Letting God explain Himself through His written word is sometimes a slow process, because the Bible was dictated and written down over centuries, so long ago and so far away. All of this recording, and our attempts to understand the written word, have been set in a post-Babel language context, so there seems to be a lot “lost in translation”. God is not and was never an inept communicator*, but in our human hearing, note-taking, transcribing, translating, comprehension* and relating what we understand of a plane that is higher than ours, mankind has sometimes been inept. I thank God so much for those saints* who sacrificially* spent huge portions of their lives in work that now helps* us to understand God’s written word better than we could on our own. The labors of Divinely* inspired translators, researchers, archeologists, linguists, teachers and communicators now combine* to help us draw explanations of scripture, from scripture, with the use of cross-references, concordances, commentaries and comparative translations. All this can help us to reclaim* much of what was lost in translation, and to avoid the trap of applying “private interpretations” (2 Peter 1:20) to God’s holy word. Have I forgotten to mention the most important Helper and Guide in our quest for understanding of scripture? No. I have only left Him unnamed until now; but those mysterious asterisks sprinkled in the text above are my indicators of the Holy Spirit’s thread of influence from start to finish of this pursuit of understanding. The Holy Spirit, one of Whose roles is to lead believers into all truth (John 16:13), first produces the desire in us to understand God’s word, and then guides the yielded in the diligent pursuit and communication of truth. The Holy Spirit even grants revelation that helps us to personalize the scripture, while protecting the yielded from falling prey to private (self-serving) interpretations and strange “winds of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:3-15) in our pursuit of understanding.    (To be continued…)