Sid: My guest is red hot for the Messiah his name is Bill Morford speaking to him at his home in Lexington, South Carolina. He is the translator of one of the freshest most exciting newer translations of the New Testament. It’s called “The Power New Testament” subtitled “Revealing Jewish Roots.” The reason this is so unusual is that it explains the Jewish idioms, the Jewish customs that the people at the time the New Testament was penned they all understood this because it was a Jewish culture. It didn’t have to be explained, but today there’s such a gap between what is called Christianity and understanding what the real intent of the New Testament is. On yesterday’s broadcast Bill we found out about your studies in Greek and how long it took you to translate this particular translation, but you’re not Jewish. Tell me how God led you to understand these Jewish idioms and the Jewish customs. From the Greek we understand, and the power you’ve put behind these words, and getting the tenses right, it just totally changes the… I wouldn’t even say changes them, yeah I will, it changes the meaning of a lot of the New Testament. So how being a non-Jew how did you learn these things?
Bill: (Laughing) Well first thing the Lord put it on my heart, and that goes back to the early 80’s. We went to Israel in ‘84 with Benny Hinn, and then it just couldn’t quit after that. Time after time in reading the New Testament I’d just know that something was wrong in there, and the Lord was showing me things. When I got serious with the translation, how I really learned about them was from Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Yehuda in Lakeland, Florida. Because the Lord has us move to Lakeland back in ’93 just before He told me “To get serious with the translation.”
Sid: Now tell me about the heritage of Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.
Bill: His grandfather was thee Eliezer Ben-Yehuda credited with restoring Hebrew as the national language of Israel.
Sid: Now when you first met the grandson, Rabbi Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, he is a rabbi of what kind of synagogue?
Bill: Conservative Jewish.
Sid: Okay, when you first met him did you realize how famous his grandfather was
Bill: Yes. When I knew the name and he told me very early in our conversation.
Sid: Now why did a conservative rabbi want to spend so much time with you, really mentoring you in understanding the idioms to make the New Testament plainer to people?
Bill: There are 2 reasons: First he has a desire to build a bridge to Christianity not to merge by any means. He can give you a number of reasons why Jesus can’t be the Messiah, but he wants to foster better relations between churches and synagogues. The second thing is, the Lord just put it on his heart and bonded us together. I had computer problems as I started full-time on the translation and he would help me. I’d take my computer to his house, or he’d come to mine and we’d work through the problems because he’s very knowledgeable on the computer. We became very very close friends.
Sid: When you finished the translation you had all the notes, I’m sure you gave him one of the first copies. Out of curiosity what did he think of it?
Bill: He said “It was the best translation he’d ever seen.” He took it, he was a member part of his desire to build a bridge to Christianity, he was a member of the Ministerial Association of Lakeland. At their next meeting he took a copy and stood up and said “Each one of you needs to have one of these” and sold 19 of them that morning. (Laughing) So he’s enthused about it.
Sid: What kind of errors might the church have as a result of misunderstanding one of the idioms, or the Hebraic customs? For instance, let’s focus in on Sunday worship, many of the apologists say that an example of Sunday worship was Paul speaking at midnight in Troas.
Bill: Right, right, but that is a Havdalah service.
Sid: What is Havdalah?
Bill: That is a service to return from the Holy Sabbath to the secular workaday world. It is at sundown on Saturday evening so that Paul couldn’t start speaking, they wouldn’t start the service until an hour after sundown. So if that were a meeting in say late June it could be 10 or 11:00 at night before they’d even begin the service. At that service then they can talk about money, they would not talk about it on the Sabbath. So that relates to in Corinthians 2nd Corinthians when he talked about setting aside money on the first day of the week, that would be at the Havdalah service.
Sid: Bill is there anywhere, once you understand the idioms and the Hebraic roots of the New Testament, is there anywhere in the New Testament that tells us the Sabbath should not be Saturday, but should be Sunday?
Bill: No there is not.
Sid: Let me ask you this, what is your understanding of the Sabbath, what does God want?
Bill: He gives a number of commands and tells us that basically it’s to be a day of rest and a day with Him. It’s to be a day for the family to be together and worship Him.
Sid: Now what do you do on the Sabbath?
Bill: Right now I take it very easy, I don’t do work. If I have a meeting someplace I drive to it, I don’t get… I haven’t made any rules put it that way. I don’t go shopping, I don’t schedule to do something that God says not to do, but I’m not religious about it.
Sid: Okay, what do you think of someone that takes Sunday for a Sabbath rather than Saturday?
Bill: Well my own children take Sunday for a Sabbath.
Sid: Does that have anything to do with their salvation?
Bill: No.
Sid: Does it have anything to do with their righteousness?
Bill: No.
Sid: So then what difference does it make?
Bill: Well that’s what I say, that what we do on the Sabbath is much more important than what day we honor the Sabbath.
Sid: Well I know a lot of people that take Saturday Sabbath and they’ll go play golf, or just relax. Is that your understanding of the meaning?
Bill: Wouldn’t be to play golf. My understanding of the meaning is to spend the time with family and with God to have Bible studies. For a family to play board games at home, or do something as a family that would be appropriate that would be fine, but what definitely wouldn’t fit is for the father to go play golf, and the mother to go shopping, and the children to go off with their buddies and do whatever. That’s not appropriate for the Sabbath.
Sid: Okay, Bill I’ll tell you my spin on this thing. I am so glad that most churches have called Sunday the Sabbath because to me, to dress up, to drive to the building, to go out and have a big lunch there’s a lot of work connected with all of this. So I love that I can worship on a Sunday and take the Sabbath to just be with God and family.
Bill: (Laughing) That’s good, very good.
Sid: Okay, let’s go back to some of these idioms tell me one of your favorites.
Bill: TheEvil eye simply means someone who is stingy. So when Jesus says to pluck it out, He’s not instructing you to pluck out one of your eyes; He’s instructing you to stop being stingy and greedy. That all you have has been given to you by the Lord and that you need to be generous with it, and look to the needs of the poor to see how the Lord would have you spend it.
Sid: Let me ask you about a hot potato word it’s called “law.” You don’t it translate it law in “The Power New Testament.” What do you translate it?
Bill: Torah.
Sid: Now tell me what Torah means?
Bill: Teaching, it actually means teaching or instruction. So there are places where I translate it teaching, but it does not mean law. It gives us the entirely wrong attitude toward the Old Testament. It’s said even almost with a snarl at times that “We’re not under the law,” well were under God’s teachings.
