Bible Question:
I have just read Matt 19:29 in my NKJV and My wifes NIV. There is a conflict. The NKJV implies that God would want you to leave your wife 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife[1] or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But the NIV does not. 29And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother[1] or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. It has always been my belife that the relationship between Husband and Wife was the most sacred to God and he would do nothing short of calling you home to break it up. To whome God has joined let no man break up. Husband and Wife become one flesh thus one person in the site of God. Any comments?? I have reviewed other translations inc NASB, which is in line with the NIV but others are in line with the NKJV. I know what I believe but what do you think. |
Bible Answer: The KJV has the word gune for wife, I don't know why NASB or NIV would leave it out, but there are instances where they left out words that the KJV had in becuase they decided the oldest manuscripts did not have it in there or something to that effect. But really the meaning does not change. Put yourself in the times following the resurrection adn the persecution the church went through for so long. What if a wife told her husband if he kept serving Jesus she would turn him in to the sanhedrin to be killed. He would be forced to forsake his wife for Christ sake, either by death or hiding. Consider a woman in a muslim country who actually wants to live as an oppressed muslim woman and tells her husband that if he accepts Jesus Christ as saviour she will leave him. He would not be initiating a divorce, but if he choose Jesus and she left him, the same could still be said. .he forsook all for Christ. So whether it was father, mother, brother, sister or wife, that threaten to leave him or turn him in to the authorities the same truth is still understood, whether from the NASB or the KJV. Personally I think that the KVJ scholars using the best manuscripts they had plus many other previous translations is good enough for me. I think wife fits in their as well as the rest. We are supposed to honor mother and father also, but this does not mean we do not follow Christ if they tell us not to. The same applies to the wife, we do not seek to divorce an unbelieving wife, but we do not hesitate to obey Christ if she tells us she will leav us if we do. To follow Christ is forsaking her for Him, though we do leave her. May God Bless you as you study His Word. |