kjv

Précis of message preached on the FPC stand in relation to modern versions of the Bible

THIRD MESSAGE: MODERN VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE:
(OVER TWO WEEKS: READ PS 119:89-105/JER 36:11-30)

We spent the first message looking at the Free Presbyterian Church and its use only of the Authorised (King James) Version of the Bible in its pulpit and ministry administrations.

The central place of the Bible in the Christian Faith necessitates our defending of it against Satan's attacks. Satan attacks either directly (denial) or indirectly - use of the counterfeit (2 Corinthians 11:4)

Many modern versions are a Satanic attack on the word of God.We looked at the manuscript issue.

Basically there are two camps.In one, you have the Received /Majority Text folk (us) and in the other, you have the Westcott and Hort folk (Most of the modern versions including the NIV; NAS etc.,)

We believe the latter use texts which were edited by a 2nd Century heretic called Origen (cp. Paul's warnings: Acts 20:29-30/2 Corinthians 2:17) who removed many phrases, verses or entire passages.

The Majority Text escaped Origen's pernicious "corrections" and were preserved.

We looked at the unprincipled actions of Westcott and Hort who fathered the Revised Version (They were pro Rome and modernist)We looked briefly (and I judge on hindsight a little heavily) at how we may discern the genuineness of a text.

We also looked at the translation methods i.e. do we try and keep with what God actually said or are we are liberty to try and convey what He thought? We hold to the idea of translating word for word.

We spent the second message simply looking at key verses and observing how Satan sought to pervert them.

These were Genesis 3:15/Isaiah 7:14/Micah 5:2/Matthew 16:16-18 (with John 1:42)/2 Corinthians 5:21

In the latter verse, for example, (2 Corinthians 5:21) instead of rendering the words that Christ was made to be sin for us (i.e. that Christ has taken all the sin of the believer) the Good News Bible a.k.a. Today's English Version renders the words that Christ has shared our sins.This intrinsically means that Christ has some of our sins and we have some of our sins - and therefore we are damned for it takes only one unremoved sin to damn us in hell.

We gloried in the fact that the AV translators were stoutly Protestant.

Whilst the Free Presbyterian Church has a policy of using only the AV, we should not be confused with some of the KJV Only folk who make some unwarranted claims. 

We accept that the word of God is preserved and we believe that we have an unsurpassed and faithfully translated version in the KJV. This does not mean that there are not places in the AV, that could be better translated. We take the line propagated by the Trinitarian Bible Society:

"While perfection is not claimed for the Authorised Version (known in some countries as the King James Version), or any other version, it is known that the translators of the Authorised Version acknowledged the Divine inspiration, authority and inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures; the fruitful use of their translation for nearly 400 years is evidence of the Lord's blessing upon their work."

After note: While I am still basically a AV only man (with the slight lump in the throat recorded above)  I also place a lot of store in the predecessor of the AV i.e. the Geneva Bible and (to a lesser extent) Tyndale's NT too. Perhaps since preaching the above sermon, I have come to see that there are some issues that we must simply take by faith and that the Day will declare it on some controversial matters. Suffice to say that I am happy with my AV. I do have a tendancy when quoting from it in the open air to slightly modernise the language somewhat, particularly dropping the "-eth" from words like "believeth" etc. As someone observed, no one ever got saved because the langauge was distinctly Elizabethian, other than the Elizabathians. I would imagine that some of the more strictly KJV folk would fight with me first rather than I fight with them. 

THE END 

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