I have been asked to deliver the message at the 2011 Fall meeting of the West Chowan Baptist Association. I'm posting the notes here for anyone who would like a copy. I also intend to post the audio after I deliver the message.

The notes are in .pdf format and are the same pages I'll be bringing with me into the pulpit tonight. That is to say there are other notes from research and outlining that are not included here. Below is the title and outline of the message.

"Is There a Role for Local Associations in the 21st Century?"
Acts 16:4-5

Outline: What would an effective and relevant local association ministry look like?

1. Encouragement in Sound Doctrine and Theological Accountability
2. Becoming a Channel of Financial Resources Rather than a Reservoir
3. Establishing, Equipping, and Empowering Churches

**UPDATE** 10/19 The audio file of the message is available for download here.

One of my favorite segments in all of sports journalism is ESPN's C'mon Man before Monday Night Football. They go back over Sunday's games and pick out the funniest moments. These hilarious incidents often involve a player doing something that leaves commentators and viewers wondering what he was thinking. Hence the name.



The debate over the NIV update has had some c'mon man moments lately. My purpose here is to plead with NIV 2011 critics to be fair in your criticism of the translation: not to demagogue, not to oversimplify, not to accuse translators of ulterior motives.

I want people to criticize when they find problematic passages in the NIV 2011. I hope people will publish, blog, and tweet when they see ways that we can better understand the Bible. I don't believe any translation is above question. Every translation can be improved, even if only in slight ways here and there.

What kind of criticisms am I talking about? What should be out of bounds? Here's a sampling.

1. Charges that the NIV 2011 (or functional equivalency in general) attacks the foundation of inerrancy.

There are firmly committed inerrantists on both sides of this debate. Both agree with the doctrine and want to see it upheld. However, it is a logical fallacy to say that formal equivalence necessarily follows as the only, or even the best, translation philosophy. Those who advocate functional equivalence or some balance between the two (every English translation balances the two at some point) do so because they believe in the full verbal, plenary inspiration of the original autographs as much as you.

Make the argument that formal equivalence is better, but don't pretend that you are any more committed to inerrancy than anyone else in this debate.

2. Charges that the NIV 2011 "edits" or "takes liberties" with God's word.

At one level, you could say that any translation edits God's word. Translation is no easy task. Every, and I do mean every, translation has points where it departs from literal renderings in order to make a passage make sense in English. Is this "editing"? That's such a pejorative term. I don't think that's how any translator would classify his or her work.

Are the ESV translators "editing God's word" when they depart from a literal rendering? Is the NASB "editing God's word" when it adds words in italics that the translators feel like are understood in a Greek construction? Where does "editing" begin and translation end? Sure, you may be able to define the tipping point for yourself—what you prefer. But when others disagree, don't paint them with terms you wouldn't want to be painted with if someone disagreed with your own preferences.

3. Charges that the NIV is filled with "inaccuracies" or "errors".

Comments like this act as if Bible translation is as simple as some kind of true/false high school exam. There's a right and wrong answer to everything. Accurate and inaccurate are simple categories and translation decisions are easily put in one of the two.

Most difficult translation decisions come at places where there is more than one possible rendering and there are advantages and disadvantages to each possible choice. We are not always going to agree on those answers. But we need to always read charitably those who come away with a different answer than the one we believe is best.

I rarely find a place in any translation (not counting the NWT!) that I can say is absolutely wrong. There are almost always reasons translators choose what they choose. Sometimes I disagree, sometimes strongly. But my critique of translations in almost all instances begins with, "Now I understand why they translated this way... here are the good things about the translation... and here's why I think something else might be better..." I hear very little of that kind of deference in the NIV discussion.

4. Disproportionate criticism of the NIV compared to other translations.

Yes, the NIV is the best-selling Bible translation. So that means it is important and any revision is going to receive a lot of scrutiny. However, there are plenty of translations that do the same things as the NIV and have never been singled out for this kind of criticism. The NLT is the 4th most popular English translation. It uses more dynamic equivalence than does the NIV and also avoids the generic masculine in some places. The NET translation, a very good, thought less popular translation also makes many of the same kinds of decisions. Has anyone asked LifeWay not to sell those translations?

The HCSB says they try to draw a halfway mark between formal and dynamic equivalence, but I don't hear charges of "editing" or that it is "taking liberties" with God's word.

The real problem with disproportionate criticism is not necessarily that the criticism is invalid. (Let's leave that question aside for now.) The problem is that it doesn't give people a full sense of the issue. This is really a much bigger question and debate than can be accurately conveyed in soundbites and editorials that over-simplify a pretty big and complex question.

I love talking about Bible translation. I want to hear valid criticisms of the new NIV and any other translation. But I want to stop reading simplistic assessments that make me say, "C'mon man."

Denny Burk recently linked to an article in the Westminster Theological Journal by Vern Poythress. The article is titled Gender Neutral Issues in the New International Version of 2011.

I wanted to interact a little with this article because it makes some very valid points of criticism against the 2011 NIV. Readers of my website will know that I have been mostly positive toward the updated NIV. I still use the 1984 NIV as my main Bible for preaching and teaching. I haven't yet decided if I will use the new NIV. (I won't anytime soon because the vast majority of our church will still be using the 1984 version. But I do think this is an issue worth thinking about few years in advance of when I will need to make a choice.)

Poythress' Main Point
The main problem Poythress addresses in his article is the move from 3rd-person singular pronouns (like "he" or "him" or "his") to 3rd-person plural pronouns (like "they" or "them" or "theirs"). This move by the NIV translators is designed to show readers that the original text wasn't specifically addressing men only, but both men and women.

There's no good singular way in English to refer to a person without respect to that person's gender. It's why you've seen such awkward things in writing as "he/she" or "his or her". So to avoid that kind of awkward construction, people today sometimes use a technically plural pronoun ("them") while still meaning one person. Example: If anyone wants some water, they should take a drink from the water fountain. English teachers cringe but most of us shrug.

So the 2011 NIV makes this same kind of move. Poythress lists at least eight passages (says examples could be multiplied) where the move to plural does really obscure the meaning of the verse. And I agree with his examples. A few of these are moderate to big changes in meaning (Heb 2, maybe John 14:23). The rest of them are what I'd call slightly significant. (Proverbs 11:9, 12:15, etc...)

The first thing I'd note is that he's right. Most of the verses he lists are better in the 1984 NIV and could cause some confusion as produced for the 2011 version.

The second thing I'd say is these eight verses are hardly enough to discredit the translation as a whole. Now, Poythress says these examples can be multiplied. That's a little ambiguous. By a factor of 2? By a factor of 20? That makes a big difference. We need a more exhaustive study to see how prevalent this really is. I have to think he pulled the most obvious and egregious verses for his examples. If these are the peak of the mountain then we may only be looking at a molehill.

The third thing is that he admits that he notices the problem occurring mostly in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Did those books slip through a less careful editor when they were evaluating the TNIV? If that is the case, and some parts may suffer from this more than others—then it isn't fair to take most of the examples from there and then act as if it is representative of the whole translation.

I need to see more evidence that this problem is characteristic of the 2011 NIV for me to agree that there really are significant problems with the translation. For now, I think it belongs in the category of "a few places that could use improvement." (BTW, there is no English translation that doesn't have spots that fall into that category.)

A Few Other Points
Poythress also names a few other problems he's seen in the NIV discussion. He points out the awkwardness and connotation of "that person" (Rev. 3:20; 22:18) doesn't align with the simple "he" pronoun. I think he's right there too. But again, this is hardly a big issue as far as translations are concerned. Area for improvement? Yes. Reason to reject the translation? Hardly.

Poythress also articulately points out some of the limitations of the Collins Report. I thought most intriguing was his (I think valid) point that the report likely underestimates how often the generic masculine is still used in modern English.

Conclusion
I think Poythress is right that the 2011 NIV should have made more extensive use of the generic masculine. But is that "should have" enough to draw condemnation for the whole translation? Surely not. There is no translation that would survive a fine-tooth comb and people saying "this verse should have been clearer!" We strive for perfection in Bible translation but we don't reject good translations because they fail to live up to that perfection.

Everything I've seen so far is telling me that the improvements to the NIV greatly outweigh the drawbacks its critics have been able to point out.

We're working through a series on spiritual gifts at our church. I had a hard time finding resources I was happy with so made a few of my own. I also reformatted some resources I was happy with for printing and wanted to make those available for anyone who'd like to use them.

The Resurgence on Spiritual Gifts
This was the most helpful material I found. However, it was spread out across 20 different articles and the images and formatting caused most of the articles to print on two pages. So it just didn't make for good handout material. I went through, and worked on the formatting and took out almost all of the images so that each article fits on its own page and the gifts are now in alphabetical order. This makes a 10-page (front and back) handout. PDF

Juan Sanchez Article at The Gospel Coalition
This is a one-page article I really appreciate. It discusses the drawbacks of spiritual gift inventories and provides a more biblical way of thinking about and discovering how the Holy Spirit would use us on our churches. I formatted this article to fit on one page. PDF

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America—Spiritual Gifts Inventory
I know I just mentioned an article that discussed the drawbacks of spiritual gift inventories. That said, I think they can be useful if used with the proper disclaimers. So you can take this one online or I made a four-page printout version for in-class usage. PDF | Pages File (if you'd like to make changes/edit)

Spiritual Gifts by Scripture Passage
There are numerous versions of this kind of thing out there. It's going to depend on some different factors as to how all of these get named and categorized. I couldn't find one I was completely happy with, so I made my own version. The names of the gifts are mostly taken from the NIV. PDF | Pages File (if you'd like to make changes/edit)

In my reformatting, I've tried to give full credit to the original sources. My only goal is to get this in a format that's easy to use for a classroom setting. I hope it will be helpful to others as well.

So in what may be the only action the 2011 Southern Baptist Convention took that I disagreed with, a resolution against the 2011 NIV was passed overwhelmingly. It came from the floor, rather than the committee, which is highly unusual. The committee had read the resolution and declined to offer it for consideration.

The committee was exactly right. The resolution should have never seen the light of day. Such an important issue should have never been voted on by people so ill-informed about as complicated an issue as Bible translation. As much as some want to paint the issue as black and white, good vs. evil, it is not as simple as that.

As the discussion displayed - many of the people didn't even know how to evaluate the new NIV. One well-meaning gentleman stood up and said that we shouldn't condone translations that use gender-neutral language for God. I agree! But the NIV doesn't do that. The applause his comment received made it clear to me that this was an exercise in misunderstanding and misinformation.

If you leave aside the gender-related issues for the sake of argument, everyone should agree the NIV 2011 is an excellent translation—one of the best available in English, which has many solid translations. The improvements made to an already great translation will only better serve the church.

I'm currently preaching through Romans 8. This is one of very few passages (esp. 8:1-17) where the 1984 NIV really frustrates me. ('sinful nature' instead of 'flesh', 'spirit' instead of 'Spirit' in v.10, lack of consistency throughout, others) The 2011 translation is head and shoulders better than 1984's, and I would argue, surpasses any other English translation I've looked at.

In what ways is the 2011 NIV neutral with regard to gender?
All but a select few examples of "gender-neutrality" in the new NIV are made because the translators believe the generic masculine is dropping out of usage in modern English. They are right. Even the most conservative, complementarian writers avoid the generic masculine in their own writings when possible. Regardless of theological perspective, we should have no problem with these changes. A few examples:

Acts 25:16

But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean. (1984)

But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. (2011)

1 Cor 14:5

He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets, so that the church may be edified. (1984)

The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified. (2011)

A few people might have problems with "they/their" for "his", but this is actually how many (most?) people talk and write today. Does it obscure the meaning? Only if you're working from a traditional paradigm that says "they" cannot be used as a singular pronoun.

Eccl. 5:19

Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God. (1984)

Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God. (2011)

In all of these instances, we must remind ourselves that a translation should reflect the way a language actually is, not the way we think it should be. I prefer English with a generic masculine. I think it adds clarity and is helpful. But translators are not here to tell us how we should talk. They do their job best when they reflect actual common usage of a language.

Actual Problems?
Now there are a few (and I mean few) verses that people have voiced substantial complaints with. 2 Timothy 2:2 ('men' 1984 vs. 'people' 2011), 1 Tim 2:12 ('have' 1984 vs. 'assume' 2011), Psalm 2:7 ('Son' 1984 vs. 'son' 2011), to name the verses I've heard the most discussion over.

The problem with all of these are that there are good points to be made on both sides, even by people equally conservative and equally committed to a complementarian view of gender. You may think the translation committee should have chosen differently than they did in these instances, but at least admit that people can disagree without coming to the text with any kind of feminist agenda.

If subjected to the same kind of scrutiny, what translation would not have some notable problems? (If you say the ESV, then see here.) Maybe not with the same issues or same verses, but there is no perfect translation. We have several excellent translations in English and the 2011 NIV is another to add to that list.

Earlier today our church voted, with little opposition to adopt a revised constitution. There are several issues in the revision I'm glad we were able to address: deacon selection process, naming the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as our official statement of faith, moving our normal revival services date to a more convenient time.

We also added our church covenant to the constitution. The covenant was adopted in 1896 at the same time the church was founded. It is similar (identical?) to most church covenants adopted around that time period. Overall it was a very biblical, helpful statement about many aspects of life together as a church family.

However, in adding the covenant to our constitution, the church also decided to amend one clause in the document. Where the previous text read that we pledged to "abstain from the sale and use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage, and to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our Savior." The church adopted new wording for that clause so that it now says that we pledge to "abstain from the abuse of drugs and intoxicating drinks as a beverage, and to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our savior."

So we added drugs as a concern and also changed from 'abstaining from the use' to abstaining from the abuse." So the new language does permit the use (but not abuse!) of alcoholic drink. More importantly, in my mind, is that we now no longer have this extra-biblical requirement for church membership.

Here are some reasons I am glad we made this change:

1. It allows us to avoid adding to biblical commands for salvation or church membership. Regardless of whether you think drinking alcohol is a bad thing or not, I hope we can all agree that someone should not be denied church membership or disciplined out of church membership for occasionally drinking alcohol in moderation. The way our covenant was worded, we were actually saying: "If you choose to drink, you cannot be a member here." That should send chills down your spine—to think we would elevate a extra-biblical command to that level.
2. It moves us closer to being grace-centered, rather than law-centered. It is all-too-common (especially in this area of the country) for people to mistake Christianity with moralism. In most people's minds, Christians are people who "don't do" this and that. I'm glad to take a shot at that misperception by taking out one of those common "commandments" of moralism.
3. It allows us to take our covenant seriously. For years and years (long before I ever arrived as pastor), we've had members who have chosen to drink occasionally. So when we read our covenant together, that clause reinforced the idea that we didn't really mean what we were saying—that it was ok to not take this covenant seriously. So, if we were to begin taking our covenant seriously, we're faced with one of two choices: (1) Discipline those members who drink. or (2) Change the covenant.
4. It reminds us to think biblically about human regulations. It reminds us that "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" have only the appearance of wisdom. But they lack any value in actually restraining sensual indulgence. (Col. 2:21-23)

I hope that this will not be construed as a desire to promote drinking in people who have chosen not to. I also hope this will not be seen as a reason for people who have chosen to drink to drink more and more often. That is not my intention nor the intention of our church. I recognize that it could be misconstrued that way by some. But we must stand on the Bible. We cannot add our own preferences as criteria for joining God's people, the church.

Over the past six months, I've slowly made the decision that I will not fly commercially until the TSA enhanced security measures are removed. Commentary on the issue is widely available, but I wanted to post some of the things that have caused me to come to the conclusion I have.

Below are some videos, articles, and quotes from people who have some personal (way too personal) experience with the TSA.

Former Miss USA in Tears After Being "Searched"


6-Year Old Girl Groped in Security Line


Pregnant Teacher Harassed for "Explosives"
"The lady then called for backup because they said they found “traces of explosives” on my hands. I asked if it was policy to search and profile young pregnant women who obviously did not come into contact with ANYTHING explosive or dangerous, and asked why they searched my wallet without asking me. They did not respond." Read about the whole incident here.

Woman Accused of Embezzlement by TSA for Having Checks in Pocket
"Everything in my purse was out, including my wallet and my checkbook. I had two prescriptions in there. One was diet pills. This was embarrassing. A TSA officer said, 'Hey, I've always been curious about these. Do they work?' Read more here.

Rape Victim Refuses Intrusive Pat-Down, Thrown to Ground and Handcuffed



Another Woman in Tears Because of Invasive Search
I started to cry…. "I don't want you to touch me," I said again… It didn't matter. Latex fingers felt under my bra, inside my waistband, all with a Southern accent narrating. "Now I'll touch your breasts. Now your stomach." It went on. "Now turn around." Read the whole thing here.

You can find plenty of similarly disturbing stories here: We Won't Fly.

Ed Stetzer points out the Christian Booksellers Association have released the list of best selling Bible translations for this year. NIV was #1, KJV #2. ESV came in at number five and HCSB at 6. Check out the list here.

I'd like to point you to an article by Dr. Russell Moore that makes a great point: we only show and tell the good parts of our lives online, for the most part. So when you look at Facebook, it tends to depress you because it seems like everyone else is having so much more fun than you.

Take a look here. Dr. Moore is always worth reading and I thought this one particularly worthy of sharing. Moore says:

Slate magazine cites a paper in a social psychology journal that started with an observation about how college students felt more dejected after logging on to Facebook. There was something saddening about “scrolling through others’ attractive photos, accomplished bios, and chipper status updates.” The students’ moods were darkened because they believed everyone else was happier than they are.

Journalist Libby Copeland speculates that Facebook might “have a special power to make us sadder and lonelier.” How can this be, though, when Facebook is generally so, well, happy, brimming with smiling faces and beautiful families? Well, that’s just the point.

Great interview by Justin Taylor with Christian Hip-Hop artists Lecrae and Trip Lee.

Justin Taylor Interview: Lecrae Moore and Trip Lee from Crossway on Vimeo.

Here's one of my favorite Lecrae songs. You can find his iTunes page here.

Don't Waste Your Life - Lecrae (Official Music Video) from Edd Blott on Vimeo.