Changes in Personal Belief and the Effects on Relationships (part two)
Very often I tell people that I don’t know if I’m done changing in doctrine and practice. As I get older, I am changing less, but I haven’t found that changing ends. I think I’m done and then I encounter something else or another way I might need to change.
Changes
Other people always want me to change. When I evangelize I encounter others every week who want me to change in my beliefs, and I don’t. When I try to help others change, I cannot in good faith attempt to do that without the willingness to change myself. If I was not willing to change in a discussion of doctrine, I would call that, being closed minded. I expect open mindedness from others who I want to change, so I must be willing too.
In all my years of working for the Lord in and through churches, I have watched many changes on the landscape of churches and religious institutions in the United States. As I grew up, I rarely heard an expository sermon. Then I would attend preaching meetings and hear little exposition. Now I hear exposition for half the sermons at the same conference. I see this as a good change.
I have also seen many bad changes, so many that churches are worse today than ever. The worst changes are not doctrinal so much. They are cultural. The culture of church in the United States changed. It sadly followed the world, the spirit of the age. This then affects the whole country in a very negative way.
Changes in doctrine and practice followed the culture in the United States. Many churches don’t even know they changed. It occurred slowly over a long period of time, like watching a toddler grow up to a teenager. It was slow, but the outcome is very noticeable.
Change and Relationships
Because change can be bad, very bad, sometimes any change, especially if it isn’t a more conservative one, can seem bad. As a parent, maybe you have changed the rules or the code of conduct at home. You gave the children more liberty than they had. You had good intentions for loosening up on the standards. That could look like a change for the worse to some people. In fact, a parent may change his approach to teach discernment, so a way of helping his children.
Very often someone won’t change because of its potential effect on his relationships. Others will criticize him for changing. They may threaten him not to change. He doesn’t want to face that. Almost every change I’ve ever made affected relationships and sometimes in a major way.
When someone takes one position and changes to another, it might look like something is wrong. Why did he change? The truth doesn’t change. He believes and practices the truth. Is he forsaking the truth in some way?
Sanctification
I agree that the truth doesn’t change. It doesn’t. We must change though. It’s part of our sanctification. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says:
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit.
You can see that Paul uses the controversial “C” word, “changed.” Jesus doesn’t change. You must though.
It is even harder to change something as a leader. Whenever you change as a leader, people you’ve led will question the change.
Knowledge
When a leader changes in an area that he himself taught or preached, so that people followed, it might be very hard for the followers. This is one reason why as a leader you have to be very sure about something you teach or preach. Nonetheless, it can and will happen. You thought you understood fully. You thought you did. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:12:
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
Belief and practice relates to knowledge, something Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 12-14 among the spiritual gifts. Even though God gifts in knowledge, a person on this side of glory still sees through a glass darkly. He has knowledge. He still needs more knowledge until his glorification. Not until he sees Jesus face to face will he not need knowledge anymore.
Replay
Mulligan
I haven’t played golf much, but I understand playing golf and hitting some bad shots. It will happen. Among those who play golf as a hobby or for exercise, they understand the idea of a mulligan. Everyone knows you will hit a tee shot into the woods. You tee up another ball and start over. You give yourself a mulligan.
Even if you try to get everything right as a leader, you still need a few mulligans. You see through a glass darkly. You are trying to see through a glass clearly. If you are a preacher, did you ever preach a sermon, and you had to come back and correct something you said? I have. I hate it when I have to do it. Very much, I would rather not do that. I’m always afraid that I’ll lose the trust of the people if I come back to make the correction.
Editorial Process
Readers probably relate to the editorial process. You edit and find mistakes. When you think you have them all, you read again and find more mistakes. You edit. When you think you’ve got that all done and then give the piece to someone else to read, he finds many more mistakes. You publish the piece. Readers find more errors in the published document, something you hate the worst. It’s too late. Corrections must occur now in the next edition.
Some might say that we don’t get any mulligans in real life. I would say, hopefully we do. We all need mulligans in this life. Christians should understand that better than anyone.
Dress Rehearsals
A statement I often use is this: “Life has no dress rehearsals.” At various times of my life, I directed dozens of plays and programs. I’m not promoting drama as an element of worship. We had dress rehearsals for the plays and programs in our school. I am glad we had them.
It’s true that life doesn’t often have a dress rehearsal. Sometimes I thought I believed exactly right. It wasn’t until later that I found that a particular belief came from a tradition and I didn’t know it. I thought I had studied that myself. Once I did study it, I wondered how I defended that position.
Defending Positions
Tradition
Sometimes what will happen is that we have a belief or practice based upon a tradition and we teach it or preach it. At some point someone challenges the belief or practice. Rather than admit that we got that from tradition, we scrape up some arguments to defend the tradition. The tradition, maybe not a scriptural teaching, becomes more entrenched.
I’m not opposing all tradition. Paul uses the word (2 Thess 3:6) in a positive manner. Tradition isn’t enough for keeping the position though. Bad traditions can continue when we defend all traditions.
Inconsistency or Principled?
I’m fine with the word, inconsistent. It closely relates to another good word, principled. I noticed that some of the same people who attacked the January 6 protestors defended the Tennessee capital protestors. The attack was inconsistent. It wasn’t principled.
If we get further information about some position or issue and it merits a change, it is principled to change. It is not inconsistent. Changing might be easier. It could be harder. Whether it is easier or harder to change may not relate to consistency or principle. It relates to the reaction of other people and your future relationships.
Further Information
Let’s say that in the morning, you tell your children they must go to bed at 9pm. You get home at 9:15pm. Your children are still up. You say, “Get to bed.” The oldest child asks, “Can I ask you a question?” You say, “Yes.” He says, “Mom said we could stay up, because school was cancelled for tomorrow.” That’s new information that you didn’t have. You can change. You can think about what you said before, understand that you didn’t have all the information, and you can change your position. It isn’t inconsistent.
Evaluation of Leaders
Paul saw division in the church at Corinth. One major reason for division was bad evaluation of leaders. When leaders think of the evaluation of others, it can affect what they do in either a good or a bad way. I am not saying that they shouldn’t listen. Paul called the leaders, the “ministers of Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:1).
“Ministers” translates the Greek word for “galley slaves.” The galley slaves work together on the oars, moving the ship forward, because they have one master. He calls out the rhythm of the oars. This simplifies the process for them. They’ve got one person to please. The person most important to please as a leader is Christ Himself.
Social Media and Electronics: Addictive Drugs for Christians?
Are social media and electronics drugs to which Christians are addicted-by the millions?
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Snapchat, Linkedin, Pinterest, Tiktok–mind-numbing, time-wasting distractions, all. Then there is email–Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL (if you are really old-school), as well as texting, blogging, threads, and all sorts of other ways to use up on the Internet the days and hours God has given you to serve Him. Many people spend a lot of time making big bucks trying to figure out ways to keep you on their website longer; scrolling is designed to suck you in, suggested videos on YouTube are there both to keep you on the website longer and to influence what you are thinking about, the “ping” when you get a new text is designed to get you to check it right away. Many of the apps that are hugely popular on smartphones and devices tap into decades of neuroscience and psychology research funded by the casino and gambling industries, which are designed to be addictive. Americans check their phones approximately 344 times a day, and nearly half of them openly admit that they are addicted to their phones. Physical substances are not the only drugs that are addictive and which turn your brain into putty and your conscience into a wreck-social media and electronic devices do as well.
Can some beneficial things be found on the Internet, on social media, etc.? Yes-after all, I have a YouTube channel (and a Rumble channel in case YouTube censors me), a website, and (more than one) email address. I am thankful for the material at Way of Life Literature. I am writing (and you are reading) a blog right now. Occasionally the Internet can save time-making some purchases at home online can save time that would otherwise have to be spent going to a store. In general, however, social media is designed to get you to do the opposite of what God says:
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12)
Our use of time should be intentional–we are to “number” our days so that we can properly apply our hearts to wisdom. Our use of time must not be determined by whatever happens to ping next or whatever thumbnail YouTube has pop up to suck us into spending more of the limited time we have before we go to the grave or before the return of Christ watching a pointless video, or even a somewhat benefical video that is less valuable than an intentional, best use of time.
What can be done? Here are two suggestions.
1.) Make the Lord’s Day a social media fast.
Make it a distinctly different day. Don’t use any social media at least one day in seven. Don’t watch YouTube. Don’t go on Facebook. Don’t check email. Don’t read text messages. Don’t look at your phone, unless it is an important call and someone actually physically calls you. Make an exception for someone who you are texting to give a ride to church, or to a family who you are going to minister to and fellowship with for lunch, or something like that–but otherwise, stay completely off. Let the muscle memory atrophy of looking at the phone whenever ten seconds is available, at least one day in seven. Instead, use that time to practice the greatly-neglected duty of conscious meditation on God and His Word, a duty which is too often swallowed up by being on social media day and night:
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. (Psalm 1:2)
While the Lord’s Day is not a Christian Sabbath, the principles of the Westminster Larger Catechism for your use of time on the Lord’s Day are still valuable:
The … Lord’s day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, (Exod. 20:8,10) not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; (Exod. 16:25–28, Neh. 13:15–22, Jer. 17:21–22) and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy (Matt. 12:1–13) ) in the public and private exercises of God’ s worship: (Isa. 58:13, Luke 4:16, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:1–2, Ps. 92, Isa. 66:23, Lev. 23:3) and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day. (Exod. 20:8,56, Luke 23:54, Exod. 16:22,25-26,29) … The sins forbidden in the fourth commandment are, all omissions of the duties required, (Ezek. 22:26) all careless, negligent, and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary of them; (Acts 20:7,9, Ezek. 33:30–32, Amos 8:5, Mal. 1:13) all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that which is in itself sinful; (Ezek. 23:38) and by all needless works, words, and thoughts, about our worldly employments and recreations. (Jer. 17:24,27, Isa. 58:13) (The Westminster Larger Catechism: With Scripture Proofs, Questions 117, 119)
Consider abstaining from even a lawful use of social media on the Lord’s Day.
2.) “Number” your days (Psalm 90:12): specifically plan and limit the time you spend on social media the other six days of the week.
Maybe make it a rule that you only check your email once a day, or perhaps only once in the morning and once in the evening. If someone needs you right away, he can use the voice that God gave him to call you on the phone or use his legs to actually walk up to you and speak to you face to face. Make a rule on how often you check text messages and stick to it. Make a rule that, unless you have already spent adequate time in seeking God’s face in the reading and study of Scripture, in prayer, and in meditation, you don’t use social media at all, and when you use it you consciously decide ahead of time how long God would be glorified by your being on TikTok or Twitter instead of reading Scripture or an edifying book, and spend that amount of your life up on social media–no more, only less. If, as a family, you “don’t have time” to have family devotions, or to regularly preach the gospel to your community, or to memorize Scripture, then you certainly don’t have time, as a family, to have any social media accounts. Have someone keep you accountable to live by your “numbering” (Psalm 90:12) of your life. How many Christian homes have “addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Corinthians 16:15) in comparison to those who have addicted themselves to the slavery of the cell-phone? Are you loving your children by giving them a cell phone, or by resisting the societal pressure and not giving them one? Are you loving God and spiritually benefiting yourself by your phone and social media use?
Your life is a stewardship from God for which you must give an account. Don’t waste it on social media. Overuse of social media is a tremendous contributing factor to spiritual immaturity in the Lord’s churches, and among people old and young people in professedly Christian homes. Under-use of social media is a contributing factor to-well, probably, to spiritual maturity, greater intelligence, real Christian friendships, and the ability to do such increasingly rare things as concentrate on something for a long period of time. After all, neuroscience research shows that smartphones make people stupider, less social, more forgetful, more prone to addiction, sleepless and depressed, and poor at navigation. The phone may be smarter, but you are not.
What do you do to resist the mind-numbing, soul-sapping, intelligence-eliminating drugs of social media and electronics? Feel free to share your suggestions below. If you don’t have any, because you aren’t doing anything to stay off or wean yourself off from these addictions, maybe it is time to start.
–TDR
The Hypocrisy and Deceitfulness of the Chief Critical Text Attack on the Received Text of Scripture
The Ross-White Debate produced at least one major and helpful revelation. It showed the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of the chief modern critical text attack on the received text of scripture. I want you to understand this. White called the USB/NA textually superior because the Roman Catholic humanist Erasmus in 1516 had one extant manuscript for one variant in Ephesians 3:9. He said that variant opposed nearly the entire manuscript tradition.
Erasmus, Humanism, and Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic?
Before I dig into White’s assertion, let’s consider the information about Erasmus, a major part of his and other’s contention. In 1516 Erasmus published a printed edition of the Greek New Testament, essentially the same text used for every translation of the New Testament for any language for hundreds of years. True believers called this their Bible. They broke from and stood against Roman Catholicism because of it, which advocated a Latin text, not an original language one. It also opposed in general the Bible in the hands of the populace.
Erasmus was Roman Catholic in 1516. Who wasn’t Roman Catholic in 1516? Martin Luther still was. John Calvin, albeit a boy, still was. Ulrich Zwingli was. William Tyndale was. No one was Protestant. Erasmus at least conflicted with the Roman Catholic Church when that was rare. The English Reformation didn’t start until 1534. This point should be a laughable one. Almost every historian considers Erasmus a key forerunner of the Reformation.
Humanist?
Erasmus was a humanist, but that is not by a modern definition, where man is the measure of all things. Secular humanists don’t believe in God. Erasmus believed in God. His humanism was a defense of the humanities. This advocated for the study of the classical languages, literature, grammar, rhetoric, and history. Regarding scripture, he promoted the study of the biblical languages, Hebrew and Greek. Part of Erasmus’s humanism was Philosophia Christi, a simple, ethical Christianity without the rituals and superstitions of then Roman Catholicism.
The trajectory of the text of Erasmus moved through then to Stephanus and Beza, becoming the basis of the translations into the common languages: English, German, Spanish, French, and Dutch. Churches received this text and translated from it into their languages. This did not become anything acceptable to Roman Catholicism. They continued embracing the Latin. The Roman Catholic Inquisitions ordered the destruction of Bibles in the vernacular.
What is White doing with his use of humanist and Roman Catholic? I believe he is doing at least two things. One, he is attempting to mute the reality that the titans of the critical text, they’re unbelieving. Modern textual criticism proceeds without theological presuppositions and with solely naturalistic ones. He wants to frame Erasmus into the same category.
Two, White wants to paint an unsavory association of the received text with humanism and Roman Catholicism. He doesn’t want his audience to think of the humanities, but of secular humanism. He doesn’t care that this isn’t the kind of humanist Erasmus was. He’s hoping for the chaos or confusion of the deception. White doesn’t care if Erasmus was Roman Catholic. That doesn’t bother him about Athanasius or Augustine. He knows too about the reality of Erasmus. This is a mere rhetorical tactic.
Extant Manuscript Support for the Received Text or the Critical Text
Majority Text
On many other occasions and in the Ross-White Debate, James White said the received text (TR) was inferior because of lacking textual support. Until Zane Hodges and Arthur Farstad published their “Majority Text” in 1985, many, if not most TR advocates and others, called the TR, the majority text. Men stopped referring to the TR as the majority text because people would think they referred to the Hodges-Farstad publication. Why did men call the TR the majority text and the critical text, the minority text?
The TR is based on the majority of the manuscripts. It is a Byzantine text. A majority of the extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament come from the area of the Byzantine Empire. The TR agrees 99 percent with a majority of the manuscripts.
Hypocrisy and Deceit
White pointed to one word in Revelation 16:5 having no extant manuscript support. This is his favorite argument against the TR. He says that it is a conjectural emendation of Beza. He points to one word in Ephesians 3:9 having the support of one extant manuscript.
Ross exposed the hypocrisy and deceitfulness of White’s chief argument against the TR and in favor of the USB/NA (critical text). He showed how that in over a hundred places a line of reading in the USB/NA has no (zero) manuscript evidence. White has one example. Ross had over a hundred.
In addition, the entire critical text relies on a minority of the manuscripts, which is why men called that text, the minority text. How could the TR be worse because one percent of it has support in the minority and the critical text does that for its entire text? The USB/NA relies on very few manuscripts. If that’s worse, as seen in White’s attack on the TR, how could he support the USB/NA over the TR?
In every place the USB/NA has no extant manuscript support for its lines of readings (again, over 100), the TR has manuscript support. This should end White’s manuscript argument. Ross pointed this out in the debate in a very clear fashion. White would not recant of his position.
Ad Hominem
Instead, as he almost always does, White used ad hominem argument, attacking Ross personally, and then he tried to confuse the audience about what Ross said. With no evidence, he told the audience this just wasn’t happening. In essence, he said, “Don’t believe Ross, he doesn’t know what he’s doing and what he says really isn’t the truth,” followed by zero proof of that.
By writing this post, I could be associating with someone who is ignorant and a liar. I should be careful. This is what White wants his followers to believe about Ross. Joining me in an association with Ross’s arguments is Jeff Riddle. He and I do not know each other, but he too supported what Ross said.
I didn’t hear or see one person on White’s side, which would be in the thousands, debunk with any proof at all what Ross showed in the debate. Since the debate, I read more of the White technique of slandering his opponent. They focused on how many slides he had and how fast he talked. They said the KJVO position was awful, not understanding that Ross showed in the debate how that according to White, the KJVO position fits a wide spectrum of possible positions.
A Choice
White and others have a choice. They can concede to Ross and those who believe like him, including myself. Or, they can go back to the drawing board to try to get better arguments. I would say, get arguments period. The Ephesians 3:9 and Revelation 16:5 examples do not qualify as an argument from someone who supports readings with zero manuscript support.
The future bodes tough for White and his associates. The situation is not going to change. They have what they have. Nothing new is arriving for them. Personal attack, hypocrisy, and deceit are the best they have.
Changes in Personal Belief and the Effects on Relationships (part one)
Growth and Change
No one comes into this world knowing every doctrine of scripture. For someone to grow in grace and knowledge, he will change in his personal belief. He could go either way, better or worse. A person won’t remain static. Growth requires making good changes and avoiding bad ones.
Like anyone else, I have a story of change in personal belief. I have often told people that I changed on eight to ten biblical doctrines or issues of various significance through the years. No one should change from something right to something wrong. I always believed I was moving from wrong to right, but not everyone agreed with that.
Adding and Subtracting
God says, don’t take away from or add to scripture. Both directions are bad, subtracting and adding. Furthermore, someone doesn’t do better if he takes every doctrine or issue to the most strict or extreme place that he could.
In the Garden of Eden, Eve said the following in Genesis 3:2-3 to the serpent:
We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
God had said the following in Genesis 2:17:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
When you read the two statements, you can see that Eve added to what God said. God said nothing about touching the fruit of the tree. Yet, Eve did. She took an even more extreme position than God, which was wrong.
Almost every change I ever made in belief or practice, I moved in a stronger, more strict or conservative direction. Certain other Christians opposed some of those changes. In a most recent change, that developed over a number of years, I loosened in my belief or practice. I see liberty on something where I once saw regulation. Those accustomed to my rightward movement saw this as inconsistent.
Precipitating Change
In every instance I changed, some event precipitated the change. Very often I changed while preaching or teaching a series through a particular book. Sometimes I was faced with a situation that I had never encountered. I had to make a decision.
In all my years of pastoring, that I know, I have never believed and practiced in an identical way with any other church. I know of no Baptist church that is identical to another in its belief and practice. Beliefs and practices might be close to the same, but with slight variation.
Here at this blog, Thomas Ross and I don’t believe or practice exactly the same. We have differences. We’re very close, but not the same. Some of you readers have read our debates here and elsewhere. Nonetheless, we still partner on this blog.
Through the years, our church still fellowshipped with other churches even with the differences we had. It’s usually not easy to clash with another church on doctrinal and practical differences. Even interpretational differences might bring conflict between believers or churches. Almost everyone thinks they’re right.
Reasons for Change and Differences
When I change, why believe or practice different than before? Why do Bible believing and practicing churches still have some differences with each other in doctrine and practice?
Direct Statements, Plain Inferences
Differences in belief and practice start with variated understanding of either direct statements of scripture or of the plain inferences from direct statements in the Bible. Not every teaching of the Bible comes from a direct statement. Some comes from a combination of direct statements and plain inferences. In general I haven’t changed in my adult life on anything in a category of direct statements or plain inferences from scripture.
When I say direct statements and plain inferences, I also say that these proceed from only a grammatical, historical interpretation of scripture. Direct statements and plain inferences come from the actual meaning of the words of scripture in their context. I also consider the laws for the usage of those words, their syntax, and their meaning in their textual and historical context.
I take a stronger position on repentance and Lordship than I did forty years ago. In the past, I never denied that teaching. However, like every other doctrine and practice proceeding from direct statement and plain inference from direct statements, I grew in my grasp and conviction.
A Series of Overlapping Statements and Inferences
Some doctrines and practices proceed from a series of overlapping statements and inferences in the Bible. When you read all of the passages combined, you will come to certain conclusions that are also your beliefs and practices. The nation Israel, one third of its total number of people according to Zechariah, will receive Christ as the Messiah during the seven year tribulation period. Nations will surround her and at this juncture, Israel will repent with a confession such as Isaiah 53. God will save Israel.
I get my belief about the event of the salvation of Israel from conclusions arising from a series of overlapping statements and inferences in scripture. Furthermore, almost every belief and practice, comes from both the interpretation and the application of scripture. Application almost always depends on the reality of certain self-evident truths, assumed by God. God expects us to apply what He said. Man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Separating Differences
Many professing believers take what I call, unscriptural positions. Differences occur between believers and churches when one or more veer away from the teaching of the Bible. They might do that for many reasons. Some of them are just personal. An individual believer or a church leader may have a personal issue with someone. People might not like the way someone treated them or others with whom they fellowship.
Differences between churches may not be doctrinal or practical, but personal or political. They fellowship with others with different doctrine or practice, even with the same differences as someone with whom they won’t. Their decisions about relationship relate to hurt feelings or bruised egos. They won’t reconcile, forgive, or seek mediation because of pride. They wait for the other party to initiate reconciliation, and even if it does, they reject reconciliation or mediation. True churches separate, but scripture teaches constructive reasons, not personal or political ones.
More to Come
Biblical Languages Summer / Christian School Teacher Course
Do you have more time in the summer? A Christian school teacher (and other school teachers, support staff, and others who work in school settings) may often have more time during the summer. Interest has been expressed in having classes in both the Biblical languages, and it has also been asked if there is a way that a faster pace could be pursued during the summer with a slower pace during the Fall and Spring school semesters. I am exploring this as an option, and knowing how much interest there is, and what the specific needs are of prospective students are, would be a significant fact in evaluating how to move forward for the glory of God.
If this is something that you or a Christian school teacher, or other people at your church would be interested in, please contact me, either reaching out to me on my website or contacting my church. Also, please read the study Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew on my website here. (There is a seven part summary of that work on the blog here, starting with part 1 here, and then with part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, and part 7 here.) That study may also prove edifying to you even if you do not intend to learn the languages yourself, as it provides a balanced view from a perfect-preservationist, pro-KJV perspective on both the wonderful value of vernacular translation and the enduring importance of the Biblical languages, especially for Christian leaders or prospective leaders.
As I believe is demonstrated in Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew, the Biblical languages are very valuable for understanding, obeying, preaching, and teaching God’s infallible Word, and they are also accessible and learnable. If you are fluent in English, you have already achieved a level of linguistic achievement that is significantly harder than learning the Greek of the New Testament or the Hebrew of the Old Testament. That is not to say that one can learn the languages without work and dedication, but learning them is a reasonable and attainable for a very high percentage of the people of God if they, by grace, have the Spirit-produced diligence at learning them.
We would intend to follow the curriculum set forth here for Greek, one that has worked, not just for lingusitic geniuses, but for people who have families and full-time jobs. I am in the process of redoing the Hebrew curriculum before the next time, God willing, I get to teach that language, as I am adjusting the methodology towards one that recognizes the insights of second language acquisition theory and therefore teaches Biblical Hebrew more like (although not completely like) the way one would learn Spanish or French or German. This should both help students with learning the language and with retaining it once classroom work is over. With both languages the goal is to help students reach the point where they can read the inspired Old or New Testament text on their own and develop their sermons and other teaching messages directly from the text revealed to the apostles and prophets and preserved by God for our instruction and delight today.
Tuition should be $190 / credit hour for a 4 credit hour course. Auditors can audit for $100 / credit hour, but for most people actually taking the class for credit is better. Churches with numbers of interested students can reach out to me as well. Students who genuinely cannot afford the class, especially those in countries outside of the United States with a much higher poverty rate, can also have their pastors reach out and explain their situation and we can evaluate what options are available.
–TDR
What In a Salvation Presentation Is the Chief Factor Toward Someone’s Conversion?
The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky in his Complete Letters (1868-1871) wrote:
If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.
Just know that if you remain with Christ, you also remain with the truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth” (John 14:6). That quote though makes it sound like something other than the truth is the main factor leading to saving faith. Others might echo the sentiment of Dostoyevsky, especially when one considers their methodology.
Three Categories
I will divide into three categories of argument or evidence for or vindication of the gospel message unto salvation. This answers, why should I believe the gospel?
Listening to professing conversion testimonies through my whole life, I heard different reasons for someone receiving the gospel. When I listen to apologists talk alone or in conversations with skeptics, I have heard them give varied reasons people will receive the gospel. People state epistemic, moral, and aesthetic arguments, evidence, or vindication. Thought leaders express these three, ranking them for their impact. People include them in their testimonies or salvation stories.
Epistemic
An epistemic presentation or epistemic preaching gives knowledge or information, makes intellectual arguments, trying to persuade the mind of a skeptic or lost person. This would include exegesis of scripture, using the Bible for elucidation of and authority for truth. It connects everything to history and will even show the compatibility of the scriptural account with history, science, archaeology, everything in the real world.
Moral
A moral presentation or preaching relies on the goodness of someone in the life of the skeptic or lost person. The moral quality of a friend, acquaintance, co-worker, or family member impacts him or her to the degree that they acquiesce to that influence. A person with a wrecked life sees this as the only way out. Maybe he sees it as the path away from drugs, obesity, alcohol or other harmful addictions. Perhaps he witnesses the quality and diligence of the efforts of a co-worker, making a moral impression upon him.
Aesthetic
An aesthetic presentation or preaching relies on the beauty or emotional effects of a personal testimony, a moving story, a fearful threat or warning, or just well-told, expressive anecdotes. It also may be the feeling of community or comradery of a group of individuals, how they get along, show friendship and solidarity, and experience satisfaction in all that.
Compelling Argument
Skeptics
Many skeptics would say that Christianity or the Bible doesn’t present compelling epistemic argument to persuade them. It does not provide enough knowledge to give up their present life to follow Jesus Christ. It is harder to believe that a man rose from the dead than to believe that men lied and said he rose from the dead, when he really didn’t. Even if they don’t possess great reasons for not believing the gospel account, they don’t have enough good ones either.
I heard one skeptic, still a skeptic though, report a frightening dream. He was on an airplane. The plane was crashing and in a semi-conscious state, he prayed to God for deliverance. When he woke up, it shook him. In his heart of hearts, despite his skepticism, he acknowledged the innate instinct or impulse to look to God for salvation.
Dostoyevsky
The profession of Dostoyevsky relates to either a moral or aesthetic urge or compulsion. Online Britannica gives some context to his quote that began this article:
In 1847 Dostoyevsky began to participate in the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of intellectuals who discussed utopian socialism. He eventually joined a related, secret group devoted to revolution and illegal propaganda. It appears that Dostoyevsky did not sympathize (as others did) with egalitarian communism and terrorism but was motivated by his strong disapproval of serfdom. On April 23, 1849, he and the other members of the Petrashevsky Circle were arrested.
Dostoyevsky spent eight months in prison until, on December 22, the prisoners were led without warning to the Semyonovsky Square. There a sentence of death by firing squad was pronounced, last rites were offered, and three prisoners were led out to be shot first. At the last possible moment, the guns were lowered and a messenger arrived with the information that the tsar had deigned to spare their lives. The mock-execution ceremony was in fact part of the punishment. One of the prisoners went permanently insane on the spot; another went on to write Crime and Punishment.
Dostoyevsky passed several minutes in the full conviction that he was about to die, and in his novels characters repeatedly imagine the state of mind of a man approaching execution. The hero of The Idiot, Prince Myshkin, offers several extended descriptions of this sort, which readers knew carried special authority because the author of the novel had gone through the terrible experience. The mock execution led Dostoyevsky to appreciate the very process of life as an incomparable gift and, in contrast to the prevailing determinist and materialist thinking of the intelligentsia, to value freedom, integrity, and individual responsibility all the more strongly.
1 Corinthians 1: Greek External Evidence and Jewish Experiences
I expressed here in other articles that men offer their reasons for not believing for which Paul accounts in 1 Corinthians 1. He says, Greeks seek after wisdom, Jews seek after signs. You could say that Greeks want intellectual arguments, something akin to their arguments in the Greek city states. They want external evidence.
Jews seek after signs. They tended in that day toward wanting further experiential proof. Something needed to move them in a personal way to prove reality. Even after the ten plagues in Egypt, most of the Jews still balked at listening to Moses and following what He said, that God told him to say. Scripture indicates that experience is not a basis of faith.
Faith Comes By Hearing the Word of God
The Bible provides the authority for what men need for salvation. In a simple way, it’s Romans 10:17: “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” God will use the testimony of others, what they say and do. He might use a bad dream, smiting someone in his inner consciousness. God moves people with overwhelming beauty.
Hebrews 11:6 says that a person requires believing that God is a rewarder. Along these lines, Romans 2:4 says the goodness of God leads someone to repentance. Someone won’t receive Christ unless he thinks he’s better off with Christ as the Captain of his life.
Scripture does more than an epistemic presentation or preaching. It targets the mind, no doubt, but it reaches further than that. It affects the rebellion of a person in His will. Romans 1 says men know God (Rom 1:19). They suppress the truth though (1:18, hold the truth in unrighteousness). Their perverse natures rebel.
I believe scripture indicates in many places that the rebellion relates to human will or pride. People want their own way. They will choose their own way against their own self-interest. Men make choices that doom them, which they make so that they can stay in charge.
The Reach of Scripture
Jesus starts the sermon on the mount with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). A person must understand his own spiritual poverty, that he is not the master of his own fate. He can’t even get what he really wants on his own. He doesn’t have anything to get there. That humility doesn’t just occur. God works in a person through His Word.
When Hebrews 4:12 says that the Word of God is powerful to divide soul and spirit, that goes further than the mind. The soul includes emotion and will. God works in an epistemic, moral, and aesthetic way, all three. However, it must start with the mind. Someone must believe the gospel is true. God sanctifies through the truth.
Even with the moving of personal testimony and some stirring of emotions, everyone must receive the truth, which starts with the mind. For a person to believe, he must understand the gospel. More occurs through the gospel than just the intellectual, but that must occur.
Today I see the emotional or experiential calls for salvation as the biggest problem in evangelicalism. Evangelicals think more about what people will like or how they feel. They do not want to tell the whole truth, because people won’t like it. God saves people through the truth, not by leaving out the hard parts. Jesus never did that. Let’s do what Jesus did and then all of His apostles.
Cohesion
Agreement
The moral and the aesthetic must agree with the epistemic, but salvation centers on the epistemic. All the events of the gospel happened. Jesus is Savior. He is Lord. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it.
Moral and aesthetic presentation must cohere with the truth. You cannot separate truth from goodness and beauty. People get their view of God very often if not the most often from the aesthetic. If the aesthetic contradicts the epistemic, someone will get the wrong God. He will imagine a different God than presented by scripture. This keeps him from salvation. Even if he receives this god, it isn’t God.
Effect
A good moral example alone doesn’t save someone, but a bad one can hinder or repel salvation though. This includes a lascivious lifestyle presented as a product of the grace of God. Furthermore, regarding aesthetics, someone gets a wrong understanding of God from false worship music. He associates God with lust and worldliness. The right music doesn’t save, but wrong music, false worship, hinders or repels salvation.
The moral and aesthetic are important, but we must focus on the epistemic. Give the whole plan of salvation. Target the understanding. Don’t attempt to persuade with emotions and experiences. Use your stories to illuminate the truth to persuade in the mind. Scripture and the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest.
Textual Criticism Related to the Bible Bows to Modernity
Christianity is old. There is no new and improved version of it. It is what it started to be. Changing it isn’t a good thing. Let me expand.
Modern and Modernity
Right now as I implement the term “modern” I am using it in the way it is in the word “modernity” or “modernism.” I think modernism is a perversion of something good that occurred, which is the advancement proceeding from the printing and vastly greater distribution of the Bible after 1440. It fulfilled a cultural mandate lost with the domination of Roman Catholicism, “subdue and have dominion.” Feudalism went by the wayside. Quality of life improved.
In Judges in the Old Testament, Israel turned away from God, which resulted in bad consequences both indirect and direct from God. Israel cried out to God. God delivered and Israel then prospered again. Prosperity led back to turning away again, the bad consequences, and the cycle begins again.
The prosperity brought by the printing, distribution, and reading of the Bible brought the modern life. With all the massive new amounts of published material to read, people saw themselves as smarter than they were. They thought they could take that to God, the church, worship, and to the Bible. In essence, “let’s take our superior knowledge and apply it now to the Bible.”
Evidentialism
Modernism included evidentialism. Something isn’t true without exposure to man’s reason and evidence. No, the Bible stands on its own. It is self-evident truth, higher than reason and evidence, at the same time not contradicting reason or evidence.
Modern textual criticism arose out of modernism. The prosperity from the fulfillment of the cultural mandate proceeding from publication and distribution of scripture brought this proud intellectualism. Like in the days of the Judges, it isn’t even true. It isn’t better.
People have cell phones today, but who right now thinks that we are superior to when men believed the transcendentals? Objective truth, objective goodness, and objective beauty? We have a 60 inch television with a thousand channels, but we lost the greater transcendence. Modernists put the Bible under their scrutiny, undermining its objective nature.
Sincere Milk
The Apostle Peter called the Word of God “the sincere milk,” which is “the pure mother’s milk.” Like James wrote and identical to God, the Word of God is pure with neither “variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). This is why true believers of the gospel message of scripture are begotten “with the word of truth” (James 1:18). God inspired His Words and He preserves His Words using His means, His churches.
Modernists came to the Bible to improve it with their humanistic theories. They would say, textual variants prove its corruption. They would restore it to near purity using modernistic means of the modern academy.
The text of true churches, they believed “God . . . by his singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages.” They received that text. The modernist academy came along saying, that text is not the oldest, so not the best. The better text is shorter for ideological reasons. Therefore, everyone has a basis only for relative and proportional confidence, not absolute certainty in the Words of God. Scripture became subject to modern intellectual tinkering.
Proud Intellectualism
Even in an evidential way, the critical text, a product of critical theories, is not superior. It allured the proud intellect of modern academics. It shifted scripture into the laboratory of the university and outside of the God-ordained institution of preservation.
Textual critics cherry pick words and phrases, attacking the text received by the churches, saying, this is found in only one late manuscript. Meanwhile, 99% of their text comes from two manuscripts. A hundred lines of text have no manuscript evidence. They admit themselves educated guessing. They elevate the date of extant manuscripts above all criteria, including scriptural presuppositions.
Call to Consider Former Things
I ask that we reconsider the spoiled or poison fruit of modernity, arising from a corruption of the prosperity of the printing and wide distribution of the Bible. God through Isaiah in 41:21-22 says:
21 Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. 22 Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare us things for to come.
“Former things” relate to the present and to the future, “the latter end of them.” To understand the present and the future, we need to look to the past. When did we go off the rails into modernism and now postmodernism? I call on churches to turn back the clock to former things in a former time. See the cycle of the Judges, repent and cry out to God. Like James wrote later in chapter one (verse 21):
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
James White / Thomas Ross Debate Review Videos
There have been a number of debate reviews of the James White vs. Thomas Ross debate on the topic:
“The Legacy Standard Bible, as a representative of modern English translations based upon the UBS/NA text, is superior to the KJV, as a representative of TR-based Bible translations.”
You can watch the debate itself here on the What is Truth? blog, on my website, on Rumble, or on YouTube. If you did watch it, you can also examine some of the review videos. I intend to produce, Lord willing, a series of videos that carefully examine the entire debate. To this point, I have two debate review videos live (one made before the debate was live, and a second one, just produced, that begins to examine James White’s opening presentation).
Thomas Ross: Debate Review and Analysis part #1:
Pre-debate Review Video of James White & His Claims
Watch the debate review part #1 on Rumble
Watch the debate review part #1 on YouTube
In this initial debate review, I provide my thoughts on how the debate went and respond to James White’s claims about the debate in his Dividing Line program of February 21, 2023, c. minutes 5-18, entitled “Road Trip Dividing Line: Gay Mirage, Mass, Biblicism.”
Debate Review and Analysis part #2: James White & His Opening Presentation, part 1: Would the King James Version Translators have Preferred the Legacy Standard Bible and the Nestle-Aland Greek Text to the KJV and the Textus Receptus?
Watch the debate review part #2 on Rumble
Watch the debate review part #2 on YouTube
I now have twelve of these debate review videos. You can watch them all at faithsaves.net, on YouTube, or on Rumble. At least at this point I have not added the ten after the first two to this post to prevent the post from getting overwhelming. Please think about subscribing to my YouTube and Rumble channels to find out when new video reviews come out, as I intend to record some more debate review videos, Lord willing.
James White (Apologia Church): His Own Debate Comments in the Dividing Line
If you would like to hear what James White said about the debate afterwards, watch minutes 5-18 of his February 21, 2023 Dividing Line program.
Jeff Riddle: Reformed Baptist and Confessional Bibliology Advocate’s Debate Review
Dr. Jeff Riddle has produced some helpful post-debate reviews. You can watch part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4 on YouTube, or watch them on the embedded links below. I appreciate what Dr. Riddle has written on what he calls Confessional Bibliology. Dr. Riddle rightly wants to distance himself (as do most people who are happy to call themselves King James Only) from extremists like Peter Ruckman and Gail Riplinger while recognizing the difference between the way the original language text is inspired as to its words and translations are God’s Word as to their substance (what he calls the principle of Authoritas Divina Duplex, if you want a little Latin). Whatever you wish to call it, I appreciate his perspective on this issue of Bibliology, although Scripture does not teach TULIP Calvinism (and it also certainly does not teach Arminianism).
Jeff Riddle Debate Review Part 1:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 2:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 3:
Jeff Riddle debate review part 4:
There is a written debate review here on What is Truth? by Dr. Kent Brandenburg: “The White-Ross Debate: Who Won?” as well as some follow-up posts by Dr. Brandenburg (follow-up part 1; part 2; part 3).
There are also some debate reviews by a gentleman named Nick Sayers, who has a website called Textus Receptus. I know less about his doctrinal position than I do about Dr. Riddle. Mr. Sayers belongs to a religious organization called “Revolution Church.” He made seven extremely long debate review videos (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7). A large percentage of what he points out is useful, although I would disagree with him at a minority of points. Everyone should repent and believe the gospel, and then be immersed into a Baptist Church, not a Revolution church.
I am not aware of any of the disciples of James White making any review videos dealing in detail with the substance of the debate. The best I could locate was a five-minute review by one of James White’s disciples named “Polite Leader.” Polite Leader completely ignored the fact that the Nestle-Aland text is a patchwork and many of the other extreme problems with the text White is defending, but I suppose one can only say so much in a video that short, and so putting in what he believed were James’ best points would be important, from his viewpoint.
Thanks again for your prayers for God’s truth and for me during the debate. To Him alone be the glory for the good for His kingdom that was accomplished by it, and to me alone be the blame for what I should have done better.
–TDR
What About the Accusation of So-Called “Mystical Explanation” or “Omniscience” Against a Perfect Original Language Preservation of Scripture? (Part Two)
The Providence of God
As the church passed down the original language text of the New Testament, men made copyist errors. Preservation occurs through copying and then correcting the errors if they’re made. It didn’t occur through textual criticism, critical literary theories about older and shorter readings.
God insured the perfect preservation of scripture. He promised it. Opponents of this belief mock it as mysticism and requiring human omniscience. No one who believes God’s perfect preservation explains it this way. In part one, I asserted that they depend on Divine providence as biblically and historically understood. Providence isn’t mysticism. I don’t hear providence from the critical text side, but that’s what believers assert.
Internal Testimony of the Holy Spirit
In addition to Divine Providence, true churches or genuine believers point to the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. This isn’t double inspiration. This is the internal guidance of the Holy Spirit using the various means He does according to scripture. This is an almost identical argument as for canonicity (see chapter 19 in Thou Shalt Keep Them). This isn’t mysticism.
Ephesians 5:18 commands, “Be filled with the Spirit.” A parallel text says (Col 3:16), “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” Spirit-filling isn’t mysticism. How does it occur that the Holy Spirit controls someone and that shows up as love, joy, peace, etc., the fruit of the Spirit? True churches or genuine believers have never referred to Spirit filling as mystical.
James 1:5 says, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” Does God give wisdom? Yes. Is this mystical? Is wisdom imparting omniscience to someone? No and no.
The Apostle Paul says that the things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). God gives something to believers through the indwelling Holy Spirit to discern spiritual things. This is not mysticism. How does it show up? They understand the Word of God. Then they know how to apply scripture in given situations, the Holy Spirit providing insight.
Agreement of the Saints or Unity of the Spirit
Saints of the first century knew the books the Holy Spirit inspired and the ones He didn’t. They copied the ones He inspired. They received those as the Word of God. The saints agreed on what the books and the words were. They copied and distributed them.
The agreement of the saints or of true churches resulted in a multitude of almost identical copies. As history passed the printing press era, they agreed or settled on the text of the Bible. One could and should call the agreement, “the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). What is that?
Every true believers possesses the Holy Spirit in him. He guides, leads, reproves, teaches, etc. The Holy Spirit will not on the inside of a believer lead, guide, or teach in a different way. He won’t contradict Himself. He is One.
The same Holy Spirit, Who inspired the Words of God, knows those Words still. He does not need to reinspire Words. Instead, He can direct His people to the correct one, when a copyist errs. The churches for hundreds of years did not agree on the critical text. That text did not make its way to God’s people. They received the, well, received text. They thought that the work of the Holy Spirit.
What I just wrote above is not mysticism. It is what we read in scripture. It is how we see the Holy Spirit work. Providence and the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit fulfilled God’s promise of preservation.
What About the Accusation of So-Called “Mystical Explanation” or “Omniscience” Against a Perfect Original Language Preservation of Scripture?
A New Attack on Verbal Plenary Preservation of Scripture
Ross-White Debate
After the Ross-White debate, I saw one particular regular attack on the biblical and historical doctrine of the preservation of scripture. This is the perfect or verbal plenary preservation of the original language text of the Bible. Critical text advocates, who deny that doctrine, call the opposing position a “mystical explanation,” “omniscience,” the “Urim and Thummim,” or “Ruckmanism for all intents and purposes.” The part about Ruckman hints at double inspiration thinking. You say you believe the church possesses a perfect text of scripture in the original languages. They say that requires a work of God like inspiration or a mystical gift on the level of omniscience.
The historical doctrine of preservation says God preserved His Word. That is a supernatural explanation. God did it. Something supernatural occurred. Any claim of supernaturalism could be prey to the attack of mysticism, omniscience, saints possessing the Urim and Thummim, or the Ruckman charge. If copyists make errors and manuscripts have variants, how do believers know what the words are? Do they flop back into a trance-like state and their body moves like a puppet to the correct word?
The Imagery, a Mockery
The imagery painted by critical text advocates accuses men testing a variation between texts with a seer stone or divining rod. Someone printing a New Testament edition swoons into a condition where his body becomes taken over by God in the decision of a correct word in a text. It really is just a form of mockery, because none of their targets for this ridicule come close to this description.
The critical text advocates leave out a supernatural explanation. They don’t like that criticism. They don’t want theological presuppositions to guide, only the so-called science. Someone might claim perfection, if it’s God working. They rather defer to human reason as a tool. That allows for the error they favor as an outcome. They won’t say it’s God. At most, a few might say that God designed human reason like He did for the invention of a new vaccination.
The Providence of God
Used for Preservation of Scripture
The language used in the supernatural intervention in God’s method of preservation with and through His church is the “providence of God.” The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) reads:
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 authentical.
You can read the language there, “God . . . by His singular care and providence.” In 1680 preacher of the gospel, John Alexander wrote: “seeing the Scriptures by the Providence of God kept pure . . . . seeing the Scriptures as they now are were transmitted to us by the Church, unto whom the Oracles of God were committed, and against whom the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.” In 1721 Edward Synge wrote: “Still it pleased God, by his overruling Providence, to preserve his Written Word, and keep it pure and uncorrupted . . . . by which means the Fountain, I mean the Text of the Holy Scripture, was kept pure and undefiled.”
Its Meaning
John Piper in 2020 wrote a very large book, entitled, Providence. In the first chapter, he gives a lengthy explanation of the word, concluding that it means concerning God, “He sees to it that things happen in a certain way.” He points to Genesis 22 as a classic description of providence, when in verse 8, Abraham says, “God will provide himself a lamb,” using “provide.” Later, verse 14 uses the root meaning of that word “provide”:
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.
In the word “providence” is the Latin vide (think video), which means, “see.” Notice in verse 14, “it shall be seen.” The idea is that God sees, but even further, “He sees to.” He saw the ram in place of Isaac and He saw to the ram for Isaac.
Heidelberg Catechism
As providence relates to scripture, God sees to it that every word is preserved and available to His people, just like the ram was provided and available to Abraham and Isaac. The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) defines the providence of God:
The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.
Providence is not by chance. If God is keeping the original text of scripture pure by His singular care and providence, He is not leaving that to chance. Since He will judge men by every word, which He says He will (Matthew 4:4, John 12:48), He will provide every Word. He will “see to it.” I know the question then arises, “How did God see to it?”
Providential Preservation
Spurgeon
Men who believe in providential preservation do not believe that God requires a trance-like state to accomplish perfect preservation of scripture. If you asked, “How did the ram appear in the thicket to Abraham?”, you might find the answer difficult. “He just did.” He said He would provide, so He did.
C. H. Spurgeon in a sermon on the Providence of God says this: “If anything would go wrong, God puts it right and if there is anything that would move awry, He puts forth His hand and alters it.” This is how I read the description men who believed in providential preservation.
Capel
Richard Capel represents the position well (Capel’s Remains, London, 1658, pp. 19-43):
[W]e have the Copies in both languages [Hebrew and Greek], which Copies vary not from Primitive writings in any matter which may stumble any. This concernes onely the learned, and they know that by consent of all parties, the most learned on all sides among Christians do shake hands in this, that God by his providence hath preserved them uncorrupt. . . .
. . . . As God committed the Hebrew text of the Old Testament to the Jewes, and did and doth move their hearts to keep it untainted to this day: So I dare lay it on the same God, that he in his providence is so with the Church of the Gentiles, that they have and do preserve the Greek Text uncorrupt, and clear: As for some scrapes by Transcribers, that comes to no more, than to censure a book to be corrupt, because of some scrapes in the printing, and tis certain, that what mistake is in one print, is corrected in another.
You should notice that Capel uses the word, “providence.” This doesn’t sound like the exaggerated, deceitful attacks of the critical text proponents. I love the last sentence of that paragraph as an understanding. I ask that you read it again: “As for some scrapes by Transcribers, that comes to no more, than to censure a book to be corrupt, because of some scrapes in the printing, and tis certain, that what mistake is in one print, is corrected in another.” These are not words you will hear from critical text, modern version men.
God Keeps His Words
I say God keeps His Words. He uses His institutions to do it. I also say God keeps the souls of the saints. He uses many various means to do that. It is difficult to explain how that He does it, but He does. That too is supernatural. Do the opponents of perfect preservation believe that God sees to that? They do and they base that on presuppositions without resorting to words like “mystical explanation.”
The method God uses to preserve is a true one. It is true like innermost machinery and function of a cell. It occurs. The DNA strands of a human being, designed by God, result in a fully grown, healthy person. God did that. He keeps working in His world as He sees fit. His doing that with His words is also science. It is supernatural and it is science.
More to Come
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