Category: Bible inerrancy

The Bible Critic and the Discerning Bible

Sunday, November 1, 2015

“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12 KJV).

Dost thou dare stand in judgment of the B-I-B-L-E? Be careful, mortal man, for it is the Judge of thee!

The God of the Bible is truly gracious. For nearly 2,000 years, He has let sinful man tamper with His Holy Word, omit His holy words from it, water down His incriminating remarks, and He has still been willing to forgive them for it. The “intellectuals” persistently boast they have found “errors” in it. The “textual critics” constantly reassure us they have “fixed” the Holy Ghost’s mistakes to the best of their (fallible) ability. The Bible “scholars” incessantly produce a more “understandable,” more “scholarly” version. (Ha! Luke 10:21 is brutal, Greek or English!)

Today’s Scripture says that God’s Word is no ordinary Book. It is “quick” (Greek, zao, “living and life-giving”) and “powerful” (Greek, energos). It is also “sharper than any twoedged sword.” Bypassing (superficial) flesh and blood, it penetrates the very soul (heart) and spirit (mind) of every person who reads or hears it. As a dear friend says, “The Bible is the only Book in the world that will read you when you read it!”

We also learn in today’s Scripture that the Holy Bible is “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” That word “discerner” is kritikos (“critical”), from the word kritos translated “judge” (see Matthew 5:25; Matthew 12:27; Luke 11:19; Luke 12:58; Luke 18:2; Luke 18:6; Acts 10:42; Acts 13:20; Acts 18:15; Acts 24:10; 2 Timothy 4:8; Hebrews 12:23; James 2:4; James 4:11; James 5:9). The Bible is the “critic” of us all. How dare we think that God’s eternal Word is subject to we who have assorted letters following our names and pieces of paper hanging on our walls!

Beware the Lord Jesus Christ’s words: “He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).

Our latest Bible Q&A: “What about those ‘strange distractions’ when we witness to others?”

The King Immortal and His Words Eternal

Monday, August 31, 2015

“The words of the LORD are pure words; as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever” (Psalm 12:6,7 KJV).

Dear friends, we know the King immortal by reading His eternal words. Yea, He is the greatest Person ever known, and He speaks the greatest words ever heard!

From Satan’s finagling Eve to question and deny God’s Word (Genesis 3:1-5) all the way up to our present-day with nearly 200 modern English versions (disparities) all allegedly “Holy Bibles,” there is a very subtle and wicked plan to prevent mankind from knowing God’s eternal words. Despite all the “illuminating” manuscript discoveries and new “helpful” translations, we are not getting closer to the truth. Though the average “scholar” will disagree, the fact is that we are getting further from the original manuscripts. During the past few centuries, there has been an increase—not a decrease—in Bible ignorance.

Take today’s Scripture, for example. Did you know modern English versions attack it by watering it down? As it sits in our King James Bible, David describes how God will “keep them” and “preserve them.” The “them” of verse 7 is the noun of verse 6—“the words of the LORD.” This is one of the clearest passages on the doctrine of Bible preservation. Demonstrating their utter incompetence and downright unbelief, the translators of nearly all modern English versions replace “them” with “us” twice. So, the “revised” reading says God will guard believing Israel from her oppressors and He will preserve believing Israel from her enemies. Why this textual change? Because their underlying manuscripts are not those of our King James! They are using a different Hebrew (and Greek) Old Testament text (and a different Greek New Testament).

Beloved, faith leads us to believe the Bible’s testimony of itself. God’s Word is “pure” and “preserved.” We can present our King James Bible for examination and it is vindicated. We can scrutinize the modern versions. They thoroughly condemn themselves. If we claim to believe the Bible is perfect, but we cannot produce a perfect copy, then that, friends, is as worthless as believing nothing to start with. Think on it! 🙂

Esteem Them Highly in Love

Friday, July 17, 2015

“And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; And to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. And be at peace with among yourselves” (1 Thessalonians 5:12,13 KJV).

Having attended a “virtual” (online) grace Bible conference for the last five days, let me share some wonderful divine insight!

When 26 Christian brothers value God’s Word rightly divided, they are thrilled to teach and preach it. When faithful men teach and preach God’s Word rightly divided, God’s people are edified, encouraged, and enlightened. No, we do not praise men, but we do praise the Lord Jesus Christ who worked in and through them to provide us refreshing insight into the world’s most marvelous Book! Today’s Scripture is the Holy Spirit’s insight. Those who labor among us and are over us—they are members of the Body of Christ like us but they are also leaders within that Body. We should “know” (recognize) them and “esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake.”

A Holy Spirit-led man will recognize that the ascended Lord Jesus Christ gave the Apostle Paul a special ministry. He will preach a clear Gospel of Grace—Jesus Christ’s finished crosswork as sufficient payment for our sins—instead of “social,” “hazy,” “feel good” messages. He will teach from the pure Bible text, the King James Bible—not arguing with its readings, not “re-translating” Greek and Hebrew, not parroting denominational teachings and lauding scholarship.

No, he will not be like most church leaders today. He will not correct the Bible and then say, “I am a ‘Bible believer.’” He will not deny Jesus Christ as recorded in mystery and then tell us, “I am a ‘Bible believer.’” He will not say he is a “Bible believer” and then claim Israel’s passages for himself. He will not say he is a “Bible believer” and then force us under the Mosaic Law. He will not say he is a “Bible believer” and then mix prophecy and mystery. He will simply believe the Bible and encourage us to do the same. We thank God for such faithful men and we love them in Christ! 🙂

Knowing the Holy Bible

Monday, July 13, 2015

“For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21 KJV).

Yea, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2:1).

A “grace” Bible teacher once told me that the Holy Spirit had taught him through 26 different Bible versions! (Just like the Holy Spirit uses 4,200 world religions and 43,000 denominations to teach people, no?!) It is insanity, dear friend, utter insanity! Such is the place to which “Bible scholarship” leads! (Matthew 15:14)

Most people spend their whole lives searching for God’s will. They look in their circumstances, they follow scholarship and teaching bodies in religion, they pray, asking for or seeking any divine enlightenment. Yes, they may and often do mean well, but they are looking in all the wrong places. That includes false Bible versions, false Bible teachers, false prophets, et cetera.

Everything that God ever wants us to know, He wrote it down in a Book and preserved it through history so that we could have it today in our language. What was once written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, is now available to much of the world in English. It is the Authorized Version, or the King James Bible. Just as Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, had enemies, so the written Word of God has counterfeits. Many people actively seek to pervert God’s precious Word: “many corrupt the word of God” (2 Corinthians 2:17). Paul mentioned a counterfeit Bible manuscript with his signature forged on it in 2 Thessalonians 2:2. How much more counterfeits 2,000 years later!

Thankfully, God has preserved His written Word through a multiplicity of copies. Most Bible manuscripts support the readings in the King James Bible and do not support modern English versions. It is not about archaic English or contemporary English. What matters are the manuscripts translated—Roman Catholic text (modern versions) or the Protestant text (King James Bible)? In eternity, we shall find out just how serious the Bible versions issue is!

You may click here for more information about Bible versions: https://333wordsofgrace.wordpress.com/bible-timeline-other-study-aids/.

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Were there five crosses on Calvary’s hill?”

The Middle Verse of the KJB

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

“It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man” (Psalm 118:8 KJV).

What, or Who, is literally at the very heart of the King James Bible?

The King James Bible has 31,101 verses. Verse number 15,551—the middle verse—is today’s Scripture: “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.” If you notice, there are 14 words in this verse, and the middle words are “the LORD” (six words preceding and succeeding). Modern versions, because they remove dozens of verses from the Bible text, do not have today’s Scripture as their middle verse. Their middle verse does not urge us to put our trust in the LORD and avoid trusting man. Nay, the modern version translators want us to trust their judgment, that they have improved God’s Word (when they have done any but!).

If you listen to the average Bible teacher or preacher, read the average Bible commentary, or use the average study Bible, you will be advised to doubt the readings in the King James Bible. Scholarship, driven by the minds of lost people, always has a “better translation” than the one the Holy Spirit already chose. There is a constant push to make the King James Bible “more scholarly,” more agreeable to theologians and textual critics. Dear friends, if we say that we are not interested in opinions, but only interested in what the Bible says, then it is silly to offer opinions about what the Bible should say instead, and it is even more foolish to accept opinions about what the Bible should say instead.

Today’s Scripture is one example of the fact that we should leave the King James Bible’s text alone. We do not need to “correct” it with “new” manuscripts that its translators rejected centuries ago as false. We do not need to remove any of its passages, phrases, words, or letters just to suit the pet doctrines of degreed religionists. We should not put our confidence in man, but in “the LORD.” Our King James Bible is an amazing Book, so let us trust in “the LORD” and His Word to us English-speaking people. There literally is nothing better! 🙂

Instant Christians #7

Monday, January 12, 2015

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2 KJV).

In this day and age of “instant this and instant that,” we need more “instant” Christians!

Travelling out-of-state, I once had a very interesting conversation with an Evangelical seminarian-pastor who had a testimony of salvation in Christ. Meeting privately with this brother, I lovingly explained to him that the Greek New Testament he was preaching from was unreliable. Then, I showed him the error in his book, hoping he had an ear to hear and a heart to believe. Although I expected his reaction, I will never forget it. He blurted out to justify the error in his Bible, “We do not have what [Saint] Mark wrote anyway!”

Dear friends, he was no “cultic kook” but a “Bible-believing, Jesus-Christ-loving” preacher who would never, ever, ever even think of saying in his pulpit that today’s Bible is not—yes NOT—identical to the apostles’ Bible! (This heretical view of “textual criticism” drives the endless search for another manuscript reading “closer to the originals,” so another translation “more scholarly” [?] than its predecessors can be publi$hed.) Had this assembly and its deacons known their Bible, they would have asked this pastor the right questions before choosing him… to lead them “into the [doctrinal] ditch” (Matthew 15:14)! Friends, if most preachers spoke their true beliefs about Bible versions, they would agree with this wayward brother. Seminary has polluted them concerning manuscript evidence and Bible versions. Bible critics are the very people leading most “Christian” churches!

Had the Body of Christ studied, known, and appreciated/believed their 400-year-old King James Bible, they would have never purchased a century’s worth of 200 (pathetic, corrupt) modern English versions. They would have known that Satan questions God’s Word and robs mankind of its clarity at every opportunity (Genesis 3:1-5). Had the pastors educated their people in God’s English Bible, and warned them of counterfeits (2 Thessalonians 2:2; 2 Peter 1:18–2:3), Bible publishing companies would have gone bankrupt, no one buying their worthless modern-speech perversions predicated on equally-godless manuscripts. Very few want to hear such strong language, but it is true nonetheless (2 Timothy 4:3,4).

Oh, how we NEED “instant” Christians….

The Virgin Conception of Christ

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14 KJV).

While Christendom speaks of the “virgin birth of Christ,” according to today’s Scripture, a more accurate term would be the “virgin conception of Christ.” There was nothing unusual about Christ’s birth; it was His conception that was unique because there was no human father!

Interestingly, today’s Scripture has been the point of controversy for over a century (to Satan’s delight!). Some modern Bibles (RSV, NRSV, et al.) translate the Hebrew word here translated “virgin” as the vague “young woman,” thereby leaving room for the heretical idea that Joseph was Jesus’ biological father (and denying Christ’s deity)! If someone ever tells you almah (the Hebrew word translated “virgin”) can mean “young woman” or “virgin,” they are right, but point out that the key to choosing the right translation is not up to a translator, but rather the Holy Ghost!

The author of Matthew’s Gospel, filled with the Holy Ghost, knew which translation—“young woman” or “virgin”—was what God had intended in Isaiah 7:14. If we want to know what God meant in Isaiah 7:14, why not ask God?

“Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, “Behold a virgin shall be with child…” (Matthew 1:22,23a). The Greek word translated “virgin,” parthenos, can only mean “virgin,” not “young woman.” Isaiah was prophesying a virgin, indicated by the words “firstborn son” (Matthew 1:25; Luke 2:7) and “Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son” (Matthew 1:25). Isaiah 7:14 meant “virgin,” as indicated by Luke 1:34, for Mary “knew not a man.” Again, the Bible is clear that Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father.

Matthew 1:23 indisputably proves that almah in Isaiah 7:14 did not simply mean a “young woman,” who may or may not be sexually pure, but “a virgin,” a woman who never had any sexual intercourse. The Holy Ghost, not Joseph, was the Father of Jesus’ body (Matthew 1:18-20).

A Bible That (Effectually) Works #2

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13 KJV).

If God’s Word is to “effectually work” in us, we must first have it.

“Effectually worketh” means something that will produce the intended result. God wants to use His written Word, the Holy Bible, to build in our inner man, our soul, an edifice or structure of sound doctrine. This fortification of doctrine enables us to accomplish His will with Him, as well as protects us from the Adversary who wants to harm us and hinder God’s purpose and plan for us.

Thus, Satan knows that the best way to attack us is to divorce us from God’s Word, for then we are powerless against his schemes and scams. Nevertheless, Satan is a very sneaky creature; rather than trying to take the Bible completely away from us, for then he would be obvious, Satan will counterfeit the Bible, and then encourage us to use the counterfeit. We will never know otherwise, and we will sabotage our Christian life by defiling it with “junk doctrine.” Beloved, this is what makes the Bible versions issue so serious. If it is a translation not derived from pure Bible manuscripts, it is not God’s Word but man’s word, and man’s word will never produce what God’s Word will produce.

Just as false Bible manuscripts troubled Christians in Thessalonica (2 Thessalonians 2:2), just as false prophets misled Israel with untrue doctrine (2 Peter 2:1-3), so Satan uses counterfeits to confuse and undermine us. The Devil’s evil world system incites us to embrace modern Bible versions, so-called “easy-to-read” books but whose underlying manuscripts abound with historical and theological mistakes, and lack whole verses, passages, and even Bible books (!).

For over 400 years, the King James Bible has faithfully served the Body of Christ. Beloved, we would be foolish to believe present-day, “ear-tickling” Christendom could ever produce a Bible that even comes to close to the King James Bible, “a Bible that effectually works!” 🙂

A Bible That (Effectually) Works #1

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

“For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13 KJV).

If God’s Word is to “effectually work” in us, we must first have it.

“Today there are dozens of English Bible versions and many Spanish versions as well. Why so many? One reason is that languages constantly change. New words are always being added and others take on different meanings. Another reason is that Bible scholars are always learning new things about ancient Israel and the world of ancient Greece and Rome to help us better understand those times and people. No matter what Bible translation is used, however, the main purpose is to make the Bible reliable and understandable to those who want to read its message.

The above (misleading) quote was extracted from a “Bible society” book, supposedly written by “Bible experts.” If 200 modern English versions exist because “languages change,” why are they still selling ($ELLING) those published 10 to 50 or more years ago? Even that Bible publisher (whose book was quoted) has not produced a new Bible translation in years. Could the English language be changing so rapidly that we needed 150 to 200 Bible versions during the last century? Surely, us needing a new Bible every half-year or year is utterly ludicrous!

Interestingly, the Bible publishers above never educated the general public as to manuscript divergence (various manuscripts contradicting various others), the fact that people throughout history used these perverted manuscripts to counterfeit, challenge, supplant God’s Holy Bible. In their minds, and those of the gullible readers (who are instructed to think likewise), any Bible manuscript is “just as good as the next.” The historicity of false prophets, false apostles, false brethren, and false teachers, is totally disregarded. Dear friends, the issue is never modern language versus archaic language; it is which manuscripts are being translated. If it is not God’s Word, it will not “effectually work” in us. Hence, we uphold the King James Bible as God’s Word for us English-speaking people….

Our latest Bible Q&A: “Why did Jesus Christ heal on the Sabbath days?”

No Red-Marker Bible for Us!

Saturday, June 14, 2014

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14 KJV).

Let us reject the red-marker “Bible,” just as its promoters castoff the Bible!

Years ago, a friend expressed his discouragement for receiving a “C” grade on a school paper he had diligently wrote. He said how he had spent so much time on it, and yet it was still not good enough. To cheer him up, I shared with him a brief history of the English Bible, how God spent so much time on faithfully transmitting His pure, preserved Word to us, and educated man gave Him an “F!” (My friend did not feel so bad after that!) 🙂

Through the centuries, textual critics have assaulted Bible manuscripts and other copies of the preserved, inspired Word of God. Like Satan encouraged Eve to do in Genesis 3:1-5, they questioned it, added to it, subtracted from it, watered it down, and finally, denied it. What do we expect? God’s Word is “foolishness” to people who are not God’s children anyway (today’s Scripture).

Textual critics have especially taken their “scholarly scalpels” to the Divine Words since 1881, when the greatest change in Bible “scholarship” ever occurred. In Great Britain, the Protestant Bible text (the King James Bible, its previous English versions, and the Greek Textus Receptus upon which their New Testament rested) was questioned by “educated,” lost men, and replaced with a so-called “older, better” Greek manuscript tradition that the Church the Body of Christ avoided—and had endured the death penalty for rejecting! Even today, the average church member of every denomination has no idea of the switch! Protestants have no idea they carry under their arms Roman Catholic manuscripts in the form of their modern Bible versions—manuscripts their Protestant forefathers died for avoiding!

Dear friends, when anyone encourages you to “red line” words, verses, or even passages from your King James Bible, you would do well to “write them off,” giving them an “A” when it has come to them encouraging your doubt in God’s Word, and an “F” regarding encouraging your faith!