The following is a stained glass window depicting The Parable of the Rich Fool by Arthur J. Dix, 1898. From St John’s church, Bowness-on-Windermere, England:
Hosted by Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum )
Following is a 1973 painting of the JESUS MAFA project, a response to New Testament readings from the Lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon, Africa. Each of the readings was selected and adapted to dramatic interpretation by the community members. Photographs of their interpretations were made, and these were then transcribed to paintings:
From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Image retrieved March 23, 2026. Original source: librairie-emmanuel.fr.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 12:15:
Noongar: “Then Jesus said to all the people, ‘Watch out! All you people must turn away from all greed, because the true life of a person is not seen in the things he owns, not even if he owns very much money.'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “After that he said to the many people: ‘Be watchful and careful, so that you do not desire any goods of the world. Because even though our goods are many, it is not from those goods that our lives are good.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Then Isa said to the people, ‘Watch out. Stay away from all kinds of desire/greed for even a very rich person, it isn’t his great wealth that causes him to live.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus said to the people, ‘Look carefully to your actions so that there is no selfishness among you, because the thing which makes the life of a person good does not come from many possessions.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Then he continued to say to them all, ‘Watch out so you are not successfully-tempted to be greedy for what belongs to your companions, because a person’s life, it is not based-on/dependent-on the quantity of his possessions, even if his riches are in-excess.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “And then Jesus spoke causing that crowd to listen, saying, ‘Now be careful! Put really far away the nature/way of being greedy, because as for belongings/assets, no matter how big is the amount, they can’t hold-on-to a person’s life/breath.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999): “Jesus said to the crowd: ‘Avoid greed like the plague! For life cannot consist in mountains of possessions.’”
Barclay Newman, a translator on the teams for both the Good News Bible and the Contemporary English Version, translated passages of the New Testament into English and published them in 2014, “in a publication brief enough to be non-threatening, yet long enough to be taken seriously, and interesting enough to appeal to believers and un-believers alike.” The following is the translation of Luke 12:15-21:
Jesus stood up and warned the crowd, “Don’t be greedy!
Wealth won’t get you where you want to go.”
Then he told them this story:
“At harvest time a rich man had an abundant crop,
but he didn’t have enough room to store it all.
After thinking things over for a while,
he finally decided to tear down his old barns
and build super sized storage bins.
“Once I do this,” he smiled and said to himself,
“I’ll have enough set aside for years to come.”
So he decided to live his life to the max.
But as he celebrated, the voice of God thundered,
“Stupid fool! Tonight you die. Then who will get it all?”
Jesus concluded by saying,
“This is what happens to people who pile up wealth
without weighing the thunderous judgment of God.”
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system, one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and others for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are Twents as well as the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, iw-are-ru (言われる) or “say” is used.
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
eipen de pros autous ‘he said to them.’ autous may refer to all present (cf. ochlos in v. 12), or to the disciples, preferably the former.
horate kai phulassesthe apo pasēs pleonexias ‘take care, and be on your guard against every form of greed.’ horate may stand alone, or, like phulassesthe, go with apo, preferably the former. In pasa pleonexia the adjective pasa means ‘every kind, or form.’
ouk en tō perisseuein tini lit. ‘not (even) when there is an abundance for somebody,’ i.e. ‘not (even) when somebody has in abundance.’ For perisseuō cf. on 9.17.
hē zōē autou estin ek tōn huparchontōn autō ‘his life belongs to his possessions.’ For ta huparchonta cf. on 8.3 and reference there.
zōē ‘life,’ here of man’s natural life as contrasted with death.
Translation:
Take heed, or, ‘Attention!,’ “Watch out” (Good News Translation).
Beware of all covetousness, or, ‘evil longing,’ ‘envious-desire’ (cf. Zarma, Pohnpeian). The clause often has to be adjusted, e.g. ‘do not be loving riches,’ ‘may wealth not take possession of your heart’ (Tzeltal), ‘do not desire to gather all kinds of goods’ (Tae’ 1933), ‘do not give-the-reins to a greedy mind’ (Balinese).
A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, or, as preferred in Exegesis, ‘a man’s life does not belong to (or, is not part of, or, does not depend on) his possessions, even when he has (them) in abundance, or, even when he possesses more than he needs’; or again ‘a man is not master of his own life, even when he is master of many goods,’ ‘a man may be very rich, but this does not mean that he will live long, or, but this does not give him the right/power to live long.’
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
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