“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

I Corinthians 1:10

Man has often attempted to reach God, to be God and to do so on his own terms. Among the more notorious attempts was the one in which man thought to build a tower so great that it would reach to heaven. Moses records the observation of our Creator,

“And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the LORD scattered them…”

Genesis 11:6-8a

Man was united perhaps in a way that has never been before. And why? Because they were of one mind? Yes, but they were only of one mind because they were of one language and one speech (v. 1).

But it was not their one language or one speech for which God scattered them in judgement. Nor was it their unity. No, He scattered them because they had their hearts set on something contrary to the revealed will of God which was to subdue the whole earth and not merely their neighborhood or immediate locale.

Turning to the NT, Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:10 declares a redemption of the Tower of Babel. The Church in Paul’s time according to Acts 2 was composed of many languages as was the whole world – a sign of God’s judgment upon mankind for their disobedience. Again, the multiplicity of languages is not part of God’s original order and the rise of multiple languages is a direct result of divine punishment.

So Paul declares not a redeeming of the time because the days are evil but a redemption of language itself and he does so in that place which is to be a piece of heaven on earth, the Church. Saints are to be a glimpse into the Kingdom to come. They are citizens of a Heavenly Kingdom which must shortly come to pass. Among these redeemed Paul calls for a redemption of that which was lost at the Tower of Babel, unity of language.

To do this he first invokes the name of the source of all language, Jesus Christ – the Word. And from the Word he implores his Christian readers to “speak the same thing.” He is reversing Babel. Babel went from speaking the same thing to speaking divergent things. Now in the New Testament Church the call is to go from speaking our own thing or divergent things and to speak the same thing in the name of He who is the Word.

And why? Because when you speak the same thing then ecclesiastical division is mitigated. Paul says “…that ye speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you.” The two go hand-in-hand. When the Church is saying the same thing then the potential for division decreases. Here he speaks negatively but Paul being a Hebrew of the Hebrews can’t seem to resist the temptation of a Hebrew couplet and so he repeats himself but in the positive and writes, “that ye be perfectly joined together.”

And what is the character of this joining? Well, of course, it is in Christ and specifically as Paul herein states, in mind and judgment. Elsewhere Paul rights, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 12:1) and “…we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16). Regarding judgment, Paul tells the Christian to think on those things which are “true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report.” (Phil 4:8).

Where do we find the mind of Christ? How are we to judge what is good, true, lovely etc.? From the word of God, of course.

In Paul’s time though all the Church had was the OT and perhaps a few of Paul’s letters. So what was the version debate in Paul’s day? No, it was not versions of the Bible. Rather it was, “I am of Paul; and I am of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.” (1 Cor. 1:12). This is the Tower of Babel relived in the first century Church and it was a version issue.

The 21 century Babel version is: I am of the ESV; I am of the NIV; I am of the LSB; I am of the KJV. How does Paul respond to the Tower of Babel in his time [i.e, I am of Paul and I of Apollos etc.]? Did he say, Paul is sufficiently reliable and so is Apollos and while we are at it so is Peter and even Jesus Himself. No, Paul does not pull the sufficient reliability card. Instead, he asks a rhetorical question,

Is Christ divided?

And so I put it to our multiple version only brothers and critical text brothers, Is Christ divided? Would you have us return to Babel? Must you insist that the judgment poured upon those at the Tower is a good thing for the Church to continue to emulate with her multiple versions?

Or ought we to speak the same thing having the same mind and the same judgment? Ought we not to cast off Babel and redeem that which was lost in that place? How might we accomplish this? In a word, a standard sacred text.

One Greek text and one Hebrew text from which all the Bible translations of the world are translated. And so long as the aftermath of Babel remains with us then we must have one translation for one language.

In this way we as an English-speaking Church will speak the same thing is responsive reading, public reading, family devotions, personal devotions, college studies and on and on. And with this will come greater unity and less division which will lead to sameness of mind and judgment.

With so much to gain, how about you join us on the side of a standard sacred text, truly a belief to change the world.

What could be less then to afford him praise,
The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good prov’d ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I sdeind subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burthensome, still paying, still to owe;
Forgetful what from him I still receivd,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and dischargd; what burden then?
– John Milton, Paradise Lost, 46-57.

Here John Milton proposes perhaps the greatest fault of Satan in his rebellion against God – forgetfulness. Satan recognizes that his requirement to praise God is a meager requirement given who God is and what He had done for the fallen angel. Yet Satan admits, “Forgetful what from him I still receivd.” And with this forgetfulness he refused to praise or show gratitude to his Creators and with his refusal to praise came pride and with his pride came his fall from grace. No doubt, forgetfulness is a greater evil than perhaps we are willing to admit in our modern day.

As we continue our journey through Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self while making comparisons to modern evangelical textual scholarship, we come now to another feature of deathworks, and that is, “forgetfulness”. If you have been following this series at all you will know that American sociologist and cultural critic, Philip Rieff, has featured prominently thus far, particularly in his assertion regarding third worlds.

For Rieff, if you remember, first worlds are those who have a mythical or fateful grounding for their morality and societal norms. Second worlds are those that ground their morality and societal norms in faith e.g., Christianity. Third worlds are those which admire first and second worlds but desire to destroy those worlds. Part of that destruction stems from the third worlds “forgetfulness”. Trueman writes,

“Underlying the notion of the deathwork is, as we noted, a basic repudiation of history as a source of authority and wisdom. This in turn means that what Rieff calls ‘forgetfullness’ is one of the hallmarks of third worlds and a dominant trait of modern education.”

Trueman, Rise, 100.

I have argued in other posts here and here that modern evangelical textual scholarship is the very definition of a deathwork. Indeed, modern evangelical textual scholarship fits the bill even in the area of forgetfulness or “a basic repudiation of history as a source of authority and wisdom.” Metzger and Ehrman observe under the section entitled, The Overthrow of the Textus Receptus,

“It was perhaps not surprising that Wescott and Hort’s total rejection of the claims of the Textus Receptus to be the original text of the New Testament should have been viewed with alarm by many in the church.”

Metzger and Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament, 181.

Again the standard fair of Expressive Individualism fits like hand in glove when compared with modern evangelical textual scholarship. Plainly and obviously, Wescott and Hort rejected the historical claims that the Textus Receptus was the original form of the original text and Metzger and Ehrman recognize as much. Furthermore, they do not seem to include themselves among those alarmed by this rejection. And why should they be alarmed by the rejection of a basic repudiation of the textual history represented by the TR as a source of authority and wisdom? Such a repudiation seems to be baked in. Here is a quote from Harold Greenlee,

“With the work of Westcott and Hort the TR was at last vanquished. In the future, whatever form an editor’s text might take, he or she would be free to construct it with reference to the principles of textual criticism without being under the domination of the Textus Receptus.”

Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, 71.

“Without being under the dominion of the Textus Receptus” is the same as saying, “Without being under the dominion of the standard sacred New Testament text of the believing community.” Which is equal to “a basic repudiation of history as a source of authority and wisdom,” and particularly the New Testament theological textual history of the English-speaking believing community.

Textual scholarship is now free from the dominion of the standard sacred text of the English-speaking believing community and Queer scholars are now free from the dominion of the same in large part because there is no standard at all, not even for evangelicals. “Well, wait. There is a standard in the original,” says B.B. Warfield “but are long lost.”

“But…but…we do care about textual history,” our interlocutors say. “We look at historical texts for a living,” they retort. If you think such objections, then you have miss my point entirely. The history I speak of is not primarily one of ancient manuscripts. The history of the TR is one which represents the work of the Holy Spirit in preserving His word though His word to His people.

The rejection and vanquishing of the TR was a rejection and attempted vanquishing of the Spirit of God’s moving through the words of God in the people of God to recognize those words as the words of God. The rejection and vanquishing of the TR is a rejection and vanquishing of a distinctively Christian view and understanding of Scripture. And if we can reject a distinctively Christian view of Scripture we can easily reject a distinctively Christian view of man, woman, marriage, and sexuality.

Indeed, forgetfulness regarding the TR and the KJV has become one of the hallmarks of third worlds and a dominant trait of modern evangelical higher education. Again, the likeness of modern Expressive Individualism and that of Modern Evangelical Textual Scholarship is familial. These two are cousins or even sisters whose names are Forgetfulness and Immediacy and modern evangelical textual scholarship can’t decide who to marry so they’ve married them both.

N.B. – It seems that most of our interlocutors when speaking of KJV-Onlyism or a Standard Sacred Text or a Confessional Text they always go after that small town pastor who’s doing his best to navigate personal issues, family issues, church issues, cultural issues, and also the version issue. Why don’t they swing at Burgon or Hills or Letis? Why haven’t they build robust exegetical, theological, and philosophical groundings to support the way they treat the Bible? The cynical answer is that they are lazy or weak-willed. The more gracious answer is that they simply haven’t gotten around to it after 150 years of being at the helm of nearly all evangelical schools of higher learning. Which do you think is more reasonable?

I’ve called out Metzger and Greenlee here, both exceedingly proficient in text-critical disciplines who most of the other side argue are evangelicals. We’ve also gone after Blomberg, Jongkind, Wasserman, Wallace and many other scholars. Set your sights higher boys. It’s easy to pick on people who haven’t made it their life’s calling to have this discussion. But to set your sights higher will take work, a lot more work given your abject failure to properly construe our position and those like it.

“And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS…Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The king of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written.”

John 19: 19, 21-22

The Jews want the title changed. Why, it is unclear. Perhaps they feared their ethnic association with seditious king. Perhaps they hated the fact that Jesus would be called their king even in execution and death. Perhaps they saw the sign as an insult perpetuated by their oppressors and particularly Pilate. Whatever the reason, the Jews wanted the words changed.

Why should Pilate change what he had written? Were his words false? We know that Jesus is indeed King of the Jews and of all Creation. There is no square inch of creation over which Christ does not say, Mine. But it is also true that Jesus claimed to be the King of the Jews, the Lord’s Anointed One, the Messiah. So both claims are true.

If Pilate were to change his words would they communicate his message in a sufficiently reliable way? It seems so. Whether the sign reads, “Jesus of Nazareth who said he was the king of the Jews” or “Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews”; the greater bulk of the political and theological implications are carried in both versions. That is, both versions are sufficiently reliable versions.

We see further that there are two versions in the “manuscript tradition.” – one version, the Pilate version, and another version, the Jewish version. Both versions are in the historical literature. Obviously the Jewish version is the older oral version in that the Jew did not believe that Jesus was the king of the Jews but only that He said He was the King of the Jews.

As far as we know, Pilate had little to no knowledge of Jesus to this point as is indicated by his rather elementary line of questioning to both the Jews and Jesus. Which again points to the facts that Pilate’s reading, Jesus is the King of the Jews, is the more recent reading. Pilate did not think oldest was best and of course it is Pilate’s reading that makes it into the Scriptural text while the Jewish reading is relegated to the apparatus of history.

So why is it that Pilate’s reading is the reading that is chosen and the one that appears in the text? Pilate’s reading is on the sign and ultimately in the Scripture text because in that historical moment Pilate invoked his authority and didn’t change the sign. What he wrote is what he wrote, and that is enough of an answer for the sign to remain unchanged. Pilate’s words are the words that prevailed because Pilate has the authority as governor of Israel and as author of those words.

How then do you think a reading is chosen for the Bible? Is it God the Holy Spirit who has ultimate authority as Governor of the universe and as Author of His own words speaking through His words to His people or do you think it is the NT text-critical Judaizers of our day who come to God and say “Write not…but rather…”?

What God has written God has written and that fact alone possesses the requisite potency and authority to determine what readings are and are not the word of God.

“Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

I Corinthians 5:6-8

As some of you know the Lord has blessed my wife and I with 9 children so when my wife makes bread she makes a lot, sometimes up to 40 pounds of dough. She then bakes twenty 2 pound loaves and we freeze them for the week. Pop a frozen loaf into the microwave for 11 minutes on Time Defrost and and you get a delicious loaf of hot homemade bread ready for butter and honey.

Follow me for more cooking and baking recipes.

To the point, 40 pounds of dough takes a relatively small amount of yeast/leaven to cause the whole lump to rise. Paul warns the church in Corinth that such is the way with evil. A little evil, a little immorality will adversely affect the whole of one ‘s moral life. It’s a principle of Christian life as leavening is a principle in baking.

But not so in the Christian academic world. If leaven is that which is corrupt or that which is not from God, then the modern Christian academic world recognizes and admits there is leaven in the Critical Text and in the subsequent English versions of that New Testament. This is why the term “sufficiently reliable” is used rather than “utterly reliable” or “totally reliable” or even “certainly reliable.”

“The original text is in the body of the text or the apparatus,” we are told. Or, “Yes, there are errors or variants or uncertainty regarding this or that reading but on the whole no major Christian doctrine is affected.” I wonder how that plays out with Paul’s language quoted above? Perhaps it would go something like this:

“Yes, I know I have some small sins in my life but on the whole I commit no major immoral acts.” Most Christians would object to such a claim but they have little problem accepting and vigorously defending the argument that their version of the Bible has little problems, but nothing major.

Our opponents would have us believe that Paul’s text of Scripture at Paul’s time was not free from all leaven, while at the same time they claim Paul calls the Corinthians to a holiness absent all leaven of immorality. Again, the modern evangelical textual scholar has put the cart before the horse.

One can only be purged of their “leaven” if the thing doing the purging is equally as purged. Put another way, one can only be sanctified insofar as the thing doing the sanctifying is itself sanctified. We are told that there are word of men, albeit few and relatively meaningless per our interlocutors, among the words of God in the Greek New Testament.

That is, the word of truth which we are to be sanctified through is not itself perfectly sanctified. How then is the Christian to believe that they too have been called to perfect sanctification when the thing doing the work of sanctification [i.e., the Bible] is not itself perfectly sanctified? And with that question in the balance evangelical textual scholars then have the audacity to claim that no major doctrine is at stake.

But some might object, “No, it is the Holy Spirit who does the sanctifying work through the Scripture and not the Scripture itself. Therefore the Scriptures can be a little off and we can still be called to remove all leaven from our lives.”

I do not deny that the Holy Spirit does indeed affect sanctification in the Christian’s life, but the words of Christ are, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” (John 17:17). Jesus says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). No doubt, the Holy Spirit has a vital and primary role in the work of sanctification, but He does it only through His word and that is the emphasis of John 17:17. Unless of course you are Charismatic and you believe God still issues special revelation apart from Scripture but consistent with Scripture, but that is another blog post.

In sum, whether Christian academics like it or not, the term “sufficient reliability” claims that the whole of Scripture is not set apart unto God. Contained therein are the words of men, but that’s ok because no major doctrine is affected. In reply, “Of course major doctrine is affected. You are claiming a Bible which you admit has leaven in it and then you turn around and tell God’s people they can’t have any leaven in their lives.” The hypocrisy is palpable.

If God’s word can have leaven in it and remain morally upright then so can ours, and only out of the abundance of one’s heart does the mouth speak. Leaven in the heart is leaven in the mouth and leaven in the mouth is a sign of leaven in the heart.

When our interlocutors admit to leaven in the Greek New Testament they admit to leaven in the mouth of God and if in His mouth then in His heart.

Remember kids, no major doctrine is at stake.

We hear over and over from CT/MVO academicians that modern versions are “sufficiently reliable.” When pressed on the meaning of that term it seems that they mean something like, “It is possible to be saved out of many of the modern translations” or “The general gist of all major Christian doctrine is present in most modern versions.”

I have no problem agreeing with the former and I suppose I do on the latter as well so long as we understand that the Action Bible and the Golden Children’s Bible do the same. But are the modern versions, being “sufficiently reliable, able to do what is necessary?

Can the stream be purer than the fount from which it springs? Good trees bring forth good fruit and bad trees bring forth bad fruit (Matt. 7:17), do they not? Is it not the case then that sufficiently reliable trees bring forth sufficiently reliable fruit? It seems so. And if Scripture is merely a sufficiently reliable tree then the fruit derived from the Scripture is also only, merely, sufficiently reliable.

And what kinds of fruit are derived from the Scripture? Knowledge of the Triune God. Faith that comes by the hearing of the word of God. Sanctification through the word of truth, and of course salvation itself. A sufficiently reliable fountain can only yield sufficiently reliable streams. And sufficiently reliable trees can only yield sufficiently reliable fruit.

There once was a fig tree which had no figs, but that was because it wasn’t the time of year for fig trees to bear figs. What did the Lord do to this tree? Did the Lord say, “Now there’s a sufficiently reliable fig tree. One day we’ll have some of its figs.”? No, it was quite the opposite. Christ cursed the fig tree because it was only, merely, sufficiently reliable. And why did He curse the fig tree?

The fig tree as a symbol of Israel represents their imperfect obedience, indeed, their hypocrisy. And how is it that one is to achieve perfect or complete obedience? Well, as was said above, if the tree is complete then the fruit which comes from that tree will also be complete.

Jesus says, Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Christ is recorded in several places saying that heaven and earth would pass away before the law would pass away, before a jot or tittle of the law would pass away.

Paul tells Timothy that the Scriptures make a man of God perfect or complete. Peter tells us that the Scriptures pertain to all life and godliness. The point being that if a soul is to be saved they need only a handful of verses to come to know themselves as sinner and Christ as Savior. Furthermore, the Bible is unnecessary to have a sufficiently reliable understanding of the major tenants of Christian theology. Erickson’s one volume Christian Theology offers a sufficiently reliable understanding of the major tenants of Christian theology though it is not a Bible.

But the Bible is not only for salvation, but also, and just as equally, for sanctification, for the perfection of the saint. And it is the word of God which does that perfecting. Again, sanctify them through thy truth thy word is truth, Jesus says.

If the word of truth is only a sufficiently reliable word of truth then its perfecting power is only sufficiently reliable. Christ did not come to bring a sufficiently reliable redemption; He came to bring a perfect and perfecting redemption.

Sufficiently reliable Christianity as born from a sufficiently reliable Bible is that cursed fig tree and that lukewarm Church which Christ can only spew out.