Bible Translations List
A guide for the pulpit ministry team
Thank you for the care you bring to preparing and preaching. This is a short guide to which translations we use from the platform, and why the choice matters.
Why this matters
Whatever we read from the pulpit is endorsed by the pulpit. The congregation does not hear "this is one rendering among several." They hear "this is what the Bible says." People then go and buy the translation they heard preached, read it at home, and build their understanding of God on it.
- This is not a spirit of legalism or restriction; in fact, it is the opposite, a protection of the Holy Scriptures.
- That makes this a pastoral decision rather than a personal preference. We want to be handing people something trustworthy.
What makes a translation trustworthy
Three things matter more than any single feature:
- A committee, not an individual. Multiple scholars checking one another, usually across denominations, so no single person's convictions shape the text.
- A published translation philosophy, so the decisions being made are visible rather than hidden.
- Work from the original languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, against the best available manuscripts.
Translations sit on a spectrum, and neither end is simply "more accurate":
- Word for word (formal equivalence). Closer to the structure of the original. Sometimes stiffer to read aloud.
- Thought for thought (functional equivalence). Natural English, but more interpretive decisions have been made for the reader.
- Paraphrase. Restates the text in the writer's own words. Useful for devotion, not for establishing what a text says.
Use these
| Translation | Approach | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NLT | Thought for thought | Our primary. Very readable, strong for narrative and for reading aloud |
| NIV | Thought for thought | Our second. Make sure it is the current edition, not the 1984 |
| NET | Between the two | Around 60,000 translators' notes make each decision visible. Free to quote and project without permission |
| ESV | Word for word | Sticks near the original wording |
| NKJV | Word for word | Updates the KJV's English while keeping its manuscript base |
| NASB | Word for word | The most literal of these. Can be stiff spoken |
Use sparingly
MSG, AMP, CEV, CEB, ERV, EASY, KJV Never hinge a message, or even a single point within it, on one of these. Use them to illuminate something you have already established from a primary translation, then come back.
- CEB and CEV are committee translations, pitched at a more accessible reading level.
- ERV and EASY use deliberately restricted vocabulary for readers with limited English. Genuinely useful pastorally, but a great deal of nuance is necessarily lost.
- AMP expands words with bracketed alternatives. The risk here is subtle: the amplification is the translator's commentary rather than the text, and it becomes very easy to preach whichever option best suits the point. If you do use it, prefer the 2015 Amplified Bible (AMP) rather than the 1987 Classic (AMPC).
- MSG is Eugene Peterson's paraphrase, and he never intended it as a study Bible. It can land beautifully read aloud. It remains one man's rendering, but has undergone some review by old and new testament scholars.
- KJV is historically important and still loved by some. The English is now far enough from ours that it costs comprehension for most of our congregation. Where you want its manuscript base in contemporary English, the NKJV is on our primary list.
We do not use these
TPT (The Passion Translation) The work of one man, Brian Simmons, presented as a translation but functioning as an expansive paraphrase. It adds words, phrases and at times whole concepts that are not in any manuscript, and those additions often carry theological weight of their own. It has been criticised by scholars across the spectrum, including sympathetic charismatic ones, and Bible Gateway removed it from its site in January 2022. It is popular in circles close to ours, which is exactly why we should be clear about it.
TLB (The Living Bible) Kenneth Taylor's 1971 paraphrase, and importantly a paraphrase of an existing English translation rather than work from the original languages. Its successor, the NLT, was produced by a committee working from Hebrew and Greek, and it sits at the top of our primary list. If someone reaches for the TLB, the NLT is almost always what they actually want.
A note on editions
The name on the spine is not the whole story. Several translations on this page exist in more than one edition under the same name, and the Bible apps list them side by side. It is worth knowing which one you are reading.
- NIV. The current edition is 2011. The 1984 is still widely in circulation in older print Bibles, memory verses and study resources. Use the current one.
- AMP. Prefer the 2015 Amplified Bible (AMP) over the 1987 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC). The 2015 revision refreshed the English, added and refined the amplifications, and made the text read sensibly whether or not you read the bracketed material aloud. Both are available online, so it is easy to land on the older one without noticing.
- NASB. The Lockman Foundation publishes the 1995 and 2020 editions concurrently, so both are current. The 2020 retains around 94% of the 1995 text; the visible differences are modernised pronouns in prayer and gender-accurate renderings where the original addresses a mixed audience, such as "brothers and sisters" for adelphoi.
- NET. The current edition is the second, published 2019. The notes are the reason to reach for it, so prefer the Full Notes Edition; the Reader's Edition carries the same text with the notes stripped out.
A few practical things
- Choose one primary translation per message and use it for a majority of scriptures. Switching mid message to find a better phrase is a habit worth resisting.
- If a passage only makes your point in one translation, treat that as a warning rather than a discovery. Go back and check it against the primaries.