Chris Scotti - The Gospel of John and Evangelism

In this episode of the Church Talk podcast, hosts Jason Allison and Rob Paterson engage in a lively discussion with Chris Scotti, VP and publisher at 316 Publishing. They explore the impact of consistency in podcasting, the transformative power of the Gospel of John, and the importance of Bible translations. Chris shares his personal journey to faith through reading the Gospel of John and discusses the features of the Legacy Standard Bible, emphasizing its evangelistic nature. The conversation highlights the significance of making God's word accessible and encourages listeners to share the Gospel in creative ways.

Resources:

316Publishing

Get the LSB Gospel of John

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Transcript

Jason Allison (00:01)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Church Talk podcast with Rob and Jason. We are so glad that you took a few minutes out of your day to think about things, to listen and hear us banter about. Rob, actually been a couple weeks since I talked with you, but we did spend an entire week in a car together. And that was, I'm glad to see you've recovered.

Rob Paterson (00:23)
Yeah, I have a little bit of a cold this week and I think it's because I spent that time with you.

Jason Allison (00:29)
I have that effect on people, guess. It's my infectious personality, right? ⁓

Rob Paterson (00:31)
I mean...

Yeah, Jason.

So, I had an interesting conversation with a long time friend last week and this guy, like he consumes podcasts. I think it's his like a part-time job is just listening to podcasts. He doesn't get paid for it, but he loves doing that. So he does that, you know, listens to multiples every single day. And one of the things since he started listening to our podcast, he said was

Man, you the ones that I love the most are the ones that are always there waiting for you when you think that, you know, it's like, okay, so this one releases on this day of the week. And literally every Monday when he pulls ours up, it's always there. And he was like, man, your consistency was super inspiring to him. And he's been benefiting from it and sharing it with others too. So I just thought that was kind of a cool thing to hear. You know, usually you talk to your friends and they're like, your podcast terrible. listened to one and.

Jason Allison (01:21)
Nice.

Yeah.

Rob Paterson (01:28)
But no, this guy, I mean, he loved it and really appreciated the consistency. So I thought that'd be a fun thing to share with you and with our guests.

Jason Allison (01:36)
Yeah, absolutely. I know I set that thing to drop it, you know, about 7 a.m. on on Monday morning. So or maybe at 6 a.m. I can't remember. But yeah, we we feel like even if we don't have anything good to say, we can at least be consistent. It's kind of, you know, that's right. But no, I I'm glad I've been getting a lot of feedback as I've been doing some traveling from people who've been listening. It's always nice to hear. And we just want to encourage you, man, it drop us a note. Let us know.

Rob Paterson (01:50)
Yeah, matters.

Jason Allison (02:04)
you know, what are you learning? What are you hearing? Tell us what questions do you have? Maybe there's something we said that you're like, you guys are totally off base. you know, address this or maybe something really stuck out as helpful. we, we always love interacting with those who are listening and, yeah, it was always good stuff. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (02:22)
Yeah. And we are certainly, like you just said, we're not infallible. We do not like speak, you know, with our little hats on like as the voice of God from, so yeah, I mean, we, want to be helpful. sometimes that comes out imperfectly and you know, we have enough humility to own our mistakes and, and course correct. So absolutely. good.

Jason Allison (02:30)
Ex cathedra.

And I've got enough mistakes

to own my humility. ⁓ Exactly. so we got I haven't sent it to you because I literally just got it. But Riverside, you know, are the thing that we we use here to record sent a you know, here's your year in review, which every platform is doing that now. Right. And I clicked on it real quick before we we logged in and the it had like the word you use the most. And it just had these flashing clips.

Rob Paterson (02:45)
That's right. That's what makes you humble.

Jason Allison (03:09)
And any idea? mean, I'm just curious. didn't even any idea what word we use you. Well, no, it's us together like and our guests like the word that came up in our podcast the most. I know it book. Like literally, we must have said it, you know, hundreds of times, and it just said it just did this flash of pictures of people saying book book book book book book. It's like, well, I mean, it could have been worse because.

Rob Paterson (03:13)
Me or... ⁓ yeah.

I have no idea.

Yeah.

Jason Allison (03:36)
I can, you know, I can think of words

that we've said, but fortunately not often. So that, that helped out. But speaking of books, we have with us a guest that I'm excited to get into a conversation with. We have Chris Scottie with us. Chris is the VP and publisher at 316 Publishing. And you've, you've, kind of reminisced for a few minutes before we hit record, but Chris has been on staff at Zondervan and I've got some family used to, and there was at least

You knew of them, even if you didn't know them that well necessarily. So Rob now believes that I actually have family who worked at Sonderbund. There's outside verification. But you've been, you know, a bookstore clerk. You've been in the publishing world. You're an elder in your church and you have helped create. mean, you didn't write the content because it's the book of John and you know, you're not claiming that kind of authority, but you have a new the gospel truth, according to John.

And I will, course, put a link in the show notes and everything. And once this goes out on YouTube sometime in the next year, we'll we'll they'll see the cover and everything. But man, welcome to the show. And we're just excited to have some conversations around why in the world would you republish the book of John and and and how does all that go? So, Chris, welcome to the show, man.

Chris Scotti (04:52)
Yeah, thank you, Jason. Thank you, Rob, for having me today. It's exciting to participate with you in this conversation.

Jason Allison (05:00)
Yeah, well, you know what? Let's just get started. Maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself. Like, you know, did you grow up in the church? When did you come to faith? What did that look like?

Chris Scotti (05:10)
Yeah, I'll try to keep it short, but I did not. I didn't grow up in a Christian home, so I came to faith in high school and I came to faith through reading the Gospel of John. And so that's why it's so near and dear to my own heart. Basically, I grew up a reader. I was an avid reader, always was at the library checking out books. I was kind of the odd one in school that would be

Jason Allison (05:12)
We've got hours. Okay.

Rob Paterson (05:20)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (05:34)
reading the Hobbit in third grade or the Lord of the Rings in seventh grade and read through, you know, Little House on the Prairie series, read Steinbeck's books in middle school. And there was always my nose in a book. I just consumed massive amounts of content throughout my growing up years. But I was never encouraged at home to read the Bible, even though we had one at

And actually before I could read, I got in trouble for looking at the Bible that we had in the home. It was my parents' wedding gift that was in its original box in the back of their closet. And it was a beautiful family Bible with gorgeous pictures, Renaissance art throughout. And I wanted to look at the pictures because that's what captivated me. And I took it out without permission.

And when it was found out minutes later, it was taken back from me and it was put back in the box and back to where it resided throughout my growing up years. But as part of that, what stuck in my head was my mom saying, that book is not for you. It's a holy book for priests.

Rob Paterson (06:42)
Mmm.

Chris Scotti (06:43)
And that tied to my Italian Catholic heritage. And so even though I was an avid reader, once in a while people would ask me, have you ever read the Bible? And my answer was kind of reshaping what my mom had said years prior. And I said, no, that book's not for me. It's a book for priests. And no one had a rebuttal for that until I met a man in high school.

Jason Allison (06:47)
Yeah.

Chris Scotti (07:07)
And he responded, what if I told you God wants you to read it? And it's his manual for living. And then he challenged me to read the Gospel of John. So at this point in my life, I grew up in Southern Cal, but at this point in my life, I had moved to Missouri where my oldest brother was stationed in the Air Force. And so I was in the Bible Belt. I didn't understand why it was even called that.

Jason Allison (07:08)
Hmm.

Rob Paterson (07:14)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (07:32)
There was something back then called the Blue Laws. Either of you guys remember what the Laws were?

Jason Allison (07:36)
yeah. Yep.

Chris Scotti (07:38)
So for a kid from Southern California, this was just really bizarre. Why would they close the malls on Sunday? And I actually found myself, because of this man, taking up the challenge. My brother and his wife had a Bible in the house. They left for work.

Jason Allison (07:42)
you

Chris Scotti (07:58)
I had the house to myself, I picked up the Bible, I started reading the Gospel of John, and then I kept looking at the clock and I'm like, I gotta leave for school now. So on that mile walk to school, I would just think through what I had read. And this person, Jesus, I knew something of because of my Catholic heritage, but I didn't know that he wanted a personal relationship with me. I didn't know he was alive.

Rob Paterson (08:22)
Hmm.

Chris Scotti (08:24)
you know, the crucifix is kind of what you see and you realize, okay, you know, he died on the cross for my sin, but I don't really know beyond that what the story is for what he did for humanity. And, through reading the gospel of John, I saw someone who was the most opposite of my dad than anyone I had ever read or heard about. And my dad was not a nice person.

Jason Allison (08:33)
know beyond that. That's the story of the West 50s. And, um, I'm to be reading the documentary on it. I thought come on to see what the most opposite of my dad

Chris Scotti (08:52)
He had a violent side and I had made a decision probably when I was 10 or 12 that I was going to be the most opposite of my dad as I could be. That was the man I wanted to be. And in Christ, I saw someone who was the most opposite of my dad. And that was what drew me into the Gospel of John. These stories of Christ and how in difficult situations he responded.

in amazing ways. And as a reader of good novels like Steinbeck, you appreciate good plot twists and character studies. But you know it's fictional. And when you're reading the Gospel of John, it has this amazing content and you recognize this is not fictional. This is historical.

Jason Allison (09:20)
you

Rob Paterson (09:29)
Hmm.

Chris Scotti (09:44)
So I actually at one point decided that ⁓ this Jesus could be a good mentor for me for the man that I wanted to become. And then as I read more and got to the point where the resurrection happened, I recognized he doesn't want to be my mentor. That's not why God sent him. That's not why he died on the cross. He wants to be my Lord and savior. And so.

Jason Allison (09:44)
are actually at one point decided that this music could be as a mentor to me as the man that I wanted to be. And then as I read more, I got to the point where the guys were asking that, and I recognized, you just don't want to be my mentor.

Chris Scotti (10:11)
By the end of the week, finishing the Gospel of John, I knelt at my bedside and asked Christ to redeem me and come into my life. And there wasn't any super powerful, you know, light shining down on me or anything, but I felt that there was a change. And then for me, where it became evident that there was a change was I had read in the Gospel of John that

Rob Paterson (10:19)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (10:21)
there wasn't any super power or light shining down on me or anything but I felt that there was something more to me. I felt like I was in dark for the man

that he was sending me to be a husband and I was a very fragile kid and I felt like

Chris Scotti (10:40)
Jesus was sending the Holy Spirit to be a helper. And I was a very fragile kid with my persona

and didn't know who I was going to end up being. And I just looked to God and said, I need help. And one of the ways I portrayed strength was to my peers was I was quite a proficient cusser.

And I considered myself really to be the best at it. ⁓ And now here I was cussing and then immediately feeling conviction of sin, knowing that that's not pleasing to God. And I, I felt guilt and I've never felt the guilt of cussing before. And so now with this guilt, I was like, how do I deal with this help? I need your help, Lord. And it kind of went

Rob Paterson (11:10)
Hmm.

Mm.

Chris Scotti (11:35)
through this process for me. The words tumbled out of my mouth, the conviction came, and then I asked for forgiveness. But then I asked, please help me. I don't want to be like this anymore. And then it got to the point where I thought the words, but I gained self-control and no longer spoke them. And then it got to the point where I didn't even think the words anymore. And for me, that was evidence.

Jason Allison (11:45)
Right. Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (12:01)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (12:05)
that the Holy Spirit resided in me and was giving me ability

to overcome things that there's no way in my own human strength I could overcome. So for me, I think some of that is just the power of continuing to read God's word, the washing of the word, renewing our minds through the word of God and.

Jason Allison (12:17)
Wow Yeah Yeah

Rob Paterson (12:17)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (12:29)
So as an avid reader, obviously finishing the Gospel of John, was like, well, what else is there about Jesus? I'm not gonna read it all. Yeah.

Rob Paterson (12:35)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (12:36)
Hey, there's three more books

Rob Paterson (12:38)
You know, Chris, thank you. Thank you for sharing that portion of your testimony, because I think so many times in ministry, you know, as our own conversion kind of experiences get years and decades kind of in the rear view mirror, we forget some of, know, just that sort of fresh life change that happens.

when we encounter the Lord through His word and in other ways. And so what a really incredible reminder. You know, as a pastor, one of the questions I get asked more than any other question is, you know, people, maybe they come to faith, maybe they're like rekindling their faith. And they ask me, you know, I want to buy a Bible. What translation, you know, should I get? And you walk into any, you know, Christian bookstore, heck any bookstore, any Barnes and Noble.

Even here at my church, we have a little bookstore just down the hallway and you look at the Bibles and there's, you know, I mean, there's, seems like there's endless opportunities in terms of various translations with 316 Publishing producing an edition of John. just like talk a little bit about what differentiates the legacy standard Bible from other translations out there.

Chris Scotti (13:50)
Yeah, thank you for that question, Rob. So we are blessed in the United States because we have so many choices out there. And even in my own journey of faith, I mean, I came to Christ reading a King James Bible and it has the power of God to transform lives and has proven that through the years.

you know, moved to the New American Standard at one point, worked for Zondervan, read the NIV for a decade, you know, moved to the ESV to enjoy that. And that was the translation my church is using. And my church now uses the Legacy Standard Bible. So for many people listening, they're like, what is that? I haven't heard of that. So historically, it's tied to the New American Standard. So the New American Standard originally, the project started in the late 50s, the

full Bible came out in 1971. And then the New American Standard had a few updates, one in 77, one in 1995. And John MacArthur is a pastor that has preached from the New American Standard for multiple decades. And so he had this idea that he wanted to update the NASB 95, because through his own studies, he saw where there was an opportunity to have some

better consistency of words that are being used. So back in the day when the project of the NASB started to take shape, they basically assigned scholars to handle different portions of scripture. And that was pretty typical of how translation work began. And so you would have scholars at different seminaries and Bible colleges, basically linguistic professors in different parts of the country. And you would say,

Okay, this guy is excellent in the major prophets, and then this person's excellent in the gospels. And so you basically assign them to be the point person over that section, and then they have a couple people that work with them on that. But it's almost like independent teams working independently from each other. And so because of the time that they did the work in, and these were very godly men,

and very grateful for the work that they did. But they had choices to make where they're looking at the original language and they're deciding which English word best conveys the intent of the original language. And they would make those translation decisions. Well, one team might choose a different English word for the same word in the original language.

And so now with the benefit of technology, the translation team that worked on the Legacy Standard Bible, they basically had the software up, all looking at the same content of the original languages. And they're seeing where there is some potential areas for refinement to make better connections in scripture.

Rob Paterson (16:56)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (16:59)
the original language and how it ties to our English because most English readers don't know the original language So we're relying upon the work of the translators and the legacy standard Bible has improved the consistency that was a key component of the work that they did but pastor MacArthur also wanted to be Transparent and show that in the Old Testament where we usually see capital L O R D

in our Old Testament reading. That in the original is actually the Tetragrammaton. It's YHWH, so it's translated Yahweh in the Legacy Standard Bible. And that's refreshing to read the name, God's covenant name, as you're moving through the Old Testament. And it's there over 6,000 times. So it's pretty unavoidable when you're reading it. So

Jason Allison (17:48)
Ha ha ha.

Chris Scotti (17:53)
You know, some people are like, well, what percentage

is different between the NASP and the LSB? I say, well, there's a couple of different ways to come at that number and really just take a portion of scripture that you really enjoy and read it for yourself and see if you like the clarity of it as you're reading it. It's God's holy word. And it's another way that we can engage with scripture. So ⁓ that helps you, I hope, understand a little bit better.

Jason Allison (17:58)
So there was a couple of things I'd to comment on. One is just, it's a form of an adventure that you're going to enjoy and you just need to tell people that you might have a plan for the future. And you're reaching out to your friends and family that's another way that you can engage with them. That helps you, I hope I understand a little bit better.

Chris Scotti (18:21)
what the legacy standard Bible is, but there's far more, much more content

Jason Allison (18:21)
But you know, you're surrounded by the world, but you need far more, much more content.

Chris Scotti (18:25)
you can get to online at lsbible.org. And there's a YouTube channel, there's a roundtable discussions with the translators that did the work and you can hear about their process and how they went at it.

Rob Paterson (18:41)
Jason, before you ask another question, I got to just tell a little story here that Chris came to my mind. So in my undergrad, I took four semesters of Hebrew and our second year, there was just a handful of us that went past first year Hebrew. So I mean, there's four or five, six of us, you know, with the professor and ⁓ I'm three or four semesters into Hebrew now and we're each kind of reading, you know, through different sections of a passage.

Jason Allison (18:59)
and I think that's good that we need to make now.

Rob Paterson (19:09)
And I'm just reading in the Hebrew out loud in this little class, group, and I get to a word and I'm stuck. And I'm just, looking at it and looking at it and everybody else is kind of looking at me and they're like, what's wrong? And I'm like, I don't know how to pronounce this because there's no, there's no vowels. then...

There it was, yes. After three semesters of Hebrew, I still forgot the name Yahweh.

Jason Allison (19:30)
I think you know what Rob does funny. I think I got on one of my Hebrew test.

I actually got knocked off a point for misspelling Yahweh in Hebrew. Like it's like man. Hi God has hated me since then because I couldn't even get his name right. Yeah, that's yeah, I love that and I'm I'm Rob and I are both Bible nerds. You know and all this and and and I love.

Rob Paterson (19:42)
⁓ nice.

Ha

Jason Allison (19:54)
I love talking about translations too, because you know they they they each have a different purpose or at least underlying theme. And I know the NASB, some people would say in the English, it's a little wooden, right? It's it's doesn't flow as you know as well in the English because they were really focusing on the word for word translation. They really wanted to get that accurate. And sometimes that means the idioms of.

Chris Scotti (20:16)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (20:21)
Ancient Israel don't always translate into idioms of, you know, 21st century American English. And so, you know, there's always work to be done in making that more readable or at least understandable. I, you know, so that's but then you've got the NIV, which was more I think they would say thought for thought, right? It was, you know, it wasn't a summary that'd be more like, you know, some of the

Chris Scotti (20:26)
Yes.

Jason Allison (20:44)
The Living Bible, not the New Living Translation, that's a little different, but the Living Bible was truly a paraphrase. And it's not that any of those are better or worse. It's about why are you using a particular translation? Because there are times that, if I'm reading a scripture in church, sometimes the King James actually is wonderful because it sounds great. You know, like it just flows.

And sometimes the NIV just flows. It's not that the words are different. It's just in English, you can make things a little smoother. So, um, yeah, I appreciate the work that went into that. And, and I know, you know, I've got a minor in ancient languages and, uh, even I, that was 30 some years ago. So I'm, I'm a terrible, don't ever ask me stuff about Greek or Hebrew because it's been way too long since I've, you know, really studied it, but I understand, you know, uh, the, work.

that went into that. I'm just curious. the book that you sent us or the addition is of John. everything's framed around this evangelistic mindset. And so maybe my question for you about this particular tool, what makes the LSB Gospel of John such an effective evangelical tool or evangelistic tool?

Chris Scotti (21:58)
Yeah, that's a great question. And really what makes any Gospel of John effective is that it's the power of God's Word. And just the inspiration of the author, who was an eyewitness of the events of Jesus's ministry, and the Holy Spirit inspiring the Apostle John to write this down. And, you know, historically, I think

Rob Paterson (22:21)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (22:23)
most people would say the other three gospels were written before John's gospel, and we know that John lived the longest of all the apostles, and so for him to write something that it's not considered one of the synoptics, right, it's different. So it doesn't so much sync up with the other three. Yeah, there's places where it overlaps, but John's writing

Jason Allison (22:47)
⁓

Chris Scotti (22:48)
is so powerful and engaging, I think, for Gentiles. I

Rob Paterson (22:51)
Hmm.

Jason Allison (22:54)
Yeah.

Chris Scotti (22:54)
mean, sure, the Lord can use it for the Jewish people as well. But for me, it was so engaging in its word pictures, the language that he used. And I think it's been proven for a long time.

Jason Allison (23:04)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Scotti (23:11)
the way the gospel of John ties to evangelism. What we did is nothing new per se. I have an old edition from the American Bible Society that somebody gave me recently, and this is what it looks like. It's just a little guy. And you know, it's staple bound. It's got a cool cover. This was like in the 1920s or 30s, I think. So this guy's probably around 100 years old.

Jason Allison (23:29)
yeah.

Wow.

Rob Paterson (23:37)
Wow.

Chris Scotti (23:40)
It doesn't look worn, so I don't know that it ever got read. But, you you were showing the edition that we came out with. And so what makes ours different? Well, I think one of the main things is we always approach a Bible project as Bibles are meant to be read first and foremost. So we made it so that it's a

Jason Allison (23:46)
Yeah.

Mm. Yeah.

Chris Scotti (24:01)
beautiful layout. It's a 12-point font, this old one that I showed you from the American Bible Society. It's probably a seven-point font, so not really inviting to read. There's other editions of the Gospel of John, but it's rare to have one that has red letter. And we wanted red letter because we thought, well, if someone doesn't know anything about Scripture, but they have a curiosity about who Jesus is,

Jason Allison (24:04)
Mm.

Rob Paterson (24:10)
Mmm.

Jason Allison (24:17)
Mm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Scotti (24:29)
The red letter is going to jump out at them off the page and not everybody's a great reader but we want this to draw them in

Rob Paterson (24:38)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (24:38)
and

So we wanted to make the layout where it was just such an inviting read. Even the verse numbers are very small so they don't get in the way, but you can find them if you need them and What I think makes this work too is just you know the cover of it. It's got foil

Jason Allison (24:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Scotti (24:56)
You know, it's a beautiful look for people to give as a gift. And so many gospels of John that I've seen are built with the intent of how can we engineer this to shave off pennies in production? And

it's like, it's all about how many can we produce for a hundred bucks or something like that? And sure, God can use those too, but we wanted to give an addition.

Jason Allison (25:12)
Right.

Chris Scotti (25:22)
because we believe that there's nothing more beautiful than God's word. And so if you're going to give God's word, give a nice presentation that people will be drawn

Jason Allison (25:23)
Mm-hmm

Chris Scotti (25:34)
into and actually read. So.

Rob Paterson (25:37)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (25:37)
Yeah, well,

I mean, I can tell you. So first of all, the older I get the 12 point font, that is literally the first thing I noticed when I opened it. I'm like, I can read this. This is, you know, and and this is probably I don't know, maybe it's because I'm a guy, whatever it it's the right size because I can stick it in my back pocket and take it with me like that. And I know that's so, you know, unimportant in the grant. I mean, it's God's word and yes, but.

Rob Paterson (25:46)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Scotti (25:58)
Yeah.

Jason Allison (26:06)
Man, I can keep that with me without you this, you know, probably not going to use it to preach from I've got a bible for that but you know, but I mean it's it's very practical and I appreciate that about you know, just producing god's word in a way that's that's practical, and and usable, you know, i'm still curious too like From what you you know have read studied and your experience obviously Why do you think the book of john? Like how does that?

Chris Scotti (26:10)
Yeah.

Right.

Jason Allison (26:36)
How does the text that John wrote really translate into evangelistic? I don't want to say literature because that makes it sound the different genre than it actually is. you know, why is the book of John so evangelistic in nature? And I don't have an answer in mind here. I'm just I'm curious your thoughts on it.

Chris Scotti (26:54)
know that I have an answer specifically, Jason, other than God has chosen to use it. I can tell you, you know, even looking at Acts and the Ethiopian and the chariot, he's reading from Isaiah, he's having problems and Philip is sent there to basically present the gospel to him. know, Philip didn't have a gospel to John to hand him.

Rob Paterson (27:16)
Hahaha

Jason Allison (27:17)
Not yet. Much

less with the foil and the.

Rob Paterson (27:20)
you

Chris Scotti (27:21)
Right. And yet the Lord uses the power of his word to draw people to himself. And so, you know, with the Gospel of John, in this specific edition, we had some intentionality in the design because any portion of scripture that you hand somebody, you hope that they will read it. And so, you know, when we were looking at this project, one of the things that kept coming into my mind was

Are you serious? This is only 399. And if you buy a case of them, you get 70 % off. That's crazy. Because when we go to Hallmark, or anywhere we buy greeting cards, you know, we find a nice foiled greeting card, and we finally find one that we like what it says. And then we flip it over. And it's like sticker shock. It's like, I know.

Jason Allison (28:11)
It's like eight bucks.

Rob Paterson (28:14)
Five bereavement cards, because we had that many people kind of in and around our lives who have had losses recently the other day. And it was like our entire grocery budget for the week, it almost seemed like.

Chris Scotti (28:23)
Wow.

Yeah. So I mean, that's kind of how I equate the value of this. This is far more valuable than a greeting card, and this has the power to transform lives. so, you know, evangelism itself is a scary word for a lot of Christians, right? They know that the Great Commission is something that we're commanded to do, but they almost feel guilty.

Jason Allison (28:45)
Yeah.

Chris Scotti (28:52)
not sharing their faith, not talking about Jesus. For some people, it's just their personality type. For other people, I think it's this misnomer that they have to have a course in apologetics and that somebody's gonna stump them with some question about their faith. But what I'm encouraged through this, and my church is on its third case of these and it's not a big congregation.

but what I'm encouraged is just seeing how the pastor is saying, you know, use these to help spread the gospel in our community. And just this last Sunday, one of the ladies at our church came up to me and she said, I took a few of them and I was at the laundromat and I asked the owner of the laundromat. Hey, can I put these here for people to read? And the owner of the laundromat looked at it and said, yeah, sure. No problem. And for her, that was a big win.

Jason Allison (29:42)
Yeah.

Chris Scotti (29:43)
And I celebrated that with her because, you know, sometimes it's just about

finding opportunities to make them available. People have time in laundromats. They're trying, the time. What a great idea to get it into a laundromat. For me, God seems to use me at gas stations. I don't know why, but people approach me when I'm pumping gas for some reason, or it just gives me an opportunity to talk. It's not like I look for these.

Jason Allison (29:53)
Yeah.

Mm.

Chris Scotti (30:10)
But I do pray for divine appointments. And I think that's key. We pray for those divine appointments. And so when they happen, we believe that God wants to use us in this situation. And, you know, we rely upon the Holy Spirit to give us the words to say at those times. But it's also good to have a Gospel of John on hand. So I've got, you know, a few in the door pockets of my vehicle.

Jason Allison (30:12)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (30:13)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Allison (30:20)
Thank

Chris Scotti (30:35)
for those times. Women can put it in their purse. Other creative ways, we're approaching Christmas here. So you can put it in a Christmas stocking for somebody. If you're doing a cookie exchange, you can add a Gospel of John to the cookie exchange. I think those are just a few ideas that I've heard, but I'm sure people can come up with far better ways to get the Gospel of John out there.

Jason Allison (30:38)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (31:00)
Yeah. Chris, you've said something four or five times so far in this conversation that Jason and I have said, you know, because I mean, we see all of it. I mean, everybody who's in a church or a pastor kind of sees some of this from time to time where people get militant about, no, everyone needs to read my preferred translation and avoid all the others because of all the evils and inconsistencies and whatever. And, and so, you know, our comment is often listen.

The best translation for someone is one that they will read. know, I mean, people reading the Bible is way more important than, you know, most other things. Having, having maybe even what we would say would to be a better or a more accurate translation that, just sits in a box in the back of the closet, you know, is not super effective. And so I want to get into the weeds with a question here for a minute. remember in seminary taking a hermeneutics class.

Chris Scotti (31:31)
Yes. Yes.

Jason Allison (31:55)
you

Rob Paterson (31:55)
And one of the textbooks was just this little book entitled,

choosing a translation for all it's worth. And it kind of talked about that range. actually have like a right on my, I have a little file cabinet thing right here beside me and my, phone and my office sits on that I never use and nobody ever calls. Um, but it has like that kind of spectrum of, know, what is more of like a formal equivalent all the way to like a paraphrase and kind of everything in between.

And I remember like one thing, and I've used this a hundred times in teaching various times, but it stood out to me because, the people who are just hell bent on, no, my translation is more accurate. It gives an example of the French term, Pomme de terre actually means, if you translate it word for word is apple of the ground. But the, the, what it means is potato.

And so it's making the point like when we're like, no, tell me the word for word from the original. Well, I could say apple of the ground, but none of them like a ground, ground apple. Like what does that mean? You no, I want you to tell me potato because that actually is what connects meaning in my mind. And so, you know, as I just think about all this, how would you describe, the legacy standard Bible, you know, just kind of from like, where does it fall on the spectrum?

And what about it would you say makes it accessible to more people beyond just the aesthetic and those kinds of things that when they get into the text, they would actually like it and read it.

Chris Scotti (33:28)
Yeah, good question. And I will try to answer it looking at a few different angles here. So again, I'm just one guy in publishing, so some of this is my own opinion that's formed through the years. And I mentioned earlier, the Lord has blessed me and allowed me to read different translations at different times within my own journey of faith. The book that you mentioned, I believe is published by Zondervan.

Jason Allison (33:49)
the book that you made and I believe you published by Danda

and John DeVanelle is part of her profile and you know they have five, three books for that same time they used to be named and I believe there are a couple that they did use and so some of what is going on in past year I think you're going to be able to see it

Rob Paterson (33:53)
Mmm. Yeah.

Chris Scotti (33:54)
And Zondervan now is part of HarperCollins and you know, they have ties to multiple bestselling translations. New King James, ⁓ NIV are a couple of their biggies. And so some of what is shown on that spectrum, ⁓ I think could be loosely

interpreted and possibly used more for marketing.

than it is actually trying to give people a clear picture. It's someone's opinion more than anything. And so what you see in some of the online forums, and there are some Facebook groups, people are very, very passionate about the Bible. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes people get entrenched in their opinions as a result of it. And I think that's what you're pointing out there, Rob, is that

Rob Paterson (34:27)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (34:53)
Some people basically say my way or the highway, and they don't want to engage with you any further in the discussion. As you pointed out, translations have different leanings at times, and we can benefit from those leanings. I remember years ago hearing on the radio, Billy Graham's radio program, he talked about being at an evangelism conference in Amsterdam.

And because it was a worldwide event, at the conference they had, I think it was like over 20 different translators there, taking the keynote speaker's message on any given day and translating it so that the people in attendance could understand what was being spoken. And on one of those days, somebody got up and they started the conversation with, I'm just tickled to death to be here today.

And what they said on that radio program is that some of the audience, was a, other people left. And the people where they had the gasp was because they thought this poor brother needs prayer. He's near death.

Jason Allison (36:01)
You

Chris Scotti (36:03)
And the idiom didn't translate correctly. And so, yes, we want to obviously understand the intent of the original author. And I think that's the challenge of the translators. If I could try to convey something that Pastor MacArthur said, and again, you can hear some of this in some of the videos from the Legacy Standard Bible YouTube channel. But he said we want to get closest to

Jason Allison (36:06)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (36:06)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Chris Scotti (36:32)
the actual words that were spoken by God. And it's not about the reader, it's about the author. And so if that's the perspective of the translation team, what did the author say? And then the other perspective is it's up to the pastor to rightly divide God's word and explain to God's people.

what it means, that puts more emphasis on us being in fellowship. And, you know, the Bible tells us too that in the last days, we're supposed to gather together all the more. You know, so I think it puts an importance upon being in a Bible-believing church, so that as the pastor is studying God's Word, he is correctly teaching God's Word.

Rob Paterson (37:06)
Mm.

Chris Scotti (37:27)
So I think, you know, that's a roundabout way for me to say, you can get, you know, spiritual food from any of these major translations, the New King James, the King James, the NIV, the NLT, the ESV, the NASB, but the benefit of the LSB, if you've read some of those other ones, is that I think you'll pick up on the consistency. I think that's one of the key things where,

Jason Allison (37:51)
you

Rob Paterson (37:51)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Scotti (37:54)
You read a passage and you're like, man, he's using this word four times here. And that, that connects back to one thing that pastor MacArthur said also, as he said, you want to throw out the thesaurus when you're doing Bible translation. Because if the original author used this word five times or whatever in this passage, use the same word in English five times, exactly.

Jason Allison (37:59)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Paterson (38:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Allison (38:09)
Yeah.

Rob Paterson (38:18)
repetition means

Jason Allison (38:18)
Yeah. Yep.

Rob Paterson (38:20)
emphasis and we don't want to miss that. Yeah.

Jason Allison (38:22)
Yeah.

Chris Scotti (38:23)
Yeah,

and sheep are not the smartest creatures, so if we're called sheep, we need that repetition for it to sink in.

Jason Allison (38:29)
Yeah, I think you touched on something too there that I think is really important. Anytime you're going to study scripture, yes, you should have your own time to study. But I also think to get the most out of your study of scripture, doing it within the context of a community will just multiply exponentially your ability to understand it, to learn from it, to grow in it. Because I was talking to somebody yesterday that

You can read about forgiving people But until you're in community and you have to actually forgive someone it's just a concept in your head and Yet then when I have to forgive or I have to repent Because I did something that hurt someone and that only happens when we're in community and so, you know reading the book of John Even in this amazing translation of the LSB, know, but reading it by myself will only get me so far

There is a point at which I need to have conversations with scripture and with those around me. And I think we as pastors too often act like they need to come to us to get that because we like to be needed. like to, know, and yeah, sometimes people are going to sit around and they're going to read some scripture and they're going to come up with some harebrained ideas as to what it means. You know, I mean, that's we know that's going to happen.

But man, I would rather see them engaging in scripture and trust the spirit, right? To keep them from too crazy of a, you know, outside of orthodoxy, heretical type stuff and say, man, but if you're really learning how to live together, then you're learning what scripture is all about. And that's, know, Jesus, the whole book of John, it keeps coming back to you, right? You've got the seven I ams, you've got the seven, you know, there's cycles of seven.

Chris Scotti (40:14)
Yes.

Jason Allison (40:16)
all throughout, all of them point back to who Jesus is. And, know, to me, as I've been listening to you reflect on all this and I've been just processing, I really do think one of the reasons in my mind that the book of John is such a great evangelistic tool is it just keeps pointing back to who Jesus is over and over and over and. Yes. Yeah.

Chris Scotti (40:34)
Yes. Believe is a big theme that you would believe is

something that John repeats. so reading that throughout helps you understand the goal here. It's like, this is why I wrote this. It's so that you would believe.

Jason Allison (40:47)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I we can just lean on that and it's OK. Like, you know, we don't need to sugarcoat it or pretend anything else like John wrote this so he would help people truly believe that Jesus was who he said he is and that Jesus actually did these things and rose again. And that's evangelism in a really succinct way. And so I love that you guys have have.

Chris Scotti (41:12)
Yes.

Jason Allison (41:16)
You've taken that tool and then you've packaged it in a way that is way, way easier to get out there. Rob, any last questions before? I'm going to do something that we've never done before, but I want you to get one last question in just in case.

Rob Paterson (41:29)
Well,

I, you know, I just, don't have a question, but I have a comment, Chris. I just feel like, I'm my wiring and I live in a small town that has a gazillion little churches. and I always say, you know, my church is a little bit larger, but it's like, man, I don't feel like what we do is better and what they do is worse. I feel like there are different approaches to ministry and worship styles. And you know what? If each of those were all part of the same body of Christ,

And if each of those does something different in a way that reaches other people, you know, what a gift that is to the kingdom and to eternity. And we can all work together to that end. And I just really appreciate the work that you and your team have done to give another option for people to encounter God through His word and in this translation. So thank you for that.

Chris Scotti (42:16)
Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the encouragement.

Jason Allison (42:19)
Yeah, so here's what I want to I want to propose. If someone has listened all the way to this point, we're 45 minutes in right and and you're a pastor or connected with the church and your church is interested in getting a case of, you know, the gospel truth, according to John that, you know, you've got here, then the church talk podcast, the first three churches that reach out to us, we will buy a case of.

these Bibles for those churches. You know, and we can work out the details to how we ship it to them. That's fine. But if they will reach out to us and, tell me, hey, I listened to the podcast with Chris Scottie and I want a case of the book of John, then the Church Talk podcast will arrange it so that we can we can purchase a case for the first three churches that that reach out to us. I'm not made of money, so three churches is all I'm to be able to do. But that's at least a start. And

And so yeah, Rob, I didn't even run that one by you, but I don't think you care.

Rob Paterson (43:17)
I just sent you an email. I'm the first church.

Jason Allison (43:20)
There you go. Great. Okay. Down to two apparently.

Rob Paterson (43:26)
I'll get my own case, I'm kidding. That sounds awesome. You

know what, let's be generous, not just at this time of year, but man, if we can't be generous as we're thinking about and celebrating a God who gave himself to come to this earth for us, we're missing it.

Jason Allison (43:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Well, Chris, thank you for taking the time to chat with us and just taking the time to make sure this project actually happened. And I know you oversee a lot of that in the production of this. And thanks for your life, like just giving of your life over the years to read, to enjoy, to just really get to know Jesus and then share that love with others. Man, we appreciate it.

Chris Scotti (44:02)
thank you both so much. It's been a joy to chat with you today and put the spotlight on Jesus. So I hope it encourages the church to get out there and share the gospel.

Jason Allison (44:12)
Amen. Well, to all of our listeners, we thank you for listening. Once again, we look forward to talking with you again next week. If you have a minute, please share the podcast, maybe share it with some friends or other pastors. Take a minute and hit the subscribe button. We appreciate that. But we look forward to talking with you soon and reach out and let us know how things are going because we're cheering for you. Have a great week.