The people of our church use a variety of different translations of the scriptures in their personal study. It is helpful that there are a variety of very accurate translations from which to choose. This year our church switched from using the NIV (the New International Version) to the ESV (the English Standard Version) as the translation largely taught from in the pulpit.

The change came after the NIV itself was retranslated.  The problem was that some of the pronouns that were once translated as masculine were replaced by gender neutral pronouns. Gender neutral is an accurate translation of some verses and is clearly more popular in our country these days.  The question is, did the new translation simply make new customers happy or was it also done to be more accurate?

Those of us who determined the new NIV is slightly less accurate now, no longer use that translation. Many Christian organizations, including the Southern Baptist Convention, do not recommend this new translation as being as reliable as the old NIV which is not called by its publisher the NIV 1984.

For more information about the differences between the new NIV and the ESV in the way they translate, click on:

http://static.crossway.org/excerpt/why-our-church-switched-to-the-esv/why-our-church-switched-to-the-esv.pdf

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located one and a half miles east of Rt. 222, across from the Principio Health Center on Rt. 40