Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.

• Psalm 23:1-6 (NKJV)

Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous;

• 1 Peter 3:8 (KKJV)

“The design of this book should allow you to pray the prayers immediately, exactly as they are. Or, you are encouraged to copy them into a notebook to change anything that doesn’t fit you or your situation. Words that are more personalized and might need to be changed for some readers (words like he/she or specific prayer requests) are indicated by a light color change in the font.
“If certain phrases stand out as particularly meaningful to you, highlight them so you can find them easily. You might at times pray all the highlighted phrases. This can help you work these phrases into your general prayer life.”

• Christie Cole Atkins, Praying God’s Word back to Him

I received a copy of Christie Cole Atkins’ book, Praying God’s Word back to Him, recently.  It took me a while before I read it due to the medical procedures that I was having.  (And I am feeling a lot better now.)  Christie, among her many jobs, is a blogger, at Walk Worthy (walkworthy.blog).

I have recently finished the Sunday mini-series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book on praying the psalms.  And Christie’s book fits with that book, even taking it a step further.

For one, Mrs. Atkins expands the Scriptures beyond the Psalms.  She uses passages from 32 books of the Bible, nearly half.  And to make the prayers personal, she adapts the Scripture just a little.

You can read the first Scripture above, Psalm 23, and it fits a psalm for adoration or thanksgiving easily with no adaptation, but if you needed God to set a table before you in the presence of your enemies, that verse can be “adapted” to state, “God, set a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”  This personalizes a statement of adoration and thanksgiving that God does that kind of thing and turns it into a supplication that you really have that need now.

Let’s look at a few ways in which we read Scripture in English.  A translation can be done by means of a reputable team of people translating from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.  The team decides how to express something that has difficulty in translation.  Such as in English love is love, but in Greek, there are a few words for love.  Sources vary from three to seven, but most settle on four: Eros, Philia, Storge, and Agape.  There are some people who, on their own have translated the Bible.  Their “translations” may be beautiful to read, but without the checks and balances of a team, the translation could start to show bias.

While a dictionary may give a different definition of paraphrase, in biblical circles, a paraphrase is something that was translated from a source other than the original language.  In my youth, with people complaining about the stodgy KJV, several “translations” appeared, but some were really paraphrases, updating the KJV to our modern language, with modern idioms.  Easier to read, but some versions showed bias and errors.  Yet, one of the most beautiful, in my childhood was the Philips’ Paraphrase of the New Testament.

And as for the very popular Message from Eugene Petersen.  He translated the text from the original languages.  Thus, many call it a translation.  But Rev. Petersen used modern idioms and illustrative words that were probably not around when the text was originally penned.  Thus, the “translation” is also a secularly defined “paraphrase” to give updated idioms.  I am a bull in a China shop at times, and when I explained this to a pastor who was solidly in the translation camp, he shed a tear.  If he is reading this, I again apologize.

Even then, you can find some translations that are better at word-for-word translation, while others are very good at conceptual translation.  The question is, which do you prefer?  The NIV is a good middle of the road translation, both word-for-word and concepts, but not the best in either category.

But saying all of this, an adaptation is neither one, as long as we state it as an adaptation. Christie Cole Atkins does so.  She turns the 1 Peter 3 verses into a plea for God to help us have one mind, and to have compassion for one another.  When the verse speaks of love for a spouse, Mrs. Atkins expands that to brothers and sisters in Christ, in her lighter color text.  In this fashion, we can see how God did something for someone or an epistle writer is telling a church to be one way or another.  We can adapt that to us personally or our church in a personal way by changing the verb tense, changing a pronoun here or there, and as Christie does in this book and Stormie Omartian does in her books – if praying for family members or church family members (a Sunday school class, for example), do not say “them.”  Mention each by name.

The Bible is helpful and instructive in many ways, but it is flexible so that we can see how God wants us to live, and we can ADAPT that verse to make it personal for us.

And I wholeheartedly recommend her book, available at Truthbooks.com.  She generally divides the prayers using the ACTS model, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication.  You can use her prayers, or better yet, learn from how she adapted, and in many cases simply quoted the text, and develop your own prayers.  It could add great power to your prayer life, but more importantly, as we do such things in our faithful walk with the Lord, He changes us.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.