I was recently invited to teach my mom’s Sunday School class while visiting her in Florida. At 67 I was the “spring chicken” Sunday, but we had a marvelous time together around the things of the Lord. As class started a young man that I learned later was 20 came in and sat down with us. It wasn’t exactly his age group for Sunday School but everyone is welcome.
Nearing the close of the Bible lesson taken from Hebrews 11;1, I was asked to say something about the Bible version issue. Not being my church, and knowing the hot button it can be, I hesitated at first and then gave a succinct overview of the current state of the debate concluding that the Church has always had a Standard Sacred Text from which to determine right and wrong and good and bad. It was a general statement, not at all, in my opinion prickly. This class wasn’t the proper venue for a longer response. Plus, it was time to depart.
Pretty sure I was in the clear, the young visitor to the class approached me to show me his brand new, still in the box with the advertising pamphlet on top, New Revised Standard Version. It wasn’t cheap. The new bible aroma wafted through the air as the top cover of the box was removed.
I was clear to say that I find value in all versions, because all the versions contain the Word of God, and to the extent that they properly translate the Hebrew and Greek apographa they have value. This of course would have included the brand spanking new NRSV. But this was not the young man’s problem with what I said. His problem was that I said the KJB was the standard by which all other English versions should be judged for accuracy. To say there was a standard that would provide a conclusion as to what is and is not God’s word was intolerable for him.
The brief exchange I had with him felt like nailing Jello to the wall. With no standard, there was no conclusive answer for anything and he liked it that way. Having gathered his elementary, eclectic apologetic from bits and pieces he discovered on the internet, it seemed his mission was to simply make sure no one had a standard for what is and is not the Bible.
I pointed to the box which said in large print New Revised Standard Version. Even the publishers that decide whether he has a bible to read based on sales figures see the importance of using the adjective “standard” for marketing purposes. What impressed me most was his unwavering, dogmatic confidence based on second-, third-, and fourth-hand online information while burying the testimony of the Holy Spirit through the word of God somewhere on the back 40. I said my confidence was in the testimony of the Holy Spirit through the word of God and that his confidence was in the mind of educated but fallen men and the ambivalence and fluidity of textual criticism; that what he was arguing would require a lifetime of study without concluding, followed by the expectation that everyone engage in this enterprise. Here at Standardsacredtext we argue that no technical training is necessary for every saint to know and understand God’s word. The alternative is claiming to reach the bottom of an abyss of changing data, thinking that you can get your arms around all the information, keep the true, discard the false, and finally decide inductively and empirically from the bottom-up what God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth has said.
It doesn’t matter if you have multiple Ph.D.’s or a sophomoric argument created by perusing online posts, to thoughtfully conceive of the notion that this so-called “science” has any intrinsic authority should immediately stop the conscientious inquirer in his or her tracks, draw them to their knees, and beg God for forgiveness of considering their ways His ways, and their thoughts His thoughts. Superbia is not the first of the seven deadly sins for no reason; it afflicts the uneducated and highly educated in the same fashion.
Standard Sacred Text.com 