Mental Musings

The Bible was originally written using 11,280 Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words, yet the average English translation only contains about 6,000. This is not a problem for those who have the ability to study God's Word in the original languages, but the rest of us have to rely on the translation work of other scholars and theologians. While all English translations are useful for studying God's Word, it is obvious why so many translations, and newer translations, are needed. The many descriptive and explanatory words used in the original languages need to be constantly put into words that we can understand in relation to our unique English speaking cultures. I personally like to use BibleGateway.com and YouVersion's Bible app for my own personal Bible study time because I can choose from among dozens of translations as well as commentaries and Bible helps. It is also important that Christians become scholars of history so that we can better understand the cultur...

This week I published a children's book on CreateSpace, an Amazon company. I have more than a dozen items published with various companies, including skits, articles, hymns, and poetry. I have even written and produced television commercials for a local cable channel and acting in a commercial that was aired nationally. But the process to get my first book published took much more time and work than any of these, mainly due to all of the editing. Mr. Black's Secret is a Chapter Book for children. It actually started as a bedtime story that I was writing for my sons. I would write a chapter and then read it to them. I really had no plan for how the story would end until I got to the final chapters. I actually finished writing it in 2006. I was living in Maryland without my family for a month waiting for the closing date on our home, so I spent my evenings writing. Over the past year I have been editing and fine tuning the book. The story originally had my two boys cast...