Proper 18 Year A, 2023: Matthew 18:15-20
If you’ve been through the Road to Emmaus class here at Grace, you might know that I have opinions about Bible translations. Because translation is interpretation. This isn’t a judging statement: it simply is, because the meanings of words change over time. And translating is hard. Especially if you’ve ever tried to translate an idiom from one language to another, you know that you have to do more work than just straight up finding the words for “let the cat out of the bag” or “kill two birds with one stone”. If you don’t understand the culture, it sounds insane. You pick up on what phrases like these mean by living in the language. The Gospels were written in Greek, but Jesus would likely have been teaching in Aramaic, which makes me wonder what kinds of linguistic gymnastics the authors had to make to begin writing in the first place. This brings us to the King James Version. I have much more patience with the King James Version than I have with many modern translations. I’ve h