Excited for A While

A few years ago, I decided to put into practice the concept of beginning my day by hearing the Bible. I thought that might be helpful; especially in light of Romans 10:17: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (ESV).

I found an app on my phone that allows me to listen through the entire Bible each year. In fact, it has a number of different reading plans and a number of different translations.

I have tried for the past few years to not listen to the same translation every year. This practice has given me some interesting insights on various passages. 

Let me stress something. The fact I choose a particular translation as my “translation of the year” does, in no way, necessarily mean that I am endorsing that translation for anybody else to use. I decided on this practice for purposes of comparison only. 

That is definitely the case with the translation I am listening to this year. Although I do not even own a print copy of The New Living Translation, that is what I’ve been listening to. 

On some occasions, listening to that translation has caused me to shake my head in disbelief. I wonder how the people who worked on it could have come up with what they put in the text. 

There are also times when I have what I sometimes call a “hmmm moment.” I’ll hear something and think, “Hmmm; I never heard it put that way. I need to see how close that is to the original meaning of the text.”

That was the case recently as my daily passage included John 5:35. As you may recall, our Lord was defending His authority to some who were already seeking to kill Him (cf. John 5:18). In the course of this discussion, Jesus mentioned John; the one who was to prepare the way for Jesus.

Here are different translations of what Jesus said in verse 35:

• King James Version: “He was a burning and shining light, and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.”
• American Standard Version: “He was the lamp that burneth and shineth, and ye were willing to rejoice for a season in his light.”
• English Standard Version: “He was a burning shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.”
• New American Standard Bible: “He was a lamp that was burning and was shining and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.”

It is interesting to notice that all of these translations speak of an interest and a time that was temporary. The argument could be made that those to whom Jesus was speaking lost interest in the message of John. It could also be thought that the Lord was speaking of the temporary nature of John’s ministry. 

It seems to me that both of these ideas come together as one remembers the purpose of John and of his ministry. While the Jews might have been interested in hearing a message about the Messiah (at least for a while), they did not accept the fact that John was pointing them to Jesus as that Messiah. They would have none of that.

As I listened to how this verse reads in the NLT, I realized that there are people living today who match the description found there. These people and their reaction have very little to do with their opinion of John. Their reaction is to the Lord, Himself. 

Please notice the words we find in the last part of John 5:35 in the NLT:

“..and you were excited for a while about his message”

How often does this happen with regard to the message of Jesus? How often does a person get caught up by an emotional appeal and the excitement of a particular moment and use that as the primary reason to follow Him? 

Do you know of anybody who, at one time, made a genuine commitment to the Lord and followed the example of the Ethiopian eunuch who “…went on his way rejoicing” after his baptism (Acts 8:39)? Do you know of any of those people who, in the words of Jesus, “…are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy.  But these have no root; they believe it for a little while, and in time of testing fall away” (Luke 8:13, ESV)?

The question of whether or not we will spend eternity in heaven is not a matter of being excited for a while. It is a matter of being committed for life.

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