The God's Word Translation of the Bible A Minister's Review

When the Name Sounds Like a Joke

A discussion about versions of the Bible was the topic of a in a small-group setting. Someone asked, “What Bible do you read?” One person answered the ESV. Another named the Amplified Bible. Then it was my turn, and I said, “God’s Word.”

Most of the people in the room had never heard of the translation, so they thought I was being facetious. Yes, he reads God’s Word. Very spiritual. What, exactly, are the rest of us reading?

You can see how the simple name of this translation can send a conversation in several directions. Its official name is the God’s Word Translation, commonly abbreviated GW. The name may require explanation, but the translation deserves more attention than it usually receives.

Published in 1995 by God’s Word to the Nations Bible Society, GW was produced primarily by translators associated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Its translators followed a method they called closest natural equivalence. Their aim was to communicate the meaning of the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts in clear, natural English.

That places GW somewhere between formally equivalent translations, such as the ESV and NASB, and more interpretive translations, such as the NLT. It is not a transliteration, nor is it merely a paraphrase. It is a genuine translation from the biblical languages, but one willing to rearrange ancient expressions when a wooden rendering would leave modern readers admiring the words without understanding the sentence.

What God’s Word Does Best

GW is at its best when Scripture is being heard by people who do not already speak fluent “church.” Its sentences are direct, its vocabulary is familiar, and its meaning can usually be grasped without mentally disassembling the English and putting it back together in Greek order. That is not theological laziness. A translation has not necessarily preserved the clarity of Scripture merely because it has preserved an awkward sentence.

GW is particularly effective for evangelism, public reading, youth ministry, new believers, and readers for whom English is a second language. Narrative passages move naturally, while complicated New Testament arguments often become easier to follow. The translation does not assume that readers arrived carrying a theology dictionary and three generations of church vocabulary.

This is its greatest contribution: GW reduces unnecessary linguistic distance without treating the biblical message casually. It helps unfamiliar readers encounter the substance of Scripture before requiring them to master its traditional English vocabulary. Some ministers occasionally confuse difficulty with depth, as though Paul becomes more inspired when his sentences require three attempts, two commentaries, and a diagram. GW reminds us that intelligibility can also serve reverence.

Where Clarity Begins Interpreting

The translation’s greatest strength also produces its principal weakness. Closest natural equivalence requires translators to interpret more visibly. When an ancient expression is replaced with its presumed meaning, the reader receives translation and explanation together. The result may be wonderfully clear, but alternative possibilities can disappear before the reader knows they existed.

Its handling of theological terminology deserves particular caution. GW sometimes expresses words associated with justification and righteousness through the language of receiving God’s “approval.” That wording may make the immediate thought understandable, but it can weaken the verbal connections running through Romans, Galatians, and the wider canon. Biblical authors sometimes repeat words because they are building doctrine, not because their thesaurus was unavailable. When a translation varies those terms to produce smoother English, the paragraph may become easier while the theological pattern becomes harder to see.

Simplification can also flatten literary texture. Hebrew poetry, prophetic rhetoric, and Pauline density are not accidental inconveniences awaiting modern repair. Sometimes the form carries part of the force. GW occasionally explains the road so efficiently that the reader misses some of the terrain.

A Minister’s Verdict

GW is trustworthy and useful for devotional reading, evangelism, congregational comparison, and supplementary study. It is especially valuable when comprehension is the immediate pastoral concern. I would not recommend it as a minister’s only translation for detailed exegesis, word studies, or doctrinal formulation. For those purposes, it should be compared with a more formally equivalent translation and, when possible, the original languages.

I continue reading God’s Word, both in the theological sense and in the conveniently confusing sense. GW does not replace rigorous study. It does something different and does it unusually well: it allows contemporary readers to hear the biblical message without first making them decode traditional religious English.