WWUTT 2545 Q&A Family Resources for Devotions, Bible Translations and Copyright, Guarding Against Lust

Family Devotions, Catechisms, and Bible Resources

Should we be using Bible translations with no copyright? What are some good resources to use for family devotions? And what are some Bible passages we can meditate on to guard ourselves from lust? The answers to these questions and others, when we understand the text.

Greetings and Happy New Year from your friends at When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that we might help encourage your time in the Word. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

Psalm 75, we give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks for your time is near. Sorry, not your time. Your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds. End of the Psalm, I will declare it forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob.

All the horns of the wicked I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted.

Up.

Welcome to When We Understand The Text. I think this is the first time. It's not the first episode of the new year, but it's the first time you've been on.

This year.

To say Happy New Year.

Yes.

I feel like the last time I was on was like last year.

It was.

It's been since last year that you were on this program.

It's been a long time.

Where you been? Where you been all my life, babe?

Well, you know, taking care of things.

Yeah.

Being exhausted.

We've been sick.

Oh, man.

And then recovering from sickness, trying to get back into the swing of things.

Yes.

Which, by the way, being sick is one of the reasons why Hear the Word of the Lord lagged this week. So I only got two episodes up. And my intention for 2026 is to only do it Monday to Friday. So it's not going to be an everyday thing like I was trying to do last year and ended up falling way behind.

Yeah.

So if I give myself those two extra days, I should be able to stay on top of it. So getting back into a regular schedule on Monday, I had started in the New Testament for this year. I will resume with the Old Testament and finish up the rest of that.

But figured for the start of this year, jumping into Matthew.

Yeah.

And still in the Legacy Standard version.

Yes.

That's what I'm reading through right now.

So, again.

So are you doing like just Matthew or?

No, I'll keep going through the whole New Testament.

Okay.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Matthew to Revelation.

And then you'll go back and hit up the rest of Old Testament.

Exactly.

Nice.

So, once again, that podcast is Hear the Word of the Lord. That's what you're looking for on your podcast app. And it'll be updated, God willing, Monday to Friday. This stuff that we've been catching here at the end of 25 and going into 26 has all been kind of respiratory.

Yes.

There's been coughing and phlegminess.

It's annoying.

And that definitely doesn't help in my recording.

And I don't have six-pack abs from it. Like, I should. I have been exercising these muscles for a long time now.

All that wearing out your abs from the coughing.

Oh, my.

I've got my mug of water over here, just in case.

Yes.

With this being the Friday edition of the broadcast, we're back to answering questions from the listeners.

Praise the Lord.

And you can send those questions to WhenWeUnderstandTheText at gmail .com. Or you can send us a voicemail. Go to www .utt .com. Click on the voicemail tab and record us a voicemail, either through your phone or through your computer.

I mentioned this week, too, that I'm going to be making some updates to the website. It won't be hosted on Blogger anymore. But you'll still be able to find the voicemail tab right there in the menu toward the top.

So this first message that we have to respond to is a voicemail from Tyler. And it's been so long since I've done this. I've got to make sure I'm all queued up here.

Yeah, everything on?

I've got my volume up and all this. Okay, here we go. Here's Tyler's question.

Hey, Pastor Gabe. My name's Tyler. I'm calling. I've been listening for a little while, although I've seen your YouTube videos in the past. I wanted to ask a question. I'm a young father. I've got two boys.

One of them's two years old, and the other one's a year and a half old. So we're getting into the age of the two-year-old where maybe we can start using some children's Bible resources. We've been using Kevin DeYoung's Bible resource so far with him just to try to immerse him in the teaching of the Bible, and kind of more just to get him used to a routine.

My question is, with how many bad resources there are out there that don't represent the Bible well, and when you're dealing with children who really might struggle to intake the scripture itself at their age, what resources would you recommend and what would you avoid to help train them up in the truth?

Thanks for your help and your ministry.

Bye.

Appreciate it, Tyler. Thank you for your voicemail. So I'm actually very, very simple when it comes to what sort of resources can we use as a family in doing Bible study. I just use the Bible. Now, another great thing to do with your kids is catechism.

Mm-hmm.

Definitely.

So being able to find a good catechism to go through, and you can find free catechisms out there. So this app is one that I've recommended several times before. It's called the Reformed app, and I downloaded it initially just to have the confession.

So you have the Westminster Confession, the shorter catechism. You've got the London Baptist Confession of Faith, Heidelberg, and things like that. But then when I clicked on catechism, so it gives you an option to read the confessions, catechisms, creeds.

And when I clicked on catechism, I discovered that there is a catechism for boys and girls on there.

Oh, neat.

I did not think that this was on there until I downloaded it. I really didn't know all the features that were on here. But again, it's called Reformed app, and that's all one word, Reformed APP. And when you click on catechism and you click on catechism for boys and girls, very, very easy questions to do with your kids.

And so asking them a question, teaching them the question and the answer, which is essentially what catechism is. So the first question is very simply, who made you?

Yeah.

Answer?

God.

God made me. Yes. Question number two, what else did God make? Answer, God made all things. Number three, why did God make you and all things? Answer, for his own glory. So you see how simple and easy those questions are.

Yeah.

And it's good to not only read the Bible, yeah, but to do some easy catechism questions with your kids. And we've done that with our children too.

We have. I've been through a lot of different curriculums, and I can honestly say that I've not been pleased with every one of them. There has been like, just, I mean, even if it's just a small amount, something needs tweaked for our beliefs and how we interpret.

Okay. Yeah.

Some of it might be kind of like soft or light on the theology, so making a little adjustment.

Or they mesh things together that shouldn't be meshed together.

Yeah.

Like the really bad ones, they take verses out of context, a lot of stuff, and those.

Got put on the wayside very quickly.

Right.

But yeah, so I don't know, I would, if you're going for a curriculum, like when they're a little bit older, something that has coloring with it or whatever, or extra lessons, something like that, I would investigate who made it, like what religion they are coming from.

What tradition or background?

Yes.

Less religion.

But yeah.

My words are not with me. The denominations.

Yeah. Okay.

Right. What denomination are they from?

Yes. Right.

Because that's going to make a big difference on what input they're putting in their curriculum.

I will say though, there have been some publishers that I would not have thought were very good, that actually turned out material that I was like, this is great.

True. That is very true.

So there's, I think it's Bob Jones University.

Yes.

EJU.

Yeah.

Right. They'll put out some school curriculum stuff.

Yeah.

I think you've used some of it, haven't you?

Yeah.

So the textbook that they did on biblical doctrines, that's the name of the textbook. When I saw that it was from BJU, I was like, yeah, that's probably not going to be very good. When I was reading it, it was outstanding.

Yeah.

And some of the recommended reading resources in there were reformed. Like check out John Frame's systematic theology or Wayne Grudem or Tim Keller even, or something like that. And I'm reading that going, these are actually, this is actually very solid, basic theology to give to kids.

So even though you might look at the publisher or what denomination it comes from or something like that, it doesn't even necessarily mean it might not be very good.

That's very true.

You still kind of have to look at the material.

I know.

So if you're able to go to, I don't know, a bookstore, if you're able to find one and go to it, because they're becoming more and more rare.

The brick and mortar stores.

Yes. Go ahead and thumb through it a little bit. And then you get a feel for it real fast as to whether or not it's on the up and up or kind of soft, as you said.

I still think the best thing to do really is just open up the Bible and read it.

That's the easiest thing.

Yes.

And the best. Yeah.

Cheapest thing. You're getting right into the word.

And you're teaching them. The word is enough.

Exactly. And they'll ask questions about it. You can answer questions about it. And you'll notice that as your kids get older. So children are getting older. Then you're having more kids and they're younger.

But you're starting to cater the Bible studies to the fact that you've got older kids. Well, now you're reading entire chapters. The older kids are comprehending. They're even joining in because they're reading along with you.

But the littles still can't read. And yet you're not doing devotional lessons on the level of the littles. You're doing Bible lessons on the level of who your older kids are. So if that's where you're going to get to eventually anyway, why not go ahead and do that now?

Yeah.

Sure.

They will pick it up.

They will.

There are some things that are good to get down on their level. Like I mentioned with the catechism for boys and girls. You can get into more advanced catechism later. So very simple catechism questions that they understand.

Who made me? God made me. And things like that. What did God make me for? For his own glory. And then you get into more advanced questions later. What is the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him forever?

A little kid may not understand.

Right.

Exactly. Little children may not understand that, but you get into more of that as they get older. There is a study Bible. I'm about to do a video. I was hoping to get this done before we got to this Q &A, but I'm about to do a video recommending certain study Bibles to people.

It's a question that I get all the time. What's a good study Bible? And one study Bible that I'm going to recommend. I've not brought this into our family devotions that we do in the evening yet, but I've been meaning to.

So one of the study Bibles that I'm going to recommend is Joel Beeky's study Bible, the King James. I think it's the King James Version Reformation Study Bible. It's not Reformation Study Bible because that's Ligonier.

The Reformation Heritage Study Bible.

That's what it is.

There you go.

Reformation Heritage King James. They only do it in the King James, probably because the copyright is free.

That could very well be it.

That's probably the reason they do it. And it has some terrific study notes. It's a fantastic study Bible. In addition to that, after every chapter, it gives you three questions to ask in a family devotional setting to encourage conversation about the chapter.

Now, when we do this, when we've done our Bible reading, we're going through chapters of the Bible at a time. Whenever we gather as a family, usually about eight o 'clock in the evening, except on Wednesdays and Sundays, because we always have stuff in the evening on those two days.

But when we do our devotions, the kids will just automatically ask questions. And that kind of fuels the discussion about the chapter. But in case you need something to kind of launch yourself into discussion about the chapter, that study Bible is terrific for that.

And there may even be a version of a family devotional practice that is set apart from the study Bible that you can buy as a book just by itself. You'd have to go to Reformation Heritage's website, which is heritagebooks .org, and just look up family devotionals or whatever, because they may have the study notes from the KJV or from that study Bible just by themselves and not in the study Bible.

But you'll have to look it up there and say, I may be speaking presumptuously there, but check it out. Because there's all kinds of good family devotional stuff at heritagebooks .org.

Yeah.

Also Founders Ministry puts out the Grace and Truth little workbooks and things for kids. Those are good as well.

Those are awesome.

Yep.

We've used those in the past. I don't think we have any currently, but we've used them before. But anyway, that Reformation Heritage study Bible at heritagebooks .org is a great study Bible. I mean, the study notes in there by themselves are worth the study Bible.

But it's just great that they also add in questions for devotional study. And Joel Beakey has done a lot of things that are geared toward, like even how you as a man or as a father lead your family.

Yeah.

Let me go ahead and check on it. I'll click on the website, because I bet you this book will come right up when I look. Oh, no, it's going to take me to the study Bible page. Here you go. This is the book from Joel Beakey, How to Lead Your Family.

A Guide for Men Wanting to Be More. And it's a short book. It was the book of the month at our church.

Oh, yeah.

I think either in November or December. I can't remember which one. But that's a great book. Check that one out, too. The Redeemed Man is another one from Joel Beakey. Great resources there at heritagebooks .org.

I'd highly recommend it. So great question, Tyler, and I hope that was helpful for you. There was a poll question that I did. I just recently did this poll question on the What page on X? And I forgot to mention it, because actually, I think I'm still in the middle of the poll question, now that I think about it.

Out of the top four bestselling translations of the Bible in 2025, which one would you.

Prefer?

And yeah, this poll, at the time that I'm reading this, it has eight hours left. But 797 votes so far.

Wow.

Now, if you'll remember back to last week's episode when I did the biggest Christian stories of the year affecting religious news, the number one story, or at least the one at the end of the year on December 31st, was that 2025 set a record in Bible sales.

And I mentioned that the English Standard Version was the bestselling translation for 25. So this poll question was out of the top four bestselling translations for 25, which one's your favorite? Which one would you prefer?

So the top four are the English Standard Version at number one, New International Version at number two, King James Version at number three, and the New Living Translation at number four.

Okay?

797 votes thus far. 3 .6 said the New Living Translation.

That's not very many.

No.

Not a translation I would prefer or even recommend to anybody. So that's what we would call a phrase-for-phrase translation.

Oh, okay.

So when the translators of the New Living Translation were coming up with that version, they were trying to capture the essence of the phrase, not necessarily be word-for-word, or what we would call an essentially literal translation.

So this is closer to a paraphrase. And for that reason, I wouldn't recommend the New Living Translation. New International Version is like that as well. That was the second or the third, the second-fewest picked, is what I was trying to say.

6 .3 voted for the New International Version.

Number three.

That was number three. Yeah, right. Just be simple. Simplified, yeah.

Simplified.

Thank you.

And then at number two was the King James Version, 17 .2%.

Yeah, not too bad.

And with a whopping 72 .9 the English Standard Version.

Yeah.

So that was indeed the bestseller for 25.

Burned. Yep.

Yeah.

And among our followers on X, the one that they would prefer over the other three. So still a very affordable translation as well. In fact, the article that I read that was talking about the English Standard Version being the bestselling translation, I think it was the first year that the ESV was the bestselling translation of the year.

And one of the reasons why, at least according to the article I read, they attributed it to that's a hard word to say attributed it to How many syllables did I get in.

There?

They said that it was because Crossway wants to make cheaper Bibles. They want to make them more affordable. Not cheap Bibles. You can get some pretty expensive ESVs.

Definitely.

They want them they want to be loose with their copyright. They want more people to be able to use it. They want more variety and options that you can buy.

They definitely have that.

They have a lot.

That is true.

And so for that reason, they came out as the clear frontrunner in the number of Bibles sold for 25. So that is a favorite among a lot of people. Now when I asked that poll question, there were several people in the poll that said you know, like in the comments section were saying, well, LSB, you didn't put LSB on there.

Or you didn't put the New American Standard in there. LSB did not even break the top 10.

Wow.

So the Legacy Standard is still

Really?

It's still a new enough translation.

Okay.

That's what I was going to ask.

So you think the ESV has been around for, I think, over 20 years now.

Yeah.

So it's taken them that long now to finally hit the top of the charts and be the best-selling translation of the Bible.

Yeah.

So the Legacy just came out a few years ago. I don't even think it was

That's true.

2020, was it? It may have been 21.

Yeah.

Somewhere around there.

So they've got some growth to do before they can break into the top 10. The New American Standard, which essentially the Legacy is the new New American Standard.

Say what now?

But the NASB is still outselling the Legacy from the Lachman Foundation. Both the 95 and the 2020 are still outselling the Legacy. So eventually, the Legacy will get up there. It'll find its due. It's just not there yet.

Yep.

Lord willing. Legacy's got to make a few more affordable translations, though. A lot of the ones that you find on 316 Publishing are really pricey.

And they're supposed to be held on for your legacy.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

I mean, they are really quality Bibles.

They are.

They're going to last.

Yep.

But being a quality Bible, it also gets really pricey.

It does.

So this is one thing that...

For them to make, too.

Right. And so that's another question that I got today about translations. Let's go to this next one.

Okay.

This comes from Caleb. Pastor Gabe, thank you for your year-end report regarding Bible translations. What are your thoughts about using translations that don't have copyright, like the King James Bible or the Berean Standard Bible?

Also, I've heard some people argue that no one should have to purchase a Bible, but that it should be free to all. Would you call that a biblical opinion? Thanks again for your podcast. So there are some translations out there you never have to ask permission to use because it's trademarked or copyrighted.

You can just use it to your heart's content. It's in the public domain, as we would say. The King James version is going to be the obvious frontrunner in that regards. Most famous translation of the Bible.

It's astonishing any other translation ever outsells the King James, because that's

I know.

It's everywhere.

Yeah.

Still the most popular. You go to Walmart or the grocery store and you can find King James Bibles on the rack. The American Standard version is another one that is in the public domain. The Young's Literal Translation, the World English Bible, the Berean Standard Bible, as you mentioned, Caleb.

And when you said that, I had to look that up, because I didn't remember that. I was like, the Berean Standard is in the public domain?

Yeah.

As of 2023.

Oh.

Interesting. So just about two years ago, a little over two years ago, they put it in the public domain and now you don't have to pay for copyright to use the Berean Standard Bible.

Interesting.

Now, the other part of your question, Caleb, was I've heard some people argue that no one should have to purchase a Bible, but that it should be free to all. I don't agree with that, because it takes money to print a Bible.

It definitely does.

I mean, all those raw materials.

You have a phone, you can get the app, and that's free.

Right.

You don't have to pay.

It is free, but you are paying for the phone and for the phone service.

You are paying for the phone and the phone service, sure. But you can also get online at a library where you're not having to pay and look it up and read your Bible, because it's on the internet for free.

So kind of most everybody, I can't say everybody, because not everybody has internet, but most everybody is at least able to get to it.

Yeah.

And you can walk into most any church and say, can I have a Bible?

Of course.

And they're going to hand you a Bible.

Yes.

I mean, I've done that. I have Bibles for that purpose.

What if you go to a big, big church?

No.

I think they still give you Bibles.

Do they?

Oh, yeah.

They don't even use Bibles.

They have boxes of them.

Okay.

No.

So Joel Osteen.

Yeah.

Like if you go to Joel Osteen's church. Remember, he has everybody hold up their Bibles.

Right.

And say, this is my Bible.

Ah.

That's true.

I am what it says I am.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, that whole thing.

Pledge.

Right.

Yeah.

And then they never open it and read it.

Ever.

But they still have them.

They lug it around.

Yeah.

So you could probably even walk into.

All right.

Fair.

Into Lakewood and say, give me a Bible. And they'll give you a Bible.

Okay.

Ask nicely, though.

Yeah.

You know.

I mean, I have tons of Bibles for that purpose.

Okay.

And I've even handed out some nice leather Bibles.

Yeah.

You have.

When somebody came through the door and didn't have one, or the Bible I noticed they were carrying was really beat up, I'm like, here, come over here. Pick a Bible.

Yeah.

And then I'll let them pick one off my shelf.

Yeah.

Some of them they walk away with cost as much as a car payment.

Yeah.

But that's why I have them for you to come and pick a Bible.

So what was it? Do you trust or do you? Oh, what do you think about?

Yeah.

You just said, what are your thoughts about using translations that don't have copyright? I mean, it's great if you do, if you prefer that copyright.

Copyright.

Prefer that translation.

Translation.

But reading, like I've bought my ESV Bibles, reading my ESV does not cost me anything.

Mm-hmm.

After buying the Bible. I'm not asking permission from Crossway even to do the podcast.

I think he's more getting at the fact that like to use it.

Would I prefer that people use Bibles?

Yeah.

Or having to pay for using it.

Again, it's up to you.

Yeah.

Now, if it's a question of, is it okay for these publishing companies to have copyrights on their Bibles?

Yeah.

I think that's maybe what he's getting at.

Right. So in the case of like the King James, you could print your own King James and you don't have to ask anybody's permission to take the King James Bible and print copies of it yourself.

Right.

That's a lot.

It is.

That's a lot of work to do something like that.