The Passion Translation: Encountering God?... Or Deception?  🔗 **Source:** [The Passion Translation: Encountering God?... Or Deception?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jOHnyn-qt0) hi everyone I just kind of wanted to do a quick intro before we got into today's video I got the great privilege to interview our friend and brother in Christ Pastor Mike winger he has a great YouTube channel that I think everybody can be blessed by if you don't know who he is I highly recommend going to check out his content and check out his stuff I will leave a link to his YouTube channel in the description of this video today we are talking about the passion translation this has been a topic that a lot of people have asked to have covered there's been a lot of unanswered questions about it I think a lot of people use this translation without really knowing where it comes from and mike has done a lot of research on this so it was natural to ask him to come on and talk more about it to get more awareness about this translation and why we don't recommend it we go in-depth more about the translator of the passion translation Brian Simmons you can't talk about the passion translation without talking about Brian Simmons so we talk more about his background and who he is this translation is being used more and more in evangelical churches and hyper charismatic churches and some Pentecostal churches and it's a very problematic translation and we will talk more about that in this video I hope that you all learn a lot I hope that it answers a lot of questions for you so thank you for tuning in and watching hi everybody I'm back with a really interesting video for you guys today this has been something that both me and Doreen have been really passionate about pun intended the last few months over things have been going on at Bethel with a hyper charismatic movement and with everything that's been happening so many people have been asking about the passion translation this is something that I've been personally looking into the last few months and I'm really excited to have Mike on today to talk about this because he's done a lot of research on this I find his content very useful he has made a few videos about this on his channel if you want to go check those out I will include a link to those videos in the description of this video well to start off on this you cannot talk about the passion translation without talking about Brian Simmons Brian Simmons is the the one who basically came up with the passion translation there's a whole story with how this got started and mike at that point I'm gonna hand it over to you and see what you can tell us about Brian Simmons yeah well again for being on today oh thanks for having me it's it's great to be back on your guys on your channel I appreciate the opportunity to hopefully help people with this video on let me just art by saying like I'm not just I'm not like paranoid about translations I think we have lots of good Bible translations and there's a variety of ways of you know elements in translating that are reflected in different ones and they're all good I'm happy with lots of translations but not this one and really important reasons why the first thing is this translation unlike most others it's done by just one guy most translations nowadays are done by committees there's there's whole groups of different scholars and different fields kind of comparing notes and you know sort of double-checking one another as they make a translation this was just done by one guy Brian Simmons so the translation is only gonna be as good as that guy made it right and he's he's ultimately he's the oversight he's the beginning and end of the passion translation but it's not like other translations even in that one man translations like done by say Martin Luther or Wycliffe or something these are like translations done by guys who are trained and skilled who translate based upon their education and their background Brian Simmons claims to translate with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit now that's a different story altogether isn't it yeah so it claims that this is a inspired translation now he will find out in a minute he doesn't have the credentials to translate well but but the really weird stuff is when you find out the background of this translation he says that he was he met an angel named passion which is why he called it the passion translation so he entered he hunted an angel he claims which I believe in angels I believe you can't encounter them I just don't think Brian did in this case he also claims that um God showed him secrets of the Hebrew and Greek language so as he was translating he got new information that was never before known about the Bible and what it means that I find very suspicious that an unskilled man with some sort of spiritual it sounds like Joseph Smith when he was like I have special knowledge about ancient languages that from the spirit you know it sounds like a really weird thing he's the leader of Mormonism original founder of it so bottom line the passion translation hinges upon Bryan Simmons is this guy really inspired by the Holy Spirit or is something else going on did did God give him inspiration to know things that that's people who actually study these languages don't actually know did God do that for him or did he come up with a strange translation with other perhaps other motives and two other results other than the leading of the Holy Spirit so yeah that's that's the beginning of it it's like wait a minute this is like not like other translations at all but it's growing in use growing in popularity particularly amongst certain churches who tend to not think very highly of scholarship or academic research yeah yeah which is kinda way we're gonna talk about it today because of the growing popularity I've seen it endorsed by well-known pastors I've seen it used at a few pulpits at many churches a few here in my hometown and I don't think a lot of people understand where it came from I think they assumed that it's a legitimate translation I think they assumed that it's that a that a committee put this together I don't think that people in the evangelical church are used to having basically self-made translations or they're not used to it because when I think of a self-made translation I think of the New World trans like you mentioned which is the Jehovah's Witness translation it's made by jehovah's witnesses for Jehovah's Witness theology and then you have the Joseph Smith translation any of these independently made translations it's a huge red flag so that is the passion translation it was made by one man Bryan Simmons and Mike you mentioned earlier about the way the means that he got the inspiration to make this translation can you give us more information on how that came to be yeah you know when I was researching this content trying to find out about this stuff it felt like going into the rabbit hole as I kept getting weirder and weirder stuff you know there's video online of him doing this talking about his vision his multiple visions that he's had supposedly and again I I think God can show you a vision if he wants but I also think people can say God showed them a vision as a way of legitimizing whatever they say next yeah I think that's what's happened here well at any rate he he says that he was sort of caught up into heaven and went to the great library of God and there's this library of all these books and stuff like that one of the things he claims is that um that God gave him the 23rd chapter to the Gospel of John John 23 and that this is some future revelation he's one day going to bring now John doesn't have that many chapters right this is an extra chapter that doesn't exist in John and the the picture here is Brian Simmons has some sort of new revelation that he's gonna bring that is somehow parallel with Scripture I mean what how else could it be called john xxiii that he in the future will bring now he's not bringing it yet he's just talking about how he has it he's not allowed to talk not allowed to tell us what it is yet it's kind of weird but basically he thinks he's been commissioned by God to bring a new translation that will make the Word of God come to life like never before and it is like never before I agree with that part of it like never before and and yeah so he thinks this is this is totally the Lord leading him he's had multiple stories about these visions he's had visions and when he was in with the pie hakuna people will talk about a little bit visions when he was at home yeah it's it's very it's very much about sort of these supernatural experiences that he that sort of just by or give alidade his his translation but I'm gonna suggest that what we can do is we can actually test Brian Simmons claims about other things and maybe not divisions I can test his claims about his education and his experience and his past and when I show that he's not telling the truth about those things we have good reason to think that he's probably not telling the truth about these visions too and I think that's a smart way to go about it yeah that is a good way to go about it you mentioned his credentials so Brian Simmons is not a scholar he he he lacks the proper credentials that one would have to have in order to even be on a committee to translate a Bible translation yeah which is why we don't recommend Bibles translated by one person because they're usually incredibly biased they're they're made with an agenda in mind and in this case it's using you know that the culture and the language of the hyper charismatic community at this point the passion translation uses pot terms that are found in that culture and that you know especially in what the hyper charismatic culture the words are like glory even words like manifest or in partition all these these words this vocabulary they have their own terms their own vocabulary are used so much more in this Bible than you would ever find in you know what was originally written so before we go down we mentioned something about an interlinear so an interlinear bible takes the original language greek hebrew and basically gives the english translation to it so if you want to go and find a direct translation to the bible you get an interlinear the the challenge is is that if you were to take an interlinear right you wouldn't find anything that Brian sent most things that Brian Simmons wrote in his translation to be equivalent to what was written in Scripture oh yeah so that's the cool thing about interlinear even if you don't know Greek you know that here's a Greek word and then here's the English word they translated it into right yes but if Brian Simmons makin interlinear passion never I promise you'll never happen because it would become immediately obvious even if you don't know Greek or Hebrew you'd be like whoa you added so much stuff and he claims that when they add stuff they put italics in the text so that you'll know they added something for clarity but they rarely use italics they ask us the name don't yeah it's all the time he breaks that rule let me give you some examples okay today is we're recording this it's the 18th and I thought I want to give an unbiased example so I just went to the first book in his because he doesn't have the whole Bible translated but the first book he has translated is Book of Psalms so it's a Psalm 18 because today's 18th and I did a word count in the NIV translation there are 859 words in Psalm 18 right in the passion translation there's not 859 there are can you guess 1286 words in Psalm 18 in the passion translation that is 427 new words new words it's almost 50% bigger in the passion translation let me give you one example this is Psalm 18 verse 1 now I'm not I'm not trained in trying to pick the worst examples I can find I just want some 18 because today's the 18th so Psalm 18 verse 1 in any normal translation it'll say something like this right here's the NIV I love you Lord my strength that's six words in English right there's actually only three words in Hebrew only three words in Hebrew but we translate it with six words in English so some liberties being taken here to get the meaning across I love you Lord my strength here's those same six words in Psalm 18 one and the passion translation he says Lord I passionately love you and I'm bonded to you for now you've become my power three Hebrew words becomes sixteen English words because he's trying to make it more passionate you can't just love God you have to passionately love him and be bonded to him why because he's he's like well this word could have this element to it and it could have that meaning to it and so he like double and triple translates words which you don't do yeah like that's not a good policy to have when you do that I can give you more examples of just adding to the text yeah adding to the text song Song of Solomon chapter 2 verse 13 the ESV let me just read to you the ESV this is it's it's just speaking about plants and stuff like that and about how there's relation to that and the love between these two people right it says the fig tree ripens its figs and the vines are in the blossom they give forth fragrance arise my love my beautiful one and come away which is a fig tree it ripens the vines are in blossom they give forth fragrance in other words the time has come right like the figs its ripening time and he's like arise my love it's time for us to enjoy our love together so he says come away now here's that here's that same verse in the passion translation can you not discern this new day of destiny breaking forth around you what figs right let's keep reading the early signs of my purposes and plans are bursting forth the budding vines of new life are now blooming everywhere the fragrance of their flowers whispers there is change in the air arise my love my beautiful companion and run with me to the higher place for now is the time to arise and come away with me what was twenty five words and clearer in say the ESV as I read to you earlier is seventy two words in the passion translation and you don't even have the word fig where's the word fig like the God inspired the the writer to put the word fig in there but you don't even have the word anything like the word instead you have a bunch of added stuff and you have some stuff missing this is called changing God's holy word because he just likes how it sounds and I think that's a big problem we gave one more example of adding the shortest English verse in your Bible you probably already know it right Melissa yeah what is it say jesus wept jesus wept right yeah just about every translation is gonna say jesus wept in the in the english this is the shortest verse in your bible in the greek it's actually rejoice always different verse but that's a greek versus english right but jesus wept in almost every translation jesus wept in the passion translation then tears streamed down jesus' face because you can't just say jesus wept like the Greek does because it's not passionate enough you know for him it's not a passionate enough that Jesus wept so then tears stream down Jesus's face now you might be like well Mike but I mean I like that sound better you kind of read my mind I was gonna play devil's advocate for a second and say but Mike what's wrong with that what what is what's the difference between that and like the message or you know there are definitely issues with it but if somebody were to say what's the big deal well yeah what would you say that well I'd say there's there's two responses to that one response is this is why why am I allowed to change God's Word even if it's just to make it quote better in my opinion what does that mean like how many places of the Bible will I change because I think I can make that better ooh I could I wouldn't write it like that but you're not God like you have no authority to change the Holy Word of God to make it quote better or appealing to you in some fashion or another God wrote it that way for his purposes and his reasons a translators job is to preserve meaning across languages not to make things more appealing in any fashion or you know at all that's that's an abuse I remember using a translator when I was in Costa Rica and I'm using a translator and I said something and it was a twice that was shortened the translator just went on and on and on and on and I was like I know my mind I can expand on my own words but that guy doesn't know my mind what on earth is he saying on my behalf to those people and no matter how he's changing it I'm like no I I meant what I said please don't add and God says in Proverbs says everywhere the Lord has pure do not add to his words lest he rebuked you and you be found a liar don't add to his words don't add anything extra there it's it's just not right so yeah it may be seeming to make it better but I think that make it more likable make it more enjoyable make it more passionate is is exactly to put it bluntly exactly how Satan closed himself as an angel of light right it's sayings like I'm not gonna bring I'm not just gonna bring new theology I'm gonna bring nice theology right it's not just it's really nice like guys the bad theology that Satan wants us to believe is gonna be so wonderful and part warming it's not gonna be like man you know he disguises himself as an angel of light so yeah we don't know but another issue is this is that the passion translation has an agenda like you mentioned before it's what's called a sectarian translation and scholars do call it this they call it a sectarian translation and I can give you some examples of this where we see it happen over and over where the changes aren't just making it more passionate which is already wrong to do if you care about what God actually said you know then this is wrong to do but it's in addition to that it's pushing specific agendas like for instance you guys may have heard of the seven mountain mandate oh yeah okay this is not a biblical idea this is the how it comes from some extra biblical prophecy thing that there's these mountains of influence around the world and these represent spheres of power and you know Christians are to go over and take over these spheres of power like government and the arts and science and that whatever they seven mountains are well what what Brian Simmons did was it when he translated the Psalms he added the phrase mountains of influence multiple times into texts where there's no Hebrew justification for adding it so let me give you some examples right here's the passion translation Psalm 72 verse 3 listen for that phrase then the mountains of influence will be fruitful and from your righteousness prosperity and peace will flow to all the people now this sounds like a prophecy that that fits this sort of apostolic prophetic movement that's going on where they're like we have these mountains of influence but when you read it in a normal translation like the ESV it doesn't mean that at all here's the ESV let the mountains bear prosperity for the people and the hills in righteousness it's literally talking about like growing food and and and hunting animals on the mountains yeah that's the prosperity in context is talking about he wants to alig arise it to change the meaning of scripture to support these mountains of influence so there's three times where he adds the phrase mountains of influence in the Book of Psalms and proverbs it's also verse chapter 80 verse 10 of Psalms and proverbs 8:1 that but this happens over and over again and I started getting suspicious about the passion translation really suspicious on the before I knew all about his supposed divisions and his training is not training that you see which we'll talk about in a little bit but it was when I started looking up specific terms okay I know being I'm I'm a guy who believes in the gifts the spirit and so I but I'm kind of I guess you might think I'm like on the in the middle space between the cessationists and the hyper carry facts I'm kind of like somewhere in the middle right there I think in all reality but but I'm exposed to these things and so I hear the language they use their special terms that come up in these circles like realm or anointed or impart or prophetic or activate or passion well all of these words when I searched them in the passion translation I found out that these words appeared way more times in Brian Simmons new translations than they ever appeared in any translation before that well what does that mean I mean it means that the guys making stuff up and he's reading his theology or his beliefs he's putting it in the text of Scripture where it's not there this is the adulteration of Scripture give you some examples okay the word realm the word realm the realms of power realms of authority realms or whatever it's very common in these circles other Christians never mentioned the word right so I'm in the ESV and new King James Version the word realm appears zero times in the NASB it appears once in the NIV it appears 10 times that's the highest count I found in the NIV it appears 10 times in the pastor translation you want to guess how many times it appears in the pagination 196 you're really close and get this the pastor translation is not even the whole Bible yet he just has the New Testament Psalms proverbs Isaiah this in fact in these numbers I didn't even say wasn't written yet when I found these numbers so that's a good point so the New Testament Brian Simmons is only translated for those that don't know this was something I found frustrating because I like to get a hold of these Bibles and actually read them he has only translated the New Testament and Psalms and I and he's working on Isaiah right this song no he just finished Isaiah I don't know what he's working on now maybe Genesis yeah I think you're right I think he is working on Genesis so he's he's working his way through the Old Testament to translate it but the entire Bible is not translated yet yeah book comes out one at a time and then you can buy it individually it's like a really good money-making plan actually good marketing yeah I'm gonna wait book of Genesis and it has never before known secrets of Hebrew and it guys it'll it'll it'll ignite the flame of your fire for God and it will change your life as a Christian it's only fifteen dollars you know five months later I got a new book of Exodus it will ignite your flame for God and it will change your life and all this stuff and it's only fifteen dollars and so he keeps selling in piecemeal eventually they'll have the whole thing compiled but yeah so the realm yeah it appears a hundred and ninety six times as opposed to bar so that probably be about maybe easily double with the Old Testament if we were gonna go that far I mean if you're gonna take the entire Bible and say the NIV only mentions it ten times you say oh well I only searched so I'd what I did was are only searched I tried to only search corresponding books so I just searched basically the New Testament or Psalms you know just the corresponding passages so there'd be a fair comparison yeah you may he may have it more time so in the future we'll see yeah yeah so like the word anointed is another one and anointed is a is a hugely important term for Brian Simmons and for some people in his circle we well the ESV has it fifteen times New King James twelve times NIV ten times nasb ten times notice the consistency they all translated relatively the same no real times because they're all being responsible translators yes right so they don't come up with wildly different things well the passion translation has the word anointed two hundred and twenty three times you don't need to know Hebrew and Greek to know that that's weird yeah all right let me give you an example of something he said about why he does this because he wants to say that Jesus was the Anointed One he doesn't like translating at Messiah we sometimes he does sometimes he calls him anointed one because he wants to then say that you are an anointed one and I read that and I thought my little theological radar went off yeah a minute it sounds like your muddying the line between me and Jesus so I went online and I found a teaching from Brian Simmons that muddies the line between me and Jesus and I realized he's putting his theology into the scripture okay this is a quote from Brian he says you are wrapped into Jesus Christ all that he is you now are every thing that's true about Jesus can be spoken about you because you are in him wait a minute Jesus is eternal Jesus is God is am i that all that he is I now am either you have to say Jesus isn't God anymore because I'm not or you're gonna firm that I am God because he is like you can't this is this is like dangerous theology stuff yeah and it's being it's being embedded into the text of Scripture so that he could try to justify this weird theology okay now it becomes more than just I'm making it better right it's even worse than that yeah there's other terms the word prophetic is used like say in the ESV it's used four times that's the most that I found the word prophetic in these translations I consulted but in the passion it's used 28 times 28 times you know the word in part the ESV used that more than other translations it used it six whole times in the passion it's 35 times in part because these ministries that they tend the preachers in these ministries tend to always be like I want to impart to you I want to impart to you I just want to impart to you they use that word all the time it's just like something they learn from each other well he's gonna stick it in the text of scripture so that when they preach they can sound like they're being more biblical when they say stuff like that the word activate it's used it's not used anywhere in any translation as far as I found I mean the ones I'm sure somebody's used it but not in the ones I consulted not in the major translations well the passion has it six times but what's interesting is where he has it right he puts it in Romans 12 6 where it says that it's telling us if you have prophesied prophecy then prophecy according to your faith well he adds a bunch of stuff to this in Romans 12 6 and he says that you have to activate your gift what does that mean I mean it's not in the Greek stuff it's not in that it's not in Scripture but you're putting it in there well that's because Brian Simmons believes that you can take courses where he will train you on how to activate your gifts and he says quote every member of the body of Christ must be activated and he actually sells courses you can buy them and go through a course where you learn to be activated in your gift well now he has a scripture that tells you you need to be activated what is it what is I mean this is what you see the thing that I'm concerned about is the more sober minded people who care about the real carefulness of understanding Scripture Theology they're not aware of the passion because people in their churches aren't using it yeah instead it sits in churches where people they love the gifts of the spirit they love the work of God but they tends to be thin on theology and thin on research that's just the reality of it and so this this passion is gonna have some translation is gonna take advantage of exactly that weakness by taking advantage of their trust in their leadership who presents them with the Bible where they're like hey man this is such a great translation you guys should check it out do you think that they just don't know that they're ignorant or I I don't think I can paint with such a wide brush yeah I think it's what there's a mixed bag of people you know some people don't know some people ignorant some people they'll recognize when they look at a verse that they know and they're like wait a minute where did all that come from yeah you know they're gonna notice these things and then they have to decide how much they trust whoever endorsed it to them right yeah so yeah it's it's a problem it's a problem but let me talk a little bit if we can if you're okay with switching gears I talked about Bryan's training and credentials yes yeah I did like some investigative report of type of job here nobody's riding on this stuff right online I couldn't find anybody who is really soberly confronting the passion at least there's a couple people right but but not enough and I didn't find the content I wanted so I wanted to know what is Bryan's training well on his website and on the passion translation website interviews on the broad street publishing website that's the one who's publishing the book it says that he was a co translator for the Kuna translation of the New Testament and he also claims they're in multiple places that he has linguistic and a biblical languages background mm-hmm so he's got it so in other words you know divide you get if you know it doesn't say he has a degree in such-and-such it doesn't it doesn't say he doesn't it just what implies okay he's done translating before and he has a background in biblical languages and linguistics okay that's cool Brian also has claimed in an interview and I have a video on what am I on my channel there's a video where I play him saying this he says I had some linguistic training in our years of new tribes training and I was like new tribes what's that what's new tribes so I look up online at new tribes is a mission that is devoted to reaching unreached peoples and getting the Bible translated into their own languages it's an outreach it's a wonderful ministry and they've changed names they used to be called new tribes back in the 80s they've changed their name now to ethnos 360 but it's the same organization so I called ethnos 360 and I got ahold of two of the guys that work there one is dawn dawn Pettersen Don Peterson or I forget if it's Peterson now I'm trying to remember how he pronounced his name here's what Don said about Brian Simmons no Don's actually speaking from at the nose 360 he's speaking from the people Brian says train him and he says Brian is not a linguist of any sort huh wait I'm like wait a minute you mean he doesn't have credentials because you can have credentials in produce a bad translation but if you don't even have credentials and you're claiming to now I think you're deceitful let me give you more details on this because there's a lot more he said he had experience right not just credentials of training but experience that he has actually translated he said and I'll quote he says we had this is Brian's claims about himself we had to decipher the language develop an alphabet we had to discern and decipher the grammar structure that took us the first two years while we were there I mean obviously when he says we he must mean himself right and I've got I've got the interview where he said this on my YouTube channel so the implication is that Brian was integral and formative in in this translation happening okay well Gerry McDaniels who worked with the Kuna people the same people Brian says he translated the Bible for he worked with him for over 30 years Gerry McDaniels and he works for ethnos 360 right at that time new tribes mission he says nobody in our mission would ever say that he is a Bible translator or ever was approved as a Bible translator who brines he's lying this bloom mine he's literally lying about his history which is why I don't trust his visions he says anybody say just me just me I don't and I haven't had a response ah hi dude I love I'll bring him on my YouTube channel let's have a chat I'd like to have a chili like to share with him these quotes and get him to clarify his positions if he wants to step back and say hey I really overstated it's my case I'd like to have him hear him say that I'll try and be gracious to him as much as I might be irritated with the guy for what he's doing so he says this Brian says I have qualifications quote this isn't an ad that they run they were on Facebook to to sell the passion translation he says I was in an ad or is it just on their publisher website I'm trying to remember down either way it's an ad for the thing I have qualifications in that I have translated the New Testament as a co translator for the PI hakuna language this is well I mean is Jerry McDaniels dying lying or is Bryan Simmons lying what's going on well Bryan Simmons claims that he presented you can test his time line he says that he was with the PI hakuna in the late 80s and that he presented them with a completed New Testament in the late 80s ok that's that's a claim that's like a factual claim a stamp of history sometime in the late 80s he's like I we presented them with a completed New Testament why does this matter because Bryan Simmons was not there after that right he he left he acknowledges that he left the PI hakuna people and came back to the States so by the 90s he's back in the States if he's going to get credit for the translation then the translation has to have already happened by the late 80s yeah well the Moody Bible Institute they have stats on translations for various countries and various languages so their stats or their information on the PI hakuna Bible or the Kuna Bible it never mentions Bryan Simmons never mentions his name is being involved in translating and it gives a different date for when the translation was done listen to this here's a quote from the Moody Bible Institute page they say the Kuna Bible translation project began in 1982 when Wycliffe translators Keith and Wilma Forster began working with Kuna pastor lino Smith our Gong go on a new Trent Testament translation it was published in 1990 brian says he handed them like in another interview with sid roth he goes it was such a pleasure to hand them a complete and New Testament and then he left before before 95 ever came around before 92 ever came around he was out of there for sure because he claimed he was out of there before some missionaries were killed locally that happened in 92 maybe I'm gonna be too much information but basically he was out of it he said he was out there in the 80s given them a New Testament the Moody Bible Institute doesn't mention his name at all his own co-workers say he wasn't involved in the actual translate translation the the hard work of making it from from either original or English over to PI hakuna and and then Moody Bible Institute says it was done in 95 not in the 80s rating his credentials would you say exaggerating would be the nicest way to but the nicest way to put it would be that he's exaggerating yeah but he's in all reality he he's just saying things happen that didn't happen at all fabricating his credentials yeah Don Peterson he says the Paiute translation was not done while he was in service with new tribes mission that's what Don Peterson says Don Patterson he wanted people to know and I'll quote this is Donnie and you can you can check out I was 361 to reach out to Don I asked them to if they would make it like an official statement from their organization he said he wanted to but they haven't yet I don't know you know how it is an internal organizational debates they don't know if they want to do that or not but he did say this he says Brian was not what he claimed and that the newt new tribes mission FM is 360 that they did not agree with his doctrinal positions nor did we follow his approach to translation Wow which means that whatever training he did get from them they're saying he's not using it because we're not agree with what he's doing things Brian Simmons he said this I think what qualifies a person to be involved in this monumental project the passion translation is not just an exceptional understanding of Greek and Hebrew but to have a heart for God now when he says that and he's the single translator or the primary translator what is the implication is that he has a right exceptional understanding Creek in Hebrew and a heart for God yeah cuz he says it's not just an exceptional understanding of Greek in Hebrew but also hard forgot here's what Don Peterson said no this is the last quote I'll share with you from him he says my wife and I knew Brian and his wife candy when we were in missionary training together in 1977 as you surmised Brian is not a linguist of any sort even back then he was prone to go off on fringe doctrinal detours it was because of this that he left new tribes mission back in the 80s possibly dismissed I'm not certain frankly I was not very surprised to learn that he's with n AR just so you know new tribes mission now ethnos 360 does not endorse his doctrine nor his translation procedures or philosophy interesting and Brian Simmons actual education he has it he's a doctor he's got a doctorate but his doctorate is from the Wagner Leadership Institute which is which is officially an N AR Institute I don't like to throw the term in AR out like it's about everybody but it but the Wagner Leadership Institute is literally in a NIR Institute they claim they are but but his doctorate is in practice practice tree with a focus on prayer that that dr. it doesn't give you any training to do the thing that he's claiming he has the ability to do now yeah that's an expensive thing to claim too because if you're going to I mean I'm in seminary right now and I'm taking an a writing class an English writing class and it is incense and to know the English grammar and how it's put together you you have to take this writing class in order to take your Greek grammar class yeah know how its structured and how it's put together that's extensive the first thing you do when you're learning Greek is you realize you don't know English very well exactly know anything about English until I learned oh there's you know another language to learn and you have to know how to put it together and you know not that I'm gonna be translating you know a Bible anytime soon but yeah to understand the Greek language you have to understand and have extensive understanding about English and it seems like there wasn't even any information given for him to have extensive study in that no and here's the thought it's my thoughts real simple okay he claims to have this inspiration from the Holy Spirit these visions from God and that's enabling him to come up with new information never before known about the Bible I'm adding and his actual translation adds massive amounts of text that was that is doesn't seem be justified although to someone who doesn't know Hebrew and Greek he might be able to kind of word game you well you know this in the Aramaic this means blah blah blah but yet his training doesn't justify any of that and what's worse what's worse is that he seems to be honestly lying like true honestly like I should say truly lying no what's the word I'm looking for here these things actually on the face of it he's not telling the truth about about his training about what he did with the pie hakuna people his own people who worked with him and who are in the organization he claims trained him they say no no no at most they said he was a checker meaning that he would take the translations they did and he would read to the people and then report back how it sounded like how did they like the pike the pike who knew they did they get it and they not get it but this isn't a translating job like going from the original languages over to to a new language or something like that that's just a whole different thing altogether so if that's the case if he's if he says he handed them a new Testament when he was out of their years before they were ever given a new Testament why would I believe his visions if I can't believe his claims about his training and his past but guys not honest about his past why would I think he's being telling the truth about these visions he's saying I think he's deceiving people I think the bottom line is I don't believe his visions he might believe them I have met people who make up a lie and then they tell it enough where they believe it's true I've seen that plenty of times in my life plenty of times and so maybe he does believe these visions I don't really care whether he believes them or not I care whether they're true or not like that's that's my concern that's a good point too because to say that to go as far as to say yeah you believe that he's I believe it as well that he's not being honest that there's a sense of maybe he's trying to get I don't know credentials I'm not sure exactly what his motivation would be for all I know the guy wants if I had to guess I'd just be like yeah I mean the guy really wants his life to be important he wants his life to be monumental and you know he was doing Kestrel ministry and he ended up resigning from his pastor it for some reason he was telling this story about how he resigned from his pastor for whatever reason I don't know and then there he is he's floating he's like what am I gonna do what am I gonna do where's the importance of my life where's the where's the powerful reason for my existence and he goes back and he's like well what if I came up with a new translation of the Bible and and then he starts leveraging and and at first he's preaching in really like signs and wonders churches so he so he talked about visions talks about stories talks about how he's he's gonna ignite their passion for God it's gonna change her and then he realized as he can market this translation worldwide and so he shifts and he's like well I have training but the new tribes mission is no longer about the visions he's now trying to you know make it more respectable make the translation more respectable so when I see him being doing a lecture in a signs and wonders type Church he's all about these signs and wonders he's experienced when he's on Sid Roth he tells about this vision from heaven yeah and when he's on his website and you're looking at the the the FAQ page like why should I believe that this pastor translation is good he's like well I had training with the new tribesman and doesn't mention anything about visions or angels named passion none of that stuff so I think he's giving a story to the audience you know this story to this audience that story to that audience and he's trying to just market a product but I could be wrong about all this I could what if I'm wrong about everything I just said about my theories about what's going on in his head it's irrelevant look the guy's the guy's not honest about his past he claims to have visions we have we have good reason to not think he's telling the truth about them his translation is not a scholarly good and it's sectarian and it clearly adds tons of stuff to the Bible that's not really there let's pretend for a second that he actually did have a legitimate vision because that's that's his actual the real credentials he's using to tell people hey you need to trust this because this comes from God yeah which by the way and I'm gonna say this and this might be very upsetting to some people but I started off in ministry studying cults and one of the things that you notice is they're all the same they have all the same patterns and one of them the things that they do is there's mind control tactics which is it's very interesting to research this it's just nerving but it's interesting but one of them is that hey I heard from God so you need to believe what I'm saying I have special power a special revelation from God so what I'm saying holds more weight than what you see in that dusty book on the shelf so that's I see the leverage that he's pulling is that he has special revelation and he's using these visions when these are intense visions by the way I mean he has been very open about his experience his claimed experience of how he has received messages directly from Jesus on how the the passion translation should be translated and let's pretend that they're real for a second that this actually did happen what's wrong with that so in Deuteronomy God tells us like hey if if if a prophet comes to you and he he says he has a vision or whatever and then and then he tells you about it and the thing even comes to pass it comes to pass but he's he's giving you he's telling you let's go after other gods and he starts in other words he starts going against what God has already revealed don't listen to him that's interesting isn't it it's very interesting visions aren't only coming from God right what what is description mean when it says that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light well wait a minute if he wasn't interacting with people in any fashion why would he be disguising himself as anything and when he disguises himself in the angel of light in other words he's saying like Satan doesn't come along and promote Satanism generally generally speaking he's gonna promote a an alternate good religion like a nice religion dress it up make it look as Christian as possible but gutted of of true Christianity right it's it's it's a fair circle thing it's it's whitewashed tombs really good-looking on the outside inwardly full of dead men's bones that that's what he's gonna present and so for that I would say yeah I'd like if you had an actual vision like a real vision like a spiritual experience then I would just think it wasn't from the Lord because the visions causing you to alter God's Word it's causing you to push weird theology on to the text of Scripture that's not there it's resulting in you saying things like I don't know how else to take that claim about everything that can be said about Jesus can be said about hmm I deserve worship how can you say that about me I am I am the lord of the living in the dead I am the judge of all like what you can't say these things about me that's not true and I we can't said that or has he followed up on that statement or anything like that no and the thing is the statement came I wanted more context I wanted to hear that statement in context but it came on his facebook page in a video that was like 1 minute long so he just makes all those claims and then the video ends so you don't have a chance to go like you're gonna clarify that you know I don't know what they call this I forget the word but it's it's like you start with a premise and then you start bubbling out all of these things that are linked to this idea it's evidence basically that you're gathering about this idea and what we see in the hyper charismatic community is this emphasis on man and this lower this demotion of God and an elevation of man because the more like Jesus we are the more we can do the things he did yeah and that's what I'm seeing is that he's trying to t equate and that that's not just a Brian Simmons thing that's the thing that we're seeing across this movement is that they're wanting to to make man a equal to Jesus equal to God that maybe you know I and I wonder I don't know how much that's happening cuz I feel like it's there's an element of that that's there but I feel like a lot of I think a lot of sincere people are part of the hyper charismatic movement I really do I think they're genuinely saved I think they're seeking the Lord I think that they're confused because of the teaching they're giving is sloppy if nothing else it's just sloppy on issues of spiritual things but I what I do so see is this I see in these movements the hyper charismatic stuff I think that there is such a desire to mobilize the people of God so she's already get you out there doing things get you out there doing whether it's whether it's spiritual gifts or healings or speaking in tongues or or performing miracles or preaching the gospel I want to just mobilize the Church of God and so what can happen is is good theology can be sacrificed on the altar of good pep talks right like like okay careful theology I wouldn't be able to say what I'm about to say about you but if I say this you'll be like yeah you'll get out there and you'll go do something for God and so they kind of sacrifice good theology on the altar of the pep talk and so I hear that all the time that's where that's why you're happening everything you said about Jesus can be said about you and it's like giving you if you believe that you're like man I got so much confidence I feel so good about myself right now yeah but it's not true like it's not actually true and so truth can can fall to the wayside under the agenda of mobilizing people yeah and and then they have to deal with the fallout because when you mobilize people thinking that they can all perform miracles all the time you have to deal with the fact that it's not happening so you start to have liked to have more theology that's to come in and explain away why healings aren't always happening like like we are telling you it's always gonna happen and you go out it doesn't so then you come back and we're gonna tell you it is always gonna happen but we got to find a way to spin this it's like it's just weird we you know in church they're given all these high spiritual mobilization tactics in the real world it doesn't pan out you have to come back and they have to get re invigorated re stirred up again and then sit back out again and then they have to constantly deal with the fact it seems to me that God doesn't always want to heal everybody on the spot that that many times when you're praying for healing for somebody the the answer is gonna be no because God has a plan God has an agenda he's sovereign and ultimately God will destroy death and sickness and cancer and all that stuff but that's ultimately not not right now now we're just doing a sample of those things you know we talked about that in our last video too and for the scriptures that you went over we did talk a little bit more about that too so if you guys want to check that out I will have a link to that as well because yeah we go into a lot more detail about that Mike Mike breaks it down really well about healing and the scriptures that are used for that and so before Mikey you're talking about scholarly credentials before we got on you mentioned a few scholars that did have some stuff to say about passion translation like legit widget scholars that you know they know their stuff they know the Bible they they know the language um what what did I have to say about this okay I'll give you I'll give you and the reason why I did this was I realized that I was as I was looking at who endorsed the passenger passion translation it was all pastors leaders but not necessarily scholars they're all charismatic pastors correct I think so far as I know they are but but I was just curious like where can I find where scholars who've really looked into this in detail because a lot of its just passing under the radar for most guys they're just not paying attention to it well Michael Heizer who you've had on your channel several times I think and and great guy he's really good at popularizing scholarly material he makes it accessible to us you know but he's got his his MA and his PhD in Hebrew Semitic languages okay so qualified I'm saying he says this about the passion he says I don't follow the NA are the New Apostolic Reformation nor do I think its distinctive teachings are scriptural but lots of movements have those sorts of problems so he's being gracious okay we lots of moons have issues then he goes on and says but not all movements produce their own translation of the Bible to prop up their teachings that's the issue that he has he sees the passion as this is your translation of the Bible to prop up your weird teachings and I think I've demonstrated here some examples of where that's the case I'll give you one of their scholar and Rashid and Rashid is the head of the Old Testament and Hebrew at Moore Theological College Sydney and he's a member of the NIV Committee on Bible translation that's that in other words that guy's qualified he's recognized he's respected he can speak to a translation in a way group better than I can write he wrote a whole thing on this topic on the it's on the Gospel Coalition website it's called burning Scripture with a passion a review of the Psalms passion translation this was when just the Psalms was out and here's what he says Bryan Simmons has made a new translation of the Psalms and now the whole New Testament which aims to reintroduce the passion and fire of the Bible to the English reader in quotes he achieves this by abandoning all interest in textual accuracy playing fast and loose with the original languages and inserting so much new material into the text that it is at least 50% longer than the original the result is a strongly sectarian translation that no longer counts as scripture by masquerading as a Bible it threatens to bind entire churches in thrall to a false god that's pretty well said Wow yeah he has a whole article on it that's the abstract that's his summary the the bottom line is the passion translation it no no Christian bookstore should have it it's on its it shouldn't be alongside other Bible translations like it's a translation the word I literally just call it a translation because it's that's the name of the book right it's not really a translation no it's it's an adulteration of the text of Scripture nicely yeah it changes the Bible more than the the Jehovah's Witnesses do with their New World Translation I mean okay so the New World Translation was literally made to prop up Jehovah's Witness false teaching about about the deity of Christ in particular and some other things well it's generally an okay translation like in most places it's just like a clumsy wooden translation like it wasn't done with much skill but it tends to accurately communicate words except in those occasional places where the deity of Christ comes up then they change the translation that's what the New World Translation does so occasionally it's totally heretical right and a lot of the time it's just wooden and a little clumsy but okay whatever it's not it's not heretic ax linman's Latian it it doesn't leave a verse unchanged practically I mean I'm sure it does in some cases but it just constantly changes verses it's changed way more of the text of Scripture than even the watchtower did with their New World Translation it constantly changed in Scripture and it may not be on the deity of Christ exactly and that's why it slides under the radar people do a look at the deity of Christ verses and they go oh these are okay still these are still okay and they are yeah okay but that doesn't mean he doesn't have other agendas that he's pushing and those agendas concerned me if you love God's Word you should not love the passion translation mm-hmm yeah and I think that that's what does fall under the radar is that I think a lot of pastors especially think that it's it's it's an it's just so extra it's too much it's exaggerated beyond that's a nice way of putting it but I think a lot of pastors and general don't really understand the origins of this translation and III live in New Mexico and somebody messaged me a while ago saying that there was a there's a pastor here in Albuquerque using a passion translation and I'm like no hoe don't stop you know yeah I actually wanted to go visit the church just to see you know if this was happening and it's really difficult whenever you see otherwise sound churches evangelical churches using a translation like this without really understanding that it's basically if what he's saying is true it's a channeled Bible like he's basically saying I'm getting these visions from Jesus these messages from this spirit so to speak we believe the Bible was was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit yeah okay but he's saying he translated it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit which ends up being he rewrote it yeah that was inspired originally that doesn't make any sense if it was inspired originally then it would be exactly the same as it is today like if God inspired it originally why would why would there be a need to have an inspiration to rewrite it exactly like if imagine if God gave you a message and he told you exactly how to say it he's like Melissa I'm gonna give you this message you're gonna say it exactly like this this is my word to people I want you to know it and you share it word for word exactly and 2,000 years later somebody comes up and they go I'm gonna translate Melissa's message into a new language was from the Lord I want more but I'm gonna make it 50% longer and I'm gonna make it more passionate look if you believe in inspiration you shouldn't believe in the passion translations you know pastors who may be watching this who are they're like Mike you stop sweating me and I got so many things to worry about in my life and I just think the patterns elation sounds good and I think people respond to it and I just want to say man you have a responsibility to communicate God's Word you're accountable read James 3 you you are accountable on these issues and you know without even knowing Greek or Hebrew you know he's changing the Bible because just read any two verses right read any two chapters in in any other translation verses the passion and you'll see how much is being ad and changed and just that alone should be enough for a pastor to know not to use this stuff when he's teaching the other thing that it reminds me of is Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible I'm I'm not sure if too many people notice but Joseph Smith did make his own translation of the Bible yeah and he claimed that he got exactly the same thing that Brian Simmons did is that he got special revelation from God about the language and what's interesting is that most Mormons will not talk about this translation because it's wacky like it's absolutely I mean even Dane knew better than to endorse this translation because it was so out there and so I see these these parallels and that's the other thing I kind of wanted to the springboard off of what you said before about you know like what if he actually is getting this information it's the point is is that it's contradicting what we do know about scripture and yeah the the overall common denominator that we see among false religions is they have their own Bible they have their own translation and it contradicts what we see in Scripture already so this is just a taste guys this is just the tip of the iceberg I'm sure there's gonna be more content as as we talked about this more and as we give more information about this topic I'm positive there gonna be more people that are gonna speak up about this and hopefully I'm hoping honestly that Bryan Simmons does reach out to you I'm hoping that he reaches out to any of us and gives us you know a chance to talk to him about this because this is very troubling and you should not read the passion translation you should not look at it like it's authoritative and you should avoid it at all costs I would go as far as to say that it is closer to a channeled book than it is to Scripture it's it's not good Mike is there anything else you wanted to add yeah I'll just mention a few things real quick that I just like laundry list of stuff there's other areas where Bryan's changing things he believes that the Bible's teaching on women needs to be updated yeah that's my interpretation so he read interprets and read translates proverbs 31 because he wants to change texts that seem to imply things that he thinks it doesn't fit with his understanding of feminism he changes the scripture when it talks about like wives and husbands and their relationship to each other he just changes it and I go through this in my videos but you can't justify the changes he's making in the language he's just changing it his view of Revelation is that it's allegorical so he's gonna translate it to make it look like allegory I mean he just translated Isaiah I'm very interested I haven't even looked you know Isaiah he probably really changes a lot of the prophetic stuff in Isaiah because he thinks that he's living in a particular let's put it this way his view of end times he's gonna push that on to the text of Scripture basically you're getting Bryan Simmons theology crammed into a really flowery unjustifiable translation that's what you're getting in it you're getting in a lots and lots of places so you know they're not the places you'd expect because it's theologies not what you'd expect if you look at how the Bible was made and written and passed down to us it's absolutely genius how God did this because he used dozens and dozens of different authors on purpose yeah to make a unified narrative to make a unified book and it's almost like he didn't want one author to write the whole Bible because something because this is what happens and I mean if you take a Muhammad and you take the Quran I mean you take one author writing any spiritual book you get this bias you get this one person theology so I think that God in His wisdom in order to avoid that made many authors for his book I mean you have different literary styles but it's it's him saying I'm in control you're not you know and then you have people like Brian Simmons who undo that they may take it and then they they undo all of that purposeful inspiration that God had and then they make their own translation yeah just to say again we don't need to be paranoid about translations in general yeah the ESV the New King James Version the King James Version the the is V the NIV the NASB go for it go for it look at them consult various translations check them out this is not you know we're not like Lowe's who are like fine error and freak out like that's not like the agenda and the goal here I went into the pastor translation not knowing what I was gonna find I come out now is very strong terms I mean I'm saying the guys lying and I'm just and I'm just like I did a lot of homework before I would make a claim like that I I do think we need to raise the red flags and I think we need to get that thing out of art out of our churches and out of our bookstores and off of our websites and I don't think it should be any more accessible than the New World Translation except with like it needs to come with a warning label like a pack of cigarettes right it's really like you read this but you better know there's a problem here there's a problem out there and the uninformed are more likely to get it and not realize it yeah yeah so you know what Mike thank you so much again for coming on I know that you're a busy guy and coming on and talking to me about this and informing everybody guys don't read the passion translation it's it's not something we recommend I'm hoping more people make videos like this that people write more articles that people say more stuff about this we want to raise awareness I'm gonna activate people part to them with the revelation the passion translation the anti anointing of this transition basically but yeah I want to thank you Mike for coming on thank you for going through all of that those were great notes and great research that you did I respect good research and thanks again for doing that yeah thanks for having me, The Passion Translation: Encountering God?... Or Deception?, YouTube, 01ktm48ecqeyrndpaggdsg35es.