Commentary on the Entire Bible, Introduction, conclusion

 

Now, let me tell you something. I’m on my 70th reading of the KJV. It compels you to read it over and over again, maybe not as obsessively as me, but you should have read it for at least as many times as the years you’ve been a Christian if you believe it is God’s book. I ask you how many times you’ve read or listened to your NKJV, NIV, HCSB, or NASB? Maybe you have gone through them cover to cover but most people I talk to haven’t even read the Bible through from cover to cover one time. I guess it tough when some verses are just missing.

This Bible changed my life. It reproved me of sin, comforted me, exhorted me, and edified me. It made me a different person than who I was before I believed that it was what God wanted us to have. I’ve only given you one or two examples of dozens so as not to get bogged down in why I believe modern translating attitudes and modern methods, lexicons, etc. are wrong in their attack on the Bible I use and that, more importantly, uses me.

I am not a scholar. I oversimplified things because they are very simple. We have a Bible that has come down to us from our spiritual ancestors as the authoritative, definitive word of God. We have modernists who want to make us question its truthfulness and even abandon it. What I’m telling you is they ‘got no game.’ Their arguments are the empty and vain ramblings of men and women, mostly men, who want to place the thought in your head, mimicking Satan’s own words.

Yea, hath God said?

The modern, particularly, evangelical scholar sets up two competing authorities; your Bible and his. Then, he encourages you to settle the issue with his opinion, which, as I said, isn’t worth much. I’m just a regular person but if you are going to convince me that the Bible that put me here right here writing every day about God’s word, exploring it, studying it, loving it, is wrong then you’re going to have to do better than you’ve done.

The King James translators wrote a letter to the reader which is no longer published in most KJVs, which is unfortunate. In it they praise the power of the Bible. Here is a short excerpt of what was written;

 But now what piety without truth? what truth (what saving truth) without the word of God? What word of God (whereof we may be sure) without the Scripture? The Scriptures we are commanded to search. John 5:39. Isa 8:20. They are commended that searched and studied them. Acts 17:11 and 8:28,29. They are reproved that were unskilful in them, or slow to believe them. Matt 22:29. Luke 24:25. They can make us wise unto salvation. 2 Tim 3:15. If we be ignorant, they will instruct us; if out of the way, they will bring us home; if out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, comfort us; if dull, quicken us; if cold, inflame us.

They hammered out and revised and worked for long years to produce the greatest Bible the world has ever known using the Greek texts used by the majority of Christians for over a thousand years compiled by scholars from hundreds of manuscripts. This Traditional Text or Majority Text became known after the KJV was published as the Textus Receptus, Latin for the ‘text we have received’. This Received Text agrees with the earliest Bible versions like the Syriac Peshitta, the old Latin Vulgate, and the Italic Bible from the second century. They compared their work with the work of other translators, the Traditional Text compiled by Erasmus and others, Bibles in other European languages and ancient languages, and they revised and studied and revised and studied their own work. Some commentators, studying the method that the KJV translators used have said that each verse in that Bible was reviewed 14 times.

Modern Bibles are different because they are translated from different manuscripts, called the Minority Text. Supposedly, they say, it is the true text rediscovered by the Westcott-Hort committee. So, what they are telling us that the Bible was lost from 500AD to 1880. Do you really believe that? Or is something else going on?

I want to close with something I said earlier, This Bible changed my life. It reproved me of sin, comforted me, exhorted me, and edified me. It made me a different person than who I was before I believed that it was what God wanted us to have. I will continue to trust it and to believe it is God’s word for us, providentially preserved. I hope you will consider what I’ve said spoken and written from the point of view, not of a scholar or even particularly bright person, but from someone who stands on a rock and will not be removed from it.

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