Over the last five weeks we have been taking a look at The Lord’s Prayer and today we come to the end of verse 13 which says …
Matthew 6:13
“For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
That is a grand statement! I love getting to that part of the Lord’s Prayer and proclaiming that great truth! The curious thing is … that it’s not found in every Bible!
We know that it is the truth because it is a theme that runs throughout the Bible!
The Kingdom of God is never mentioned in the OT. But it just explodes onto the scene in the NT with around 150 references!
So, why is that part of verse 13 in some Bibles and not in others?
Currently, scholars are aware of over 5,700 manuscripts that contain some portion of the New Testament, and the total is growing slowly as additional manuscripts are discovered. Among these manuscripts, a couple thousand contain all or portions of the Biblical Gospels.
Besides textual evidence derived from the New Testament Greek manuscripts and from early versions, there are numerous scriptural quotations included in the commentaries, sermons, and other writings by early Church fathers. Indeed, so extensive are these citations that if all other sources for our knowledge of the text of the New Testament were destroyed, they would be sufficient alone for the reconstruction of practically the entire New Testament.
So, from these 5,700 manuscripts and thousands upon thousands of quotes of New Testament Scriptures how are they able to determine what the original text said?
Let me give you an example which is a vast oversimplification of how the attempt is made to “back into” the text of the original manuscripts.
(Show PPT slide of the letters J L M T I K -
representing Jesus Loves Me This I Know)
Let’s pretend this is a text in the original manuscript but we don’t have the original manuscript. Instead we have five copies from the original manuscript.
This is what they show:
J L M T I K
J L M T I K
J L M T I K
J L Y T W K
J L M T I K
Now it’s easy to see that the fourth line is different.
This one says: Jesus Loves You This We Know
It is not the same as the majority of the copies so it is discarded in favor of the majority texts. Perhaps a scribe was trying to make it more inclusive. Who knows? The important thing is that we were able to recover and verify the original text.
What if the five copies looked like this?
J L M T I K
J L M I K T
J L M T I K
J L M T I K
J L M T I K
This time the phrase in error says, Jesus Loves Me I Know This. The same words with the same meaning but perhaps rearranged by error or perhaps rearranged for readability. In either case we end up with the original text.
How about if it looked like this?
J L M T I K
J L M T I K
J L Y T W K
J L Y T W K
J L M T I K
In that case the Bible might say, “Jesus Loves Me This I Know” with a note that some manuscripts say, “Jesus Loves You This We Know”.
There is a great range of Bibles
Some Bibles are paraphrases of the Bible such as
The Message - written by Eugene Peterson and
The Living Bible - written by Kenneth B. Taylor
We need to know that these include the writer’s interpretation of Scriptures and should not be used for detailed study but for casual reading and if any thoughts seem unusual they should be checked in a solid translation.
Three notes about The Living Bible
- Pastor Karenlee grew a great deal in her walk with the Lord over the early years of her walk with Christ while she was using The Living Bible
- In his crusades Billy Graham distributed over 600,000 copies of The Living Letters which is a printing of the epistles taken from The Living Bible
- When it came time to update The Living Bible paraphrase it was actually rewritten into the New Living Translation
OK, so we’ve got paraphrases. Then we have translations:
We know and use many of these, KJV, NKJV, NIV, NASB, RSV, ESV, HCSB
On BibleGateway.com I read the translators notes about their efforts and while some said very little, the ones mentioned above were quite exhaustive and convincing in their sincerity at trying to be faithful to God’s Holy Word.
On the far end of the spectrum are bibles that are intentionally misinterpreted such as the Joseph Smith Translation, The Jehovah’s Witness Bible aka New World Translation and one that I won’t even put on the screen the Queen James bible (by homosexuals for homosexuals).
So, why are we even talking about this?
It is because today we are addressing the phrase “for Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” in the Lord’s prayer and it is found in some translations and not in others.
Now, let me just give you something to chew on as we think about the validity of these translations …
One person who was advocating one and only one translation referred to the NIV the ESV and other modern translations as “damnable translations”.
Look at this list of English Bible translations - these are just the highlights.
English Std. Ver. - 2002
New Revised Std. Ver. - 1990
New King James Ver. - 1982
New International Ver. - 1973
New American Std. Bible - 1971
Revised Std. Ver. - 1952
American Std. Ver. - 1901
English Revised Ver. - 1885
Young’s “Literal” Translation - 1863
King James - 1611 (1769)
Rheims - 1582
Geneva Bible - 1557
Tyndale / Coverdale / The Great Bible - 1530’s
Wycliff - 1380’s (hand written)
Some folks sincerely believe that only one of these translations was accomplished by the direction of the Holy Spirit.
If that is true it either means that the others were merely human efforts at best or purposely corrupt versions meant to lead people away from God.
Can you believe a greater victory for the devil than to get us arguing over translations of the Bible?
Especially out in the open where the world can hear us?
Does the evil one dance with joy when we trash one version or another of Lord’s Holy Word?
Just a thought … and while many are busy beating other people up over what translation of the Bible to use it makes me wonder, how does this help to accomplish, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven”?
I have probably spent way too much time trying to explain why the words
“for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.” are in some Bibles but not others.
But, please bear with me and let me try to explain why it is so important.
The Word of God is where we come to know God!
We are spiritual beings, created in the image of God. God uses the Bible to reveal Himself to us
with the revelation being brought to life by the Holy Spirit.
We love God’s Word. We defend God’s Word. God defends His own Word.
In all of the research I did for this sermon there was much belligerence and condemnation of others because of the feeling that God’s Word was being mistreated.
And, we should be upset if blasphemy is taking place, and, the purposeful mistranslation of the Bible would be blasphemy.
But … if the translators of the Bible from Greek into English are being motivated by the Holy Spirit to make those translations and someone claims that they are “damnable translations” then it is the accuser who is guilty of blasphemy.
Never once did I see the attitude of broken hearted weeping over the supposed mistranslations. No sorrow, only anger and accusation.
There was a time that Jesus was being accused by the Jewish leaders of casting out casting out demons by the power of the devil.
Matthew 12:25
“Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”
Jesus was making a universal statement here - a kingdom divided against itself will fall!
Illustration:
Suppose an army had two self-centered generals and there was an enemy stronghold that seemed impossible to overcome. And suppose one general was able to take the stronghold but the second general was jealous so he started fighting against the first general in order to claim the victory as his own.
Soon both powerful forces would be decimated and the enemy would most likely be able to retake the stronghold.
We, as Christians, live our lives for the King of kings and LORD of lords.
He is our Commander in Chief!
He has instructed us to have as our highest prayer and goal that His kingdom would come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
How can that prayer be answered when we’re beating each other up over what Bible we use or what kind of music we use for worship or how we dress for church?
I never had the privilege of serving in the military. So, I cannot comprehend the inter-service rivalries between the army and the air force and the navy and the marines and the coast guard and the national guard and on and on. Aren’t they all fighting for the same country? Haven’t they all vowed to give their lives if necessary to defend the USA? Wouldn’t cooperation be more effective?
What if all of us to have trusted Jesus for salvation and who love His Holy Word started loving each other, laying aside our differences, praying for each other that the Lord would strengthen us all. God has called us all to battle and the battle belongs to the LORD.
To my Baptist brothers and sisters whom I have mocked and ridiculed because they have a different understanding of how we come to know Jesus I say, “I am sorry, please forgive me!”
In the past I have been confronted by those who are unbelievers and who mock the God I love and I have treated them with an ungodly spirit. To them I say, “I am sorry, please forgive me!”
To the God whom I serve and whom I have failed so often by having the wrong attitude in so many ways I say, “I am sorry, please forgive me!”
May my prayer be, may our prayer be, that the Lord will give us the vision and the ability to discern between what is truly fighting for and what is not. May He also give us the grace to speak the truth in love so that we will be building bridges to those who need Jesus instead of building walls to keep them out!
The Israelites whose hearts were very far from God used to make a great show of tearing their garments in mourning and often it was not genuine.
Let us be obedient to the word of the Lord found in
Joel 2:13
“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.”
If we do that, if we are torn in the heart for the Lord, then we will be able to pray with all sincerity and passion:
“Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.”
