In a Facebook post I made two days ago, regarding a satirical article posted on The Babylon Bee satire site - which claimed that a church in Oklahoma was so adamant about their status as a KJV-ONLY church - that the church leaders demanded that all people entering the church must have transparent covers on their Bibles. And that way the Bible Guards at the door could ascertain if anyone was trying to sneak a non-KJV Bible into their service.
And I suggested in my post: The only church fellowship which I could even imagine being such a strong "KJV-ONLY Extremist" might possibly be the Westboro Baptist church in Kansas which was pastored by the late Fred Phelps, Sr. and which, under his leadership, protested all over the country with "GOD HATES - - - - " banners.
The dialogue which followed my post was productive with comments by several Christian brothers. And, as usually happens when believers have a good discussion underway, the old adversary sends his troops in to muddy the water.
In the discussion an old nemesis from the years I spent sharing on the TimesDaily Religion Forum, Alfred Newman (pseudonym?), raised his head and this dialogue between us pursued:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Alfred: There is no "perfect translation," and the King James version may be one of the worst. But don't let facts get in your way.
Bill Gray: Hi Alfred Newman, My initial reaction was to ask how you, a non-believer, would know anything about the Bible. But then I realized that most atheists are quite knowledgeable about the Bible. Their problem is that most of them are more concerned about "self" and "I control my own life" - and do not have the spiritual discernment or desire to truly come face-to-face with Jesus Christ, God.
Some of our more productive Christians started off, like you, as atheists determined to prove God and the Bible to be false. But, in their individual journeys of proving God wrong - they realized that He really is the Creator and that He really is in control - even for those who want to deny Him.
Good examples are: C.S. Lewis, an atheist who became one of our most prolific Christian expositors and writers ~ and then Lee Strobel, an atheist who set out to prove God wrong and became a best selling Christian author (The Case For Christ, The Case For Faith, etc.) and a pastor.
Then there is Peter Hitchens who was an atheist like his older brother Christopher Hitchens (late world renown atheist). Peter became a Christian and spent years publicly defending our Christian faith and debating his brother in public debates. Sadly his brother, Christopher, died an atheist.
But, Alfred, back to your comment about Bible translations. Is there one "perfect" Bible translation? No. God chose to inspire imperfect men to write His Bible, His literal revelation to man, and in doing that, He was more concerned that His inspired message, His inspired revelation, be literal and inerrant - and less concerned about the many translations.
Are there "bad" translations? Not really. It is just that the different translations have different tasks to perform. Even some of the mislabeled paraphrase Bibles (The Living Bible, The Message, the Good News Bible, etc.) served a purpose. Back in the 1960s (known as the Decadent Decade of loose morals and sexual promiscuity) and the 1970s with the secular society appearing to push the Christian faith off the edge of the world - those paraphrase Bibles were so easy to read that many who would never have jumped into a KJV, NKJV, or NASB - did begin to read the NLB and later The Message and the New Living Translation.
And God, to supplement His more accurate translations (KJV, NKJV, NASB) - in His wisdom then gave us the Dynamic Equivalence Bible translations, NIV, etc., which convey the "thought" expressed in the source text using equivalent expressions from a contemporary language - rather than the Formal Equivalence translations (KJV, NKJV, NASB) which give us a "word-for-word" translation which is better for an indepth study of God's Word.
So you see, my Friend, our all knowing (omniscient), all powerful (omnipotent), and omnipresent (all places present) God has given us Bible translations geared to where we are in our relationship to Him. For the yet-to-believe there are the paraphrases - for the new believer, i.e., "babes in Christ" there are the easier to read translations, i.e., the NIV, TNIV, NLT (New Living Translation Bible), etc. And for the more mature believers there are the KJV, the NKJV, and the NASB translations.
Just as we do not start the child in the 1st grade off solving calculus problems - we do not start the non-believer and new "babes in Christ" off trying to understand the more accurate Formal Equivalence Bible translations. God has chosen to work with each of us at our own level of maturity - and using flawed, imperfect men - His plan is working well.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
And I suggested in my post: The only church fellowship which I could even imagine being such a strong "KJV-ONLY Extremist" might possibly be the Westboro Baptist church in Kansas which was pastored by the late Fred Phelps, Sr. and which, under his leadership, protested all over the country with "GOD HATES - - - - " banners.
The dialogue which followed my post was productive with comments by several Christian brothers. And, as usually happens when believers have a good discussion underway, the old adversary sends his troops in to muddy the water.
In the discussion an old nemesis from the years I spent sharing on the TimesDaily Religion Forum, Alfred Newman (pseudonym?), raised his head and this dialogue between us pursued:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Alfred: There is no "perfect translation," and the King James version may be one of the worst. But don't let facts get in your way.
Bill Gray: Hi Alfred Newman, My initial reaction was to ask how you, a non-believer, would know anything about the Bible. But then I realized that most atheists are quite knowledgeable about the Bible. Their problem is that most of them are more concerned about "self" and "I control my own life" - and do not have the spiritual discernment or desire to truly come face-to-face with Jesus Christ, God.
Some of our more productive Christians started off, like you, as atheists determined to prove God and the Bible to be false. But, in their individual journeys of proving God wrong - they realized that He really is the Creator and that He really is in control - even for those who want to deny Him.
Good examples are: C.S. Lewis, an atheist who became one of our most prolific Christian expositors and writers ~ and then Lee Strobel, an atheist who set out to prove God wrong and became a best selling Christian author (The Case For Christ, The Case For Faith, etc.) and a pastor.
Then there is Peter Hitchens who was an atheist like his older brother Christopher Hitchens (late world renown atheist). Peter became a Christian and spent years publicly defending our Christian faith and debating his brother in public debates. Sadly his brother, Christopher, died an atheist.
But, Alfred, back to your comment about Bible translations. Is there one "perfect" Bible translation? No. God chose to inspire imperfect men to write His Bible, His literal revelation to man, and in doing that, He was more concerned that His inspired message, His inspired revelation, be literal and inerrant - and less concerned about the many translations.
Are there "bad" translations? Not really. It is just that the different translations have different tasks to perform. Even some of the mislabeled paraphrase Bibles (The Living Bible, The Message, the Good News Bible, etc.) served a purpose. Back in the 1960s (known as the Decadent Decade of loose morals and sexual promiscuity) and the 1970s with the secular society appearing to push the Christian faith off the edge of the world - those paraphrase Bibles were so easy to read that many who would never have jumped into a KJV, NKJV, or NASB - did begin to read the NLB and later The Message and the New Living Translation.
And God, to supplement His more accurate translations (KJV, NKJV, NASB) - in His wisdom then gave us the Dynamic Equivalence Bible translations, NIV, etc., which convey the "thought" expressed in the source text using equivalent expressions from a contemporary language - rather than the Formal Equivalence translations (KJV, NKJV, NASB) which give us a "word-for-word" translation which is better for an indepth study of God's Word.
So you see, my Friend, our all knowing (omniscient), all powerful (omnipotent), and omnipresent (all places present) God has given us Bible translations geared to where we are in our relationship to Him. For the yet-to-believe there are the paraphrases - for the new believer, i.e., "babes in Christ" there are the easier to read translations, i.e., the NIV, TNIV, NLT (New Living Translation Bible), etc. And for the more mature believers there are the KJV, the NKJV, and the NASB translations.
Just as we do not start the child in the 1st grade off solving calculus problems - we do not start the non-believer and new "babes in Christ" off trying to understand the more accurate Formal Equivalence Bible translations. God has chosen to work with each of us at our own level of maturity - and using flawed, imperfect men - His plan is working well.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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