Last week we talked about Bible memorization and how to accomplish extended memorization

of entire chapters and even whole books of the Bible.

This conversation on memorization forces on us the inevitable question about translations,

and of course we are blessed with many good English translations to choose from, but

Pastor John, when setting out on a major project like this to invest hours of time, memorizing

whole chapters of the Bible, how important is it to settle on a specific

translation you will use for years to come, maybe for the rest of your life, or is this

decision really not a big one?

That's a great question.

Here's my thought, a little history.

Growing up I was given a King James Bible when I was small and I used it until I was 19.

And I remember I was a lot of scripture as a kid in those days and so to this day.

I have a lot of old authorised version or King James version language in my head.

When I was 19 I made a very significant choice and this is the choice I think you're asking

whether people need to make it, I think the answers they do.

I made a choice to move to a more modern translation and in 1965 when I made that decision

I chose the RSV and I used the RSV for my personal devotions from 1965 to the mid-90s.

So 30 years or so and I memorized from that.

I would probably be using it to this day if it didn't go out of print because I had so

much of it in my head, but it went out of print.

You can't get an RSV, you can get a new RSV but that's not the same anymore it's changed

in a significant way, some of them politically correct that don't help me at all.

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