Title: Should I Only Use The King James Bible? CRUCIAL VIDEO | KJV, NKJV, NIV, ESV, Message Bible Review Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Oct 10, 2023 Author:Gene Kim Post Date:2023-10-10 22:13:23 by A K A Stone Keywords:None Views:3284 Comments:46
I've listened to him for three minutes, and I will tell you I already have a very deep problem with his logic. It isn't that I don't understand what he is saying: I do. I disagree with his premises.
His view is this: you have to have a perfect Bible in order to learn perfect doctrine, so therefore you have to believe that the King James Bible is perfect.
My response is: that's silly. You don't have to have a perfect Bible, you have to know Jesus and have the Holy Spirit with you to learn what God needs you to learn, and what that is varies by person. Only God knows the entire story, and he communicates with each man through the Holy Spirit, You need to hear Jesus to get the big chunks right, but some men and women are called to marriage, others to celibacy; some are called to the more warlike and defensive occupations, while others are called to piece. These callings are directly from God, through the Holy Spirit. Having the Bible is immensely helpful, in order to hear what Jesus said, and get your mind right with the fundamentals - love, charity, faith - but that's all. There are no great details of anything beyond that in any version of the Bible, and if you TRY to pull things out of the Bible that somebody said that were just a custom of their time and place, you will make yourself ridiculous and bad, not good.
Example: I saw pamphlets back in the 60s from conservative religious people arguing that the long hair fashion was condemned by God in the Bible. Looking at it, yes, Paul doesn't like long hair on men in a certain place and time. Ok. Of course, Jesus and many faithful Jews, or Jews with a Naziritate vow, had long hair. Because these 20th Century Christians didn't like long haired hippies, they searched around in the Bible and found what THEY call a prescription against long hair on men. Nothing is more likely to destroy the faith of people than seeing that sort of shit.
No, you do not need a letter perfect Bible, because the only parts of the Bible that MATTER are what Jesus said. The Holy Spirit provides the specific guidance in YOUR life. Many Bibles get Jesus right, and that's good enough.
Beyond that, the very principle of putting the Bible highest of all, which this man does, is idolatry. I have had the argument with many idolators. It goes like this:
Me: "Jesus said this."
Him: "But Paul said this!"
Me: "Yes, but Jesus is Lord. Paul must be interpreted through Jesus. He is not a stand alone authority."
Him: "You lie! Paul is in the Bible, and EVERY WORD in the Bible is the Word of God!"
Me: "You believe this? To the point that you disregard Jesus Christ in favor of Paul, or James, or John, or Moses?"
Him: "No! They never conflict."
Me: "Yes, they DO conflict." (Gives example, such as works v. faith alone)
Him: "That is not a conflict."
Me: "Clearly it is."
Him: "This is because you do not have the Holy Spirit, and you blaspheme God by refusing to accept the truth of his Bible!"
Me: "Hoss, God never wrote a Bible. Men did. But God DID send his only begotten Son, who told us to follow HIM, do HIS commandments, which differ from the Torah commandments, and from some of the opinions of Paul, James and John."
Him: "You blaspheme and lie, because you do not respect the supreme authority of the Bible!"
Me: I'm neither a blasphemer nor a liar. I respect the Bible, but Jesus IN the Bible is the highest authority over all of the rest of it, OBVIOUSLY, because HE is God, and Paul, James, Peter and the prophets are NOT God. So everything must be read through what Jesus said. God SENT Jesus to set things right, and now you're ignoring him in favor of some other dude in the Bible you like more for some reason. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the guide, not the Bible."
Him: "Blasphemer!"
Me: I am not a blasphemer, but you are an idolator, and the Bible is your idol. Jesus never said that the Bible was God. He said his Father was, and that he was from the Father, and that he send the Holy Spirit to guide you once he left. You substitute your Bible for Jesus and the Holy Spirit. He never said to do that. So why do you believe it?"
And the answer to my question, which he will never give, is that he has been taught that, and believes it, and thinks that you HAVE TO have one final, written authority, or else everything falls apart.
But that's not what Jesus says. Jesus gives his word, and sends the Holy Spirit to each man to help him. The whole Bible is an aid, but it is not the final authority. Jesus in the Bible, and the Holy Spirit in you, are the final authority. Obviously.
So, I find his entire argument about the Bible - ANY Bible - being supreme is idolatry. No, the Bible is not Supreme. The Father never said it was.
The Son never said it was.
The Holy Spirit never said it was.
It itself never says that it is.
And the complete Bible in its current form did not even exist until after 325 AD, and the KJV in particular doesn't have all the books in it that the complete Bible has in it.
How, then, is the KJV, an English translation, THE supreme authority?
Because men who have the idolatrous view that they have to have a pure authoritative written source says so. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not enough. No, they need a written source.
And it can't be the original written sources, no, it has to be this abridged source.
And you can't even read the original Greek manuscripts.
Nope, it has to be this one English Protestant translation from the early 1600s.
It's just screaming idolatry.
Yeah, I follow the logic, but the logic is idolatrous.
This doesn't make YOU a bad person for thinking this way. You have been taught it, and you believe what you have been brought up with. I am not going to even try to dissuade you from the point of believing that the KJV is best.
Indeed, I've gone ahead and used the 1611 KJV to get what Jesus said, the purest of the pure words, in your view. I've stopped worrying about the Greek because you think the English is inspired. The English is fine. I have provided some notes where the English is really archaic (Ex> Jesus searches the reines and the heart. Reines? The French word for kidneys is reines, and in 1611, the English were still using the Norman French word, not the Anglo-Saxon word. I clarify, but the 1611 KJV is great for giving the words of Jesus. So we use those.
And I know what Jesus said, and how he called on the Holy Spirit to carry that on in the world after him. I ALSO know that what he said departs rather severely from what some Protestant Churches teach (the Catholics and Orthodox have different issues).
Works, love, judgement based on keeping his word and following him, do what he said to do - this is NOT what KJV Onlyists believe. Why? Being nice, and not observing that it is just harder than what they believe, I observe that they look to Paul and get a different gospel. They don't look to John (who speaks of venial and mortal sins, and sounds pretty Catholic); they'll cite James' "break one law, you've broken them all!) (over and against Jesus' "greater and lesser sin" comments. They focus on Paul and assert that he says "Faith Alone" (in some translations. They like that, and Once Saved, Always Saved, and assert that using a constellation of things that Paul and John wrote. They can't quote Jesus on this, because he said rather the opposite.
But they don't care, because JESUS is not their highest authority, the BIBLE is. So, they quote the BIBLE - the parts that could contradict Jesus, and they use a constellation of Paul, James and John to create a new gospel that guts Jesus' own word.
And when you point that out, they call you a blasphemer for not believing the Bible.
My response is that they are idolators, for raising the Bible above Jesus Christ.
They retort that I am the idolator, because I take the "red letter words" of Jesus Christ, and elevate "just those words" above the rest of the Bible.
Well, OF COURSE I do! Any thinking person knows that Jesus is ABOVE Paul, James, John, Moses and the Prophets. And knowing that, any thinking person would NEVER take anything from anywhere else in the Bible and use it to nullify Jesus. But the KJV-Onlyists do precisely that, BECAUSE the Bible is their ultimate source for God, and not simply Jesus Christ.
That takes you to a different place than me.
I see the roots of all of this right in the first three minutes of the video. I can go on watching it, and comment on it, but that's right there in a nutshell. He won't say it, but he treats the Bible itself as God, and that's why he needs a supposedly perfect Bible, and the ultimate root of authority.
But Jesus is God, and his words, alone, of the words in the Bible, are the ultimate Biblical authority, in any language (not just English).
So I'll listen to the guy, but I'm going to just tear apart everything he says. If he REALLY wants an authoritative Bible, then he needs to drop the pretense of the KJV, and go learn koine Greek, for THAT is the language of the ACTUAL BIBLE. The KJV is but a translation.
He will assert its an INSPIRED translation.
Why? Based on WHAT?
Not the Bible. IT doesn't say that.
So why?
Why was this particular group of political Protestant translators gifted with divine protection, to give a perfect Bible? When did God ever say that? Why isn't their religion all over the world? Jesus at least got 10% of the Jews. The KJV Onliests don't have 10% of the Christians?
Where on earth do they get these preposterous excessive claims?
The answer is, they NEED an ultimate written source, so they have designated one. They don't TRUST the Holy Spirit to provide them the guidance they need.
That's the Truth, as I see it.
I'm not angry at you, or at him. This is just the way you look at it. Nothing I say will change your mind. But I think you understand now why I think the argument is just hooey.
And remember please, you asked! I'm telling you the truth. I find the arguments for KJV Onlyism to be ridiculous and idolatrous.
A narrow minority of English-speaking men in a few churches.
And what gives them the authority to say that?
Nobody and nothing. They assert it.
And that's all it is, a bald assertion of men.
I'm sticking with the Holy Spirit and what Jesus said. The KJV is a good source of what Jesus said. It's not the only source or the Supreme Source. it's a source, good enough for this purpose.
Look, this is all very abstract. Let's look at some real world examples, and look at what Jesus and the Holy Spirit tell us, versus what the King James Onlyists would say.
Pick three issues, any three, and let's look at the results of doing the analysis the different ways.
