Perhaps you are impressed with the founding fathers of the United States and their work on the Constitution. Perhaps you like that document and its outcome for the United States. The United States was no powerhouse when the Constitution was written. They became one with it.  We can’t chalk that up only to the Constitution, but it is a significant factor toward the success of the United States.

The founding fathers struggled to complete the Constitution.  It was a very difficult undertaking. The United States itself also wrestled to arrive at the quality of this founding charter in a strenuous ratification process.  The founders decided to make the constitution difficult to amend.  An entire article, Article V, lays out the mechanism.

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

The Constitution, of course, was written by men.  It’s not divine in nature.  Nevertheless, the founders required monumental percentage of approval and accord to add, subtract, or revise.  For that reason, the United States Constitution has been amended only seventeen times since 1791 and the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

A change in the Constitution resulted from tremendous momentum and astounding assent.  The model for amendment was not a small cadre of scholars or noblesse taking matters into their own hands, deciding what is best for everyone.  Sixty-seven percent must agree a change is even necessary and then seventy-five percent must agree on the change.  This designed arrangement protected the nation from hasty innovation and experimentation.  It demanded exacting deliberation, not some impulse of the moment.

Even with the scarcity of change in the United States Constitution over almost 230 years, I don’t like some of the changes.  I don’t approve of them.  As a young adult, I talked to a couple of older men who were still living when the women were given the right to vote in 1920.  A very level-headed, intelligent and wise, godly pastor told me that the change in 1920 proceeded out of the instability following World War I.  The men from the war were barely back and informed, when this was kicked through.  You will find zero reference to a woman’s vote in the federalist and anti-federalist papers.

Much bad law has arisen from the wording of the fourteenth amendment, “equal protection of the laws,” often called the “equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment.”  On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States found a right of same-sex marriage in the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution.  Many still see this decision as exceeding judicial authority. It shows, however, how that the wording of a change in 1868, even with a noble goal, brings ramifications in 2015, like some sort of time bomb.

Article V made the U.S. Constitution difficult to amend.  The requirements protected the Constitution and the people of the United States.  An authoritative document such as this was difficult to change, which is one characteristic of conservatism.  If we are to conserve what we have, change should be arduous.  The intricate system of constitutional change also reflects the foundational principle of the consent of the governed.  The people are more likely to keep a law that they believe is the law.  The people established the constitution.  It sprung from the consent of the governed.

Does the Bible come by consent of the governed?  The Bible is God’s Word, whether people like it or not.  However, God Himself used His people to canonize scripture, to agree what was in fact God’s Word.  The Constitution represented a view of natural law that people could consent to, guided by the law of God written in their hearts.  The Holy Spirit guided the church to the truth.  Our knowledge of sixty-six books comes from the consent of the governed, the Holy Spirit bearing witness in their hearts.

I contend that changes to the translation of scripture should come through a demanding, arduous, and exacting process among churches.  Many translations have emerged from incentives of profitability and niche marketing.  The Bible was the Bible, but as the separate books consolidated into One Book, this came by agreement of the churches.  A small group of men may have been motivated by concerns regarding the adequacy of the underlying Hebrew and Greek texts or by the clarity and accuracy of communication in the English translation, but amendment of scripture should come with great pause and solemnity, marked by widespread agreement.

Churches did not launch the glut of translations into English.  These arose almost exclusively from whatever concerns of a small group detached from church authority.  They were less serious about changing the Bible than our founding fathers were about changing the United States Constitution.

I weary of the talk of a new English translation of the Bible in a generation attached to this culture.  I don’t trust it.  I don’t trust the people calling for it.  I’d like to see some biblical conviction and obedience first.  Let’s be sure and certain.  This is the drive-through-window era, the selfie throng, who are lining up for their next cell phone iteration before the last one is out of its box.

Before we amend, churches who care should agree on an amendment process.  The King James Version itself unfolded from a painstaking carefulness.  If churches thought they needed an update or revision, that should start with the churches that trust and use the King James Version.  I’m not calling for it.  I don’t see any momentum to change.  If or since the Holy Spirit is involved in the KJV churches, this lack of desire either results from a quenching of or an alignment with the Holy Spirit. Assuming the latter, the lack of agreement should read as tell-tale.

I’m saying let’s take a cue from the founding fathers of the United States.  This is no ordinary country in the history of the world.  Today the people are messing it up.  The King James Version came from an extraordinary providence as well.  We should be thankful.  We shouldn’t want to mess it up either.

When you go to vote and you consider third party, write-in, not voting at all, or voting for Hillary Clinton, you need to consider how bad that administration will be.  The Democrats aren’t going to miss on their Supreme Court justices like Republicans have.  They will get a liberal justice to replace Scalia.  It will be at an all time bad with every justice, because Hillary herself said what she would do. The constitution isn’t even coming into play in her decision making.  She said that herself.  Think about the worst justice ever on the Supreme Court and then know that she will appoint one or more justices that will be worse than that.  This will be a hey-day for the court, because the court already has four liberal justices.  You’ll be getting 5-4 votes for liberal positions again and again and again. They will not hesitate to tear down the United States.

I don’t think anyone should vote for Trump because of his godliness or moral purity or even his Christian faith.  This is not how to judge this election. The media, which supports Hillary Clinton at something greater than 90%, released the tape on the weekend to hurt Trump.  It’s not news.  Everyone already knew that about Trump.  The tape itself is bad enough, but the media lies about the tape to make it worse than it already is.  They say that Trump was bragging about sexual assault.

Part One

I’m happy our church uses the King James Version.  Because of our belief in the preservation of its underlying text, our church can’t use the New King James Version, even if it were a superior translation.  The NKJV doesn’t come from the identical Hebrew and Greek text of the KJV, so we won’t use it.  Should we use one of the other revisions or updates of the King James Version?  I’ve written that we have several reasons for continuing to use the King James Version that far outweigh the difficulty of some outdated words.  Those can be explained.  If you want, you can buy a Defined King James Version, which defines those words in the margins (which is why it is called “Defined”).

Here’s what we see happen.  Someone says words in the King James Version can’t be understood.  We say, there is a Defined King James Version, if you want it.  The person says words in the King James Version can’t be understood.  We say, there is a Defined King James Version, and it defines those words.  Crickets.  What are we to think about that?  I think a sensible inclination is to think that he doesn’t really care whether they can understand the King James Version or not.  He doesn’t like or want the King James Version.

This post will continue dealing with arguments against the support of the use of the King James Version.  I’ve written that Mark Ward really gave one argument, that is, updating outdated words. We’ve answered that charge in a number of different ways.  We had several arguments against a revision that Ward gave to dispute our reasons.  They weren’t arguments.  They were attempts at answering our arguments, and I’m going to continue to answer what he wrote in his chart I posted in part one.  I’m going to keep using the *asterisks to mark a new argument, and I’m to the fifth of nine.

*How low can you go with language?  The King James Version translates in a formal equivalent of the Hebrew and Greek text received by the churches, the words preserved and available to every generation of church.  It stays there with formal equivalence in translation language.  It gives us God’s Word, and it is God’s Word, so it is respectful to God.  People have loved the King James because it reads like God’s Word, not like a comic book or a popular novel.  That might be what some people want, but church leaders shouldn’t take that bait.  This is what we see in our culture and it spreads to churches.  There is a tremendous lack of respect and reverence to our culture and instead of turning the world upside down, churches are being turned upside down.  We shouldn’t cooperate with that as a church.

*Ward has expressed numerous times that he is concerned about how that the translation of the King James will hinder evangelizing the “bus kid.”  I evangelize every week numerous times. A week doesn’t go by where I will not preach the gospel to someone.  I’m not talking about in our assembly during a service, when I preach there.  I’m talking about out in the world.  When it comes to the translation issue, the greatest hindrance for evangelism is the translation confusion and chaos out there.  People have less trust in the Word of God.  Offering more and more “translations” takes away confidence in scripture.  More and more translations published gives the impression that the Bible is malleable in the hands of men.  It takes away respect.  I think everyone knows that.

Ward says more translations will bring clarity.  I get the argument.  He’s saying that you can lay out twenty translations in front of you and compare what the translators did to attempt to get what a passage is saying, using them like a commentary.  Translations shouldn’t be commentaries.  They aren’t crafts for men to read in their theology or maybe even a pet peeve.  What you very often get today are men that do translation shopping, where they find a translation that agrees with their position, and they keep looking until they find it.  It puts men in a position of sovereignty over God’s Word.

*For the next argument, Ward says the KJV is not precise because it has confusing punctuation that people today are not accustomed too.  My original point is that you can read the number in second person personal pronouns in the King James Version, and you can’t in modern versions.  You see those communicated in the original language and you do in the King James Version.  You don’t read in the modern versions the specificity of the original languages.  You get the same kind of precision in the verbs of King James:  singular, I think, thou thinkest, and he thinketh, then plural, we think, you think, and they think.

The King James does more than what I just described in precision.  Look at the following examples of Matthew 3:13:

King James:  “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.”
English Standard:  “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.”
New American Standard:  “Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him.”
New King James:  “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.”

“Cometh” is present tense in the original language, and yet the modern versions translate it as past or aorist.  It’s also present tense in the critical text, and yet the modern translators, all of these three very commonly used, give it a past tense, which is not accurate.

*God is immutable.  God’s Word should not be so apt to change.  Just because new translations are made and can be made, we should not be quick to change God’s Word.  Keeping a standard and us changing to fit that standard is more in fitting with a biblical way of life, than to keep adapting the Bible to us.  That was my point.

There are reasons why you could mark a church by what version of the Bible it used.  The translation issue reflected a new-evangelical church.  The new-evangelical church changed Bibles.  This has been the nature of pragmatism and regular change in churches. Churches have a tradition and keep a culture stable with a tradition.  When churches change and change and change, it’s no wonder we can’t keep the slide from happening.  Translation change got this going with churches.  This is a historical reality.

The language of the Bible is still the language of the Bible.  No one should be advocating change of that.  However, the actual language of the Bible has become out of reach of a degrading culture.  We should not pull the Bible down with it.  It is an anchor for a culture.  When I say that, I’m not talking about a discussion of the use of the English word “halt,” but of Hebrew poetry and long Greek sentences and metaphors used by the authors that are no longer in use.

Language itself, it is true, isn’t immutable.  However, God’s Word is immutable, even when language is changing.  We want people to conform to what God has done, rather than encourage an expectation of the Bible adapting to people.

*The last argument is the one that I see Mark Ward understand the least.  The King James Version was accepted by the churches.  It was used and continued to be used by the churches.  The church is the pillar and ground of the truth.  Jesus gave the church the truth. The church is the depository of the truth.  The new translations aren’t being authorized by churches, but by independent agencies and with varied motivations.  Churches keep the translation issue on a spiritual plane, instead of other incentives, like profit, business or trade, and intellectual or academic pride.

The modern versions did not originate from churches.  They started among textual critics, who were almost unanimously unbelieving.  This wasn’t a movement of churches, but of extra-scriptural, parachurch organizations.  College and universities, which were laboratories of liberalism and upheaval, is where the modern version movement began.  This is not how God has done and does His work.  He uses the church.

The biblical and historical doctrine of preservation leads our church to use the King James Version, because of its underlying original language text.  Other thoughtful reasons motivate our church with the translation of the King James.  We have considered an update and we are not supportive for reasons we gave.  We have careful and reasonable arguments that outweigh arguments against.  There is no groundswell of support for an update or revision of the King James Version from churches that use the King James Version.

Saviors are heroes in our culture.  In 2009 Chesley Sullenberg, a USAirways pilot, emergency landed an Airbus A320 on the Hudson River, saving all 155 passengers.  He is a hero, because he is given much of the credit for the salvation of 155 people.  Each of those people sees a debt to Sullenberg.  I know a film has been made about it, out in theaters right now, it’s such a renowned and celebrated event.

I don’t know if any of the 155 people saved on that plane have died since then.  All of them will. Sully will.  They’re saved for 10, 20, 40, 50, 60 years.  They’ll still die.

The name, Jesus, means “savior.”  Not just saving people from physical death, Jesus saves men from eternal death.  Eternal death is forever.  It will never end.  Even people saved by the incredible efforts of a pilot with an emergency landing will still die eternally.  They are given a little longer physical lives, only to die and still die eternally.

People celebrate Sully.  Joy is in heaven over one person saved from eternal death (Luke 15:7).  The world doesn’t care.

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16).  Before Jesus left, He said to preach the gospel to everyone.  Would you be a Sully?  Many Christians might want to be a Sully who won’t preach the gospel to someone.  Many professing Christians go weeks without even handing out a gospel tract.  The lie to deny is that saving someone physically is superior to saving someone eternally.  People live that lie.

Someone like a Bill Gates gives his life to end malaria and bring clean water.  He spends billions of dollars for those priorities.  He denies God.  He rejects the Bible.  He is applauded by men.

Christians must embrace the truth that gospel preaching brings eternal salvation.  It doesn’t prolong physical life.  It gives eternal life, which is physical and spiritual and forever.

The men who ran into the twin towers were heroes.  Police are heroes.  Firemen are heroes. Preachers are what?  They are treated like the offscouring of the earth, worse than scum.  I know.  They are garbage in this culture.  Don’t let that fool you.

Someone saved forever is better than someone saved for the moment.

It takes a lot to have a great nation.  It doesn’t take much to tear it down.  However, like God said to Baruch, seek not great things for yourself.  That can be said of and to a nation too.  You can easily go down as a nation, and we are.  It’s been ugly to watch.

A Frenchman with great yearnings for his own country, its having been torn asunder, Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831, taking extensive notes about what he saw.  Comparing what he observed with what he knew of France and its revolution, he wrote in 1835 to report his findings in his book called Democracy in America:

There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that spurs all men to wish to be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the lesser to the rank of the greater. 

But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

Men want all the benefits of liberty without the requirements.  Nicholas Capaldi and Gordon Lloyd write in Liberty and Equality in Political Economy (p. 73):

What is problematic for Tocqueville is that love of equality rather than love of liberty is the ruling passion of modernity. . . . Humans in modernity prefer equality in slavery to inequality in liberty.  In short, equality and not liberty is the default position of modernity.  Thus, liberty is in constant need of being defended and equality is in constant need of being moderated.

Most people in this country don’t even understand the opportunity they have been given.  They are not satisfied with opportunity.  They want equality of outcome.  They really want even more than that, as I observe America now.

If you are white, I don’t think you can just be angry with black people.  White people caused this. They took advantage of the depraved taste of equality that almost everyone possesses. They couldn’t guarantee a better life though, so many black people now are left in a state of hopelessness, followed by anger.  We see the anger. The history of African Americans in America is that they were brought here against their will and since then they have been used as political pawns by evil opportunists who pose as their saviors.

Why obey the law if you can’t have a better life when you do?  People see what they don’t have and they don’t see a path to get there except through some form of government assistance.   They think that violent protests and kneeling during the anthem will get them there. They think that because there are white people and select black leaders who tell them they are right.  The media also rewards the behavior.  It is a losing, totally losing proposition.   It is absolutely the wrong message.

You cannot succeed against natural law.  The path to success follows a natural progression.  You can’t skip the steps to getting there.  No amount of tilting the playing field will help.

De Tocqueville was brutal in his observations about both African Americans and American Indians.  He hated slavery, but he believed that, even though assimilation was best for both, it mainly would not occur.   He assessed that neither were people “democratic” enough to live in a democracy. They just wouldn’t.  He predicted the extinction of the Indians in America, because they would be too proud to assimilate.

If I project myself backwards to De Tocqueville’s time, I don’t share his pessimism, proceeding from his underlying Roman Catholicism, because I believe God’s Word.  I don’t take the Hillary Clinton’s, her basket of deplorable and unredeemable, view of the world. People can change through conversion.  God intervenes in depraved hearts.  They stop lusting for equality and accept liberty. However, they will not change without moral absolutes or absolute truth, a true gospel, and then careful and plain biblical preaching, none of which are even accepted any more in the United States.

Booker T. Washington had a plan at the turn of the 20th Century that was rejected by African Americans in general and the United States as a whole, his plan founded on the laws of nature and nature’s God.  If implemented, it would have succeeded.  A depraved taste of equality impelled the weak to bring the strong down to their level, which summarized the lying vanities of W. E. B. Dubois.

Kneeling at a national anthem and violent street protests are the less significant symptoms of a depraved taste of equality.  They are but pawn movements on the board of massive political demagoguery.  Joining them among many others is economic punishment targeting a very miniscule moderation of transgenderism.

When rewards and punishments are not tied to merit according to principles of natural law and the revealed law of God, the opposite, what some have called, “learned helplessness,” results.  People stop trying to succeed.  They want it handed to them.

Some would say they don’t want a hand out, but a hand up.  The need a hand up:  college tuition, free medical, child care, and subsidized housing.  These are hand. outs.  They are learned helplessness, helplessness that isn’t liberty; helplessness that is slavery.

The future isn’t bright for a nation that doesn’t respect the law, that offers even foreign neighbors an equality that is a lie.  Then police say, “Take your hands out of your pockets so I can see them,” and the suspect doesn’t have to do that.  Police say, “Kneel down,” and he doesn’t.  They don’t think any longer that there is any merit, any value to doing what police say.  ‘It won’t help you to listen, to submit to authority’ is a lie.  The lawbreakers see little path to success.

If you walk back the anthem protests, you end at non violent protests.  Someone is right to protest injustice.  Injustice is wrong.  You aren’t right to protest justice, and we do not have evidence of systemic police injustice.  You can go to statistics to prove that.  It isn’t even close.  A police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black person than any cop killing an unarmed black person. No evidence exists of unique police violence based upon racial discrimination.  It’s a bigger and deeper issue though.

Every police shooting, whether just or not, produces extraordinarily imbalanced amounts of media attention and coverage.  The stories are slanted toward the victims of the shooting.  The overarching narrative is a lie.  Let me tell you the result.  Police will back away and more people will die.  When someone calls for help, he won’t get it.  The people who suffer those results will get no media attention or coverage.  They will still die and mostly in anonymity.  Their mothers will not become celebrities.  They will not speak at a party presidential convention.  It won’t matter to those who are really taking advantage of this situation, which are the subject of an entirely different post.

A man paid millions of dollars as a backup quarterback claims to speak for the voiceless victims.  His message is false.  He’s free to protest something.  He’s free to pose as a significant thinker, but he is only another pawn.  He isn’t bringing liberty or equality.  He is leading a movement that will not end well for anyone.  He is encouraged to tell his little lies while the big truth is forbidden on a state school campus. Liberty loses.

Equality provides the motivation in America now, not liberty.  You can see that liberty doesn’t result from anthem protests.  It rewards lawbreakers.  More lawbreaking ensues and people lose their freedom.  Worse, they lose their lives.  Their lives don’t matter to those feeding this depraved taste of equality.