When the Bible Reads You: Language, Simplicity, and the Dance Between Access and Awe
What do you gain—and what might you lose—when you make the Bible simple?
That’s the question quietly echoing from my recent conversation with Dan Parr, a voiceover artist who followed a calling that most of us would brush aside: to rephrase, narrate, and publish a new version of the Bible for modern ears.
He calls it the “Easy to Understand Read Bible.” Yes, you heard that right—“Read Bible,” not “Red.”
There’s a playful wink here, of course, to the “Red Letter” Bibles so many of us grew up with, where the words of Christ stood out in crimson.
Dan flips the emphasis: this is scripture meant to be, above all, read—and understood—by everyone.
Dan’s origin story as a translator is grounded in vulnerability: his mother, suffering and surrounded by bad medical advice, chose faith—and chose him—at a time when doctors recommended an abortion for what they predicted would be a “special needs child.” Instead, she and Dan’s father prayed and trusted that God had a purpose in the pregnancy.
Dan grew up with a sense of calling: “if you’re here, you’re here for a reason.” But, as he puts it, “that story just made me realize at a very early age, God has a purpose for me. Now, as I’ve grown older, I realize God has a purpose for everyone.”
That “purpose” took a winding path—from years outside institutional church, to a return sparked by a neighbor’s generosity, to a simple gesture: dropping a small gift in the collection plate, only to be pulled back again and again by invitation, circumstance, and God’s persistent tug.
But it was reading the Bible for himself that transformed Dan: “the Bible is transformative, right? It reads you more than you read it.”
That is where things get complicated—and intriguing for anyone who cares about words, meaning, and faith. Is it possible (or even wise) to try to make the Bible “easy”? Aren’t many of its hardest edges—the mystery, the poetry, the odd “thee” and “thou”—essential to its power, not obstacles to overcome?
Dan’s first steps as narrator and writer started small: a video for Easter, a “minor tweak” to a resurrection story in Luke to make the reading more approachable. Soon, God nudged him for more: the Book of Luke, then Acts (“really the book of Luke part two”), and then the full New Testament and beyond. “As I was going through this,” Dan told me, “I was telling God, we don’t need another version of the Bible. There’s 900 versions out there. We don’t need one more.”
But calling doesn’t always consult our common sense.
The more Dan resisted, the more insistent the tug became. “I’d protest and kind of... get a little snippy almost. Uh, but I still acted in obedience and did what I thought he was telling me.” It was painstaking work: “I would check several other versions of the Bible to make sure what I was putting in was in line with how verses have historically been preserved. I wanted to make sure, you know, I was just doing it in a way that would remove any barriers.”
And here’s the crux: What constitutes a barrier? Is the old-fashioned language—the “thee,” the “thou,” the “cubit,” the “mite”—really keeping people out? Or do we risk, in the urge to sand down the rough edges, making the text so plain it loses its resonance, context, and even its ability to jolt us awake?
Words like “sanctification” or “set apart” come laden with a history that can’t always be swapped out for “becoming more like Christ” without losing something. “Cubits” and “widow’s mites” translate into “about 18 inches” or “small brass coins, less than a penny”—but do we gain or lose when the ancient becomes the familiar?
One case in point: in Mark 12, Jesus praises the “widow’s mite.” In the Easy to Understand Read Bible: “A poor widow came and she put in two small brass coins worth less than a penny... He called his disciples over and said, ‘this poor widow gave more than all the others... she gave out of her poverty all that she had to live on.’”
Is the story diminished? Or does this version—meant to be read, not just revered—mean someone who never got past King James English can finally catch the heartbeat of Christ’s lesson?
Dan’s approach is to name his anxieties openly. “What concerned me about doing this was that I was going to change the meaning somehow. So I had to very prayerfully approach this... there would be times I’d get very frustrated and say, ‘How in the world am I supposed to say this?’ And God in his gentle nature would lead me to a passage or a commentary where I’d be able to read it and say, ‘Okay, now I get it. Now, how can I just make this a little bit more simple to understand?’”
Translation, then, ultimately becomes hospitality—a setting of the table, not for experts but for the hungry, the curious, the seekers, and even the skeptics.
The point is not to erase the “meat” and poetry, but to open the door. “If someone wants to do a deep theological study, this probably isn’t the Bible you’re going to use. You want to get a study Bible,” Dan admits. “What I’ve done is put out a Bible that anyone who speaks English can really understand.”
Yet, there is something undeniably sacred in the effort—a humility in the attempt to bridge the gap between past and present, text and reader, scholar and newcomer.
Because as Dan himself says, “The Bible is transformative; it reads you more than you read it.” The process of recasting, agonizing over the phrasing of “circumcision” or the measurements of a “cubit,” or putting fresh words to “sanctification,” exposes both author and audience to a new possibility: that God’s word isn’t finished with us yet, and may have something new to say if we’ll sit down and read.
Making Scripture accessible is never about eliminating the “otherness.” It’s about building a bridge across time, culture, and spiritual experience—giving everyone a chance to not just hear the Word, but to have it read them.
Dan says it best: “The Bible really is God’s declaration of love to you, because time and time again we screw up and yet he remains faithful and loving and reaches back to us again.”
Ultimately, the challenge is not about making the text easy or hard, but about making room: for conversation, for context, for the dynamics of reading and being read.
Maybe what we need most are not perfect boundaries or flawless translations, but a living invitation into the stories and words that shape us, and a willingness to encounter the sacred in new and unexpected language.
You are created in the image of God. And God loves His creation.
—Wade Fransson
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If you found this reflection meaningful, or if the question of language and accessibility in faith weighs on you, drop a comment or share. Next week, we’ll hear from Susan Shocker—a story of profound personal turnaround, unexpected faith, and learning to “see the light” after a lifetime of skepticism. Until then, may your own reading—of the Read Bible, or any scripture—be both easy and deep.
