Mother's Day show

Lalia spoke at a Mother's Day "show" at the Pinheiros Baptist Church in Sao Paulo.

Here's a short video from the beginning of her presentation. Her topic was the first mother -- Eve -- and the power of forgiveness.

A pack of lies -- the sequel

Maybe you're curious about 12 Lies You Hear In Church. (If not, you can get off the bus right now!)

In my previous post, I described how I was responsible for checking the accuracy of the Portuguese translation of this book, soon to be published in Brazil by Vida Nova (New Life).

Author Tim Riter has a passion for truth. This book is his attempt to put readers on constant alert, following the example of the early Christians at Berea, who "received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11, NIV)

Many lies are like wolves--they come wrapped in sheep's clothing. On the surface, there may even be some truth laced with our misconceptions. In many cases, believing a lie is a question of doctrinal imbalance. Stretching a truth to an extreme position can result in distortion and lies.

Here are some of the lies uncovered by Riter:

• I believe in Jesus and that's enough.
• We must be perfect.
• We can't be perfect.
• Little sins aren't really that bad.
• One sin does destroy us.
• I'm not perfect, but compared to Jim, I'm a saint.
• I married the wrong person.
• I'll never be a Billy Graham.
• Christianity is great on Sundays.
• I'm like this because mom was a nag.
• Only good things happen to good people.
• We have the truth.

In my previous post, I mentioned some "bumps on the road" during the editing process of this book. One example was an affirmation by the author about 3 words in a verse which all reflected the same Greek root. When I went to my Greek New Testament to check it out, I only found 2 words that fit the description!

Decision time. Do I maintain the error in the Portuguese translation, or do I tweak the text a bit? I have great respect for an author's argument, but in this case I nudged the text to better represent the truth! Confession is good for the soul.

Other bumps were less dramatic -- even comical -- related to the translation from English to Portuguese. Lalia and I had a good laugh at one phrase which translated "five o'clock shadow" in a literal manner (something like "casting a shadow at 5 p.m.")!

My passion is creating understanding with words. Working on this book was another twist in that adventure.

A pack of lies

For the past few weeks, I have been immersed in a pack of lies.

Don't call the heresy patrol just yet. Let me explain. In early April, the Vida Nova publishing house asked me to check and edit the Portuguese translation of 12 Lies You Hear In Church, by Tim Riter. I estimated 3 weeks to complete the job. It took me 4! Along the way, I learned a thing or two.

Lesson #1: Never underestimate the complexity of a book. I thought, "At 180 pages, how hard can it be? This is no theology textbook. Easy stuff." I hadn't reckoned with the bumps along the road. More on that later.

Lesson #2: Words are my playground. Once again, I realized how much I enjoy shaping words to create understanding. Adding the layer of another language doubles the fun.

Lesson #3: It's not what you know, it's who you know. When I get stumped on an expression in Portuguese or on a grammar question, Lalia rescues me. She is a gifted wordsmith for whom I have the highest respect.