If you’ve spent any time watching the American media you know that there has been a huge leak coming out of the Supreme Court. Now there have been prior leaks coming out of the Supreme Court especially when big decisions are in the balance. But this leak is unprecedented in that never before has an entire draft been leaked. There have been names and vote counts leaked or simply the Court’s decision, but never the whole of the argument as a draft yet to be agreed upon. Still, this draft has caused no small kerfuffle.
Many of those who are pro-choice, which is a euphemism for pro-murder, have come to the fore in order to insist on the right to murder babies. Can you imagine it? People being upset even to the place of protesting that babies will no longer be torn apart and by the consent of their mothers. You don’t have to imagine it. It’s a reality.
Several pro-choice arguments have found popular daylight in defense of child murder. Ones like, “It is hard to believe that girls born today will have less right than girls born 50 years ago.” and “Sadly, without abortion, children will be born into poor homes.” Unfortunately and I pray, unwittingly, there is a perverse thread here which is also shared by the standard CT/MVO position.
In the case of abortion, the act of murdering a baby is a ghastly evil, but there is an evil which is prior and therefore more primary. That evil is the thought or disposition that one has the power or moral right to choose to kill a baby. Put another way, the act of killing their baby is evil, but the belief that one has the moral right, the choice, to kill their baby is a prior and more egregious evil. So while a Pro-Abortion woman may never murder her child; she believes herself to have the moral right to choose to do so.
Toughing the version debate, few of our interlocutors would seek to “abort” the Scriptures, which would be a grave evil in itself. Most though maintain the prior and more egregious evil of believing themselves and themselves alone as having the moral right, the choice, to choose what is or is not God’s word. And yet this is wholly backward.
Consider the Christian faith in general. It is not the person who first chose Christ, but Christ who first chose the person. It is not the person who first loved Christ, but Christ who first loved the person. Christ chose the disciples and not the other way around. It is not us who work effectually to the formation of the canon and the canonical words. It is the word of God dwelling richly in us whereby we hear and know the voice of the Shepherd in those canonical words. As such, we receive those words not as the words of men but indeed as the words of God. We are the recipient. The Bible tells us what is the Bible.
We do not choose the Bible. The Bible chooses us.
And no two Bible versions say the same thing. Ask our interlocutors. All they can speak of is the “sufficient reliability” of versions. This is an academic way of saying, “All ‘good versions’ [however that is construed] are close enough to God’s word to count as God’s word.” The prior sentence is evidence enough that modern Christians choose what is or is not God’s word because modern man chooses what is or is not sufficient.
Continuing on, if all “good versions” are sufficiently reliable they are so as to quantity and quality. That is, there is enough of God’s word present and that which present is of sufficient divine substance per the present manuscript evidence. No two versions agree in quality and quantity and as such cannot be equally God’s words as to quantity and quality. A choice must be made between Greek texts and between versions and it cannot be a choice initiated by the Christian.
Circling back, though our position is concerned with the continual weakening of doctrines like infallibility to inerrancy to qualified inerrancy to inerrancy being a Scriptural misnomer in the works of those like Pete Enns; there is an additional doctrinal divergence which teaches that choosing a Bible is up to the saint when in fact that choice is beyond their moral and spiritual purview. Rather, the Spirit of God speaks through the word of God telling the people of God what is the word of God. Then both the scholar and the people in the pew submit to the Spirit’s injunction. All else is will-worship. Idolatry, where man is God.
In sum, the problem is not only that some choose different versions or multiple versions or reject the Bible as the rule of faith and practice. The problem is also that they think themselves morally entitled to make such choices. In this regard, there is no difference between Pro-Abortion and Pro-MVO being pro-choice.
Standard Sacred Text.com 