read Jack Wellman, with two “L’s”.  Anyway, this was a good read.

Sandy, I heard our elder once say and a pastor/evangelist say that Romans 7, for them, was one of the most difficult.  I can understand why they might say that…for me, I and II Peter have much to negotiate and careful exegesis is critical.

Hi Andrew, and yes, why not?

When I was composing this, I think I just had to draw the line somewhere. But 8:11 points us to the Spirit’s resurrecting work to come in us, although his work has already begun.

Fair ‘nuff Sandy

My hunch with 8:11 is that Paul mean’s the Spirit’s work in us this side of the resurrection because he says “through his Spirit that dwells in you”. That seems a bit of a weird thing to say if he is talking about a corpse – surely the Spirit won’t be dwelling in us when we are in the grave? Though I guess he could be just clarifying that it is the Spirit who currently lives in us who will one day raise us.