My last post of last week, the shell game with Bible words, if you followed the links, referred to a session Mark Ward did at Bob Jones Seminary, where he did refer to Thomas Ross and myself. Someone sent that to me, and in my path to watching it, I became curious in another of his videos. I’ll deal with both here. One I essentially agreed with, and the other, no.
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Chronologically, Mark Ward first made a podcast from his greenhouse about attending an IFB meeting close to where he lived. An IFB pastor invited him because R. B. Ouellette was going to preach on the King James issue. He didn’t say which church this was. It was surely revivalist in the Hyles/Sword realm. Ward started out ready to deal with KJVOnlyism, but it turned into something else. Here’s the podcast.
Ward traveled to a special meeting at a revivalist IFB church to interact with KJVO. Based upon a heads-up from its pastor, he expected something promoting KJVO. Ward reported much he liked about the service all the way up to the Ouellette sermon. Ouellette opened to Job 31:35-36 to defend KJVO. A plain reading of Job 31 does not appear to do that.
Ward and Ouellette both graduated from Bob Jones University. In his criticism, Ward distinguished between using the Bible for what a man wants to say and preaching what the Bible does say. By his account, Ouellette did the former. He was not a herald, who delivers the Word of the King. Ward titled his podcast, “The Biggest Step the IFB Needs to Take.” He treats IFB with generosity, more than what I would. Instead of the KJVO issue, he found a “preaching” one instead.
YES
Bad Preaching
I wrote, “Yes,” in this title. I agree with the criticism of this typical, popular IFB preaching. If IFB apparently cares for the perfection of its Bible, then preach the Bible. Its leaders very often preach like Ward described. He reported loud “Amens” shouted all around, which supported a message that twisted the Word of God. Ward exposed a reason for someone to separate from IFB churches and men. I say “Yes” to Ward. I agree with him.
What causes a man to preach like Ouellette? It’s not that he is unable to preach the Bible. Why would he settle for something entirely not what the passage says? Underlying doctrinal problems exist especially regarding the Holy Spirit. Keswick theology, second blessing theology, or revivalism, all similar error but with a nuance of difference, affect preaching.
Many IFB believe the preacher becomes a vessel for a message from the Holy Spirit. They believe that through the Holy Spirit God gives the preacher something others can’t even see in a text. This is called “preaching.” God uses “preaching,” but by that they don’t mean the Bible. The Bible is used, but the preaching is something unique. They trust the man of God has been given something they haven’t ever seen and can’t see.
However, I dispute preaching as the biggest step for IFB. It isn’t the “I” (independent) or the “B” (Baptist) in IFB that’s the problem. “F” for Fundamentalism is at the root of the problem. Actual preaching of the Bible isn’t a fundamental of fundamentalism. In general, IFB does not confront bad preaching. It allows it and even encourages it. If someone spiritualizes or allegorizes a passage and reads something into a text, it doesn’t bring condemnation. However, the biggest step for fundamentalism isn’t its preaching.
False Gospel
Fundamentalism is rife with a corrupted gospel. Ward commended the evangelism of IFB. What is the evangelism of IFB? Look all over the internet at the gospel presentations. Most IFB removes biblical repentance and the Lordship of Christ. Let’s say Ouellette rejected KJVO and started using the ESV, or even just the NKJV. Would he become acceptable to Ward, reaching his primary goal? Ouellette argues against repentance as necessary for salvation (I write here, here, and here). When you read doctrinal statements and the plans of salvation of those churches most associated with Ouellette, they’re the same.
A few years ago, James White participated in an interview with Steven Anderson. In White’s many criticisms of Anderson, he never mentions his false gospel. Anderson hosts an anti-repentance website. Anderson is worse than Ouellette, but both fall short of a biblical gospel. As White ignores Anderson’s gospel, Ward does Ouellette’s. This diverges from the often stated emphasis of evangelicals, the gospel of first importance. The version issue stokes greater heat than the gospel does.
Some IFB churches preach a true gospel even as some preach biblical sermons. Yet, a false gospel subverts IFB unrelated to the version of the Bible it uses. Years ago IFB allowed and even promoted the introduction and then acceptance of a false doctrine of salvation. I am happy Ward noticed the bad preaching of Ouellette, but his focus harms his ability to see the biggest IFB problem. Ward doesn’t mention the wrong gospel.
The version issue is clear cut. There are removed passages of Scripture and sections corrupted through the addition, removal or changing of words or numbers. Without the Bible, people will get false doctrine and never be able to be corrected. And individuals in most or all cases will not be able to be saved, because faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. This cuts off the individual from the word of God. I know for a fact people can be saved from reading it alone by themselves. I am one of them. So taking that away from people by tricking them through placing a false version in their hands can destroy a soul. That can singlehandedly destroy a person. And the people guilty of this cosmic crime are open for all to see: just see who’s preaching, creating or promoting those modern versions. The issue of a false gospel being allowed by church leadership is of comparable importance. But there are two complicating factors: 1) whether I would say it was as clear cut as the matter of whether or not someone uses a real Bible (such as the Authorized Version) or not, I would like to be able to say it is but I cannot in good confidence bring myself to. I’m not one that is ready to rail against anyone so easily. And 2) a person can be saved even if someone at some point explained them a false gospel. As long as they gave them a real Bible. It’s between them and the Lord. They can still be saved in such a case. As long as they gave them the Holy Bible, and not a dysfunctional placeholder which, like a virus, takes up the place of where the Bible should be and slowly chokes the reader, eventually causing them to pass out and die.
Anonymous (Andrew?)
Are you saying the gospel isn’t? What I can’t and won’t say is that someone can’t be saved with even 93% of the NT, which is the worst case scenario for the modern versions and critical text. Since I’m dealing with the text issue, whatever someone translated accurately from the critical text would still leave 93% of the NT from which to be saved, a percentage more than most people had in their own hands for most of history. If you received just the gospel of John, that would be enough to be saved. I agree that it affects someone’s opportunity, but it doesn’t stop someone from being saved. The critical text has the gospel in it many times.
Part one of this post wasn’t arguing about preservation of scripture being the most important. It was arguing that the distortion of the gospel was more important than bad preaching in a doctrinal triage. More than anything, I wondered why Ward wasn’t concerned most about the gospel, when evangelicals say that is of first importance. Maybe he agrees with the gospel of IFB and Ouellette. Of his myriad of material, I’ve never seen him address it.
Hi, a couple of things here:
” It was arguing that the distortion of the gospel was more important than bad preaching in a doctrinal triage.”
Oh yeah, I agree with you there.
“What I can’t and won’t say is that someone can’t be saved with even 93% of the NT”
The problem is it’s not as simple as that. If I took a book and removed or changed just a few key words on every page, it wouldn’t just be that I had 93% of the book left over. Anyone enacting strategic changes to a book can make a completely different book based on that 7% that is selectively altered. Even if it was 1%, they could do it. If I change one word in a sentence, that can completely change what the rest of the sentence means. If I change one sentence in a book, then every reference back to that has its meaning completely altered. Though that word or sentence which someone may change into something else is only a small percentage of the full sentence or book, the other 93% can be completely, hopelessly corrupted in its meaning. Parallels lose their meaning, contradictions are created. It is basically like someone took a gnostic gospel and stuck it in the place of the Scripture and made people try to figure out the rest of the Bible with that. Now, that may sound a little extreme. We know that the saved person should be able to distinguish this, because Christ said in John 8:47, “He that is of God heareth God’s words”. But I still say, taking away people’s ability to have access to the accurate word of God is a clear cut negative action, and we can see who is doing it.
In summary, this situation is not as simple as not having a few of the books, as you would imagine with someone who, for instance, might only have a copy of the New Testament. No, rather, it is a corrupted version, and evidence indicates that the corruptions were not accidental in nature – which would be bad enough already. Furthermore, on top of this there is another layer of corruptions introduced by the intentionally bad translation practice of various modern scholars, which takes the highly selective, subtle and strategic doctrinal distortion, by selectively translating words inaccurately in key places, even further than what we have already established. I take it as a personal affront that anyone would dare to so brazenly distort the clear and accurate meaning of Scripture, and pass that off as a Bible to the people, and somehow think that all of their cheeky little alterations would go unnoticed or that they would somehow get away with it. And people who don’t do their research on this, but pretend to be some kind of authority when they’re really just following the crowd and don’t even know what an accurate Bible translation is, should step down. I say they should step down because they are doing tremendous damage by spreading falsehoods to the people and passing it as God’s word. They don’t even know the first thing about what they are talking about, or they would have at least done their research first and found an accurate translation. This is the most basic of basic things.
They should be in the classroom or at home studying on this. They need to go back to square one and confess they didn’t even do their own research on this most basic of topics about what the Bible is. They must not have cared about it, to arrive in the position they are in. They just followed the crowd, and thought that if everyone else was using multiple inaccurate versions, so they could too. In the end, they didn’t care about accuracy. They didn’t really care about their people. They only cared about themselves and obtaining some kind of status over people, about having people call them “pastor” or “bishop,” when they couldn’t even do the most basic of background checks on what the Bible itself is. It’s embarrassing and sickening. As you can tell, I feel very strongly about this. But they thought it would fly under the radar because everyone’s doing it, and the supposed “top scholars” are doing it. But it won’t. And in fact it never will.
The amount of sophistry that’s been leveled at those who call them out on this is absolutely unconscionable, but I feel most bad about the everyday people who are deceived by having the word of truth taken away from them in this way. The modern versions operate similar to how a virus attaches to a host cell and prevents it from functioning, by simply taking up the space of what really needs to be there. And the worst part is that these viruses are being engineered for this task. They consistently and systematically, but often almost indetectably, subvert the most important doctrinal issues. Like the Trinity, the deity of Christ, His eternal pre-existence, the eternal security of the believer, and the preservation of Scripture. The modern versions all invariably attack these specific concepts. I have done enough research on these versions to be able to say confidently this is the case. And not only that, but they’re even getting worse, as we see with the 2017 CSB and 2020 NASB compared to older modern versions, which have even more changes. And while their supporters continuously creak that there are no doctrines changed by the critical text, that is completely false. And I have multiple, concrete, ways of proving it. But I guess this isn’t exactly the topic of this article, so I will defer the conversation.
You know, I have been thinking about this conversation some more and I realized I never gave an answer to the idea that the critical text simply removed a small percentage of the New Testament. That’s not all that happened; That is not exactly true. For instance, in Luke 2:33 where the Gospel says, “And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things,” the critical text changes it to “His father and his mother marvelled,” so the critical text in all versions basically inserts a new word that implies that Joseph is Jesus’ father. And we know that this was not an accident because it makes the same change in Luke 2:43. So we know someone intentionally changed this. And if it doesn’t bother you whether or not this is accurate, consider what Christ said in Matthew, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” If we live by this statement, then changes like this and knowing which is doctrinally correct should concern you. We know which is the accurate version in the case of Luke chapter 2, so why are people promoting the idea that it doesn’t really matter? The words of the Bible represent the truth, so they should be of great concern.
But there are so many examples of the critical text adding words, so I don’t see how anyone can ignore this. For instance, in Mark 1:2, the critical text places a falsehood in the mouth of Mark. In Mark 1:2, the full received text says “As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.” But in the modern critical text, the word “prophets” is replaced by “Isaiah,” so it says, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, […]” The problem is the quotation that follows is only found in Malachi chapter 3. While the second part of the quote in Mark 1:3 is indeed from Isaiah, to have the entire two-part quote be attributed to Isaiah is placing a false statement in the Gospel of Mark, because nowhere in Isaiah is ever written the first part of the quote (from Mark 1 verse 2). So effectively the modern version have Mark attributing a quote as being “written” in Isaiah when one will not find it in any passage of the book of Isaiah! The received text however accurately says “in the prophets,” signifying that part of the quote is from Malachi and the second part from Isaiah.
Another example of blatantly added words is in 1 Peter 2:2, where the inspired author wrote “desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby”. In the critical text, the words are added so that it says “that you may grow UP INTO SALVATION.” This is another distortion of the Gospel inserted into Scripture. It makes salvation into a process, something we see again and again in modern version critical text changes. For instance, in Hebrews 1:3 where the Bible says “when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;” the critical text removes the words “by himself” and “our,” so that it just says “when he had purged sins.” (Similar-themed changes exist in 1 Peter 4:1 and 1 John 3:5). There are many false gospels that state that we need to purge our own sins, and follow some kind of works-based salvation of our own based on an example of the Lord’s sacrifice, rather than him purging “our” sins “by himself” as it says in the accurate text of Hebrews. Another change is where in John 9:4, the statement from Jesus “I must work…” is changed to “We must work…” in the critical text. This works to the same effect. Another, translational-level, change is also found in 1 Corinthians 1:18 where the term, “us which are saved,” is retranslated by the modern translators from the present passive, “are saved,” into what is implied to be the CONTINUOUS present passive participle “are BEING saved.” By comparing other passages of Scripture, I can prove the modern translators made this specific change for no reason except to make salvation out to be a process when this is not actually reflected in the original language tense. All of these changes and insertions imply that salvation is a gradual process that one works out for themselves, when the original Greek never mentions that. Mainly due to additions of words to the critical text, or, in the case of 1 Corinthians 1:18 (and Acts 2:47, etc.) a purposefully faulty translation process to further create this illusion.
But you can also have the same destructive effect on a teaching simply by the omission of words, and this has been cleverly done in many, many places. For instance in Matthew 5:22, the words “without a cause” are removed from Jesus’ statement, “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment:” I have seem people quote the shortened version of this verse with the words “without a cause” missing to condemn all anger, including with a cause. The Bible mentions the “wrath of God” in numerous other places. The short, critical text quasi-quotation of Jesus in Matthew 5:22 is completely false because it removes the necessarily qualifier “without a cause” in the middle of the sentence. Similarly, in Mark 10:24 the words “for them that trust in riches” are removed from this statement: “But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!” So basically, the critical text turns this into an emphasis on how hard it is for anyone, no matter what, to enter the kingdom of heaven. This is exactly what works salvation teaches. Haven’t you even noticed this?
So, in conclusion, we should go with what Paul said in Galatians 1:8 – “As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” That’s where these modern bible versions belong, with their additions and deletions. And literally for every example that I gave here, I can list ten more which variously alter doctrines in a systematic way, such as the ones I already mentioned, throughout almost every book of the New Testament.
And if you think that’s bad, I can show how the latest modern versions change even more things from the late 20th century versions, and how those in turn change more than the old 1881 Revised Version and 1901 ASV do. They build on each other to increase the corruption progressively. To give just a few quick examples, the 1881 RV and 1901 ASV did not alter Mark 10:24 as I previously discussed. Only later modern versions remove those words. The 1901 ASV also did not remove the entire verses of Matthew 18:11, Mark 11:26 and a number of others nor did it remove the word “just” from Matthew 27:24. One can see “progressive corruption” in some verse translations – for instance compare Psalm 12:7 in the KJV as compared to, in sequence, the 1971 NASB, the 2001 ESV, and finally the 2017 CSB.
In other words, these modern translations are getting worse, they are removing progressively more, even building on each other as they go. Even the NASB which hadn’t removed some verses before (e.g. Acts 24:6b-8a) started removing them in the 2020 edition. So if you think there might be some references to the Lord being Jesus and Jesus being Lord (such as is removed in 1 Cor 16:22, Luke 23:42 respectively), or clear references to the Trinity in these versions for example, those may well be removed in future modern versions. Pretty soon, they may all be removed, as the clearest references already are. And the doctrines are clearly under attack as more people are openly and quietly questioning it and wondering where it is in the Bible when the simple problem is they are reading corrupted versions, versions that are engineered to those specific doctrines systematically removed, and they don’t or are willfully (heaping to themselves teachers/my people would have it so) not even realizing it.
Anonymous,
7% is a lot, but if you’ve read a critical text based New Testament, you know that there is enough salvation passage in there for someone to be saved. This isn’t an argument for the critical text. It’s an argument against a bad argument, that hurts the best arguments against the critical text, ones based on scriptural presuppositions. Critical text proponents gladly point to the “can’t get saved with the critical text” argument as characteristic of KJVO. Those who normally make that, point to 1 Peter 1, born again not of corruptible seed. The problem with the argument is that 93% isn’t corrupt. There is a lot of salvation text in that 93%. The 93% is identical to the TR. When someone is saved through hearing that 93%, he doesn’t have to get actually saved, because the 93% did not have the power of God unto salvation.
Hi Kent,
These are all good points, but as you will recall I said, “in most or all cases will not be able to be saved.” I did not say “in all cases,” so your response is not properly an argument against anything I have put forward.
I did leave the possibility open that there might be exceptions. But I also left the possibility open that there are not any. This is out of an abundance of caution more than anything else, because I don’t want to limit God in any way. Attention to details is important, so maybe you already noticed this. In that case you are just being careful, and if so, I commend this.
Also, and this is unrelated to what I just said above, but what some proponent of a false gospel says about me and the truth I present is not of concern to me. I don’t let that affect me, because it would be a negative effect. So it wouldn’t matter if every person on earth were a proponent of the critical text and I was the last one alive that had my view. If people want to pretend to take offense at something I said, it is totally outside of my control and I won’t let that control me. I’m not a conciliationist. I certainly do what I can not to offend people within reason, but I know someone is always going to act offended at the truth, or act like me or my church is doing something unpopular, uncool, easy to misrepresent, or unpersuasive (and therefore supposedly wrong) in order to dissuade us, and we can’t let that stop us. I don’t resort to cheap tricks to get people to agree with me. I state the truth whether people agree or not, it’s completely on them what they do with that information. I don’t care if they claim not to find it convincing; it’s the truth and it’s pretty dog gone convincing to me. So I do not really care what proponents of some false gospel “gladly point to,” and if they don’t agree with the truth on this point then what they do or say has zero weight in my mind.
Forgot the Biblical quote I was going to include: “it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.” – 1 Corinthians 4:3
Thanks Pastor Brandenburg.
It’s interesting that you mention “IFB” churches. Now I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody put a “Fundamentalist” on their church name, so I assume this is just a characterization of a group of churches.
However, I’m not sure that bad preaching is a characteristic sign of fundamentalism, anymore than other groups of churches. Having been only in the US for a few short years, I’m not sure I understand the landscape perfectly, so if you can elaborate…
As I understand it, you are also a Baptist church, and independent, right?
Hi Tenrin,
Yes, I’m independent Baptist. Being in chapel for 11 straight years at an IFB school, most of the sermons were not good. Then I’ve sat in preaching at preaching conferences and I’m generally pleased if over 50 percent is good preaching. Normally that IFB label has been applied to revivalist churches. There is a lot of preaching like Ward heard. I said that I and B didn’t make it bad. I explained how I think fundamentalism affects it. They don’t separate over preaching. It isn’t a fundamental. When I say separate, I mean, stop allowing men who preach like that to preach in their churches. They like that preaching though. It’s entertaining. They would say it’s powerful, because it results in lots of folks coming forward at an invitation. I’m just reporting, Tenrin. It’s what I’ve heard.
Thanks for the response. I agree. Bad preaching, even if the points are mostly correct, but if it comes from twisting of context or erroneous hermeneutics, has long term consequences.
Thanks for the posts on Ward and Scrivener.
Something Ward does not mention is that Scrivener was a TR man, just not a perfect TR man. He regularly voted against the changes that the Revised Version took, as I recall, but was outvoted over and over. The position in Scrivener’s book on textual criticism was not made very plain by Ward, I believe.
Anonymous,
I wouldn’t assume that Mark Ward preaches a false gospel. I don’t know what his position is. However, his commendation of IFB evangelism, including these revivalist churches, at least confuses it. Someone would think he supports what they teach on preach on the gospel. His problem is with their preaching and unintelligibility of their English Bible version. My point on the second aspect of part one in this two part series is with ones such as Ward and James White that skirt the gospel to get to the version issue.
Everyone Else,
We’ve been making scriptural arguments on this issue for a long time. I would like to read the book that offers a detailed bibliology of a critical text proponent. For instance, show how the Bible teaches preservation in a preponderance of the manuscripts. Show why from the Bible inerrancy needed to be created in the mid to late 19th century as a word to apply to the Bible, how we missed that in our scriptural presuppositions. How does inspiration apply to what we possess, not just the original manuscripts. This is not the historical position. Much more could be said here, but I’ve said for awhile that the bibliology is very thin and even different where it was quite substantive at one time. Why did this change?