Theology and Ward’s False Friends

In this video, I discuss the possibility that theological words could be construed as “false friends” under Ward’s definition. As such, it seems all of our Bibles have words in them we think we understand but, in the end, we do not because language changes, and along with it so do the meanings of words, particularly theological words. Ultimately then ought we to hold to a standard definition of words like “God” and “sin” given the possibility of their being “false friends?”

Evangelism, Religious Liberty, and We Almost Got Arrested

Occasionally I go out with a group of students to the campus of Virginia Tech and share the Gospel via Christian apologetics and Christian worldview. Oddly enough we all hold to the KJV and yet here we are doing apologetics. I seem to remember a certain Christian apologist telling me that people who hold the TR and KJV in the way we do are unable to offer persuasive apologetic arguments. Well they seemed to be persuasive enough that someone called the local police on us yesterday, Oct. 4th.

This is our story…

Here is some of the raw footage.

Ad hoc attacks on the Authority of the King James Bible as the Word of God in English and Theological Bomb Throwers

Against the individual academic pretender’s ad hoc disparagement of the AV stands the irrefutable historic truth that the AV has been and continues to be the standard sacred English text for the contemporary covenant keeper. Not every covenant keeper of course because spiritual maturity and intellectual acumen is a perpetual variable in the Church.

So-called “defenders of the faith” act like social democrats, read Mark Ward and comrades, who feel some sense of duty to save the Church of theological ignorance and spiritual maladjustment by disparaging the Bible the saint desires to read. They just want to be left alone without some self-appointed “scholar” telling them what to read. Like Ren and Stimpy’s happy helmet, if you’re not happy enough according to the scholar’s happiness quotient, critics just turn up the happy dial until your life is miserably ruined by the modern textual critic’s notion of “happiness.”

But more than that, every criticism by a wannabe critic stands alone against the united testimony of over 400 years of theological and ecclesiological acknowledgement and use that the King James Bible is the standard sacred text for English speaking people. But still we read about some argument that has never been answered, “so there, take that all you King James Only people. See, I’m right and the entire churchly tradition has lived in gross theological error until I came along and solved the problem for the Church!”

This genre of pathetic argumentation seems to proliferate not from sound scholarship but from those who have an axe to grind because of the spirit King James Bible proponents possess about their Bibles. They love their Bible, they trust their Bible, they assert the authority of their Bible, all attributes foreign to modern version advocates. There is nothing to love about the new versions, everyone knows new versions are untrustworthy and have no authority. It bruises the ego too much to advocate for such feckless documents when confronted with those who cherish their Bible, and so the pretender must take the King James Bible advocate down a notch.

Facebook posts seem to be the favorite platform for throwing theological molotov cocktails – strongly assert some imagined rebuttal and then run for the hills. Standard Sacred text.com would like to offer our platform for all bomb throwers to minimize the geographic distribution of smoke and debris of weak and ineffective attacks upon the King Kames Bible and Textus Receptus. If you have the end all, terminal, eschatological conclusive rebuttal to the defense of a standard sacred text, we invite you to use this platform for the discussion either in writing or video.  

You know what we do here. What ever perspective you take we will dissect it exegetically, theologically, philosophically, historically, and eschatologically to see if you are really the new Luther and the beginning of a neo-Reformation. Just think, John Doe and the neo-Reformation by nailing your 95 thesis on the StandardSacredText.com blog dismantling the 4-plus century long standard sacred text of the English-speaking people. What a name you could make for yourself!

For those who may not know, there is still a standing invitation to Dr. Mark Ward to come on which he has refused to do which may tell you something by analogy about how truly committed theological bomb throwers are to their discipline.

Blessings!

A Normative and Indeed Welcome Response to the Presentation of Academic Papers

Dr. Mark Ward, Dr. Will Ross and Dr. John Meade recently released a joint YouTube video on what Dr. Ward describes as a means to “help me break my two-year silence* on Confessional Bibliology” and “to respond to their recent Reformation Bible Society Conference.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wozfw14b4n8&t=221s

Both Drs. Van Kleeck delivered lectures at the conference. Dr. Van Kleeck, Jr’s lecture was commented on by the men, but it was apparent from their comments that their academic training left them unprepared to evaluate his lecture. Not critiquing every lecture, unsurprisingly, Dr. Ward and guests were critical of what was in their opinion a lack of academic rigor throughout the conference largely in part due to Dr. Ward’s disagreements with the tenets of Confessional Bibliology. The criticism of poor scholarship, however, is the ubiquitous straw man response of unfavorable reviews, and given from a conspicuously pejorative perspective looses it’s cool, balanced, academic luster. Frankly, my first response to this news was elation. In the perpetual work of saying only those things that God has already said about Himself in His Word, all news is good news and that to have Dr. Ross’ and Dr. Meade’s review of the lectures was a good thing. This in turn prompted the writing of the short post below as a note of encouragement and edification.

A normative and indeed welcome response to the presentation of academic papers expresses itself in the critical review of the research by others in the same discipline. This response is normative because only rarely are academic papers ignored without a critical response. No matter how sympathetic or antagonistic the reviewer to the topic, there is always more work to be done, perhaps a better way to say something, and the need to further tighten up the flow of a thesis. And, speaking anecdotally, erudite critics of a paper usually serve the future development of a topic better than do those sympathetic to the proposal.

This normative aspect of academic review can better be recognized as “iron sharpening iron.” The nature of academia is to review papers. Entire journals are given to book reviews and rebuttals of proposed topics. The response is also welcome for several reasons. The first, is that oft times, unfortunately, a critical review of a lecture is taken personally. I say unfortunately first because sometimes a critical review smacks of vitriol no matter how thinly veiled, rather than constructive criticism. After all, the review should bolster a refining work in the writing and research of the presenter. A welcoming spirit enables a balanced, academic, professional focus of a review despite the reviewer’s potentially obtuse trajectory.

Secondly, the review should be welcomed because it is the nature of academia to perform such a service within the discipline. One mark of academic credibility and veracity is a lecture’s peer review. And lest one thinks for a fleeting instance that peer reviews of papers are necessarily favorable and generous to a favorite presenter, there are few papers that escape the ravages of the review. Indeed, if the paper is not thoroughly reviewed, the fault lies with the reviewer which begs the question, “Why was Dr. So and So soft on the presentation.” It is the thought invested by one scholar to dismantle the work of another that makes the entire enterprise so rewarding, because, beloved, there is no end to the cycle of writing and reviewing favorable and unfavorable academic papers. And so, we should all embrace a normative and welcome response, whether favorable or unfavorable, to the presentation of academic papers.

Rather than taking any offense whether real or imagined, my suggestion is to embrace the banter, hold the interlocular’s proverbial feet to an honest appraisal of the lecture, fully expecting that in this realm of academic work like so much of life, the adage “what goes around comes around” is in full force, and that both sides can professionally take what the other side dishes out without crying “foul!”

Blessings!

Augustine and the LXX – Reformation Bible Society Breakout Lecture

In this paper, I examine whether Augustine’s belief in the LXX was rational (i.e., not merely a feeling, intuition, or a belief lacking in evidence) and warranted (i.e., justified according to certain accepted belief-forming criteria). I’d like to thank the Reformation Bible Society for allowing me to present this paper.

Blessings.

Last Sunday Night’s Interaction with a Wolf

My pastor was away with his wife visiting grandkids and asked me to over the evening service for him, a privilege I happily accepted. Ours is a small country church filled with saints that love the Lord. Sunday evening, the numbers were down but the singing of favorite hymns was sweet and robust. I used as my text 2 Peter 1:16-21 describing the character of immediate inspiration. We had a wonderful time together around God’s word and in the Lord. These folks are not just saints but they have grown to be my friends.

About a third of the way through the lesson, an elderly gentlemen slipped in the back row, someone I had not yet met. After giving the benediction, and greeting the saints, I walked to the back of the auditorium to introduce myself to the gentlemen. He was curious about my training and I shared with him I was graduate of Westminster East in Philadelphia, which caused him to bristle a little. During my lesson I did not mention the King James Bible once. Indeed, the passages we examined have to do with the character of the immediately inspired Original documents of Scripture. I said after seminary training at Westmenter and Calvin Theologicaly Seminary I was never more convinced the King James Bible was the word of God in English. This statement sent the older gentleman into a fury.

I want everyone to remember that this church of faithful saints with a faithful pastor is in mountains of SW Virginia in one of the most sparsely populated counties in Virginia. And on this given evening, an older man, (who I later found out from the saints had been a Presbyterian pastor) began to unload in the back of this little country church with the same vile, critical arguments I have heard about the King James Bible throughout my academic career. “It’s not God’s word, it’s only a version. It only came into existence in 1611. If you want to read the Scripture you have to know the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic he barked.” Of course, almost everyone that ever told me that could not read any of the original languages and neither could he. I said, none of these dear people read Greek and Hebrew. Are you telling them that when they read their King James Bible, they are not hearing the voice of God in its pages, to which he said no. I turned to the saints and said that this is what I have been speaking about and warned you of but tonight its standing in the back of the church building. Scholars and scholar wannabees want to be the arbitrators of God’s Word, with their critical texts and versions, and rob the saint of hearing the voice of God on their own, and tonight, you’re hearing this firsthand. Asked him what version he was carrying – the ESV. He told me it was God’s word, a typical MVO response. I said it contains God’s words. I said there many missing verses in your bible something clearly, he was unaware of. Turn to Acts 8:37 I said. Finding the page he read 36…38. Where’s 37, I asked? Of course, there is no Acts 8:37 in the ESV.  He closed his ESV, and I said turn to 1 John 5:7 but He was done publicly embarrassing himself for having a bible that was missing many passages.

He resorted to cheap shots, criticizing my message, and my lack of education for holding such a backward position. I said the King James Bible is based on the Greek and Hebrew apographa to which he retorted, the apocrypha? I said it seems obvious that you do not know what the apographa is.

This story is very familiar to my son and I. What bothered me the most about this exchange was not his meandering argument, rather this ecclesiastical bully came into the evening service of the church hoping for a soapbox to sway the saints from their commitment to God’s word. This was especially egregious because the under shepherd of this flock was away. He said we would have to agree to disagree and said that was not possible. I can’t agree with anything he said. That the disruption he had brought into the sweet fellowship of the saints was despicable and shameful and that his only recourse was to stop what he was doing. When he had exhausted his pathetic but disruptive diatribe (because I would not stop telling him how appalling his disruption of our service was), I corralled him to the door and out of the church building.

I don’t know the state of his soul, but what happened Sunday night was the work of an ecclesiastic wolf who was going to bully his way into the minds of the saints with lies and falsehoods foisted upon us all by proponents of the critical text and modern corrupt versions.

The Reformation Bible Society – What Exactly is the Septuagint?

If you missed the inaugural meeting of the Reformation Bible Society, here is the first plenary lecture by Dr. Russell Fuller. He does an excellent job laying out the history and state of the LXX. If the LXX has been something of a mystery to you, Dr. Fuller certainly puts you on the right track to understanding it and its impact here. Blessings.

How the Inspired Preserved Word of God Exists in Non-Written form

This post argues that the inspired word of God of the apographa or the derivatively inspired word of God in a faithful translation such as the King James Bible has always existed in part in a non-written form alongside the preserved written word. The Scripture’s itself describes at least three ways in which inspired Scripture exists apart from the written text: 1. in the mind of the listener, 2. in the memory; 3. by God’s implantation.

  1. In the hearing by those who cannot read.

Turretin addresses the issue of the value of Scripture for those who cannot read, or in other words, to whom the written word is meaningless. The illiterate either because of life circumstances or by age, not yet able to read, can nevertheless know the written word of God simply by hearing it. Reading is not necessary to know the content of holy Scripture. He writes,

“Although the Scriptures formally are of no personal use to those who cannot read (analphobetous), yet materially they serve for the instruction and edification such as the doctrines preached in the church are drawn from this source.” Turretin, Institutes, 59.

And this is true because,

“The Holy Spirit (the supplier [epichorega] by whom the believer should be God-taught [theodidaktoi], Jer. 31:34; Jn. 6:45; 1 Jn. 2:27) does not render the Scripture less necessary. He is not given to us in order to introduce new revelations, but to impress the written word on our hearts, so that here that the word must never be separated from the Spirit (Is. 59:21). Turretin, Institutes, 59.

Whether by reading or hearing, it is the Holy Spirit that “impress[es] the written word on our hearts.”

2. In the memory

Scripture tells us to hide God words in our hearts or, in other words, to memorize the Scripture, to make the Scripture a part of our intellectual construct. When a written text is not available, the saint is able to draw upon the Scripture they have memorized for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness, enabling his memorized word to be as profitable as would have been the written word.

Dt. 6:6, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:”

De. 11:18, “Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.”

Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

Romans 10:8, “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

Col. 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

As a sidebar note, it’s interesting that memorizing large sections of Scripture is also taken up in popular secular works. Ray Bradbury’s dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451 where books are illegal, closes with displaced scholars preserving entire volumes by putting them to memory. Speaking of men called by the books they memorized, Mr. Simmons says,

I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil pollical book, Gulliver Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Dr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we are, Montag, Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucious and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson, and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We also have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 144-145.

3. In the heart implanted by God

Hebrews 8:8-12 is a repetition of the New Covenant from Jer. 31:31ff. The Hebrew word rendered “covenant” is בּרית beriyt.. The word which Paul employs is – διαθήκη, diathēkē. It never means a compact or agreement between equals and remotely and secondarily means a “will, or testament” or “a bond in blood.”

The first of the “better promises” of Hebrews 8:10 is located in the unconditional, covenantal language, “I will put.” What is better is putting God’s laws into the mind and writing them on the heart? In the former clause the Hebrew has, “I will put my law in their inward parts;” the law shall be within them, no longer an external code. In the latter, the “fleshy tablets of the heart” are contrasted with “the tables of the Law.” This is the first of the “better promises.”

The second of the better promises is in Hebrews 8:11: The second promise is the universality of the knowledge of God. The inward acceptance of God’s will involve the knowledge of God. In the new covenant all were to be “taught of God” (Isaiah 54:13, John 6:45) and independent of the instruction of a privileged class. Priesthood of the believer. But God promises a time when there will no longer be reliance upon scholars and the theologically elite – scribes and Pharisees to teach people about God. Communion with God through his word will be embedded in the heart and mind relieving the need for the scholarly elite to tell you what God says.

Of special note is the unilateral, unconditional impartation of the word of God in the heart. Further probing of the ramifications of this impartation as this juncture serves as experimental theology, not designed to shape doctrine but to generate thinking and further inquiry into the eschatological nature of Scripture.

We therefore conclude that Holy Scripture exists apart from the written text impressed on the heart of the illiterate by the Holy Spirit, by inculcation in the mind by memorization also in complete unity with the Spirit, and in a preliminary manner through the eschatological implementation of God Himself in the heart as the consummate work in the believer of the New Covenant through the bloody sacrificial death of Christ. Practically, it is hoped that such an experimental rendering of Hebrews 8:10-11 and the dialogue such a text engenders will contribute to a burgeoning contemporary apologetic for historic, orthodox, bibliology.