Nederlandse Bijbel

The destination was always the Father

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). For generations the church heard the way to heaven. He said the way to the Father. The destination was never merely forgiveness, and never merely heaven. It was the Father Himself.

From the first page to the last, Scripture tells one story: a perfect and loving Father pursuing and restoring His beloved sons and daughters through the blood of His Son and by the Holy Spirit. Father’s Heart Bible™ exists for one reason: so you can hear that story in Father’s own voice, and come home.

Father is His name

We believe in One God in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At the center of the Trinity is a Father. Not a role God plays. “God” is not a name. It is what He is. Father is who He is.

He is not one of many gods. He is not an idol. He is Father, and Father is His name — the name Jesus came to reveal. “I revealed your name to those you gave me from the world” (John 17:6). In Revelation 7:9–12 a multitude too numerous to count, from every nation, tribe, and language, shouts one thing: “Salvation belongs to our Father, seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” The focus of Heaven is the Father.

Who never calls Him Father

Notice who, in Scripture, relates to God only as a distant deity and never as Father. The serpent in Eden, who recast a generous Father as a withholding rival: “Did God really say…?” (Genesis 3:1). The accuser and the arguing friends in Job, who debated a remote and transactional judge, until Job himself moved from hearing about God to seeing Him. Pharaoh, who sneered, “Who is God, that I should obey his voice?” (Exodus 5:2). The nations who served gods of wood and stone. Even the tempter in the wilderness aimed his attack straight at the bond of sonship: “If you’re the Son of God…” (Matthew 4:3).

The enemy’s strategy has never changed since the garden: to make the Father seem distant, demanding, and disappointed. For too long, “God” and “the LORD” left that caricature unchallenged. Father’s Heart Bible™ lets the Hebrew and Greek speak the distinction they always made, between a deity to be appeased and a Father to be received.

Hear His voice

For a hundred and twenty-five years, red letters have shown readers the words of the Son. Our Father speaks more than three times as often, and until now every one of those words has been printed exactly like the genealogies around them. In this Bible you can see who is speaking. Our Father’s words in BLUE. The Son’s in RED. The Spirit’s in PURPLE.

The color is a mark of ownership, not of quotation: our Father’s words stay His on any lips that carry them faithfully, and words He never spoke are never colored. Narration stays black.

The Trinity, rightly seen

This recovery does not diminish the Trinity; it clarifies it. The one God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one essence, and Father’s Heart Bible™ honors each. The Father initiates, sends, and gives. The Son reveals, redeems, and reconciles us to the Father. The Spirit applies, confirms, and pours Father’s love into our hearts.

Three realities shape how we translate, beginning at the very first verse. The incarnation: the Son revealed the Father perfectly — “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Pentecost: the Spirit of sonship was poured out, crying from within His children, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). And the sealed canon: with the last book written, the whole story finally came into view — one Father, one redemption, one family.

What it is not

Not a paraphrase, and not an adaptation of any existing English Bible. Not a study Bible or commentary — the notes serve the reader, not the scholar. Not the work of a committee: every rendering and every interpretive decision is our own, and our own responsibility. Not abridged. It reads 135,000 words shorter than the King James because contemporary English says the same thing in fewer words. Every verse. Every book.

How it renders the divine names

The covenant name YHWH is rendered “our Father” by default; on the lips of outsiders, such as Pharaoh, it keeps a title (“the LORD” or “God”). Where Elohim or Theos refers to the Father, it is rendered as Father too; “God” is kept where Scripture speaks of God as God. Where Adonai refers to the Father, it is rendered “Sovereign,” most often “my Sovereign Father”; “Lord” is used chiefly of Jesus. At Genesis 1:1, “God” (Elohim) is rendered “our Heavenly Father.”

Hearing your Father’s voice

You do not have to earn His voice, decode it, or qualify for it. You have to receive Him. Our Father speaks — that is not a reward for the mature; it is what kind of Father He is. He has never been silent, and He did not stop when the last page of Scripture was written. He speaks because He is a Father, and a Father talks to His children.

And you hear Him. When you doubt your own ability to hear, trust His ability to speak. Notice that the sheep are never described as skilled listeners — only as His. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). He rarely shouts over the noise. He speaks close, the way a father speaks to a child in his own house — and the quiet of it is not distance, it is nearness.