Discussing Two Scriptural Misunderstandings

“For Many Are Called, But Few Chosen”—(Matthew 20:16). There are many Christians who read this Bible verse at face value and interpret it as meaning that it is not our choice, but God’s choice, whether we accept the calling of God in our lives. They will point to verses which say that God hardens peoples hearts.

People who speak more than one language will tell you that translation is not a perfect science, because no one language can be perfectly translated into another without some word meaning being incorrect or at least not accurate.

There are some words in every language that just cannot be translated properly into another language. In cases like this, the translator must translate the word with a word to its closest meaning. This sometimes creates a situation, as we have here, of a phrase that does not translate well.

There are some who translate Matthew 20:16b (“b” is just a reference to the latter portion of this verse, you will not find a Scripture reference with a letter behind it in the Bible) as meaning, that it is not necessarily your choice whether you accept this calling or not.

If the meaning were to be taken as this example describes, than this Scripture verse is hypocritical. Why would God call many, but only chose a few. It really doesn’t make sense unless you take the context that surrounds the word into the meaning, and it also would not be in agreement with Scripture that calls God a loving Father if it were taken at face value. It is almost as though He would be teasing some, by calling them to the truth, but then saying, “No, I don’t want you.”

Now, I preface all this by saying, I am not a translator; I only know the English language. With that said I do know someone whose profession is in translation. He has explained to me that there are many words in every language that are difficult to translate. Because a word may not have a direct translation in the language to be translated, you need to find a word that closely resembles, in meaning, the word to be translated.

This word replacement is not a perfect science. Many times you just cannot come up with an appropriate word to give a perfect translation. Sometimes this can change a word meaning or sometimes it can change the meaning of a complete sentence or thought.

Although I am not a proponent of paraphrasing the entire Bible, which some translations do. There are times when paraphrasing is a necessity because of what I just explained. With this particular verse even the paraphrase translates it virtually the same way.

Of course I’ve come up with my own paraphrased, very unofficial, translation. I believe the best way to read this verse is, “For many are called, but few accept the calling.” Even though when you do a word for word translation, this particular translation would not be correct, but I believe this is what the writer, Matthew, really said in its original context, and how it would have been perceived in the original written language.

I would like to touch on something I mentioned earlier; that would be the hardness of heart issue. This is another misconstrued phrase that we find throughout the Bible. When I come across verses that have conflicting meanings, the first thing I do is compare different translations for more understanding.

I know I mentioned I am not a proponent of paraphrased translations, but what I meant was as my main study source. Paraphrased translations can be a big help in getting context, although one translation I stay far away from is “The Message”, by Eugene Peterson. The Message, is more a self interpretation, rather than a paraphrase (Click here for more information on Translations).

Most paraphrased translations are done by groups of individuals who put their thoughts together to come up with context. It doesn’t mean they always come up with proper context, but once a single individual does his or her own paraphrase, problems are bound to occur. In the case of The Message, there are many questions that come up as to whether it is contextually correct, or is it just Peterson’s interpretation.

In regards to my Bible commentaries on this site, I make it clear when it is something that I may have come into personal revelation, I point that out and call it “speculation on my part”. If I don’t specify that, I will backup my explanation with either other Scripture references or with common understanding via other credible sources. Although, revelation knowledge is knowledge from God that you can be confident in.

A very good Bible translation that I am finding more and more useful in my studies is the Amplified Bible. This translation is a word for word translation, which I believe are the best all around Bibles, but it also adds the context that the word is used in. For example; some of our English words can be used in two or more different contexts. Depending upon which context the word is used in, can alter the definition of the word.

When translating a writing from one language to another in a word for word translation, you run into the problem of how a word is used in context, which needs to be considered when translating it. Some words need to be translated word to phrase, but this type of translation borders on paraphrasing.

The Amplified Version of the Bible accomplishes both tasks, for it translates the Bible as word for word, but where context needs to be mentioned to give full understanding of what the writer is saying, the Amplified translation puts the context into brackets. When you see a bracket, you know that the translators are giving you addition context of what is being said.

I don’t like to read the Amplified as my main study tool because with all the brackets, at least for me, it gets a little confusing. I use it more for comparison.

There are many different circumstances that surround where this context comes from. It is not just a guess the translator makes, it may revolve around the way the word they are translating was used elsewhere in Scripture. For example; the English word “wickedly” was translated from five different Hebrew words in the Old Testament. Each one of these Hebrew words may give the definition of “wickedly” a different context to how it was used.

With that said, we find a lot of good information in regards to word translation and also context of the word where it needs clarification. When I did a search of the Amplified Bible for the issue of “hardness of heart”, I found some interesting information that supports my view of this topic here.

Many conclude that God hardens hearts of people so He can pick and choose who He wants to know His will for their lives. They conclude this because of Scripture verses, such as, Isaiah 63:17, it reads:

“O LORD, why have You made us stray from Your ways, And hardened our heart from Your fear? Return for Your servants’ sake, The tribes of Your inheritance” (from the New King James Version).

When you read this translated verse at face value, it appears to imply that God hardened their hearts so they would stray from Him. Now let’s see this same verse in the Amplified Version, that adds the context of the translated words and see the difference:

“O Lord, why have You made us [able] to err from Your ways and hardened our hearts to [reverential] fear of You? Return [to bless us] for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your heritage.”

Notice the first bracketed word “able”. This changes the whole context of what is being said here. God didn’t make us “stray”, He made us “able to stray”. How did He make us able to stray? By instituting the law of freedom of choice. In other words, God will never force you to accept Him; it’s your choice. But, He does give us very good reasons to choose Him.

If we don’t choose Him our hearts must be hardened to what He has told us. For those of you who are parents, you should know exactly what I mean. When you teach your teenage child life’s experiences that you learned through the trials and errors of your own life, and they do not heed your advice and wind up making the same mistakes you made, you can say their heart has been hardened to your advice.

Does that mean you hardened their heart? Of course not, would a parent not want their child to understand these life principles that you try to teach them? So, why would God not want His children to know Him? By believing that God hardens peoples hearts, means that God, as being a parent to all mankind, purposely hardens some of their hearts.

This just doesn’t make sense. The only one who can harden your heart is yourself. Most peoples hearts are hardened because of the influence of society. The lure of society keeps man from seeking God. Satan has done a great job at creating a society that man is enamored by. Generation after generation of man will not learn the lessons of the previous generations.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, king Solomon learned this lesson. He learned that all that life has to offer is like chasing after the wind. He was the riches man in the world at the time, yet it did not satisfy him. His book of Ecclesiastes is like a letter from him to each one of us, but most of mankind does not heed his advice.

We read in first Corinthians 10:13a, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man.” Man does not learn lessons easily, we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. God does not have to harden our hearts, we do a good enough job ourselves by listening to society, which is a product of this satanic fallen world.

There is nothing good; nothing profitable in our societies today that doesn’t come from God. The treasure trove of life’s principles that are within the pages of the Bible, is where man should be looking for the answers to life, instead of making the same mistakes over and over again.

When you do study your Bible, it’s a good habit, when studying, to see the differing translations to get a better view of the contextual makeup of Scripture. Especially Scriptures that do not read clearly, as the ones I used as examples here. Another translation, even a paraphrase translation, can help you understand context.

My personal preference is to used the New King James Version as my main study Bible and the Amplified Version, New International Version, New American Standard, in that order, to aid me with understanding context. I don’t stop there, but those are my main choices, with my least choices being, “The Message” and the TNIV, which stands for Today’s New International Version. What you choose is your prerogative, just as long as you are reading God’s Word.