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Should True Churches Ascribe Perfection to the Apographa of Scripture? pt. 2
Confidence, Absolutism, or Skepticism?
A recent panel of friends decided on three categories of faith in the text of scripture: confidence, absolutism, and skepticism. They chose “confidence” and determined the other two to be false. Further explained, our present text of the Bible has what they consider minimal errors, which yields overall maximum confidence.
Absolutism posits zero errors, relying on a presupposition from a biblical and historical doctrine of preservation. The panel said no one can be, nor should be, absolute or certain with the text of scripture. The Bible may say that the text is certain, but the facts or the science say otherwise. Scripture may say that God preserved every Word, but since He didn’t preserve all of them, those passages must mean something else.
Those just confident in the text, but not certain, foresee a sad future for absolutists. In their experience, they witnessed other absolutists go right off the cliff after the awareness of errors in the text of scripture. They love those people. They are trying to save them. The key is to manage expectations. By encouraging the expectation of only minor errors, but overall stability (what is often called “tenacity”) of the text, they will prevent a doomsday mass exodus of future absolutists. This reads as a kind of theological pragmatism, using human means to manipulate a better outcome. Remaining fruit requires human adaptation.
Skepticism, like absolutism, the panel of friends said also was bad. There is no reason to be skeptical about a Bible with minor errors. Not only do we not know what all the errors are, but we do not know how high a percentage there is. The confidence collective says, “Don’t be skeptical and don’t worry either, it won’t affect the gospel; you can still go to heaven with what’s leftover from original inspiration.”
Faith in Preservation of Scripture Not Arbitrary
The words of God are not arbitrary in their meaning. If scripture teaches that God preserved every one of His words for every generation of believers, then He did. You must believe God. You do not say you believe Him and then put your head in the sand. Let me further explain.
If someone asks, “So what were the words that God preserved?” you give an answer. If you will not (and I mean “will not”) give an answer, then you do not believe what He said He would do. Denying is the opposite of believing. You also don’t answer with something like the following: “I know God preserved every word, but I don’t know which words they are. I just hope that at some time in the future — ten, a hundred, a thousands years from now — I can say I do know what they are.
Furthermore, if you say that you believe what God said about His preservation of His inspired words in the language in which He inspired them, your position must manifest that belief. Standing, as Mark Ward did in his latest video production, and saying, “I do not have a perfect copy of the Greek New Testament” [I typed that verbatim from his latest production (at 48 second mark)], does not arise from faith in what scripture teaches on its own preservation. For the believer, the teaching of scripture forms the standard for his expectation of what God will do. This is his presupposition.
No Percentage of Preservation Less Than 100 Percent
Scripture does not teach the moderate preservation of scripture. It does not teach a high percentage of preservation. The Bible does not reveal nor has historic Christianity believed that God preserved “His Word,” an ambiguous reference to the preservation of something like the message of God’s Word.
When you start reading the New Testament, it refers to Old Testament predictions of Jesus. Based on those presuppositions, you receive Jesus. The Old Testament presents the correct ancestry. Jesus fulfills it. It prophesies a virgin birth. He again fulfills it. And so on. Then in the real world, you receive Jesus Christ. This is a model for faith. This is how Simeon and Anna functioned in Luke 2.
If you read Daniel 11 and the predictions there of future occurrences, as a believer you would believe them and then start looking for their occurrence in the real world. Faith follows a trajectory that starts with scripture. Scripture does not say how many books the Bible would have. Various truths in scripture guide the saints to the sixty-six canonical ones.
The Scriptural Expectations of Churches
The church, so the historical belief of true churches, expected a standard sacred text, a perfect one, based on scriptural principles, despite the existence of textual variants. Then they received that text. They believed those principles, the doctrine which proceeded from scripture, during an era of slightly differing printed TR editions. They still believed in one settled text.
In Mark Ward’s orbit, the bases for rejecting a perfect text are the variations either between manuscripts or early printed editions. That is enough for him and others to say that we do not have a perfect copy of the Greek New Testament. They mock those who believe in a single perfect Bible. They only accept multiple differing Greek New Testaments and multiple differing versions. Scripture doesn’t teach this.
As I wrote earlier, the doctrine of preservation is not arbitrary. An actual single Bible in the real world comes with it. When you don’t believe the latter, you don’t believe the former. Not believing the latter is akin to saying you know (so believe in) God and then not as a practice or lifestyle keep His commandments (cf. 1 John 2:3-4). John says this person is a liar.
Mark Ward can mock the fact that I and others believe the perfect text is the one behind the King James Version, but that belief proceeds from all the various truths in scripture about preservation (which we explicate in Thou Shalt Keep Them). We start with scripture. Ward starts, like a modernist, with sensory experience or what one might call empirical evidence. This approach to knowledge brings constant revision. It is why James White will not rule out future changes in the text based on potential new manuscript discoveries.
A New Line of Attack on Scriptural Doctrine of Preservation
A new line of attack from Ward is pitting the King James against an early Dutch translation of the textus receptus. He imagines a Dutch believer offended when an English one calls his Statenvertaling (translated in 1635) “corrupt.” The translators of that Dutch version attempted to produce a translation for the Dutch like the King James Version. English believers applaud that. They haven’t and they wouldn’t call it corrupt.
Ward is correct in pointing out that the two translations come from a slightly different TR edition of the New Testament. That means they cannot both be right. Both could not represent perfect preservation. One is slightly wrong. Ward puts “corrupt” in the mouths or minds of King James Version advocates against the Statevertaling. They wouldn’t call it corrupt anymore than they would any TR edition.
I don’t know of any angry Statevertaling supporters, standing on its differences from the King James Version. No Dutch reaction to the English exists, such as that when Peter Stuyvesant stomped his wooden leg upon New Netherland becoming New York in 1664. Instead, the Dutch followed a Christian belief in the received text and its faith in divine preservation.
Abraham and Bonaventure Elzivir were Dutch. Their printings of the textus receptus (1624, 1633, and 1641) were essentially a reprint of Beza 1565. Their printings were elegant works, a grand possession for a Bible student. They wrote in Latin in their preface: “Therefore you have the text now received by all in which we give nothing altered or corrupt.” That sounds like textual absolutism to me.
Hints at English Supremacy?
Ward suggests a charge of English supremacy in a sort of vein of white supremacy or English Israelism. Advocates of capitalism do not proceed from Scottish supremacy. Majority text supporters do not arise from Eastern Roman supremacy or Byzantine supremacy. Beza and Stephanus were French. Are TR onlyists French supremacists? I don’t follow a French text of scripture. Or maybe better, Huguenot supremacy. This is another red herring by Ward. It’s sad to think this will work with his audience.
I do not see the trajectory of true churches passing through the Netherlands and the Dutch Reformed. I don’t trace it through the Massachusetts Bay Colony either. Each has a heritage with important qualities. Ward tries to use this argument to justify errors in the Greek New Testament, the mantra being, “various editions differ with errors found everywhere.” This is not what the Christians of that very time believed. They did not believe like Ward and his textual confidence collective. These 17th century believers were absolutists.
False Equivalents and Historical Revisionism
Ward calls the differences between the Dutch Bible and the King James Version with their varied TR editions, “text critical choices.” He uses another informal logical fallacy called a “false equivalent.” He takes modern critical text theory and projects it back on the textual basis of the Statevertaling. The translation proceeded from the Synod of Dort as a Dutch imitation of the King James Version. The point wasn’t changing anything.
Labeling the differences in TR editions “text critical choices” is also historical revisionism. Ward revises history to justify modern practice. Modern historians deconstruct the past to challenge the status quo. History does not provide the desired outcome. They change the history and construct new meaning in the present.
I see modern textual critics undermine a true historical account by exaggerating certain historical details or components. Two examples are the so-called backtranslation of Erasmus in Revelation and then a conjectural emendation of Beza. Advocates of modern textual criticism latch on to these stories and construct them into a revision of the historical account.
While men like Ward and others use false equivalents and historical revisionism, it does not change what the Bible, perfectly preserved for believers, says about its own preservation. Everyone will give an account for their faithfulness to what God said. He will make manifest the damage teachers do by creating or causing doubt or uncertainty concerning the text of His Word.
Go-To Page for the James White / Thomas Ross Bible Text and Version Debate
Thank you to all readers who are praying and/or fasting for me and for God’s kingdom and truth to be glorified and advanced in my upcoming debate with James White.
I have created a go-to page with information about the debate. Links to the video should be posted there when it becomes available, as well as being accessible on the KJB1611 YouTube and KJBIBLE1611 Rumble channels. The go-to page should be updated with specific debate times in case you wish to attend in person, as well as the debate livestream link which we are hoping to make available. So:
Click here to visit the go-to page for the James White / Thomas Ross Bible Text and Version Debate
–TDR
Keswick Theology: A Day in Keswick, Cumbria, the UK
Derwentwater, named after Lord Derwentwater, who was executed for treason, is a large lake in the English county of Cumbria, part of the Lake District National Park. On the northernmost tip of that lake is the small town of Keswick, a market town which name traces to the 13th century. In the 19th century it became popular for tourism and especially with the building of a trainline there from nearby Penrith.
Church of England in Keswick
In the late 1820s, William Wordsworth, the poet, encouraged John Marshall II, whose father and he earned a fortune in Leeds in the textile industry, to build a house near Keswick. Because Marshall saw a need, first he planned with the architect Anthony Salvin to erect a building for a Church of England parish there, named St. John’s the Evangelist, in the old English style. Frederic Myers, not to be confused with Frederick Meyer (early Keswick theology proponent), became the first vicar there in 1838, then in 1840 after the death of his first wife, married Susan, a daughter of John Marshall.
Shortly before Myers’s death, T. D. Hartford Battersby (biography with preface by H. C. G. Moule) came to join him, having read his theology (1841), which had persuaded him toward evangelicalism. Battersby, while attending and then graduating from Oxford, hungered for greater spirituality amidst confusion of the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement. In 1851 Battersby became second vicar of St. Johns and stayed there until 1883.
Something of great historical and theological significance occurred in Keswick on June 28, 1875 in a tent on the lawn of St. John’s. Under the leadership of Battersby, a prayer meeting began a convention there for a week, which spawned the Higher Life Movement in the United Kingdom, also called the Keswick Movement and the related Keswick Theology.
Trip to Keswick
The beautiful little town of Keswick makes a wonderful day trip of an hour and fifteen minutes by bus from Carlisle. In an entire day and early evening of pouring rain, my wife and I travelled with our umbrellas there Tuesday to look. We walked around the quaint town, first entering a shop of Lucy Pittaway, of whom I had never heard, but found she was three years running the most popular artist in the country. While my wife shopped, I began talking to the two ladies. Something like the following occurred:
Have you heard of the Keswick Movement?
They both nodded, no.
It started here. The Keswick Movement influenced now over 500 million people all over the world. It began here in the 19th century in this town. Do you know what it is?
They both nodded, no. One of them asked, “What is it?”
It is theological, I explained. It relates to the Bible. Do you know the Bible?
They both nodded, no.
Have you heard of the Old and New Testaments?
They both nodded, yes.
The New Testament starts with the first four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Have you heard of those?
They both nodded, yes.
The gospels tell the story of Jesus. Part of what bothers people about the Bible is that Jesus did miracles. He is God. He healed everybody in Judea and Galilee. People want to know, if the Bible is true, why doesn’t that happen today? It’s not a bad question.
I explained the Keswick movement, second blessing theology, and moved into the gospel in a nutshell. They listened in complete rapt attention to everything I said there in that art shop.
Keswick Information Center
My wife and I walked down that cobble stone historical small downtown area and she went into a “bunny store.” Beatrix Potter was born in the lake district, so her books are all over there. We saw a whole section of Beatrix Potter products in the grocery store next to the bus stop. While she looked there, I went into a very old chapel in the middle of town that houses their Keswick information center. Tourists in Keswick today (and probably for centuries) mainly want to hike around the lake, which few to no one was doing in the pouring rain and ‘gale-force’ winds.
When I walked into the information center, it was one woman behind a desk. We greeted one other, she wondered why we were there. I asked if she heard of the Keswick movement. The conversation above happened again. She listened too with riveted attention. She was not religious, but she was so excited that she left from behind the desk to get a co-worker. I began explaining the same thing to him. This was seeming easy. Each time I brought in the gospel.
Walk to St. John’s
I went out in time for my wife to leave the bunny store and we kept walking up that main street. It went up a hill. The lake district is full of steep hills. Water runs down them and forms lakes. If you hike those hills, you get amazing views when it isn’t pouring down rain. My wife and I found St. John’s. I told her this is where the Keswick movement started. Even though the town heard and knew nothing about Keswick theology, I wanted to see if I found evidence for it in that old building.
Bridget and I opened a very old gate and took a path up some steps around the front of the edifice. Three men walked very quickly in front of us into the building in heavy rain gear. We took some pictures on the outside. We entered and walked around, while those three talked.
Two of the three men were trying to sell internet services to St. John’s. The other man was the present vicar, Charles, only the 13th since 1833. I had a long talk with him about Keswick theology, the Church of England, and the gospel, until an elderly man entered with whom he needed to meet. The Keswick Convention continues today, but doesn’t believe Keswick theology that still continues in various forms it introduced and propagated.
The theology from the first few decades of the Keswick Convention generated the Charismatic movement and a wide range of corruption in evangelicalism and through ecumenism. This includes many varieties of higher life and second blessing theology infiltrating fundamentalism and Baptists, including independent ones in the United States. The town itself and many surrounding communities today is mainly irreligious, non-religious, atheist, and in great need of the gospel.
Battersby
What engendered the spiritual hunger of Battersby in 1875? Why did he need more spiritually than what he already had?
Before conversion, everyone falls short of the glory of God. After justification by faith, no one does. Even of the church at Corinth, Paul wrote, “Ye come behind in no gift” (1 Corinthians 1:7). True believers have every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3). Among saved people, there are not spiritual haves and spiritual have nots, only spiritual haves.
Believers do not need more Holy Spirit. The fulness of the Holy Spirit is not more Holy Spirit. Those who believe in Jesus Christ receive all the Holy Spirit. In fulness, the Holy Spirit has all of you, not your having more of Him.
The Church of England says that faith and repentance are necessary for the reception of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, which are generally necessary to salvation. It says infant sprinkling people regenerates and makes members of Christ and children of God. Someone depending on more than Christ for salvation will not receive the Holy Spirit, so he will always hunger for spirituality. Anglicans like Battersby, sprinkled as infants, even if later confirmed, are not saved. Conversion comes by faith alone through grace alone.
Paul wrote that we are complete in Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:10). Baptism and the eucharist add works to grace, thereby Christ is made of no effect unto them (Galatians 5:4). The Church of England says that the bread and the drink of the eucharist preserve a soul unto everlasting life.
Everyone who trusts in more than Jesus Christ will hunger for spirituality that is a basis for seeking for a second blessing. It is not a second blessing they need, but a first. It isn’t higher life, but life itself. More spiritual experiences, especially invented, conjured, or manipulated ones, will not and cannot replace true salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Should True Churches Ascribe Perfection to the Apographa of Scripture?
Mark Ward and Ruckmanism
A friend of mine alerted me to a reference of me in a Mark Ward production. It came under a click-bait title: “10 Ways to Avoid Ruckmanism.” I would contend I’m further away from Ruckmanism than Mark Ward himself, and I’ll explain that.
In his first few sentences of a youtube video, Ward asserted Ruckmanism as a fringe of a group that would include me. What does this accomplish really, attempting to smear anti-Ruckman people with a label of Ruckmanism? To start, I reject that assertion. I repeat. I reject the assertion of Mark Ward that Ruckmanism is a fringe of a group that includes me and others like me.
Ward asserts Ruckmanism to be a friinge of King James Onlyism, which associates Ruckman with the men who hold a standard sacred text or confessional bibliology. I renounce Ward’s grouping. Ruckman fits with a group that denies the original language preservation of scripture. He is with their group. Perhaps on their fringe.
Ruckman and now his followers take a rather exotic variety of rejection of the preservation of the original language scripture that God inspired. Since God by His singular care and providence did not keep pure through all ages the scripture He inspired, He started over and reinspired new words in English.
Ruckman believed and taught that God breathed out an English translation long after the inspiration of the Old and New Testament books, something labeled “double inspiration.” Ruckman denied God kept what He inspired, which was Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words. That cannot be a fringe of those who believe that God did keep what He inspired. That is a total disconnect from what I and others like me believe. I refuse the association with Ruckman that Ward makes to smear those with a biblical and historical position.
Deny God Kept Pure What He Inspired in Original Languages of Scripture
Who does not believe that God kept pure what He inspired? Modern textual critics. Multiple versionists. Peter Ruckman. Ruckmanites. Bart Ehrman. Daniel Wallace. The group with whom Ward associates.
I would include Ward with the names in the last paragraph. He should be in the list. Ward, however, I anticipate would say that He believes that God did preserve every Word of God in the mulitiplicity of the manuscripts (hand written copies). It is a nebulous position, because it never settles on what the words are that God preserved. In a face to face debate, I think it would take less than a minute to find that Ward does not believe that God preserved all His inspired words in the multiplicity of the manuscripts.
I have argued with enough Ruckmanites to know that they are not a fringe of what I and others like me believe. They reject what we believe because they do not believe in the perfect preservation of the original Hebrew and Greek text. God preserved His Words through the churches in copies. He inspired the original autographs (autographa) and then preserved them in the apographa. Ruckmanites disavow that.
Straw Man or Red Herring Logical Fallacy
In the same production, Ward begins talking about me at the 25:51 mark, which continues until 31:14. To equivocate our position with Ruckmanism, Ward uses an informal logical fallacy best known as either a “red herring” or a “straw man” argument. He labels the point of this section: “Don’t ascribe perfection to the King James translators’ text.”
At the end of the section Ward says that the vile Peter Ruckman ascribes perfection to the King James translation. Ward swaps “perfection of text” for “perfection of translation.” Ruckman does not ascribe perfection to the original language text of scripture. Maybe Ward thinks his uncritical audience will not see or know the difference. I assume Ward knows what he’s doing.
Are they really Ruckmanites who believe the following?
The Old Testament in Hebrew (which was the native language of the people of God of old), and the New Testament in Greek (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known to the nations), being immediately inspired by God, and by His singular care and providence kept pure in all ages, are therefore authentic.
What’s Wrong with Ward’s Assessment of Thou Shalt Keep Them?
A translation is a work of men, but the preservation of scripture is the work of God. What’s wrong with what Ward says in the section on perfection of the text? Not necessarily in this order, but. . . .
- He compares the differences between editions of the textus receptus (TR) with the same significance as the differences between the TR and the modern critical text.
This kind of comparison is deceitful. The Wescott and Hort Greek New Testament (WH) is very close or about the same as the critical Greek New Testament of the Nestles-Aland 28th edition (NA), the most recent update of the critical text. They are 99.5% the same. There are 5,604 differences between the WH and Scrivener’s edition of the TR, which amount to 9,970 words. There are 190 differences between the Scrivener’s and the 1598 TR edition of Beza. The quality of those differences is also vastly different.
- He says that no one answers why the original language text behind the King James Version is a standard sacred text instead of other language translations of the TR.
Perfection of Text Behind KJV
Ward says that he looks and he looks and cannot find anyone who explains why the text behind the King James Version gets treated with perfection and the Dutch and Portuguese do not. When I hear Ward say this, I think he must be joking. In the quotation he himself uses from our book, Thou Shalt Keep Them, we explained:
Although the words of the printed editions do vary, albeit seldom, there is a comprehensive testimony to the agreement among the churches over the canonicity of the Words as there was canonicity of the books. At this time the English speaking churches became a large majority of the New Testament churches, and they agreed on the King James Version and the text behind it. The obedient churches speaking the next most prominent languages also agreed on the Textus Receptus as the New Testament.
This paragraph, which Ward himself quoted, and the context of the chapter give the answer to Ward. Many other biblical principles apply, which our book covers. One was the reception of true churches. Churches received the Words of God. The Lord’s sheep hear His voice. They have the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. Scripture promises that God would lead His saints into all truth, and that the Word, all of His words, are truth (Jn 16:13, 17:8, 17). Preservation of words also meant accessibility, “kept pure in all ages.” The Westminster divines did not view the original manuscripts distinct from the copies in their possession.
The Received Text
If churches expect a perfect text based on scriptural presuppositions, then they also receive that text. Scripture also teaches a settled text (Rev 22:18-19). Churches did not keep printing new editions of the TR in the 17th, 18th, and most of the 19th centuries. They were settled on the text.
Other language believers other than English ones translated the TR into their language. When we read the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession, we are not reading Dutch or Portuegese confessions. Christians today almost exclusively refer to English confessions. Those confessions reveal presuppositions for which we receive a perfect text of scripture. I suggest that believers of all languages who translated from the TR would not quibble with a belief in a settled, perfect text. Their reception of the TR came out of the same belief about divine preservation of scripture.
- He treats the editions of the TR and the unique edition of the TR behind the KJV as a product of modernistic textual criticism.
Distinct Methodology
The principles that distinguish the critical text from the TR differ from the principles that distinguish TR editions from each other. Mark Ward knows this. In an essay or video production, he treats their distinct methodologies as the same. He knows they are different. Copyists made errors in copying. That did not prevent perfect, divine preservation of scripture. An error made in one copy was corrected by another copy.
Eclectic or critical text or modern version proponents don’t start with scriptural presuppositions, which is the basis of the difference in methodology for their text versus the TR. The TR reveals its methodology in its name. Received Text. TR proponents are not attempting to restore a text as critical text advocates, never coming to the knowledge of a true text. TR supporters receive what God preserved. That is also the language they use to describe their method. They started with scriptural presuppositions and applied theological tests to their work.
Logic of Faith
My friend, Dave Mallinak, wrote the following to me in recent days:
I believe that the words God gave – the “breathed-out words” He inspired – are perfectly preserved, despite the difficulties in demonstrating perfection (due to variants). I approach preservation the same way I approach inerrancy. I can’t clear up every difficulty. I don’t believe I need to in order to hold to the inerrancy of Scripture, and I don’t believe I need to in order to hold to an every word preservation.
Perfection is a presupposition. The TR editions are homogenous unlike Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, old manuscripts the main basis of the critical text. Hoskier famously counted 3,036 variations between those two manuscripts in the gospels alone.
Believers do not ignore variations. However, these difficulties do not cancel the doctrine of preservation, just like difficulties do not eliminate inerrancy. Ward does not refer to this element of faith. Hills called it the “logic of faith.”
- He looks at inspiration as divine and preservation as human.
God used men to write scripture and He used men to preserve it. Believers’ ascription of perfection to preservation of a text of scripture arises from their belief in biblical teaching on preservation. In inspiration, “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:21). Men spake. Men wrote. God used men for inspiration and preservation. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:2 that to the Jews “were committed the oracles of God.” Canonicity, a biblical doctrine, relates to God’s people agreeing by means of the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit what the books and the words were.
More to Come
Christians CAN learn Greek and Hebrew-they are not too hard! Part 5 of 7
The first four blog posts summarizing the argument in Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages explained the value of learning the Biblical languages. Clearly, knowing the languages is valuable. However, are they learnable? Aren’t Greek and Hebrew too hard to learn?
Actually, Greek and Hebrew are emphatically NOT too hard to learn. They are not too hard because of the following reasons, summarized from pages 40-51 of Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical Languages:
1.) Christians have their Almighty Father to help them learn the languages.
2.) The self-discipline involved in learning the languages can contribute to their sanctification.
3.) Scripture is not God hiding Himself. The Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are God’s “revelation,” not God’s obscuring Himself.
4.) For century after century, Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek were the languages of the common man, not of the elite few.
5.) A very high percentage of Koine Greek speakers picked it up as a second language, while having a different native tongue. So can modern English speakers today.
6.) The Hebrew Old Testament was comprehensible to the simple rural folk that comprised the large majority of Israel.
7.) The Greek New Testament was comprehensible to the slaves and lower class people who constituted the large majority in the first century churches.
8.) It is harder to master modern English than it is to learn to read the Greek New Testament or Hebrew Old Testament.
9.) English speakers assume English is an easy language while Greek and Hebrew are allegedly difficult, but their assumption is invalid–because we have already mastered English, we do not think much about what was involved in learning the language. Someone starting from scratch would more easily learn to read Greek or Hebrew than he would learn to master modern English.
10.) The vocabulary of the average four-year-old child is larger than the number of words one must learn to gain a solid grasp of the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew Old Testament.
11.) The inspiring examples of those who learned the languages as children, or without grammar books, or despite extremely pressing work commitments, or in the face of other hardships, show that learning the Biblical languages is eminently attainable.
12.) Numbers of countries world-wide are officially trilingual, while fifty-five nations are officially bilingual. There is no reason why people in these countries can master two or three languages in order to make money and efficiently function, but Christians cannot learn Greek and Hebrew in order to better know God and His Word.
The facts above are important, both to encourage people who are contemplating learning the languages and to refute Ruckmanite notions that Greek and Hebrew are impossibly difficult, so one must simply stick to English, not even use Greek or Hebrew lexica, and ignore the treasures God has laid up for His people in the Hebrew and Greek tongues.
–TDR
The Gospel Is the Power of God Unto Salvation, pt. 7
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six
Not long ago in evangelicalism, the terminology “lifestyle evangelism” arose. Early in this series, I wrote that the lifestyle is part of the message, but cannot replace the gospel itself. “The gospel is the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16).
In my encounter with lifestyle evangelism, I found it to mean living a life a Christian should live around an unbeliever. From the unbeliever’s experience with that life, he wants to know what caused it, and asks. Then a Christian can explain in a non-pressure kind of way. I believe the words “lifestyle evangelism” originated in the 1976 book by C. Bill Hogue, titled: Love Leaves No Choice: Lifestyle Evangelism. Many characterize this lifestyle as “nice.” Be nice to people. They want you to be nice to them. Then when they ask what’s different, you connect it to the gospel.
Instead of “Lifestyle Evangelism”
In a technical sense, I do not see lifestyle evangelism in the Bible. The life surely should accompany the gospel. It should not contradict the gospel. Salvation comes through the gospel, which means preaching it. That is what I see in the Bible. Many do not think you are “nice” when you preach the gospel to them.
You want to preach the gospel, because it is the power of God unto salvation. Salvation will not occur without the gospel and it comes through preaching. That does not mean that you keep preaching the gospel to those who refuse to hear it.
Based on Romans 1:16, getting the gospel out to people is getting the power of God unto salvation out to people. What the lost need for their salvation stays away from them, sometimes with the reasoning of lifestyle evangelism. They think they do not want the gospel. Usually they cannot know what they need and that they need the gospel, because they do not have the gospel. The gospel gives the power that begins working toward a desire for salvation.
The Effect of the Knowledge of Romans 1:16
When I get up in the morning, I begin thinking about preaching the gospel. Do I mean going door-to-door? I could mean that. I could ring a doorbell, wait for someone to open the door, and start to try to preach the gospel to someone. What if I do not go door-to-door, does that remove the possibility of preaching it?
I think it is easier to get into the preaching of the gospel by going door-to-door. It ensures I will do that. However, in very cold weather areas or during very cold weather times, not everyone will open the door to listen to you preach. I am not attempting to discourage you from preaching in the Winter in cold weather areas. What if people do not open the door because it is so cold or during a certain time of the year, you will not ring door bells or knock on the door because of the cold?
You have to look for and pray for opportunities to preach the gospel. I call this being aggressive. If I do not go door to door and I want to preach it to someone else, I cannot stay in my house. I have to leave the house to see that happen. I still must go to where people are, and then I give attention to possible opportunities. If it is even possible, I must take that opportunity.
Taking the Opportunity with the Gospel
My wife and I right now are living in a small studio apartment. We have no car, so we walk for what we need. We have a very small refrigerator, so we have to go there more often. As I get old (yes, I’m getting old), I have to stop more often. Sit. Rest. That might mean getting a hot beverage somewhere.
It has been very rainy, cloudy, and dark where my wife and I are. It was sunny yesterday for the first time in I don’t know how long. We both got a coffee and we sat outside of the coffee place in the Winter across from a man, who sat outside. I began talking to him and that turned into a gospel conversation with an explanation of the gospel. Opportunities are there for the one looking for them and taking them. I grabbed it, like reaching for something that I want and taking it off the shelf. I just did it.
When I preached the gospel, it was not forced. It is normal for me to bring the gospel into a conversation. I wasn’t going through the motions, like someone who must just get this done. No, I want to give the gospel, that is, to take opportunities. I do, because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16). I assumed that man across from me was lost and nothing was more important to him than salvation, and so, the gospel.
Know How To Start the Gospel
If you are going to preach the gospel to people, you will need to know how to start. At first, you need to plan that. You prepare for it. You think about that first sentence you will say and the direction you will take. The goal is to get from starting a conversation to preaching the gospel. All of this relates to the gospel being the power of God unto salvation.
Before you ever get to how you start a conversation that leads to the gospel, you must think about how you will encounter people. You will not preach to anyone if you do not see anyone. You have to leave the house to do that. Before you plan on how you begin a gospel conversation, you plan on where you will go to see people.
You may see people all the time. People have many different realms in which they meet people. How do they bring Jesus into those contacts? Very often it starts with the trouble for everyone without the gospel. People know they’re in trouble, which is how Paul begins the gospel in the book of Romans.
The gospel conversation could start earlier than the trouble of the lost person. It could begin with the true nature of mankind. He is not an accident. God made him for a purpose.
I like to say to someone, “When Darwin looked at a cell, he saw a blob.” Today when we look at a cell, we see irreducible complexity. Even on a cellular level, life did not arise from an accident.
More to Come
The Significance of Mediation in Reconciliation and Relationship, pt. 5
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four
Evangelism itself is a form of mediation, what the Apostle Paul calls “the ministry of reconciliation.” An evangelist mediates between God and a lost soul toward salvation. The sin of a soul offends God, one estranged from Him, and the evangelist mediates with the gospel. When I write that, I do not mean that an evangelist is a mediator, like 1 Timothy 2:5 says that Jesus is. No man comes to the Father except by Jesus Christ (John 14:6).
Ambassadorship Mediation
2 Corinthians 5:18 gives the sense of mediation in evangelism, when it says God “reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.” Then it follows, “and hath given unto us the ministry of reconciliation.” Jesus Christ reconciles to God as the Mediator. Still, however, God also gives believers the ministry of reconciliation. In the next verse, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,” but he has “committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” The mediation believers do is by “word.” We talk to people.
Verse 20 says that we are “ambassadors for Christ,” so this is like diplomacy. Ambassadors represent one nation to another nation. “We are ambassadors” is the Greek presbeuo, used only here and in Ephesians 6:20. Presbeuo is “to be a representative for someone” (BDAG). The way we participate in this mediation is through word, and the message of words that we speak as ambassadors Paul writes in verse 21:
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
That one sentence encapsulates the gospel. It’s something believers can speak as diplomats for God with total authority from Him. The goal is to bring someone in the kingdom of this world or the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God.
God then wants unity between those in His kingdom. The New Testament shows that to be in a true church. It also reveals that churches should want unity with each other too. These realities I wrote about earlier in this series.
Mediating Harry and William as an Example
The Situation
True reconciliation necessitates God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each of the members of the Trinity. No true peace will come without the Lord. He provides the basis of peace, first getting right with God through Jesus Christ. Harry and William won’t have that without humble submission to God’s Word.
Much of the world knows about the rift now between the two brothers, sons of King Charles of England, William, the heir to throne, and Harry. Harry came out this weekend in anticipation of his published autobiography and said he wants his father and brother back. Is this to say, he wants reconciliation and mediation?
In accordance with true reconciliation, Harry cannot have it on his terms alone. He announced to the world that the relationship between him and his dad and brother did not have to be this way. On the other hand, Charles and William view the relationship a different way. If they were talking, I think they might say the same: “It didn’t have to be this way.” What would it take to restore a relationship, so it is no longer ‘this way’?
Mediating The Conflict
I use Harry and William as an example because they are a prominent conflicting relationship with an obvious barrier between them. Anyone can see both what the discord or dispute between them is and how reconciliation and mediation could occur.
Harry might not take take reconciliation or mediation. He receives his greatest income by telling family secrets. In mediation, if that could occur, I would confront both sides about keeping internal family disputes secret. They settle them in private only. If Harry chooses to leave his royal duties, he must give up his titles. Any money he makes must exclude public ties to the monarchy.
I would take Charles, William, and Harry through their grievances. Each would confess what I knew, what is proven, to be true. Both must repent, and then forgive. Each party must keep all listed ground rules for the future. As a result, both sides have their brother, their sons, and their father again.
Realities of Mediation
When I write about mediation, I am not writing about compromise, the wrong idea that two sides get together and come to some middle ground. It may seem like that, because the mediator listens to both sides. They both may have different versions of the same event. Both parties also might have their own set of grievances against the other party. When the mediator listens to one side and agrees with that side, the other side might view that as compromise, when it isn’t.
Sometimes what one side sees as a violation the mediator says is Christian liberty. He may identify it as a doubtful disputation. One side may think something is what it thinks it is, but a mediator says, “No, it isn’t.” Coming to some of those types of decisions is why two sides get a mediator. In general, a party does not want to see it a different way than what he or it sees it. He very often won’t. If he agrees to a mediator, he might have to do that. This is mediation.
A mediator very often sees what two conflicting parties do not or cannot see. He can point out inconsistencies on either side. If he does his job, he wants true, legitimate reconciliation between the parties, that is, biblical peace.
If a party only wants to hear its side, what some may portray as its echo chamber, it can choose to do that. It is choosing then not to reconcile. Mediation reveals or tests the desire for reconciliation. It provides that last plank or marker toward reconciliation. It follows the model of the Lord Jesus Christ and the example of the apostles.
Thomas Ross, February 18 Debate, Versus James White in Tullahoma, TN
Thomas Ross will debate James White with the proposition communicated in the above flyer for the debate. This relates to the historic doctrine of the preservation of scripture. Thomas Ross will defend the TR and King James Version and oppose the modern critical text and its methodology, especially with the underlying presupposition of the biblical doctrine of preservation. Pray for him as he prepares and then executes that preparation in a debate against James White. If you can go in support of him in that debate or help him in any other way, including financially, please do so!
How will Thomas Ross do against White? Does White supersede Ross in scholarship and knowledge? I don’t believe so. If you visit Faithsaves.net, I believe Ross writes as much as White and in scholarly fashion. White often questions his interlocutor’s abilities. If someone can’t read Greek, White often attempts to humiliate him, cast doubt on his abilities. This strategy should embarrass White, but it doesn’t. Thomas Ross has committed to memory huge portions of the Greek New Testament. He has his devotions often in Hebrew and Greek. I believe Ross will be more proficient at reading the Hebrew and Greek than White.
Let us all hope that the moderation for this Ross-White debate will improve over what occurred in the Van Kleeck-White debate. White ran over the biased moderators in very poor fashion.
Thomas Ross has now done several high level debates. He teaches very often, improving in his communication and rhetoric, which will help. Ross knows more than ever. He knows this subject and he will put hours and hours into this, I know. He will not underestimate James White.
I listened to a recent debate of James White with Chris Pinto on the issue of Vaticanus. Pinto believes it is a forgery. It was a very narrow debate. White had changed some in his usual offensive speech. Pinto is not a man even close as prepared as Thomas Ross in a text debate. Still in my assessment Pinto held up against White.
Recently Jeff Riddle and Peter Van Kleeck debated White on a similar subject as Ross will. I believe Thomas Ross will keep the momentum going in a positive manner. White operates counter to the historic and biblical position. He contradicts the position held by the Lord’s churches. Thomas Ross has the truth on his side.
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