F aith

Section
Thursday,
July 16, 2009

Page 1
The Herald Journal

Feeling it
Missionaries
Called
Nicholas Croft Borgogna, son
of Kristan Fjeldsted of Logan, and
Sam and Bridget Borgogna of

in their
Atlanta, Ga., has accepted a call

hearts
to serve in the Illinois Peoria LDS
Mission. He will speak Sunday, July
19 at 9 a.m. in the Logan 8th Ward.
He enters the MTC July 22.

Trevor Nathan Christensen,

son of Nathan and Linda Chris-
tensen of Logan, has accepted a
call to serve in the Helsinki Finland
LDS Mission. He enters the MTC
on July 22. He speaks Sunday,
July 19 at 11 a.m. in the Dry Can-
yon Ward, 1350 E. Eastridge Dr.,
Logan.

Courtney Hahne, daughter of

Joseph and Jan Hahne of Nibley,
has accepted a call to serve in the
Ireland Dublin LDS Mission. She
enters the Preston, England MTC
on July 24.

Jacob Paul Hunsaker, son of

Philip and ShawnDel Hunsaker of Alan Murray/Herald Journal
NIbley, has accepted a call to serve Maria Elena Castro participates in a worship service of the Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Jesus Christ church at the Whittier Center
in the Peru Araquipa LDS Mission. in Logan Sunday, June 14.
He enters the MTC July 29.

Tyler Ross Munk, son of Rod

and Lori Munk of Amalga, has
accepted a call to serve in the Mex-
ico Chihuahua LDS Mission. He
enters the MTC July 29. He speaks
Sunday, July 19, at 9:30 a.m. in the
Amalga Ward, 6521 N. 2400 West,
Amalga.
Kelli Sue Thompson, daughter
of Blair and Cynthia Thompson of
Providence, has accepted a call to
serve in the Illinois Peoria LDS Mis-
sion. She enters the MTC July 22.
Returned
Austin Birky, son of Bruce and
Connie Birky of Logan, returned
July 15, 2009 from the Italy Rome
LDS Mission.
Terry Camp from Hyde Park,
son of Lee and Ruth Ann Camp,
is returning from the Concepcion,
Chile LDS Mission. He will speak
Sunday July 19, at 8:30 a.m. in the
Hyde Park 3rd Ward, 535 E. 2nd
South.
Kevin Lowry, son of Ken and
Debbie Lowry of Nibley, returned
July 15, 2009 from the Texas Hous-
ton Spanish speaking LDS Mission.
He speaks at Nibley Stake Center
at 11 a.m. on July, 19.
Harley Steven Parry, son of
Steven and Michelle Parry of
Logan, recently returned from the
Spain Madrid LDS Mission.
Logan Apostolic Assembly
meets for music, worship
By Brendon Butler
features writer
Members of the Apostolic Assembly
of the Faith in Jesus Christ are not shy
about praising God. Whether listening
to a sermon or singing hymns backed
by the church’s live band, members
often feel inspired to burst out: “Gloria
a Dios!” “Alleluia!” and “A su nombre
gloria!” during the exuberant and emo-
tional worship services held Sundays
at the Whittier Community Center in
Logan.
Alphonso Velasco, lay minister for
the church, says the hand clapping and
upbeat worship is a way to communicate
with the holy spirit and is a part of the
church’s identity. The church traces its
roots to a church on 312 Azusa Street
in Los Angeles in 1906 where several
charismatic preachers led an ongoing
series of meetings in which people
reportedly were overtaken by the holy
spirit, spoke in tongues and were healed
by faith. These meetings included white,
black and Latino participants, a practice
unheard of in that day. Lasting until
1916, the “Azusa Street Revival” led to
the birth of Pentecostalism, says Velasco.
The Apostolic Assembly church in
America is made up of mostly Span-
ish speaking people, says Velasco, but
meetings in larger cities are sometimes
presented bilingually. A typical service
at the Whittier Center is in Spanish.
It begins with separate Sunday school
classes for men, women and children,
followed by a 40-minute song service
and then an hourlong sermon by Velasco
or a visiting minister from a neighboring
city. The congregation always stands to
sing and participate. Many people close
their eyes, raise their arms and sway to
the music while they sing.
Victor Rodrigues plays in the church
band. “When you feel the presence of
God, sometimes you don’t know what
you are doing. You are shouting and you
are raising your hands,” he says of some
congregant’s fervid communion with the
music.
Not all hymns are loud and rousing
though. The first half of the 40-minute
song service is usually devoted to fer-
vent, soothing hymnals, he says. No Alan Murray
matter what the hymn, the audience is A worshiper prays during a service of the
Apostolic Assembly of the Faith in Jesus
always invited to sing along. Christ church at the Whittier Center in
Logan on Sunday, June 14.
See APOSTOLIC on C2

Wesley Sanders, son of Mark

Sanders of Bridgman, Michigan
and Janiel Woodland of Logan,
recently returned from the Canada
Understanding Bible translations
Calgary LDS Mission. He speaks By Eldon Peterson phrase or thought in the origi- A Cache Valley and the Geneva Bible. The
Sunday, July 19, at 11 a.m. in the nal language and then express By Protestant Greek text used is referred to

Logan 18th Ward, 502 E. 300
North.
Missionary announcements run
for free every Thursday. They must
be submitted before 4 p.m. Tues-
day to Manette Newbold by phone
at 752-2121 or by e-mail at mnew-
bold@hjnews.com.
Faith report
Informal worship
I
deas are always better
communicated when they
are expressed in ‘plain
English.’ While legal contracts
may be required to be writ-
ten with precise and technical
wording, for most of our daily
communication, such words
are not helpful. In our com-
munication there exists a ten-
sion between using words that
express
Peterson
it in English that’s easy to read
and understand.
In addition to holding the
need for precision and ease of
understanding in tension, the
translators may seek to apply
other criteria too. The New
King James Version seeks
to maintain the flavor of the
original King James while
updating the language; the
New Living Translation made
it a priority for it to be easy to
perspective
Faith
American reads between a 6th
and 8th grade reading level.
Like the legal document that
we cannot understand, if we
are unable to understand the
meaning of our Bible we will
benefit little from it. The best
as the Textus Receptus or the
“Received Text.” Over fifty
scholars worked on the proj-
ect, which started in 1607 and
finished in 1611. Newer trans-
lations (NASB, ESV, NIV)
use the Nestle-Aland Greek
texts; these “standard texts”
are continually being updated
(Novum Testamentum Graece
1993).
You may still ask, “Why do
we need to keep translating

the pre- Bible for us is one that bal-

On Sunday, July 18, First
Presbyterian Church will hold
an informal worship service at
10:30 a.m. in the Ampitheater
of Guinavah Campground, in
Logan Canyon. A light lunch
will be served afterward. Those
who remain for the lunch are
encouraged to bring lawn
chairs. Maps to the site will be
available after 8:15 a.m. Sunday
in the church’s Bruner Hall.
This annual worship Sunday
in the Campground will replace
the customary 9 a.m. Alterna-
tive worship in Bruner Hall
and the 10:30 a.m. Traditional
worship in the church sanctu-
ary. However, there will be a
worship service in the church’s
Bruner Hall at 8:30 a.m. for
those who are unable to go to
the campground.
Pancake breakfast
The Logan 5th Ward Young
Women program will host a
Pioneer Day pancake breakfast
July 24 from 7-11 a.m. at the
LDS church located at 502 E.
300 North, Logan.
cise intent
without
becoming
too techni-
cal that
misunder-
standing
ensues.
Understanding this tension
will be helpful in answering
the questions that many have
concerning the variety of Bible
translations. Some ask why
there are so many, while others
wonder which one is the best.
Let me then offer some back-
ground information to help
answer these questions.
We can plot English Bible
translations along a continuum
that stretches from ‘Word for
Word translation’ to ‘Thought
for Thought translation.’ In
the word for word method the
translators go to the original
languages, translate each word
individually and then construct
these words into an English
sentence. Under the thought
for thought method, the trans-
lators take the meaning of a
read out loud forcing simpler
sentence structure.
All translations seek preci-
sion, but the price of preci-
sion is greater complexity in
sentence structure and words.
Take the legal language in a
contract, it is written with pre-
cision not readability in mind;
we would not want our Bible
to be written in this way. On
the other hand, compromising
precision for greater under-
standability may also be unde-
sirable. This is exhibited in
paraphrases (Living Bible and
The Message) where the intent
is not precision but to commu-
nicate the thoughts of the text
in a contemporary fashion.
Most would agree that the loss
of precision in a paraphrase is
not worth the gain of ease of
understanding.
However, a paraphrase is
not necessarily the easiest to
understand; the Living Bible
and the Message are both rated
at an 8th grade reading level,
the same as the New King
James Version. The average
ances understandability with
precision; many times this will
be an individual choice.
Consider some of the
translations? On the ‘Word
for Word’ translations end
we find: the New American
Standard Bible, the English
Standard Version and the King
James Version (from greater
to lesser word for word accu-
racy). On the ‘Thought for
Thought’ end we find the two
paraphrases and then the Con-
temporary English Version, the
Good News Bible and the New
Living Translation. Again, this
continuum holds precision on
one side and ease of readabil-
ity on the other.
Some may wonder why
there are differences in the
translations. The answer is
found not only in the transla-
tion methods, but also in that
they are translated from dif-
ferent source texts. Those of
the King James family come
out of revisions of previ-
ous translations: Tyndale’s,
Coverdale’s, the Great Bible
the Bible into English?” In
answering this question it is
good to realize that language
is dynamic not static; language
changes—and it changes
quickly. In only 10 years, Mer-
riam-Webster’s Collegiate
Dictionary made 100,000
changes and added 10,000 new
words.
Between the changes in
the English language and
the advancements in biblical
scholarship there will continue
to be new translations of the
Bible. Not all will fit your
need, but as you study the
Bible you will benefit from
reading from a couple transla-
tions to gain the fullest pos-
sible meaning of a text. And
since understanding its mean-
ing is our goal in studying the
Bible, we should welcome the
insights that various transla-
tions may bring.
Eldon Peterson is pastor of
the Cache Valley Bible Fellow-
ship. His column appears bi-
weekly on the Faith page.