'The Voice' Bible translation good for teaching 'The Way'

Our Sunday school class is currently going through Adam Hamilton's new video teaching, The Way: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus. It's a great series. In each video, Hamilton shows you places in the Holy Land where Jesus walked and taught.


The lesson plans in the leader's guide call for class members to read the scriptures aloud dramatically, like a play. I found that the new translation The Voice is well-suited to this. It's a paraphrase written in a screenplay style, with dialog called out this way:

Jesus: Move out into deeper water, and drop your nets to see what you’ll catch. 

Simon (perplexed): Master, we’ve been fishing all night, and we haven’t caught even a minnow. But…all right, I’ll do it if You say so.

It's almost as if The Voice was written for the purpose. But The Voice is published by Thomas Nelson, and The Way by Abingdon Press. So I doubt they planned it.

In April, a colleague pointed me to the HarperCollins Christian Publishing Consumer Insights Panel. After signing on as a member of the panel, I got a promotional e-version of The Voice New Testament. Right about the same time, the Christian Education director at our church got a postcard promoting The Way and suggested it would be appropriate for my class.

That all sounds very coincidental, but I don't believe in coincidences. I think Someone planned it, but it wasn't likely the publishers.

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