[No, this isn’t an anti-NLT post.]

Sunday at church, our pastor referenced Matt 7:13 with the NIV text on the overhead screen:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”

Kathy, who refuses to carry anything other than the New Living Translation, nudged me to show me what her Bible said:

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way.“

When the NLT was released in 1996, I spent the next year or so reading it cover to cover. It was unexpected renderings such as this that made me fall fall in love with the dynamic flavor of the NLT. I look at a rendering like “highway to hell” and at first it startles me, but then upon reflection I delight to realize that it absolutely carries the meaning of the phrase, ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀπάγουσα εἰς τὴν ἀπώλειαν, into the contemporary vernacular in a clear and contemporary way.

I also appreciate the verses that employ the word “scum” (Matt 9:11; Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30).


The only problem with the NLT’s rendering of Matt 7:13? Now I have that AC/DC song playing in my head...

Tags: NLT, Matthew

UPDATE: In the list of translations regarding Matt 5:28, I’ve now distinguished between the 1971 and 1995 editions of the NASB. Also based upon user comments, I’ve added the Latin Vulgate and the 1960 Spanish Reina-Valera to the list of translations that render the verse along the lines of what I have concluded is the best understanding. I’ve also re-sorted the translations in regard to their date of release.

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Look up Matthew 5:28 in your own Bible before reading further. There’s a reason I’m not going to quote the verse yet either in my own translation or a Bible version. What I intend to demonstrate below is that some translations get this verse right and some do not--and the results may surprise many readers of This Lamp.

This statement by Jesus, part of the larger Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7), has been a source of frustration for countless individuals--especially men--for two millennia. Of course no one talked about lust until Jimmy Carter’s confession in the now infamous interview in Playboy Magazine (November, 1976):

I try not to commit a deliberate sin. I recognize that I'm going to do it anyhow, because I'm human and I'm tempted. And Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. Christ said, “I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.” ... I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do--and I have done it--and God forgives me for it.

Note that Carter seemingly distinguishes between what he calls “deliberate sin” from this sin of adultery in his heart which he calls an “almost impossible standard.” Why is it an impossible standard? It’s difficult because fleeting thoughts pass through our minds, often without invitation. Whether these uninvited mental visitors are shunned or become welcomed guests is a separate but related matter. But what if I told you that Carter may have unnecessarily struggled with the belief that he was committing “adultery in his heart,” when he may not have been? What if many of us have struggled, confusing the temptation with the actual sin, simply because we were using a Bible with poor translation of this verse?

Understand in what follows, I am not advocating lessening what God calls sin in any degree. Rather, we need to be sure that we understand sin to be what it is and be careful not to add restrictions that the Bible never speaks of. And if we misunderstand sin because of translation of the text, then the translations need to be changed.

This was brought to my attention while reading the book (technically, I’m listening to the 18-hour unabridged audio version) The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. In part of the book (which I highly recommend in spite of an error I’ll explain in a moment), Willard offers a skillfully written exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount. He spends quite a bit of time on Matt 5:27-28 explaining the exact nature of Jesus’ words. On p. 165, Willard writes:

Moreover when we only think of sex with someone we see or simply find him or her attractive, that is not wrong, and is certainly not what Jesus calls “adultery in the heart.” Merely to be tempted sexually requires that we think of sex with someone we are not married to, and that we desire the other person--usually, of course, someone we see. But temptation also is not wrong, though it should not be willfully entered. Jesus himself came under it, experienced it, and understood it.

Therefore those translations of Matt 5:28 that say, “Everyone who looks at a woman and desires her,” or “everyone who looks at a woman with desire,” are terribly mistaken. They do much harm, especially to young people. For they totally change the meaning of the text and present “adultery in the heart” as something one cannot avoid, as something that just happens to people with no collusion of their will.

That on this reading to be tempted would be to sin should have been enough, by itself, to show that such translations are mistaken. No translation of scripture can be correct that contradicts the basic principles of biblical teaching as a whole.

The terminology of 5:28 is quite clear if we will but attend to it, and many translations do get it right. The Greek preposition pros and the dative case are used here. The wording refers to looking t a woman with the purpose of desiring her. That is, we desire to desire. We indulge and cultivate desiring because we enjoy fantasizing about sex with the one seen. Desiring sex is the purpose for which we are looking.

What Willard writes above makes sense on both a theological and practical level. However, in looking at the text itself, I had only one problem: I couldn’t find πρός/pros with a dative in Matt 5:28--

ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ βλέπων γυναῖκα πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτὴν ἤδη ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ.

The Greek word πρός/pros is a preposition initially defined in the BDAG lexicon as “expressing direction ‘on the side of’, ‘in the direction of’: w. gen. ‘from’, dat. ‘at’, or acc. (the most freq. usage in our lit.) ‘to.’” In Matt 5:28 πρός/pros relates to ἐπιθυμέω/epithumeo (translated as lust or sexual desire or simply desire in English translations). But, contrary to Willard, ἐπιθυμέω/epithumeo is not a dative. In fact, it’s an infinitive in the aorist tense. At the end of the verse, there’s a dative--καρδίᾳ/kardia (heart)--but no amount of creative sentence diagramming is going to relate πρός/pros to καρδίᾳ/kardia.

I emailed two folks about this issue: Wayne Leman, Bible translator extraordinaire and my original Greek teacher from 1992, Darrell Pursiful. I asked them both if I was simply missing something that was staring me in the face. But they confirmed what seems abundantly clear simply by looking at the text: πρός/pros is not with a dative in Matt 5:28. So is Willard simply wrong in regard to his whole argument, especially with what he said in the second paragraph I quoted above?

Well, by the time I emailed Darrell Pursiful, I had already confirmed Willard’s basic thesis in a couple of other sources, and Darrell affirmed what I had found.

My first hunch had simply been to look at commentaries on Matthew. But in the brief survey of five or six volumes, including some fairly technical resources such as the ICC and Word series, none really touched directly upon this issue. Looking in Accordance, I pulled up The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament. Here it was mentioned in reference to this verse that πρός/pros with the infinitive often expresses purpose.

I hit the Greek grammars, but did not find anything specific to this issue in Wallace or even basic grammars like Mounce. However, I did find what I was looking for in A. T. Robertson’s big grammar (once again proving that this grammar has never fully been “replaced” by any newer work). On p. 1003, Robertson writes, “In Mt. 5:28, πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι, either purpose or result is possible.” And on p. 1075, Robertson writes that the idiom πρὸς τό “was used by the ancients in much the same sense as εἰς τό and ἐπὶ τῷ, ‘looking to,’with a view to.’”

Darrell also pointed me to Robert Guelich’s book on the Sermon on the Mount, which although I had on my shelf, I had failed to look at when searching commentaries. Sure enough, Guelich writes on pp. 193-194:

The phrase τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτὴν means literally “in order to desire having her (sexually).” The same very to desire to have (ἐπιθυμέω ) appears in the tenth commandment for “to covet” (Exo 20:17, LXX, and Deut 5:21, LXX). “To lust” in English connotes accurately the sensual overtones but lacks the accompanying thought of possession inherent in ἐπιθυμῆσαι.

So, what this comes down to is that Willard’s basic point is right even if he messed up his argument from the original languages. I can give him the benefit of the doubt that perhaps he may have simply had a brief mental lapse and it wasn’t caught at time of publication. I have a print copy of the book as well which contains the same error (I reproduced his argument above using it), but I don’t know if more recent printings have corrected the mistake.

What this means on a practical level is that Jesus never said “looking at a woman with lust” was sinful, but rather “looking at a woman TO lust” or “looking at a woman FOR THE PURPOSE of lust” is equivalent to adultery in the heart. That is, the actual sin is found in looking at a woman with express purpose to lust after her or even possess her as Guelich points out. Jimmy Carter, myself, and perhaps even you have stressed over the passing thoughts, the temptations, thinking we had sinned when this was not the case. Certainly entertaining those thoughts, that second and perhaps third glance invited sin, but not the initial look and thought that goes through our minds. We always have the option of quickly looking away (or simply changing our Yahoo profile).

So here’s where it gets interesting: which translations get it right and which ones get it wrong?

I’m not going to even quote the ones that get it wrong. You can look them up for yourself, but here they are: TEV/GNT, REB, NRSV, CEV, NASB (1995 edition), NLT1, and NLTse.

The wording in the RSV, NIV, NJB, Message, and TNIV draws a middle ground (some form of “look lustfully” ), but are still not as explicit in regard to purpose and intent as the translations below which better reflect the meaning of Jesus’ words.

Here are the translations that more accurately render the purposeful intent in Jesus’ words:

“ego autem dico vobis quoniam omnis qui viderit mulierem ad concupiscendum eam iam moechatus est eam in corde suo” (Vulgate)
“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (KJV)
"Pero yo os digo que cualquiera que mira a una mujer para codiciarla, ya adulteró con ella en su corazón." (Reina-Valera)
“but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (NASB, 1971 edition)
“But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (NKJV)
“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (ESV)
“But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (HCSB)
“But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (NET)

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Sources referenced:
Danker, Fredrick William, William Arndt, Walter Bauer, and F. W. Gingrich. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2000. [Accordance edition used]

Guelich, Robert. The Sermon on the Mount: A Foundation for Understanding. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1982.

Robertson, A. T. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1934. [Accordance edition used]

Rogers Jr., Cleon L., and Cleon L. Rogers III. The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to the Greek New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998. [Accordance edition used]

Willard, Dallas. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998.

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Feel free to offer your thoughts in the comments (just not your lustful thoughts).

Tags: Matthew, Sermon on the Mount

WARNING: my apologies if perhaps I’m overly snarky in the post below. Such cynicism wasn’t necessarily my intent, but I may have expressed myself that way. I could take the post down, but I think I’ll let it stand. Feel free to rebuke me in the comments.

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“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt 6:1, ESV)

I take the above command from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount very seriously. There’s a balance, right? --between absolutely hiding one’s faith and on the other hand simply making a show of it.

For the last three years, my friend JT and I have met each other for breakfast and conversation on Thursday mornings. JT’s a sharp guy who as a chemical engineer (he can correct that designation if it’s wrong) rose to an executive status in a national corporation. JT is exactly the kind of guy I want to think is represented all around our nation’s workforce. He’s a Christian who takes his faith seriously, who sees the world from a biblical perspective and makes decisions from an ethical point of view. JT is well-read in literature, loves history and philosophy and has a desire to go beyond Sunday School-level faith.

As I mentioned, JT and I have been meeting almost every week for at least the last three years. Sometimes we merely have conversation. Sometimes we study the Scriptures. We’ve read a few books together and discussed them over breakfast. The first book we ever read together set the stage for our breakfasts, Love Your God with All Your Mind by J. P. Moreland and Dallas Willard. In fact, the review of this book here on This Lamp was written by JT. Although I consider myself more of a “biblical studies” kind of guy, JT wanted to have a better grasp on doctrine, so we spent well over a year reading through a systematic theology. We read through Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship together. You get the idea.

When we meet, we have our discussions, but we’re not showy about it. We may have our Bibles out, but we don’t go into long and loud prayer sessions like I see some Christians do when they meet in public. We often trade prayer concerns, but we realize that our meeting is not the only opportunity we will have that week to pray.

A while back when the first edition of the NET Bible was released, I gave JT my “2nd Beta edition” which he has now adopted as his primary Bible. Like most of us, he loves the detail of the notes. Yesterday when we met, he had his copy of the NET Bible on the table. My copy of the TNIV Reference Bible and my Greek NT were still in my book bag. We briefly discussed the content of a recent Sunday School lesson. JT and I don’t go to the same church, but our churches use the same curriculum, so we often compare notes from our studies.

As we were talking yesterday at a cafe in Louisville, a fellow--probably in his late twenties or early thirties--sat down at the table next to ours facing us, or really just facing me. Now, I have this Jason Bourne-spy-style habit of watching others in the room out of my peripheral vision. I can’t help it, but if anyone every whips out a submachine gun, I’ll be the first one ducking.

I could tell immediately that the guy at the next table was a poser. He sat with his back to the entrance (proving he wasn’t a super spy like me and Jason Bourne because we’d never sit with our backs to the door), mainly--I believe--so that he could face us, obviously having seen JT’s NET Bible on the table. He pulled from his book bag a Dell laptop, headphones, and an ESV Bible. How do I know it was an ESV Bible? Well, it was one of the hardback editions with the black and white cover that have “ESV” in large letters on the front. He attempted to subtly push the Bible across the table toward us so that from my perspective, I could see the letters facing us and know he had a Bible just as we did.

JT had his back to the guy, so only I was seeing all this. But the poser didn’t know I was paying attention because you’ll remember that I’m watching him only out of my super-spy peripheral vision. He sat there for a couple of minutes, and then I guess he couldn’t stand it anymore that we hadn’t noticed him. He spoke up, “So, are you guys seminary students?”

Now, this is a pet peeve of mine. As a Christian, it really bothers me that there’s this cultural perception that someone cannot be studying the Bible outside the walls of the church unless he or she is being forced to (I’ve written about this before, but I don’t feel up to searching through 700 posts to find the link). Whatever happened to Christians being known as “people of the book”? Yes, technically I’m a seminary student because I’ve gone back to school to finish my last degree. But there’s more to my life than that. I don’t identify myself as a student anymore. Plus JT isn’t a seminary student. But you know, I’ve had the same question asked of me before when I wasn’t in school at all simply because I might be out in public and had a Bible on the table.

I know I started this post off by saying we shouldn’t practice our righteousness for the sake of getting noticed by others. But I also said there needed to be balance. When it comes down to it, this is a poor reflection on the church. We’ve gone from not practicing our righteousness to get noticed to simply cloistering ourselves up in the safety of the church where it’s “normal” to study the Bible together.

So anyway, to show off his presumed superiority, the fellow at the next table confidently said, “Yes, I graduated from the seminary four years ago.” Now there was a big part of me that wanted to say, “Yeah, buddy, and I got that same degree you’re so proud of way back in 1994, so there!” --but I refrained. Instead I merely smiled, not wishing to add to the conversation. But our friend was determined to size us up. He asked what church we went to. In this town assumptions about one’s ethics and theology are often determined by the church attended. However, JT and I both live outside Louisville in two separate towns, so this fellow could only be left to his own speculations.

JT and I conversed for another thirty minutes before it was time for us to leave. During that time, seeing that we weren’t going to pick his brain for wisdom about post-seminary life, the fellow at the other table had put on his head phones and given his attention to his Dell laptop. His Bible had never moved from the conspicuous spot where it had first been laid.

But as JT and I were gathering our things, preparing to leave, I spotted this other fellow slowly moving his Bible from the other edge of the table to the spot directly between him and his laptop. He casually opened it somewhere in the middle. Just so happened he had been studying 2 Chronicles, perhaps? Obviously, since we had not been paying attention to him for the last half hour, it was important to him that it appeared as if had been deep in the study of the Scriptures this whole time. I mean, isn’t that what seminary graduates four years out are supposed to do? No one is making him do it anymore, are they?

Now, you may think that I’m being harsh--that perhaps I’m not following the other parts of the Sermon on the Mount, especially those words from Matt 7:1-2.

So, as we passed him, he looked up from his Bible, headphones still on, Dell laptop still open and he smiled at us in acknowledgement. I nodded, but instead of turning right to head to the door, I said to JT, “I’m going to refill my drink,” and I went left. Coming back, unbeknownst to the guy at the table because he’s not Jason Bourne and he now had his back to me, I walked directly behind him and had a full view of his laptop screen.

YouTube. He was watching YouTube videos, hence the earphones.

See, I told you he was a poser.

Look, in that same Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus told us not to practice our righteousness before others so as to be noticed by them, he also said to “let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matt 5:16, TNIV). Is this a contradiction? Not at all.

Practicing our righteousness in a way that glorifies God goes way beyond having a Bible on the table in public. It’s more than giving thanks before a meal in public and then trying to subtly look around to see who saw you do it (I’ve seen that one a lot). Practicing one’s righteousness is found in how we speak to others, how we view others as not less than ourselves, how we treat others, how we respond when we’ve been wronged, how we... well, read the Sermon on the Mount for yourself.

And don’t be a poser!

Tags: Matthew, Sermon on the Mount