Is the "Version" issue really that Important?

[Dr. Bob]

On another thread, robycop3 said

As for the KJVO issue, it's a hot item among all English-speaking Christians, but especially so among Baptists.

I disagree strongly.

(1) Most English speaking Christians (real Christians - about 60 million who claim to be born again by faith alone) do not care about this issue.

(2) Most English-speaking Baptists (about 25 million) do not care about this issue.

(3) It is limited to mostly fundamental Baptists (about 3 million) and, sadly, their missionaries who are taking the issue to foreign fields.

I am intimately acquainted with Southern Baptists and find this an unknown issue in most churches (that's 1/2 the English-speaking Baptists in the US). I have a good friend who pastors a National Baptist church (Black) and he was not aware that it was an issue.

And most of the non-Baptist evangelicals would not use a KJV at all, much less be concerned about "only".

So I'm thinking this debate is a "tempest in a teapot", affecting US greatly, but causing only a tiny ripple in English-speaking Christians.

Thoughts?

 

[DesiderioDomini]

Thankfully, I am happy to agree. Most people dont know about this issue. I pray they stay that way.

[off topic comments deleted]

I was an intern for a IFB church around Dallas for 6 months, and I had to put up with this trash being thrown around all the time. Is it any wonder that church didnt grow at all until a new pastor came in who, even though he still taught from the KJV, he but an end to all the histerical conspiracy theories, and the false legalistic teaching.

Its amazing what happens to a church when truth is taught.

[ May 25, 2006, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: C4K ]

 

[rbell]

right on, Dr. B., from the SBC angle.

It's a non-issue. The crowd that uses KJV continues to; the MV crowd uses their versions, and little friction results from it.

It is very seldom, if ever, that I hear of a version war among SBC folk. There's an IFB church in our area that is virulently KJVO (condemns NIV users to hell, etc.), but even there, folks are tiring of the constant invectives. Some have even left there for "MV churches."

 

[mcdirector]

I hadn't heard of this as an issue until I started coming to the Baptist Board. As a SBC church member, I have worked with Lifeway, with associational offices, and on Assist teams as a conference leader over the last 20 years. It has surprised me.

We do have a bookstore in town that puts warning stickers on any books that quote versions other than the KJV, but that's all I've seen.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

sadly, their missionaries who are taking the issue to foreign fields

This is indeed a tragedy. An ascriptural issue has become a dividing point amongst IFB missionaries in Ireland at least.

What a tragedy that men would fight over a translation of scripture while striving to share the gospel.

I once saw a noted IFB leader who is now with the Lord sit at my dining room table in Ireland and weep over the battle he foresaw coming.

We have much more important work to do than to fight over something which the word of God does not address.

As Dr Bob suggests, no English speaking Christians here, outside of the tiny IFB group, have any idea that there is a fight over translations and they are shocked when they find out there is such a fight.

 

[Forever settled in heaven]

Originally posted by C4K:

An ascriptural issue has become a dividing point amongst IFB missionaries in Ireland at least.

i have to disagree, at the risk of thread closure, that the matter's merely ascriptural.

version-onlyism isn't ascriptural; it's ANTI-scriptural.

our Lord n the Apostles left an example of using translations that not only didn't always conform to a Masoretic Text wording but were dynamic enuff to communicate meaning (or formal enuff to communicate Hebrew forms) as the situation demanded.

KJBOism's a modern invention and the cause of the current storm in the teapot.

 

[StefanM]

I (SBC all my life) did not know about the KJVO issue until the Baptist Board.

In SBC churches, the issue is usually over familiarity rather than any war between versions. E.g. -many older individuals prefer the KJV because they were raised using it, whereas younger people tend to prefer modern versions.

 

[NaasPreacher (C4K)]

version-onlyism isn't ascriptural; it's ANTI-scriptural.

The question here is not about one version onlyism, it is the subject of versions themselves.

The question of versions is not worth splitting the church over.

 

[rsr]

Originally posted by Dr. Bob:
So I'm thinking this debate is a "tempest in a teapot", affecting US greatly, but causing only a tiny ripple in English-speaking Christians.

I'm in total agreement with Dr. Bob. (I can't believe I just wrote that sentence.)

I was aware of the issue and had been since the 1960s when my cousin, an IFB, sent out his newsletters condemning the Good News Bible.

However, I grew up in a rural Southern Baptist Church and never encountered the issue first hand. The pastor preached from the KJV and I regularly carried the NASB (pre-1995 update with the nasty soft orange cover; if you're old enought to remember, you'll know what I mean.) When I moved away from a small church in the early 1980s, the choir presented me with a copy of the NKJV. (I guess they were glad to see me go.)

I had no idea of the level of the controversy until I joined the board.

I would make one amendment: The issue is not just among English-speaking Christians. (Another thing I did not know until I joined the board.) The controversy has spread to Spanish-language Bibles as well.

It shouldn't be surprising that the issue can provoke strong feelings — after all, deciding what is and what is not the word of God is an important matter. But debaters should not lose sight of Christian charity and assume the worst of those who disagree.

 

[David J]

Originally posted by Dr. Bob:
On another thread, robycop3 said
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />As for the KJVO issue, it's a hot item among all English-speaking Christians, but especially so among Baptists.

I disagree strongly.

(1) Most English speaking Christians (real Christians - about 60 million who claim to be born again by faith alone) do not care about this issue.

(2) Most English-speaking Baptists (about 25 million) do not care about this issue.

(3) It is limited to mostly fundamental Baptists (about 3 million) and, sadly, their missionaries who are taking the issue to foreign fields.

I am intimately acquainted with Southern Baptists and find this an unknown issue in most churches (that's 1/2 the English-speaking Baptists in the US). I have a good friend who pastors a National Baptist church (Black) and he was not aware that it was an issue.

And most of the non-Baptist evangelicals would not use a KJV at all, much less be concerned about "only".

So I'm thinking this debate is a "tempest in a teapot", affecting US greatly, but causing only a tiny ripple in English-speaking Christians.

Thoughts? </font>[/QUOTE]I agree that KJVOist are in small numbers when compared to other Baptist. Over the years since the internet many KJVOist have become wacky in the way they defend KJVOism. Many times KJVOist by what they write in books and post on forums like the BB destroy their credibility without much help from people like me.

The best way to fight KJVOism is by simply holding the KJVOist to consistent standards while refusing them to slip into their defense of double standards. All anyone has to do to expose KJVOism as a false doctrine is ask for Scriptural support that is exclusive to the KJV and if they admit they have no Scriptural support then ask then for their authority that is equal to Scriptural support for KJVOism.

I'm glad to see more people where I live leaving KJVO churches. I hope that have moved on to other churches. There is a small KJVO church about a mile from were I live. I simply pull out the trusty 1611 KJV and start applying KJVOism to the KJV. Needless to say it's a bitter pill for them to swallow.

If KJVOism had been hit hard with the facts KJVOism would have been extremely small today. I don't see the movement growing in my area. Back when David Otis Fuller started spreading this myth he should have been exposed for stealing the work of a SDA cultist. This alone would have stopped the KJVO myth with many honest Christians.

Anyway it seems that most Baptist churches I have visited are more concerned with your ability to understand the bible. The teaching of the gospel is more important than worrying about what bible you are reading. In my church I have seen the NIV, NASB, KJV, NKJV, and LIV. If KJVOism tried to rear it's ugly head then we would challenge the KJVOist by asking for Scriptural support and cutting through KJVO tactics of bait and switch. Basically we don't need some one teaching a doctrine with no Scriptural support.

I feel that our churches are obligated to address KJVOism in the mission field. I don't see many foreign people accepting KJVOism. Countries like Germany would laugh them out of their country. KJVOism can be a problem but why in the world would some one whose native language is French read a bible like the KJV? Whats scary is when arm chair experts in the KJVO Camp try to translate the KJV into another language by using the KJV.

For the most part the bible version issue is ignored by a majority of Christians because by simple logic KJVOism and any other form of ONLYISM makes no sense. I would fight NIVOism, NASVOism, and NKJVOism as hard as I fight KJVOism.

The truth will always win over a lie. To say an English translation is perfect make no sense since it is translated from Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic therefore there will always be small differences.

 

[mcdirector]

Originally posted by rsr:
snip . . .

The controversy has spread to Spanish-language Bibles as well.

. . . snip

I didn't know this rsr. How sad.

 

[David J]

Very sad indeed!

They should be more worried about leading these people to Christ since so many Spanish speaking people are RC. It's better to make sure their faith is in the finsihed work of Christ vs. the sacraments of the RCC.

 

[gb93433]

A few weeks ago my pastor's dad died and he and the family went to a Baptist church for a service after the funeral on Sunday. His brother is not a christian and is not all that interested in spiritual things. They went to a church where the pastor spent a large portion of the message talking about what the "Greek" said and how other translations compared. After the service my pastor asked his brother about the message. His brother basically mentioned that not one relevant word was spoken from the pulpit adressing his condition and the one thing he learned knew that he did not know is that the Bible had "errors". That message was spoken by a fundamentalist Baptist pastor. His message was used as a tool of Satan. Satan used that pastor to put in the heart of a man the idea that by shouting down other translations he caused that man to distrust a Bible.

 

[Rippon]

There are a number of Korean and Filipino KJV'ers , sadly . Contemporary English is hard for them to master . But they have fallen for this stuff .

 

[rsr]

Please, folks, do not make this into a bashing thread. That was not the intent.

 

[terriloo]

I've lived in the South all my life--back and forth amidst southeast Tennesse, north Georgia, and central Alabama. I didn't UNDERSTAND until I came to this BB that I had been the "victim" of KJVOnly-ism when I was young. I can remember being taught that the "Good News" and "The Living Bible" were actually evil, and I was in my mid-twenties before I ever purchased anything but a KJV version. I apparently had to "unlearn" my early indoctrination before I felt like it was "okay" to even look at another version--and then I was very excited by the vibrant, UNDERSTANDABLE language--and I'm thinking it was "merely" a NKJV that I first read.

My point, in relation to the OP, is that I HAVE seen the KJVO problem--but didn't KNOW for sure what it was (couldn't "give it a name", I guess) until I came to this BB. One area in northwest GA that I moved from a couple of years ago had a couple of Baptist churches with VERY prominently displayed signs stating that "the only Bible we use is the KJV!" I remember thinking, "does this mean that they'd throw me out if I went in there with my NIV translation?" Based on some of the stuff I've read here, I guess they would have!

 

[robycop3]

How right you are, Teriloo!

However, if you prefer the KJV as your only Bible version for any other reason outside the man-made myth about it, please don't hesitate to continue using it.

The versions issue IS important for the reason that there ARE bogus versions out there. And the Holy Spirit does "link up" each believer with whatever version(s) He chooses for each to use. I don't think we have any right to look down our noses at anyone else's choice of version(s), let alone criticize it unless one has clearly chosen a plainly-bogus version such as the "People's Bible" or something similar.

 

[william s. correa]

I dont Know if the issue is really that important, because its your version against his/her version,so to speak! There are FACTS and then there is God,s TRUTH, I personally beleive that a Bible that sits dormant and is never used will eventually be used if God wants it to be . There are probably many Bibles lying around not doing much of anything until one picks it up and God really speaks to an individual thru it! It is basically useless to the Lost sinner, and just as powerful as in the Biggining when God Spoke everything into existance!By that I mean that the Bible is for the church or at least 98% of it is ! So is the correct version needed? Absolutly! Do we need to debate weather this version or that version has or IS Gods word ? YES! Do we do it by facts or faith?The just shall live by his faith! No one has a Clue of what God looks like but we Know he is there if yuo are His! the same is with his Word we hear it and we get faith.All I Know is that when the Word is beeing preached in our church you can feel it!And Old Time Religion is becoming few and far inbetween but is still the most effective way of preaching His Word.Is the Correct Version Important?Yes! Will I go with facts or Truth? Truth indeed! Thanx and God Bless!:Fish:

 

[robycop3]

If you go with TRUTH, Mr. Correa, you'll dump a certain myth about a certain version a lot more quickly than you picked it up.

There's no such thing as "the" correct version, no "one size fits all" version. Why am I wrong for using the NASV, KJV, NKJV, AV 1611, NIV, & Geneva Bible?

 

[TC]

It isn't really an issue here. People have come and tried and convert us to there way of thinking. The last one went back to south Carolina because we were harder to convert than the heathen Indians (his words). We don't make a big deal about which Bible a persons uses al long as they use it and live it.