Want advice on Church + Bible

[Heidiii]

Well your icon says Christian, so per site rules, you can post anywhere you like. Why do you feel you're not "really" a Christian? If you'd "rather just do what the Lord tells you and see where you wind up," you sound wonderfully Christian to me!

Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment

I guess being so new to it, and having not read that much of the Bible (yet), I kinda worry about people seeing me as "unwelcome". Although Matthew 6.33-34 beautifully sums up how I should be approaching this.

I have always worried about being unwelcome in my life. In many situations in the past that I was forced into, I WAS unwelcome, and it hurt me a lot emotionally. Luckily for me, in more recent years, I've had some amazing friends who have helped me to see otherwise. Although my instinct of worrying a lot about what people will think of me is something that has never completely gone away. So yeah, this is purely about what other people might think.

 

[razeontherock]

Ok Heidi, I'll try not to preach a sermon here, but let me expound a bit.

With the Lord in our life, we ARE unwelcome - in this world. Church is a safe haven from that, a chance to re-focus, recover, and heal. Almost everything about this world tries to tear us away from the Lord, to remove us from His Peace and His ways, and sometimes this big ol' world does a mighty fine job at that.

In contrast, Jesus says of His Church that even the gates of hell will not prevail against her!!

I find that to be absolutely THE most emphatic statement on the subject that could ever be made, and I also just summarized a vast amount of the Psalms for you. The richness of the Psalms and the Gospels beckon me, as I preach myself happy ...

Pay special attention to what Jesus says about children, and take that personally. You aren't the most mature Christian yet? That's not expected of you, and anyone doing so is simply wrong. Neither are any of us loved (or saved) due to our own maturity or growth in the Lord.

Simply sit at His feet, feed on His Word, "bathe" in it if you will. Nothing compares to experiencing His Love first-hand, but a good Church is the only way to share that in a group setting, which is a vital part of His plan ...

 

[Daniel25]

welcome heidiii.

 

[Unix]

NRSV is not good, it has liberal bias.

The normal translation used for college courses, and in worship in mainline denominations, is the New Revised Standard. It's a decent translation in the King James tradition (though completely redone from the original languages).

... what I mean is that it's futile to endorse new versions just because there were "many scholars" on the translations team - because that doesn't mean accurasy, and the older versions aren't always defeated regarding style either!

it uses the best modern scholarship. I recommend either something like the New Oxford Annotated Bible, or using a separate commentary. There's a lot of background material that you need to understand what is going on, and a study bible or annotated Bible will give you that.

But it fails to do so

The NRSV tries to be fairly readable,

Incorrect. The NT of the CEV came in 1991 BEFORE the 1992 GNT edition. I've read a lot of opinions and they all say that the CEV and Good News are NOT linked.

There are more choices for the free translation. I use the TEV, a.k.a. Good News Bible. It was replaced a few years ago by the CEV (Contemporary English Version), which I never liked.

Here's a list where I sort Bibles in groups on the basis how good they are:
Complete rating of English Bibles 18th-21st century +Swedish & Finnish 18th-20th cent

 

[Heidiii]

It's okay, I have got my bible and I look online for explanations when studying it. The question of which Holy Bible I should get is no longer important.