Killing the Passion

Killing the Passion - Photini

If you want to know what this series is about go to my first post here.

The more I look at Brian Simmons the greater my concern. Follow him and down the rabbit hole you go to a world so unfamiliar to the keenest Bible student you simply must take his word for it, and that is troubling.

In a 7 minute video he tells the story of the woman at the well. The familiar story is related, along with some Brian Simmons flourishes, then he says, ‘The Lord, when I was translating John 4, said, ‘Well, she has a name. Would you like to know her name? Her name is Photini.’

There is already a question mark over his claim to be a Bible ‘translator,’ his work sounding more like an act of channelling than translating, as he ‘shares the heart of God.’ Having related this revelation from God about the woman’s name, he goes on to relate what happened next to Photini. You might be forgiven for thinking he is continuing to relate what God told him. After all, he begins by saying God told him her name. However, he tells us you can check what he is saying on Wikipedia and assures us what historians affirm.

The story of Photini, as he relates it, comes from a long-standing Eastern Christian tradition and can, indeed, be checked out on Wikipedia. How much credence we are to give it is another question, but we can be sure that all we know from the Bible is in John 4. The problem I have with this is how God apparently told him her name, and he looked it up on Wikipedia, from which he, seemingly, gets the rest of her story. Did God say, ‘If you don’t believe me, look it up on Wikipedia?’ I must be frank, my first instinct is to reach for my Bible, but that’s me. Of course, if he started with Wikipedia and then...let’s not go there.

He mentions ‘Sod,’ and ‘the land of Sod,’ several times in this story and this is apparently key to his flights of fancy. It bears investigation and I will come to that in another post, but the point here is Brian Simmons is not translating the Bible, he is rewriting it, using any and every resource that comes to hand and calling it ‘revelation.’

Today's text for comparison is Romans 12:2

‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ ESV (35 words)

'Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.' NIV (37 words)

‘Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.’ TPT (47 words)

Twelve more words than the more literal ESV, Ten more than the dynamic equivalence NIV. I do wonder, at the rate he adds words to Scripture, how heavy his finished Bible is going to be, and will I be able to carry a printed edition to church?

Of course, this is not translation so much as exposition. This is Brian Simmons ‘preaching’ the passage in the passage. Now we can test what Brian Simmons thinks against what we know the Bible tells us. In his verbose way he does bring across the meaning quite well, but notice the focus of his exposition. Resisting the pattern of the world, seeking a renewed mind, is to the end we should know and live out God’s will.

What, in legitimate translations, is the ability to test and know God’s will, for Brian it is ‘power,’ to ‘live a beautiful life.’ The focus has changed, subtly, but clearly enough, from the perfect will of God to the beautiful life of the believer. These things are not, of course, mutually exclusive, You may believe they relate one to another, but they don’t stand side-by-side in the text. Discerning and following the perfect will of God may, or may not, lead to a beautiful life, but that is exposition, not translation.

In the previous verse Paul writes, ‘I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.’ ESV

We seek to discern God’s will so we can offer our lives as living sacrifices, to the one who made us and remade us, offering up spiritual worship. We discern and offer up what is ‘holy and acceptable to God.’ This may be beautiful but the focus is God and not me.

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