Stylistic decisions referenced here are governed by the Translation Micro–Style Guide.
I. Scope and Aim
I started translating the New Testament for myself, because I was serious about becoming “fluent” enough in Greek to be able to read the New Testament in Greek as comfortably as I read it in English. I also thought it would be a good way to test whether and how well I learned the language.
Beyond personal edification, I chose to publish these translations for devotional use, teaching and exegesis, as a legacy for my own family, and to assist others who desire greater comfort with the Greek New Testament.
I created TBWM for both a selfish and a ministry reason. The selfish reason is that publishing what I am doing forces me to translate as precisely and carefully as possible. Documenting my analytical steps, my successes, and my failures, and publishing them creates a level of rigor and accountability that keeps me honest.
The ministry reason is simple. God gave me the desire, resources, and time to learn Greek. The Bible says that freely we receive, freely give. I want to share what I’ve learned to help anyone who wants to do what I’ve done.
II. Philosophy of Translation
In terms of my English language philosophy, I like precise, crisp, evocative words that try to ensure accuracy in translation, fidelity to nuance, and still be enjoyable to read. I am not shy about using formal English words if I think they are the best choice for communicating the message of the original author. By the same token, I do not choose words to be showy or ornate. An English word is used because I think it’s the best choice and for no other reason.
My goal is to strike a balance between formal and functional translation philosophies. But in every case, I strive to translate and not interpret.
That means I almost always preserve tension and ambiguity. If the tension and ambiguity are in the original language, it is a disservice to readers of the Word to hide it from them. If God left an ambiguity in the text for the original readers, we should confront it, too.
For the same reason, I avoid smoothing theological difficulty. This is why there is sometimes an awkwardness in the English translation. Sometimes the only way to faithfully capture the meaning of a sentence or passage leads to strange or non-idiomatic English. That is a choice I intentionally make to preserve meaning, rhetoric, and discourse flow of the original.
III. Treatment of Greek Grammar
English tense choices reflect Greek aspect and context over the Greek verb’s specific morphological tense. This is most visible in Greek present tense verbs and with participles.
Greek tolerates clause stacking in ways that English does not. So, clauses have to be restructured in English to convey the same meaning as the Biblical author. In such cases, the literal rendering is kept as much as possible even though the ordering may differ.
Participles are particularly important in Greek discourse and frequently carry semantic weight that cannot be reproduced by a simple English participle. As a result, they are often rendered as finite clauses or restructured phrases in order to preserve their function rather than their form.
Human languages are not like computer languages that almost perfectly map one to one. Some words in Greek have multiple meanings that have to be rendered in English with different words. This is true of function words, too, like conjunctions. In Greek, conjunctions map to various English conjunctions, but most of the time they map to more than one English conjunction. Καί, for example, most often maps to “and” in English, but it can mean other things, too. In some cases, it might convey the idea of “even.” My translation principle is to translate the meaning of the conjunction as used in the specific context in which it was used. The result is that καί will not be translated only as “and” every time it’s used. Same with other conjunctions.
That prepositions control meaning in prepositional phrases is something that every elementary Greek student learns. The meaning of the preposition is quite nuanced. Peruse any preposition’s entry in BDAG and see for yourself. The key to a preposition’s meaning is first and foremost the lexical range, but that lexical range is governed by context in the sentence and surrounding passage.
IV. Lexical Consistency
I take the view the Scripture was inspired by God. I also believe that the Biblical authors—like authors of any important document—choose their words, clauses, arrangement, and the like intentionally.
That means a lot of things, but it comes into play sharply when it comes to an author repeating words and later using synonym for that word. For example, in 1 John, John uses the word τεκνία extensively, but in one place he uses παιδία. Could he have done that just for the sake of variety? Sure. That’s possible. But it seems unlikely. He used τεκνία everywhere else but that one place. This does not look like variety for the sake of variety. Rather, it looks like an intentional choice. In my translation, I try to bring out that force by translating παιδία differently from τεκνία even though the words are very close in meaning.
Another place where intentionality matters is in words that over the years have developed strong theological meanings. For example, in 1 John, John uses the word μένω extensively. In many English translations the word is rendered “abide,” or some variation of abide. While, I appreciate the tradition, I wanted to make sure I was allowing John to fully communicate what he was telling his readers. John was writing to people who were already “abiding,” so his use of the word was communicating something more. He was telling those abiding to continue to do so, that is, he was telling them to remain. Consequently, I used the word remain to draw out that force.
One other point on the topic of lexical consistency has to do with the Biblical authors—like John and Paul—being repetitive. The Greek is often repetitive, but many English translations try to mask that repetitiveness not because they are trying to hide something but to make the English easier to read. The problem is that obscures a substantial part of the author’s message. John is not being repetitive because he is a lazy writer. That repetition has a rhetorical effect. First, these letters were read out loud because many people were not literate. Repetition is a memory aid. Second, the repetition has an effect of reinforcing critical themes and motifs that John, or Paul, or James, or Luke, or whoever, wanted readers to hear and understand.
I did my level best to keep the repetition. But I also tried to make the English as beautiful and poetic as the original Greek to convey as much of the rhetorical flair that the original Greek readers would experience.
V. Pronouns, Capitalization, and Reverence
In many mainline Bible translations, readers have gotten used to seeing divine pronouns capitalized. I do not do this, but it was a hard translation choice. First, capitalized letters of any sort are interpretative. The New Testament was not written with uppercase and lowercase letters, but solely uppercase.
There are some places where capitalization may seem obvious, but we are still solving an ambiguity by capitalizing. Translators are telling readers that this pronoun refers to God (the Father, the Son, or the Spirit). The original Greek readers were not told that. I believe it’s important to leave the Word as it was written and let readers discern from the context whether a he or Him refers to a member of the Trinity or to a human being.
I was torn over whether lowercasing divine pronouns might appear irreverent. After careful reflection, I concluded that it is in fact more faithful to both God and His Word. When the epistle was first penned, there were no visual markers to distinguish divine pronouns from others. Lowercasing them therefore honors the original form of the text and respects the reader, allowing attentiveness and the guidance of the Spirit to do their proper work.
At the same time, clear divine names remain capitalized. God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and of course Jesus are all capitalized as one would expect.
VI. Textual Decisions
These translations are based on the Textus Receptus without regard to issues of textual criticism. Of course, there are textual variants in the manuscripts that resulted in the TR, the NA28, or the Majority Text. For the most part, I do not discuss or address those textual variants in my translations. You can see my reasons for using the TR here.
What that means for you is the following. Whether you are committed to the TR or critical of it, at least you understand my textual basis. That will help you evaluate my translations. You do not think I mistranslated the Greek because the NA28, for example, uses a textual variant.
It means one other thing. My purpose is teaching my process of translating Greek, not to persuade you on the what manuscript tradition is right. Clearly, I have an opinion on that subject that I put right out front. Still, don’t let that turn you off to participating in TBWM. You are welcome to use your preferred manuscript base, work alongside me, and even discuss the textual variants between the manuscript.
There is one really big textual variant that rears its head in First John: the Comma Johanneum (I John 5:7-8). I did address that textual variant because it is so significant. Indeed, one of the reasons that I was excited to translate I John was so I could examine a particular aspect of the comma.
I have believed that the comma was part of God’s Word and have followed the arguments in favor of it closely. One argument that I thought was particularly powerful was the grammatical argument—namely, that without the comma the Greek sentences did not agree grammatically. It was such a powerful argument it seemed like it should be the kind of argument that would just end the debate.
When I got to I John 5:7-8, I first read and translated the NA28 text, which does not have the comma. I did that to see if I could actually see the poor grammar with the comma missing. After I examined the NA28 text and made some observations, only then would I translate the TR version.
I plan to write a longer article about it later, but I was shocked at what I found. The grammatical argument did not hold up under close examination.
In the TBWM pages for I John 5:7-8, you’ll see my explanation as to why. I found something else equally powerful, when I read the TR version with the comma, the comma seems surprisingly jarring. It seems to deviate significantly from the style John’s writing throughout the epistle (and his other writing). The two takeaways for me are the following. The grammatical argument is false. That doesn’t mean the comma itself is false. It only means that the grammatical argument is not a separate source of support for the comma. My other takeaway is another reminder about how valuable it is to be able to read the New Testament in Greek.
VII. Transparency Statement
If you’ve spent any time on these pages, you likely know that I’m a lawyer by training. Since the spring of 2020, I have deeply immersed myself in the study of Koine Greek. If you want to learn more, you can read about it in My Greek Learning Journey. At the beginning of 2025, I decided to put my Greek to the test by translating a book of the Bible. I had already conducted a comprehensive study of III John, so that seemed like a natural place to start. I was hooked. After III John, I translated Ephesians, II John, and then I John.
I have approached my translation work as rigorously as possible for a single-author effort. I developed what I called my Island Scenario, which you can read about here.
At first, I parsed nearly every word. As my vocabulary and grasp of forms grew, that level of parsing became unnecessary.
Once the words were parsed, I would try to determine how each of the words functioned in the sentence, diagram them, and then provide a rough translation. I then compared my work with mainstream translations—not to crowdsource answers, but to verify accuracy.
The process was painstaking but worth every moment. It was deeply satisfying to watch my Greek move from halting dependence to genuine sight-reading.
This process is what led me to create Translate the Bible with Me. That way I could share it and show others how enjoyable it is to be able to read and interact with Greek. More importantly, to show how much more you can draw from the Word of God by reading it in the original languages.