The Bible is broken into two Testaments. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and some Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. The original Bible doesn’t exist in a whole form. There are just manuscripts. In the 1600, along came England to give us the first English version of the Bible called the King James Version (KJV). Which was written from the original manuscripts. The Bible has different translations and I thought I would share them.

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?”
James 2:14 KJV

A modernized version of King James Version is the New King James Version (NKJV). It seeks to take the KJV and make it understandable.

“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?”
James 2:14 NKJV

I naturally gravitate towards the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible because it was easier to understand and the most common to be found. It’s design is to make the Christian message more understandable.

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?”
James 2:14 NIV

Another version is the English Standard Version (ESV) and it seeks to translate the Bible into contemporary English.

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”
James 2:14 ESV

The last translation I’ll highlight (there are many others) is the New Living Translation (NLT). It is a paraphrase of the Bible meant to convey the Bible in rich vibrant text.

“What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?”
James 2:14 NLT

This next part is my interpretation of the scripture that I chose to highlight and also things I’ve encountered. Once we become a Christian, we grow in faith and we receive the Holy Spirit. We can choose to dig in and learn more about what we believe. The other part of works, I think, is personal development; an understanding of how our own personal biases show up in our interpretation of scripture and how we practice our Christianity. We need to be aware of what is truly ours to figure out and what is another person’s.

When we encounter people in life, they are a mirror of our own personal inner selves. We like the person because they exemplify something we like about ourselves or something we think of as good. We are insecure or dislike a person because they highlight a deficiency within ourselves. We are disgusted or dislike the person because they highlight something about ourselves that bring us shame or they are bad. None of the stories will present like I just shared. Which is why, when we feel things, we have to learn to sit with them and examine them. This is Personal Development.

Jesus. Jesus was born in a manger. He was born ceremonially unclean according to Jewish law. Shepherds announced Jesus’ birth; they are ceremonially unclean, according to Jewish law. Jesus was a carpenter; humility on display. His life represents his fully human experience. Jesus’ disciples were Matthew, a tax collector, a despised occupation; Judas, a traitor and a thief; and Peter, fishermen, and spirited, sometimes wrongly. Jesus shares he is the Messiah first with a Samaritan woman. She is an enemy of the Jews and had five ex-husbands and was living with a boyfriend. Jesus entire ministry was about healing the sick. This is the emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially harmed. Paul, the author of most of the New Testament, was literally killing Christians before his life changing moment with God. These examples, for me, represent the sovereignty of God. A God that knew that we would need these examples to reconcile and redeem the harm and pain we encounter from the world.

When we become a Christian, we are called to be the face of Christianity for the sick and lost. How we represent God is going to determine whether the person before us will think of God as a savior for the sick and as salvation for the lost. It is imperative that we get our biases under control. So that they don’t harm the person in front of us.

An example: I am a person that spent some of their youth and/or adulthood drinking, drugging, fornicating, and etc. This represents my pain and harm or what I consider as fun. I am introduced to God and as I am developing my relationship with him, I begin to change my system of living. God begins to redeem me and give me new ways to live. I stop all my activities of the world. Along comes a person behind me that has their worldly activities on display. I vomit my new system onto to them. I tell them they are going to hell for their harm, pain, and/or fun system they display. This is where I have used religion to harm another person.

When I came to faith, God accepted me just as I am. As I moved in close to Him, God began to pour out grace, mercy, and favor on my life; none of it I deserved and all of it given because of my faith. Then because of His grace, mercy, and favor, my life begin to change; my life is redeemed. This is the part we stop at. We let God redeem our lives but, we don’t work with God to reconcile our old system of living. For me, I had to then search for information (works) and God to understand and reconcile why I chose the old system. This is hard to do, but it is imperative.

Now, when I show up in my new role as the face of Jesus- with my pain and harm reconciled and redeemed- I am going to be God’s mercy, grace, and favor to the sick and lost, because I identify and can see their pain and harm system of living, because I understand mine. However, if I have done none of the personal development work, I will vomit my religiosity onto undeserving people. I will think that the same grace, mercy, and favor that I benefited from is no longer available to people that are still in their worldly system of living.

We have universal rules; we don’t like people that steal, kill, or harm others. However, the story of how we interact with people is how we feel about ourselves. If I feel disgust, I think your behavior is gross, beneath me, or any manor of thinking, it points to unresolved shame. If I look at you and I feel insecure, jealous, or envy, I am probably living in fear and there are areas of my life that I am not brave and courageous. If I look at and I love you, you live a life that I admire and we share the same beliefs and values. We don’t actually see others, we just search for ourselves!

The story of how you interact with others is the story of how you feel about yourself. If I have no self-awareness, I will vomit all issues of life onto others. If I don’t have self-compassion and self-love, I will gossip and need to minimize others. I will vomit all my self-righteousness and religiosity onto others. If I have self-love, self-respect, and self-compassion, you will meet the face of Jesus and I will extend compassion, empathy, and love to you. I will want you to be your highest and best self.

We have to have faith and get to know Jesus. We also have to do the work, so that we are the face of Jesus for others. God wants to redeem our lives and reconcile the pain, harm, fun, and our old system of living.