Honest Discussion?
It seems we have to get basic here, like when one would interview someone to make sure his testimony is accurate or sure. Have you been in one of those situations before? I’ve been in them. You are working on a project with other people and someone is not fulfilling his part of the whole. When you talk to him, you can’t seem to get a straight answer. You know something is wrong.
Something is wrong in the discussion on the text issue, because the same flashing lights go off for me that do in any kind of dialogue. I know that some of you reading don’t like this assessment. I don’t want you to read between the lines. Something is dishonest in this discussion or conversation. I’ve seen and known this for awhile.
The two sides of the textual debate very often cannot get or come together because it’s not an honest conversation between two groups or two people. If you are on the other side of this, you can say that you don’t like to hear this, or “how dare someone question your honesty?” I’m not trying to take a cheap shot. The interaction on the issue of the text of the Bible reads like a shady situation based on my experience. The dishonesty bells go off.
We live in a day when people can represent something in a less than straightforward manner and yet call it straightforward. This environment makes it easier to continue in the shadow realm. I see it everywhere and it’s happening with this discussion on the biblical text too. Language and terminology has lost some of its meaning and in certain cases, all of its meaning. Philosophers and theologians are calling this today “a crisis of meaning.”
Prayer for Apology
The youtuber Mark Ward wrote a post this last week on his blog, entitled, “I Pray for an Apology from Leaders or Institutions in KJV-Onlyism.” I’ve never prayed for an apology like that before, so it’s foreign to me. It doesn’t even sound like a prayer request, even if it is just a desire that is stated as a prayer. It means, “I hope for an apology” or “I’d like an apology.” I often have a desire for repentance from someone and it is about God and His Word, but not a personal apology. “I pray for an apology” sounds more like a whine or complaint from someone whose feelings are hurt.
I’d be first in line to offer an apology to someone who wants it. Always, however, I need to know what it is I’m apologizing for or it wouldn’t be sincere. It could be one of those “I’m sorry you’ve been offended” apologies that really apologizes for nothing.
Ward started his post with this line:
One of my life’s long-term prayers is that someone of stature within KJV-Only circles will publicly apologize for promoting false doctrine.
KJVO False Doctrine
Depending on what “KJV-Only” means, a person could promote false doctrine. I join Ward in not liking that either, although I don’t yearn or pray for an apology. False doctrine would contradict or pervert what the Bible teaches and in this case what it teaches about itself. Certain KJVO doctrine is false doctrine.
Double inspiration is false doctrine. God stopped inspiring scripture in the first century. He completed that task. Even what I have called, “English preservationism,” is false doctrine. God didn’t promise to preserve His Words using a translation. He didn’t. There was no English Bible until Wycliffe in the 14th century. If someone wants to talk about doctrine, I’m thankful and happy to do that. I would welcome a doctrinal conversation with Ward or others, but I predict he would want only a very narrow one with only his pet edification-requires-intelligibility issue. Even that I would gladly talk about in an honest way with Ward.
Subject of Apology
Regarding doctrine, Ward mentions the following in his I-wanna-apology post:
Ultimately God only knows what moral culpability individuals bear for teaching things that aren’t true and thereby dividing the body of Christ. God only knows who is a victim and who is a perpetrator, or what proportions of perpetrator and victim a given person represents. But I just can’t imagine that all this untruth and division that’s been generated by KJV-Onlyism could occur without individual people sinning—sinning against the teaching of 1 Cor 14 that edification requires intelligibility, sinning against commands for unity and for sound doctrine, sinning against God’s providential opportunities for doing better study.
That’s it. This represents the false doctrine for which Mark Ward wants an apology.
I don’t know what I’ve said or taught on the version issue that is not true. For sure, I’m open to possibility, but I don’t know of anything of this nature. Just the opposite, I teach the position I do, because I see it in the Bible. Ward doesn’t take that same approach. However, before I address that fully, I want to respond to the accusation that men like myself are not telling the truth. I see that as the absolute opposite and have a difficult time not believing that Mark Ward already knows he’s not telling the truth about this. He at least, I believe, sets the truth on a sliding scale in his own dealings with doctrine and practice.
Racking the Brain for an Apology
The kind of things I hear from Ward in some of his videos, which count to him apparently as men not telling the truth, to me sound like actual straw men. Here’s what I’ve heard.
- One, they don’t sufficiently acknowledge archaic English in the King James Version, semantic changes, the worst of which Ward calls “false friends.”
- Two, they say God preserved every Word in the original language text, but they won’t point out the preserved printed edition of the Textus Receptus that represents that.
- Three, they keep using the King James Version, so making the Bible opaque to the average reader, even though modern versions from the same underlying text are available.
- Four, they won’t admit that church men have long recognized textual variants and acknowledged their existence.
- Five, the underlying text behind the King James Version didn’t exist in a single edition until Scrivener in the late 19th century, who himself didn’t support the Textus Receptus.
If I’m missing something, it’s not on purpose, but this is what I get when I read through Ward herbal tea leaves. I want to deal at least those five, but, first, to the ones in Mark’s above paragraph. I’ll probably come back to the five in my last paragraph in another post.
Practice Apology
First though, Mark Ward says KJVO need to apologize because they divide the body of Christ. Just as a thought experiment, I am going to practice a public apology, one that Ward would want from all the division causers, none of which has the name, Mark Ward. He is the source of heavenly unity, as someone might say, this side of glory. Here goes.
Everyone, listen up. I’ve got to say something. I want to make a public apology, a mea culpa of sorts. What I’ve done wrong is cause division on the KJVO issue. Whatsoever version anyone uses — whatever underlying text, translation philosophy, acceptance, or quality — should not result in separation, and yet I’ve said that someone should separate over that.
I’ve written it too. People at least have gotten a strong impression from me that the version issue is a separating issue, and it is not!! Use whatever version of the Bible you want with not a whit, a crumb, of judgement from me. My judgment-o-meter dial will not move, not even a tremor. I confess this under the category of the sin of causing division.
Could I or would I make that apology? No. I would not believe it.
Separation and Unity and Division
I’ve written about the subject of separation and unity for a long time and back before Mark Ward graduated from seminary. Division comes from those with the new doctrine, not those who held to the original position. In addition, separation in scripture is not heresy or causing division. The Bible teaches separation over more than just “gospel issues.”
Probably no one in the world or in all of history has written more on this subject than me. You have to understand biblical unity before you understand separation, but both harmonize. The unity between the Father and the Son in John 17 was on everything in scripture. They didn’t disagree on anything, and that’s the same unity God wants for His people. You don’t get biblical unity without separation over false doctrine and practice.
When the Bible warns against heresy, factions, or unscriptural division, it is a diversion off the biblical and historical position. When someone teaches something unbiblical and so men separate from that false teacher and his teaching, that is biblical separation, not heresy. Some of the new books that attack the one Bible doctrine or perfect preservation of scripture react to the already established doctrine. They are not presenting a historical belief and practice.
I would be happy to read the established historical, biblical doctrine that Mark Ward establishes on preservation. What I hear from him conforms biblical doctrine to naturalistic presuppositions, based on modern science so-called. His position is not the truth.
More to Come
Maybe Dr. Ward will apologize for saying that the textual basis for the Received Text versus the Nestle Aland Textus Rejectus “matters almost nothing to me.” (https://faithsaves.net/mark-ward-daniel-haifley/) and for taking 1 Cor 14 seriously out of context (https://faithsaves.net/Mark-Ward/). I am not holding my breath.
We are commanded to try the spirits whether they be of God.
I have examined this man’s letter and his own words condemn him.
This is my letter to the author:
Thou dost err not knowing the holy scriptures.
Thou dost need to learn the meaning of these two words (Word) and (word) because they are not the same.
We must not think we can magnify the LORD’S pure word by changing his letters. In doing so we wrest his pure words.
Psalm 56:
5 Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.
Psalm 50:
22 Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.
23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.
The (Word) is the eternal life of the Father that was manifested and the Christ of God cannot be divided.
The (word) of God is the holy scriptures and must be rightly divided.
(Word):
John 1:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
1 John 1:
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)
Revelation 19:
13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The WORD of God.
John 1:
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
(Word):
1 Corinthians 1:
13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
(word):
2 Timothy 2:
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Isaiah 28:
9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
Matthew 5:
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Proverbs 22:
20 Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge,
21 That I might make thee know the certainty of the words of truth; that thou mightest answer the words of truth to them that send unto thee?
1 Corinthians 14:
33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
Psalm 138:
2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.
It’s hard to wrap my brain around the thousands of words that differ between NA and TR and then 100 semantic changes. However, I think I would be dishonest myself if I said that I don’t think I can understand. I do believe I understand Mark Ward when he says, “matters almost nothing to me.” Let me explain him, what some might call steelmanning him.
The reason, I believe, that Ward would say this matters nothing unto him is because of how he views preservation. That we know what the specific words are don’t matter to him. That we can be confident of the doctrines of scripture from all of scripture, that matters to him, even if that isn’t really true. It is true to him. He wants more words, all of the words, all the ones in NA and all of the words in the TR.
Since understanding the words you have is most important to Mark Ward and maybe others, then what matters is the ease of reading the translation, making it easier to understand for people.
The exact words are not the point with a certain view of scripture, which is past modernism. I’m not saying it’s postmodern, because postmodernism denies knowing anything with certainty except your own truth. There is something close to this postmodernism though, because you can choose whatever words you want, putting you in the driver seat. I think someone can see this.
Ward uses his KJV parallel Bible for the purpose of showing how little difference those words make. If you read either side, he would say, you would be surprised how little difference there is. You should be happy about the wealth of evidence or the wealth of possibility that is there. You get to read it all. Why be limited by just one settled text?
I believe this is Ward. He wouldn’t like the fourth paragraph. That can’t be him. But I’m being honest all the way through and in the spirit of the first four paragraphs that I wrote in this piece.