#1 The Bible Was Written to Be Effortlessly Understood by Everyone

A widely accepted but deeply flawed belief in modern Bible translation theory is that the Bible was designed to be immediately and effortlessly understood by all people, regardless of education, context, or historical understanding. This assumption—that divine communication must equal simplicity—has led many modern translators to produce versions that flatten the biblical text into colloquial, child-like, or overly casual language.

This is not a claim made quietly. It is explicitly affirmed by several contemporary translations and their editors.

For instance, a member of the Bible Society responsible for the Good News Bible (GNB) argued:

“Since God ‘stooped to the level of human language to communicate with His people,’ the translators’ task is to set forth the ‘truth of the biblical revelation in language that is as clear and simple as possible.’”
—Letter to the editor of Theology, May 1978, quoted in Stephen Prickett, Words and the Word (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 6.

This foundational assumption—that divine accommodation must result in a uniformly simple text—continues in the preface to the GNB itself:

“After ascertaining as accurately as possible the meaning of the original, the translators’ next task was to express that meaning in a manner and form easily understood by the readers.”
—Good News Bible, Preface

The Simple English Bible (SEB) frames Jesus as the model for this type of translation, asserting:

“Jesus talked plainly to people.… Jesus, the master Teacher, was very careful not to give people more than they could grasp.… We are trying to re-capture that level of communication.… Jesus was able to communicate clearly, even with children.”
—Simple English Bible, Preface

The implication is clear: if Jesus spoke simply, then the Bible should be written as if for children. But this fails to reckon with the complexity of Scripture’s form, content, and context.

Scripture itself contradicts this fallacy. The Apostle Peter writes of Paul’s letters, saying, “in them are some things hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16). The biblical authors frequently used elevated vocabulary, sophisticated grammatical structure, poetic parallelism, and layered figurative language. The Hebrew of Job and the syntax of Romans do not lend themselves to lazy reading or reductionist translation.

Furthermore, equating Jesus’ use of parables with simplification is historically and hermeneutically incorrect. In fact, Jesus’ parables often concealed as much as they revealed (cf. Matthew 13:10–17). They were not simplistic illustrations; they were layered teachings that required interpretation and spiritual receptivity.

This push for simplicity also misunderstands what “clarity” means in Scripture. The Reformers rightly taught the perspicuity of Scripture—that the message of salvation is clear enough for ordinary people to grasp. But they never claimed the entire Bible was equally simple or effortlessly understood. The perspicuity of Scripture does not mean the uniform simplicity of Scripture. There is a crucial difference.

By contrast, modern translations that adopt this fallacy tend to rephrase difficult expressions, omit interpretive tensions, and strip away theological density for the sake of readability. But this is not translation; it is simplification—and often misrepresentation.

Literal translation does not aim to obscure but to preserve. Where the original language is difficult, the translation must reflect that difficulty. Where the language is formal or technical, the rendering must honor that formality or technicality. God inspired exact words, not just generalized meaning—and He did so in a range of registers and genres, many of which require study, reflection, and work.

The claim that the Bible must always be easy to understand is rooted not in the text of Scripture but in the expectations of a modern audience accustomed to immediacy and casual speech. The Word of God was not given to be skimmed; it was given to be studied (2 Timothy 2:15), searched (Acts 17:11), and meditated upon (Psalm 1:2). Any translation that diminishes the complexity and solemnity of the original text under the banner of accessibility does the reader no favor—and does the inspired Word a disservice.

#2 The Bible’s Message Is Merely Spiritual Truth, Not Historical Detail

A second major fallacy undermining sound Bible translation is the claim that the Bible’s primary purpose is to communicate timeless spiritual or theological ideas—so the historical, geographical, and physical details can be minimized, paraphrased, or even reimagined as non-essential. According to this view, divine revelation is essentially ideational, not historical. The goal of translation, then, becomes to deliver “the message” or “the principle,” rather than to preserve the concrete, inspired form in which that message was originally revealed.

This false dichotomy between “truth” and “history” is foundational to dynamic equivalence translation theory. It treats the biblical text as a kind of theological code that must be deciphered, stripped of its ancient cultural trappings, and delivered in “relevant” or “applicable” terms. The assumption is that readers don’t need to know what God actually said to real people in real time and space—they just need the general idea or spiritual takeaway.

This principle is reflected in the preface to the New Living Translation (NLT):

“We have sought to translate terms shrouded in history or culture in ways that can be immediately understood by the contemporary reader.”
—New Living Translation, Introduction

Here, historical context is seen as a hindrance. Terms “shrouded in history” are not retained and clarified but replaced. This reflects the underlying assumption that what happened is less important than what it means to us now.

But the biblical writers—and the Holy Spirit who inspired them—did not treat history as secondary. Scripture is not a loose collection of religious ideals, but a record of God’s actions in history. The Bible opens with a historical narrative (“In the beginning…”), not a spiritual metaphor. The God of Scripture is the God who speaks, acts, judges, saves, and reigns within time and space. His covenants are given to real people (Noah, Abraham, Moses), at real times (e.g., 2091 B.C.E., 1446 B.C.E.), in real places (Ur, Sinai, Jerusalem). The incarnation itself—Jesus being born “in the fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4)—requires precision in dates, names, and geography.

To downplay the historical in favor of abstracted “truth” is to dismantle the integrity of biblical revelation.

This fallacy is also evident in The Message, a paraphrase that frequently discards the particular in favor of the general. For example, in Exodus 12:11, where the UASV reads:

“And thus you shall eat it: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand…”

The Message reduces this to:

“Be dressed and ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

The vivid imagery, rooted in Near Eastern dress and Passover ritual, is removed and replaced by a vague abstraction. The historical specificity is sacrificed for modern generality.

Literal translation preserves these concrete realities. It does not treat historical context as a dispensable vehicle for theological cargo. It treats the inspired form and content as equally binding. Terms like seed, flesh, blood, circumcision, altar, ark, and covenant are not placeholders for abstract principles—they are the God-chosen words for God-given realities. And they must be preserved.

The belief that the Bible is about “spiritual truth” rather than historical particularity also opens the door to allegorization and doctrinal distortion. If “Egypt” doesn’t mean Egypt, but “bondage to sin,” or if “David” is just a stand-in for “leadership,” then Scripture becomes a canvas for the reader’s imagination rather than a record of divine speech. The Reformation principle of the sensus literalis—the literal sense—was a protest against such speculation. The literal sense is the historical-grammatical meaning intended by the author.

A sound translation will therefore uphold the text’s precision, concreteness, and historical anchoring. The truths of Scripture are not disconnected from the events, persons, and places God chose to work through—they are embedded in them. To translate Scripture faithfully is to preserve not just what God meant, but what He said—in the very realities He chose to speak through.

#3 The Bible Should Sound Like It Was Written Today

A widespread and misguided assumption in modern Bible translation philosophy is that the Bible must be updated to reflect contemporary speech patterns, idioms, and cultural expectations. According to this view, the Bible should read as if it were written last year, not thousands of years ago. The goal becomes to eliminate the ancient sound, tone, and texture of Scripture in order to make it feel familiar and “relevant” to modern readers.

This fallacy is not subtle—it is openly championed in the prefaces and promotional material of popular translations. For instance, The Message describes its approach this way:

“This version of the New Testament in a contemporary idiom keeps the language of the Message current and fresh and understandable in the same language in which we do our shopping, talk with our friends, worry about world affairs, and teach our children their table manners.”
—The Message, Introduction

The New Living Translation (NLT) likewise states:

“We have sought to translate terms shrouded in history or culture in ways that can be immediately understood by the contemporary reader.”
—New Living Translation, Introduction

And the New Century Version (NCV) affirms:

“Ancient customs are often unfamiliar to modern readers.… So these are clarified either in the text or in a footnote.”
—New Century Version, Preface

The logic here is that clarity can only be achieved by modernization—that the text must be naturalized to the idioms, vocabulary, and conceptual categories of modern readers. This leads to paraphrase-heavy renderings, euphemistic language, and the use of contemporary cultural references that bear little resemblance to the original setting or style of the biblical authors.

But this impulse is deeply flawed for at least three reasons.

First, it erases the historical distance between the reader and the original text. The Bible is an ancient document. Its inspired books were written between the 15th century B.C.E. and the end of the 1st century C.E., in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. The historical, cultural, and linguistic context of these writings cannot be erased without erasing part of their meaning. When modern translations remove idioms, titles, measurements, or customs in favor of contemporary equivalents, they distort the world of the text and flatten its particularity.

Second, it replaces faithfulness with familiarity. The translator’s task is not to make the Bible sound like a 21st-century email or podcast. It is to faithfully render the words and forms of the original text. God chose to speak through specific genres, literary styles, and linguistic forms—legal codes, genealogies, oracles, laments, and apocalyptic visions. These do not conform to modern speech, and they are not supposed to.

Third, modernization often results in interpretive intrusion. Translators who attempt to restate a passage “in today’s language” must first interpret what the text means, and then reshape it according to what they think modern readers can handle. This elevates the role of the translator from faithful messenger to theological editor. In dynamic versions, ambiguity in the original is often erased; metaphors are decoded; theological terms are simplified or avoided altogether.

For example, consider Romans 3:25. The UASV gives a careful rendering:

“whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith, for a demonstration of His righteousness…”

But the NLT translates:

“For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin.”

The term propitiation (Greek: ἱλαστήριον) is both theologically and historically rich, evoking the mercy seat in the tabernacle and the satisfaction of divine wrath. By substituting it with “sacrifice for sin,” the NLT not only simplifies but flattens the theological content.

Literal translation retains the ancient texture of Scripture. It resists the urge to disguise its origin. The reader must come to the Bible’s world, not demand that the Bible come to theirs. Translation is not about relocation but faithful mediation. It invites the reader to step into the historical, linguistic, and literary environment that God chose to reveal His truth in—not a reimagined version sanitized for modern ears.

To modernize Scripture in tone and idiom is to sever it from the form in which God delivered it. Literal translation honors both the content and the frame of God’s speech. Scripture was not written yesterday, and it should not sound like it was. Its relevance lies not in imitation of modern speech, but in the enduring power of its inspired words, preserved and rendered with precision.

#4 The Bible’s Language Must Be Adjusted to Fit Modern Values

One of the most insidious fallacies driving modern Bible translation is the belief that the language of Scripture must be reshaped to align with contemporary cultural values—especially those concerning gender, authority, inclusivity, and emotional sensitivity. According to this view, the Bible’s original expressions are culturally regressive or potentially offensive and must therefore be adjusted, softened, or reworded to meet the ethical standards of today’s audience.

This assumption is not merely theoretical—it is explicitly affirmed in the editorial rationale of several widely used translations. For example, the Inclusive Language edition of the NIV (NIVI) states:

“It was recognized that it was often appropriate to mute the patriarchalism of the culture of the biblical writers.”
—Preface to the Inclusive Language NIV (NIVI)

This admission is striking: the translators deliberately suppressed the original text’s perceived patriarchal character—not because of lexical or syntactical necessity, but in order to conform the Bible to modern egalitarian sensitivities. The goal was not fidelity, but accommodation.

Likewise, the Contemporary English Version (CEV) explains:

“In everyday speech, ‘gender generic’ or ‘inclusive’ language is used, because it sounds most natural to people today. This means that where the biblical languages require masculine nouns or pronouns when both men and women are intended, this intention must be reflected in translation, though the English form may be very different from that of the original.”
—CEV Preface

Here, the translator’s sense of what “sounds natural” takes precedence over the original grammatical forms. This philosophy places the judgment of the modern reader above the authority of the inspired text.

The New Living Translation (NLT) adds another layer:

“Metaphorical language is often difficult for contemporary readers to understand, so at times we have chosen to translate or illuminate the metaphor.”
—NLT Preface

And the Simple English Bible (SEB) declares:

“Sentences are purposely kept short, transparent, and uncomplicated to promote greater understanding. Complex sentence structures are often unnecessary anyway.”

In other words, stylistic elements that reflect the authors’ original literary and theological intentions are sacrificed for accessibility and tone. The goal becomes not only to update vocabulary but to revise content structure and theological precision.

The Message paraphrase takes this trend even further. The dust jacket boasts:

“This translation breathes new life into the enduring wisdom of the ancient biblical texts.”

This implies that the original text is stale or dead—needing resuscitation through modern language. But this is not translation; it is reconstruction. The assumption is that the Bible, in its own form, is insufficient or inappropriate for the modern reader unless reimagined.

Such practices reflect a view of Scripture that sees divine revelation as culturally conditioned and ethically deficient, requiring correction rather than submission. But biblical language is not a historical relic to be updated—it is the deliberate vehicle of God’s self-disclosure. Every term, every grammatical form, every metaphor was chosen by the Spirit to communicate eternal truth through real human writers in their real historical setting.

To claim that we must revise Scripture to make it acceptable to contemporary sensibilities is to assume that God’s Word is subject to human critique. It replaces the authority of God with the preferences of the age. But Scripture itself affirms, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8). The Word is timeless not because it conforms to every culture but because it transcends them all.

Literal translation resists this ideological tampering. It preserves masculine generics where the original uses them. It retains metaphor where the inspired text speaks in symbol. It refuses to soften theological language that may challenge or confront. The translator’s responsibility is not to protect the reader from the Bible’s “hard edges,” but to render the text as it is—letting God’s Word speak with its full force, clarity, and authority.

The fallacy that the Bible’s language must be brought into line with modern values is not an act of clarity but of compromise. It undermines the sufficiency, accuracy, and sanctity of the inspired Scriptures. The task of faithful translation is not to make the Bible say what modern readers wish it said, but to faithfully convey what God actually said through His chosen authors, without correction, concealment, or apology.

#5 The Bible Always Speaks Clearly and Never Requires Interpretation

A fifth common fallacy in modern Bible translation theory is the claim that Scripture always speaks with unambiguous clarity—that it never requires deep interpretation, theological reflection, or literary discernment. According to this view, the Bible should function like an instruction manual: plain, direct, and easy to understand at face value. The translator’s role, then, is to eliminate any remaining mystery, difficulty, or figurative complexity so that the average reader can grasp the meaning instantly, with little to no effort.

This assumption is repeatedly expressed in the prefaces of simplified and dynamic translations. For example, the Good News Bible (GNB) states:

“Every effort has been made to use language that is natural, clear, simple, and unambiguous.”
—GNB Preface

The Simple English Bible (SEB) affirms similarly:

“Jesus talked plainly to the people.”
—SEB Preface

And the New Living Translation (NLT) claims:

“The translators have made a conscious effort to provide a text that can be easily understood by the average reader.”
—NLT Preface

Taken together, these statements reflect a deep-seated belief that ambiguity or interpretive challenge in the biblical text is undesirable. Anything that requires meditation, parsing, or analysis is viewed as a flaw to be fixed rather than a feature to be preserved.

But this reductionist view of Scripture fails to account for the actual nature of the biblical text. While many parts of the Bible are direct and clear, large portions are deliberately complex, employing symbolism, metaphor, irony, parable, legal casuistry, poetry, chiastic structure, and prophetic idiom. The Psalms, for instance, employ layered imagery that conveys emotion and theology simultaneously. The book of Job presents speeches filled with irony, sarcasm, and cryptic theological depth. Ecclesiastes speaks in existential riddles. Daniel and Revelation use apocalyptic visions dense with symbolic meaning that cannot be grasped without serious interpretive work.

Even Jesus’ teachings were not uniformly “plain.” After giving a series of parables, He said to His disciples:

“To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of the heavens, but to them it has not been granted.” (Matthew 13:11, UASV)

His purpose in parables was not always to simplify but sometimes to conceal (Matthew 13:13–15). And the Apostle Peter, writing about Paul’s letters, states:

“…in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort…” (2 Peter 3:16, UASV)

In other words, even inspired Scripture can be difficult—not because it is flawed, but because it is deep. God’s Word is not designed for casual reading; it is designed for reverent study, for lifelong meditation and doctrinal precision (2 Timothy 2:15; Psalm 1:2). The notion that all difficulty must be removed in translation reflects a shallow view of both the Bible and its readers.

The fallacy also undermines the entire discipline of biblical hermeneutics. If the Bible always speaks with mechanical clarity, then there is little need for careful exegesis, context-sensitive reading, or genre awareness. Yet the Scripture itself presupposes that its truths must be sought out diligently (Proverbs 2:1–5) and that proper interpretation is a matter of rightly dividing the Word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15). Interpretation is not a modern academic invention—it is a necessary part of engaging with a text inspired in multiple literary forms, written over centuries, and preserved in ancient languages.

When translations attempt to erase difficulty or ambiguity in the name of simplicity, they inevitably make interpretive decisions that replace divine mystery with human commentary. Metaphors are decoded, idioms are replaced with explanatory glosses, and doctrinal tension is often resolved by the translator rather than left for the reader to wrestle with. But this is not translation—it is interpretive substitution.

Literal translation allows the original mystery, ambiguity, and rhetorical texture to remain. Where a passage is figurative in Hebrew or Greek, it should remain figurative in English. Where Paul’s syntax is dense, it should not be restructured for the sake of readability. Where a theological phrase requires study, it should be left intact. The translator is not a filter; he is a conduit. His job is not to resolve what God has left open, but to render the words faithfully so the reader may rightly engage them.

This fallacy—that the Bible always speaks clearly and never requires interpretation—encourages a laziness in both reading and translation. It invites a casual attitude toward Scripture and fosters impatience with the very process that God ordained for our growth in wisdom and understanding. It also encourages translations to alter or oversimplify the text, resulting in a Bible that may be easy to read—but no longer faithful to what was written.

True clarity in Scripture is not the removal of interpretive challenge—it is the preservation of what God has actually said, in all its force, tension, and brilliance. Literal translation, therefore, does not obstruct understanding—it protects it.

#6 The Bible’s Message Matters, Not the Exact Words

A deeply entrenched fallacy in modern Bible translation theory is the belief that what truly matters in Scripture is not the specific words written, but the general ideas or “message” those words convey. According to this view, the Bible’s meaning can be preserved even if the actual words and sentence structures are altered, simplified, or paraphrased—so long as the “essential truth” remains. This philosophy shifts the translator’s task from conveying God’s words to conveying their own interpretation of what God meant.

This approach undergirds nearly all dynamic equivalence and paraphrase translations. It sees the biblical text as a flexible vessel for meaning, not as a verbally inspired record whose words themselves carry divine authority.

The New Living Translation (NLT) expresses this philosophy plainly:

“We have sought to communicate the meaning of the original text as accurately as possible to the modern reader.”
—NLT Introduction

Note what’s missing: the concern is not to render the words as accurately as possible, but to convey meaning—a meaning that must be interpreted by the translator before it is ever presented to the reader.

Eugene Peterson’s introduction to The Message is even more explicit:

“I just hoped to bring the New Testament into the language of today’s readers. I hoped to bring into the open the urgency and vigor of the original Greek. I hoped to make it readable—something they’d read as a letter from a friend.”

Here, Scripture is reframed as a personal letter, not a divine proclamation. The original words are merely the scaffolding to get to the “real” message, which must then be repackaged in casual, emotionally accessible terms. The problem with this is not only theological but hermeneutical: the message cannot be separated from the words used to deliver it.

Scripture testifies that it is the very words of God that are inspired, not just the ideas. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:13:

“These things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit…” (UASV)

And Jesus declared:

“The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” (John 6:63, UASV)

The biblical authors repeatedly affirm that they were conveying not simply divine concepts, but God’s actual words—chosen, inspired, and preserved under the supervision of the Holy Spirit. When Moses hesitated to speak, Jehovah did not say, “Just communicate the message however you like.” He said, “Now go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall speak” (Exodus 4:12, UASV).

Translation that prioritizes “meaning” over exact wording always results in interpretive insertion. The translator decides what the passage means, and then presents that meaning rather than the actual wording of the inspired text. But meaning is not a separate commodity that can be extracted from words like oil from water. Meaning resides in the words themselves—their order, nuance, grammatical relationship, and context.

This fallacy also fails to account for the precision of biblical revelation. Jesus grounded theological arguments on the tense of a verb (Matthew 22:32), and Paul built his theology of Christ’s sonship on the singular form of a noun (Galatians 3:16). If divine truth hinges on such details, then translators are not free to disregard them in favor of summary or approximation.

A literal translation approach rightly recognizes that Scripture must be handled at the verbal level, not merely at the conceptual level. This is why literal renderings retain the precise words—“propitiation,” “justification,” “sanctification,” “flesh,” “seed,” “covenant”—rather than substitute them with generic summaries like “sacrifice,” “made right with God,” or “agreement.” These words are not theological jargon; they are God’s chosen terms, full of specificity and doctrinal depth.

Furthermore, this fallacy undermines the doctrine of verbal plenary inspiration. If the message matters but not the words, then inspiration no longer resides in the text itself, but in the translator’s reconstruction of what the text is “trying to say.” That shifts authority from the God-breathed text to the modern interpreter—a dangerous and wholly unbiblical move.

Literal translation safeguards the reader from this intrusion. It refuses to interpret the text for the reader or reduce Scripture to theological paraphrase. It lets the words stand as they were given, allowing the Spirit-inspired text to confront, instruct, and guide the reader directly—without mediating “clarity” through doctrinal simplification.

This fallacy—that only the message matters—may sound pious, but it ultimately separates readers from the very form of revelation God ordained. God gave us His Word, not just His thoughts. A translation that does not preserve the words of Scripture cannot preserve the authority, clarity, or power of Scripture either.

#7 The Bible Can Be Understood Only Through the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

A seventh and widely misunderstood fallacy is the belief that the Bible cannot truly be understood unless a person is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This claim is often framed as a defense of spiritual depth, but it is actually an assault on the Bible’s clarity, authority, and accessibility. It suggests that the Scriptures are ultimately inaccessible without mystical enablement—a view that distorts the biblical teaching on how one understands divine revelation.

Proponents of this fallacy commonly invoke 1 Corinthians 2:14, which states:

“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined.” (UASV)

This verse is often misinterpreted to mean that the unbeliever is incapable of intellectually comprehending the meaning of the Scriptures. The assumption is that unless one is regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, he or she lacks the spiritual faculties necessary to even grasp what Scripture says.

But this is a category mistake. The Greek term used here for “understand” (ginōskō) and the surrounding context make clear that Paul is not discussing a cognitive or linguistic inability. The “natural man” does not fail to comprehend what Scripture says; rather, he rejects it as foolish. The phrase “does not accept” (Greek: ou dechomai) indicates a refusal, not a misunderstanding. The issue here is one of disposition, not ability.

This rejection occurs because the unregenerate person views the things of God—revealed through the Spirit in the inspired Word—as lacking value, wisdom, or authority. Paul is not saying that the Bible is incomprehensible to the natural man, but that he does not submit to its truth. That is a moral rejection of divine revelation, not a mystical veil over the mind.

The notion that only a Spirit-indwelt person can “truly understand” the Bible also collapses into subjective mysticism, leaving the meaning of Scripture dependent on private spiritual experience. This paves the way for charismatic theology, personal revelation, and individualized interpretation—all of which undermine the objective, textual authority of the Word of God.

Instead, Scripture teaches that understanding comes through careful attention to the inspired text, using the grammatical-historical method of interpretation. This method recognizes the Bible as a coherent set of documents, written in human language, through human authors, in real historical and cultural contexts. It emphasizes:

• Grammar: the words and sentence structures used in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

• Syntax: the relationships between those words within clauses and discourse.

• Genre: the kind of literature used (e.g., narrative, poetry, prophecy, epistle).

• Historical context: the cultural, political, and religious setting of the original audience.

• Authorial intent: what the human writer meant, as directed by the Spirit.

This approach requires no mystical illumination or inward spiritual experience. It can be applied consistently by believers and unbelievers alike. In fact, even atheistic scholars can grasp the textual meaning of a passage—they may reject its authority and truth, but they are not unable to understand its content. Their problem is not comprehension; it is rebellion.

Christians are said to have “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), not because of spiritual osmosis, but because they are biblically minded—steeped in the Word of God, shaped by its categories, and committed to its worldview. Paul commands, “Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…” (Colossians 3:16). The mind of Christ is acquired through immersion in Scripture, not mystical access to divine cognition.

This is why literal translation is so critical. It preserves the inspired words, making it possible for readers to do their part in rightly dividing the Word of truth. God has given us a written revelation, intelligible through standard interpretive principles. The Bible is not a spiritual cipher unlocked only through inner promptings—it is a book composed in real human languages, meant to be read, studied, and obeyed.

Those who claim that the Bible must be “spiritually discerned” in the mystical sense ultimately undermine Scripture’s clarity, sufficiency, and authority. They replace objective interpretation with subjective impressions. This fallacy has done enormous damage, leading people away from diligent study into experience-driven interpretation.

Literal translators and readers must reject this error. The Bible is not sealed to the natural mind—it is rejected by the natural heart. Interpretation requires mental discipline, not mystical enlightenment. The Spirit does not whisper the meaning of texts into a believer’s soul; He has already spoken in the Word. The challenge is not access but willing submission to what is written.

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