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The Biography of the Authors
THE BIOGRAPHY AND WRITINGS OF KENT BRANDENBURG
The Biography of Kent Brandenburg
Kent and Bridget Brandenburg were married two weeks in 1987 when they boarded a small U-haul truck with no furniture and little money to drive across country to evangelize and start a church in the San Francisco Bay Area, population eight million. Kent had heard in a sermon that if God didn’t destroy San Francisco, He would need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Their two sets of parents were first generation believers from very meager backgrounds, who turned to devoted service of Jesus Christ in Baptist churches, leaving that legacy to their children. Kent and Bridget had both just finished college and graduate school and sent by a Baptist church, he got a job at a sporting goods store and her as a bank teller. They began in the multipurpose room of an elementary school, but after a year and a half obtained a building and Bethel Baptist Church was founded in El Sobrante, California, just north of Berkeley in the East Bay. The church grew almost entirely through new converts, very few transfers of membership, door-to-door evangelism, evangelistic Bible studies, thirty week discipleship, and expository preaching through every book of the Bible. Several men with the desire of the office of a bishop were trained, and the Brandenburgs left one of them to pastor, David Sutton, as Bethel sent them out again this time as missionaries, first in Southern Oregon, in Jackson County, population 220,000. They took with them Kent’s two eighty year old parents to move already at the beginning of July 2020. In the first year, they will both evangelize, plant the church, and raise support from other like-minded churches. One of the trained men, ordained in November, will join them with his family next summer. Their sights are set to do the same in England at some future date. [You can read a biography post of Kent Brandenburg here.]
Kent Brandenburg graduated from 8th grade at Calvary Baptist Christian School in Watertown, WI in 1976, from high school as salutatorian at Maranatha Baptist Academy in Watertown, WI in 1980, from college, magna cum laude, at Maranatha Baptist Bible College (now Maranatha Baptist University) in 1984 with a major in Pastoral Studies and Biblical Languages and a minor in Speech, from graduate school at Maranatha Baptist Graduate School of Theology with a Masters in Bible in 1985 and a Master of Divinity in 1987, and from Fairhaven Baptist College with a Doctor of Divinity in 2004. He pastored Bethel Baptist Church in El Sobrante, CA and preached or taught through every verse of the Bible over thirty-three years. He taught history and Bible at Bethel Christian Academy for 31 years.
The Writings, Publications, and Works of Kent Brandenburg
Kent Brandenburg has written or contributed toward or edited three published books. In 1996 he wrote, Sound Music or Sounding Brass: A Biblical Theology of Godly Music (at Amazon). In 2003 he was general editor and author of Thou Shalt Keep Them: A Biblical Theology of the Perfect Preservation of Scripture (at Amazon). In 2012, he was general editor and author of A Pure Church: A Biblical Theology of Ecclesiastical Separation (at Amazon). He has written two other books that are presently unpublished, but completed: Fashion Statement: A Biblical Theology of Appearance and Clothing and Lying Vanities, which explains why the apostasy of this age (at this link is his Amazon author page). Kent Brandenburg has also written Disciplines for Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, a thirty week discipleship program for his churches, Basic Bible Study, a five week evangelistic study, and several tracts and pamphlets in print.
You can hear sermons from Kent Brandenburg on audio here. You can read blog posts by him from years at Bethel Baptist Church here. You can read new blog posts at Jackson County Baptist Church here. You can watch a gospel presentation by him here.
THE BIOGRAPHY AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS ROSS
Thomas Ross grew up doubting the existence of God, but during his freshman year of college, shortly before his sixteenth birthday, he turned to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith and was born again. He subsequently joined a Bible-beliving and practicing Baptist church and continues to serve his Redeemer in that kind of a church today, recognizing that it constitutes the type of church found in the New Testament. He earned a B.A. from the University of California at Berkley, an M. A. from Fairhaven Baptist College, a Masters of Divinity degree from Great Plains Baptist Divinity School, a Masters of Theology from Anchor Baptist Theological Seminary, and should complete his Ph. D. this year. He served as professor of Ancient Languages at Baptist College of Ministry and Theological Seminary for a number of years, as well as teaching at the Mukwonago Baptist Bible Institute, a ministry of Mukwonago Baptist Church in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, and now teaches college and seminary classes in conjunction with Bethel Baptist Church of El Sobrante, CA. He has taught college classes internationally in Africa and Asia and debated advocates of non-Christian worldviews, such as atheism and Islam, in the United States and internationally. In addition to studying his King James Bible, he regularly reads the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament as part of his devotional studies. He has read through the Greek New Testament multiple times, read the Hebrew Torah, and translated the Aramaic portions of Scripture. He can translate at sight large portions of the Greek New Testament and much of the Hebrew Old Testament, and has recently started reading the Bible in Latin as well. He has written a number of book. Many of his compositions, and other works defending and explaining Biblical Christianity, and also contrasting the case for Biblical Christianity with other ultimate commitments, are available on his website, faithsaves.net. His testimony of conversion to Christ, My Journey from Unbelief to the Truth, is available online here, and more about his educational background is available here.
Thomas Ross started writing at What Is Truth in 2012 and stopped in July of 2024.
The Most Difficult Issues for a Church
This could be a part two to the first post this week.
Thirty-three years ago, my wife and I, married two weeks, moved with nothing to California, the San Francisco Bay Area, to start a church. We stayed until July of this year, 2020, when we moved to Southern Oregon, Jackson County, to begin again. The church in California is solid with good leaders trained in our church. Now we’re missionaries, but we’re doing the same thing that we did when we came to California, except with a lot more knowledge and experience. Lord-willing we’ll do it a few more times, if the Lord tarries and we live.
I can say that I’ve now been at two places to start two churches, but I’ve also seen enough in other places to know what I’m about to tell you. I should say that it corresponds to what you will read in the Bible too. The latter should precede the former, but that’s not always how it occurs in real time. Sometimes life experience seeks out the teaching and application of the Bible. The two feed off of each other, but the Bible reveals the truth. It is the final authority.
My experience is that the most difficult issues for a church are the ones where a desire of the flesh clashes with what the church teaches. It looks like someone won’t consider scriptural teaching because he knows it means giving up something that he doesn’t want to lose. If the church would go ahead and allow for his desire, it seems, he might listen and come along. He won’t change on it. He can find a church that won’t challenge this desire of the flesh. Will the church confront and disallow this continued disobedience to scripture with the threat of his leaving?
The less ways that a church might clash with people’s desires of the flesh, the more people a church might keep. Today these desires are totally accepted by society and most churches. The church that won’t accept them is now an outlier. Will the church require compliance to scripture in those areas that conflict with people’s desires of their flesh? When one person is allowed freedom to disobey, that resistance will spread. What one person gets away with will transmit to others. Soon, that’s not the belief and practice of the church anymore. The church has not kept that teaching. Then it easily affects other churches, that also give up on that truth.
Church leaders don’t want to lose people, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t lose anything, when they don’t lose the people they have because they have relented to their people’s desires of the flesh. They will give up teachings and practices that clash with those desires. Leaders imagine their church will lose a majority of its younger people, because they want the music, dress, entertainment, social media, and friends of the world. With the internet, they can find a version of Christianity that will allow for anything. Leaders know that, some competition is occurring here, pressuring them to compete against potential departure, like keeping a customer.
The item coveted by the flesh is an idol. Covetousness is idolatry (Col 3:5). Jeroboam wanted to keep his people in the Northern Kingdom, so he built altars with golden calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kings 12). They might have an instinct against the convenience of the fleshly desire to obey by traveling down to Jerusalem to worship. Jerusalem offered an invisible God. Jeroboam provided a visible alternative, which could compete with the convention, tradition, or norm, the old way, of Jerusalem. The visible calf was the comfort Aaron offered in Exodus 32 when fear struck the people at the base of Mt. Sinai.
Early in California I ran to the grocery store to pick something up there and a church member was two people ahead in the express lane. He sat down one bottle of hard liquor on the counter. I didn’t know about this. So what do I do? I wanted to say nothing. I wanted to stare at candy bar selection to my right, play like I didn’t see him. These are the most difficult issues in a church.
I look at the giving records of the church, and certain members with very high paying jobs are giving little to nothing in the offering plate. They just drove their new expensive car into the church parking lot, so they can afford that. Do you think they want that conversation about giving?
Someone with no time for evangelism has plenty of time to hang out with friends. He or she has regular recreation and party time. Ask for a fun trip and he’s ready to go. He “can’t” come to a work day. Entertainment references and pop knowledge come from his lips, but rarely to never a scripture verse or biblical expression. Is he or she going to like your confrontation over this deluge of popular culture?
Is it appropriate that one of the women of your church shows cleavage? A partial view of her breasts is readily available? This isn’t the Trinity. This isn’t the doctrine of justification. This is whether God allow for women revealing this body part in public. If you talk to her or have one of your ladies talk to her in a kind way, how’s that going to go?
I could give many more examples, but these are the most difficult issues in a church. A church leader might think that any one of these issues might send someone away from the church. A person who leaves might not even say that’s the reason. He can find something else to leave about, that will sound legitimate to him.
Instead of dealing with an issue of the desires of the flesh, one might chalk that up to an issue of growth. Here is a weak person, who just needs to be given time to grow. One year later, he still needs time to grow. Ten years later, when he’s worse or at least no better than ten years before, he still needs time to grow. The issues remain.
How a person responds to scripture on any issue is one of the chief indicators of true conversion (James 1:19-27). The major reasons for church gathering according to Hebrews 10:24-25 are provocation to love and good works and exhortation. Scripture is profitable for reproof and correction. In preaching the Word, the preacher reproves and rebukes. Paul commanded Timothy in Titus 2:15 to rebuke with all authority. I know that’s not all of what the Bible teaches about relationships in the church, but the most difficult issues in a church are when someone considering membership or a church member functions according to desires of the flesh and that practice must be be addressed in the ways the passages say: correct, reprove, rebuke, etc.
Consider these two statements. “We had thirty show up.” “We had fifteen show up.” Which of these is better? Let’s say that thirty were showing up until a desire of the flesh was confronted, and now fifteen are showing up. When you report that you had thirty, that sounds better than fifteen. Thirty sounds like you might be doing a better job. I understand. Many church philosophy books or church growth manuals today explain the plan for getting thirty by allowing for desires of the flesh.
Keeping allowing for desires of the flesh long enough and in order to keep people, and then these desires become part of the doctrine and practice of a church. Much longer and this characterizes almost all the churches of the entire country. Churches that have kept reproving desires of the flesh, they are far away and few between and are now so far out of the mainstream that Christians think they’re some kind of a cult. They’re bad. They are in fact perverting the grace of God that allows for desires of the flesh.
So few people are denied desires of the flesh that they must be permitted. Grace justifies their permission. The church becomes like the world. The church that isn’t like the world is now wrong. This all started with the most difficult issues for a church.
What Is Trumpism? Part Two: Gospel Relations and Wokeness
Perhaps you are far enough removed from what it is to be “woke” that you don’t know what it is. It might sound familiar, because it echoes religious connotations, as very often a counterfeit does. Scripture uses “awakening” to speak of true spiritual enlightenment. The Bible calls on unbelievers to wake up, which would mean being saved, and also admonishes believers to wake up in order to stir them from some degree of apathy. In this case, however, being woke means that you have the special knowledge to see what others can’t see. You “spot” white privilege and systemic racism everywhere with x-ray style vision that others miss.
How does someone become woke? Expertise or specialization in critical theory. How does one get this knowledge? Honestly, it is something closer to competence in the use of the divining rod for locating water. It is the the bizarre knowledge of the Gnostic, moved by something extraordinary in the realm of an ecstatic experience. The more fantastical the claim the greater possibility of correctness. The Apostle Paul describes something like it among the Corinthians out of Babylonian mysticism (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:1-3).
If I were to walk up to just any white person and call him a racist, he asks, why? I answer, it’s obvious, but it’s something that you are inherently blinded to. You are not woke to its reality in you. BLM adherents have gone around doing something similar, asking random white people to admit their racism and privilege at the threat of violence. It’s like the Salem witch trials. If they don’t confess they are a witch, they are drowned. The blindness, characterized by an unwillingness to admit racism, apparently comes through a social construction imposed upon the country. All whites are so immersed in systemic racism, that they don’t know they’re all racists.
In part one, I focused on the individuality of Trumpism compared to the judgment of wokeness. I want to explore the relations of wokeness to the gospel, partly to reveal its destructiveness in nature. Woke evangelicals preach repentance of group sins in line with Marxist group identity. A whole group, white people, is guilty of systemic racism. Reparations is a legal remedy for group sin. You might say that you aren’t racist and that you’ve never harmed another race. You say that, but you don’t “know” that because you aren’t trained to see it. You aren’t woke. You haven’t swallowed the blue pill.
The undermining of the gospel comes through a collective sin that brings group guilt. The group that sinneth, it shall die, which is just the opposite of what Ezekiel and Jeremiah and everywhere else in the Bible taught related to sin and guilt. It would then require group repentance. White people are guilty. Men are guilty. Straight people are guilty. Even if a white person becomes woke, he must still be named in the class action suit. Part of wokeness is admission of group guilt. This is the only way to forgiveness.
This spiritual collectivism contradicts scripture. Jesus Christ came to save individuals, not groups. A single person is awakened to his own sin and his own need of repentance. He enters the kingdom as an individual. He stands before God as an individual. The soul that sinneth, it shall die (Ezekiel 18:4). A man must examine himself for what he has done, not his group.
The transformation of wokeness is for the collective. The change is group change. A living sacrifice submerges himself in and for the group and the expense of his individuality. This is their Jesus, another Jesus, bringing in their imagination of the kingdom.
How are people awakened to their guilt of racism, sexism, transgenderism, and perhaps Trumpism? It’s a specialized knowledge, so you can either become a practitioner of critical theory, which is akin to learning divination or you can listen to the preaching of the theorist. He’s cherry picking scripture into which he can force his theory without historical precedent. No one had ever found in the Bible what he says he has found. He goes a looking to bring critical theory into God’s Word. It’s a reinvention of Christianity as detected through a seer stone.
The individuality of Trumpism matches the gospel and is a repudiation of the collectivism of evangelical wokeness. Wokeness undermines the gospel. It is in fact a different gospel. It requires group accession and group repentance. This is adding to the gospel, which makes it legalism. The requirement is conforming to the group.
I’m not saying that Trump himself is converted, that he is saved or that President Donald Trump has believed the gospel. I don’t believe so. I’m sure that some Trump supporters think he is. They’ve heard reports of private evangelism of Trump followed by a profession of faith. I don’t see a changed individual life of Donald Trump. By the abundance of his heart, he speaks, and I hear corrupt speech, bitter waters proceeding from a bitter fountain.
Others, which might be seen as adherents to Trumpism, take the position that Trump is a blunt instrument of change, ordained by a sovereign God. One analogy, I’ve read, is that he is chemotherapy to cancer, a painful methodology for a necessary cure or at least greater postponement of death. Advocates of the chemo acknowledge the cancer. The body is cancerous. It needs chemotherapy and Trump is it. The cessation of Trump, they diagnose, bolsters the cancer.
An irony to the lack of conversion of Donald Trump by judging him as an individual, however, is that I hear the same as bad or worse corrupt speech from woke evangelicals. Trump just doesn’t receive the gospel. He’s responsible. They see themselves as covered by their group identity. They are woke, so they are absolved of group guilt, their filthy language and lascivious lifestyles notwithstanding. It is a form of left wing legalism. Their sins are covered by their “good works.”
Many white people, who aren’t woke, believe the truth about race, that it is an arbitrary distinction, not backed by scripture. The Bible doesn’t recognize race. It does acknowledge a covenantal distinction between Jew and Gentile. These white people want a color blind society. They want equal treatment, vis-a-vis James chapter two. They also eliminate covenantal distinctions in the church age. They want to be free to judge according to scripture.
Park on the last part of that last sentence of that last paragraph: “to be free to judge according to scripture.” That is true freedom, ordained by God. It also gives someone the freedom to be released as an individual from the charge of racism. Someone can actually be saved, truly converted. He’s not a racist anymore.
The movement aligned with David French, Beth Moore, and Rod Dreher distorts the gospel. Its righteousness is one of virtue signaling. It constructs modern phylacteries. They signal to everyone how righteous, actually woke, they are. The toll levied for leftist acceptance produces a false gospel. They can talk about Jesus, what He can really do, but He becomes of no affect, because He doesn’t remove the group guilt of which “Trumpists” are not woke. They won’t allow for individual redemption through their group or community sin and guilt. The Apostle Paul says concerning them, if they will add anything to the true gospel, let them be accursed.
Who Are the Most Loving People You Know?
“Love” is one of the most misused and corrupted words in the English vocabulary. Very often when I am evangelizing, I have to give the correct definitions to whole host of words, including the word, gospel. The word “love” in English vocabulary originates from the Bible. It is used now in the English language, but it is pulled directly from God’s Word. Changing the meaning of words is a way to corrupt the teaching of scripture, but it is also a main strategy of postmodernism and critical theory, that says there is power in vocabulary.
The Bible itself talks about changing the meaning of words, done to fool people. It is evil, done by evil people. Many words are being changed today that buttress faith in scripture and obedience to the Word of God. “Changed” is actually a soft word to describe what people do. They are despicably corrupt, twisting, and perverting scripture through the changing of the meaning of words. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
In the Garden of Eden, God said one thing, and Satan immediately said something different that made Eve feel like Satan loved her more than God did. God said, Thou shalt surely die. Satan said, Ye shall not surely die. They couldn’t both be right. Which do you think is more popular?
Satan then ripped on God to talk about how unloving He was: “God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” God is just ripping you off, trying to bring you down, Eve. Doesn’t Satan sound loving to Eve? Why don’t you all send a comment to Eve on her instagram feed. She’s been attacked by God so why not join Satan and let her know how much you love her at this time of personal attack. Today she would get hundreds of likes and dozens of supportive comments. It’s no wonder that Noah and his family got only eight people to be together on the ark, even after over a hundred years of preaching.
Scripture says, God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Love is an attribute of God, so love is who God is. That also means God defines love. When Romans 3:23 says “all. . . . fall short of the glory of God,” it means that all fall short of the perfections of God’s attributes, which is what His glory is. People fall short of love.
Love is obviously important in scripture, because it is the first and second great commandments of God, (1) love God, and (2) love your neighbor. The entire law of God, we know, is wrapped up or summarized in those two commandments of God.
Before I go further on what love is, so that I can answer the question in the title of this post, let me explore that briefly. I’ve heard people through the years say that such and such a person is the most loving person they know. How would someone know that? What would characterize the most loving person someone knows? He would go to scripture to make that assessment, because God is love. God defines love. If someone uses his own definition, like Satan did with Eve, then he’s just a deceiver, using the term for his own purposes.
Today, words that define the way the world uses love, that conflicts with what scripture says, are toleration, feelings, niceness, fun, and lust. These words all easily conform to the world system. Two weeks or so ago, I wrote about the values sign, you’ll see that comes from the hard left in this country, and one of its epithets is, “love is love.” Love does not define love, so what’s happening with that? This is a removal of God out of the definition and changing the definition based on the perspective of the subject, or in other words, a subjective definition. This is just rebellious, calling good evil and evil good, but it is postmodern too. That “love is love” bromide justifies sodomy. Love is love, even if it is two men loving each other, is the lie.
The corruption of love relates to a perversion of values that ignores the true God of scripture. New values, contradicting scripture, are wellness, self-love, or self-care. Someone is doing wrong, violating scripture, sinning, rebelling against God, or transgressing God’s law, let’s say with transgenderism, and someone disapproves. He or she states the disapproval. Loving people come to the rescue of the transgender. Disapproval brings self-loathing, depression, and suicidal thoughts. It causes a loss of endorphins, which brings severe headaches. This person is now in pain and in need of healing. Loving people come to the rescue from the community to lift this person up. He can now happily go his/her/its merry way in his sin with the full support of others.
Actually the grief the “transgender” feels from disapproval is the right feeling. He needs to abhor his sin. This is what David felt when he committed adultery. The pangs of conscience are good. It’s like the pain someone feels when he touches a hot stove, telling him not to do that. The conscience is an internal warning device. “Coming to the aid” of someone who is hurting over disapproval of a righteous confrontation just shuts down the properly working conscience. This person is learning not to listen. He or she is not swift to hear. In other word, the person is being truly hurt, hurt in an actual way, harmed eternally, and this is not love. This is not love. It is hatred. The people being given credit for love are hateful people. What I’m writing here is very important. This is some of the worst kind of deceit that there is in the world.
Children disobedient to their parents, not honoring their parents, need to feel very, very bad about that. If a young lady is dressed like a prostitute, or as the King James says, the attire of a harlot, she should be discouraged in that. That is the strange woman in Proverbs 6-8. The fellow millennials or highly deceived middle aged and older people, who tell them that self-care is more important, and they need to feel liberation instead, are Satanic liars. They are bringing destruction on this person and disintegrating his or her biblical discernment or wisdom. The wisdom of this world, that does not descend from above, is earthly, sensual, and devilish (James 3:16).
Alright, so let me come back to the definition of love. I said God defines it and what do we see again and again in scripture. Consider these verses, read them all:
1 John 5:1-3, “1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments:: and his commandments are not grievous.”
John 14:15, 21, “If ye love me, keep my commandments. . . . He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
John 15:10, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
I’m guessing that some of you reading this don’t like what God says about love. You don’t like His definition. You would rather stick with yours. In the end though, you don’t love God or others when you are sinning without repentance. Someone may say that you are, but don’t listen to that person. He is lying to you, like Satan lied to Eve.
God is love. Whatever contradicts God’s Word is not love. It will bring the worst possible circumstances to your life, even if you think that things are better for you in the short term, just like Eve did. Just because you feel something that you think is love, that isn’t love.
To answer the question, the most loving people are the ones who keep God’s commandments. Of course, someone can’t do that without faith in Christ. Love is fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It is produced by God internally in a person, but it still always looks the same. It does not accept sin. Like Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13, it rejoices not in iniquity.
Someone may feed you a bromide, platitude, and epithet, that will get approval from the world, and especially unsaved people, but do not believe the lies. Turn to God. God is love. Someone is not the most loving person in the world, who is in a constant state of sinning against God and is not keeping what He said. The loving person is the person who does the will of God and tells you what you need to hear. Listen to that.
The “harvest is plenteous”: A Promise People Will Always be Saved in Matthew 9:35-38?
“The harvest truly is plenteous,” Matthew 9:37. Is this a promise that there will always be people who will be converted when the gospel is preached? Such a view is common among advocates of Keswick theology. For example, John VanGelderen on the Revival Focus blog wrote:
Jesus said, “The harvest truly is plenteous.” The harvest is plentiful. Not will be, but is—right
now. Since this is so, Jesus continued, “Pray ye therefore the Lord of
the harvest that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” The
sending is not just into His fields, but into His harvest! If
words have meaning and if language has integrity, then within the sphere
of your life and mine, there are people ready to be harvested right
now. The Lord of the harvest—the Holy Spirit—has already done His
preparatory work to help people become aware of their need. Now they
just need the answer—Jesus. They just need to hear the message of the
Gospel in power. … The harvest truly is plentiful. This is
more than a promised environment that someday “will be.” This is a
present fact. It “is.” Amazing! When you embrace the fact of a ready
harvest, it changes everything. … One of my favorite stories of living
according to the ready harvest comes from the life of a good friend of
mine … [a] missionary[.] … When he began deputation he
attended a Netcasters seminar, a course on the Spirit-filled
life applied to evangelizing. God brought two truths home to [this person’s] heart: the power of the Holy Spirit though faith and the fact of a ready
harvest—a particularly explosive combination. Quickly, he went from
ineffective duty-witnessing to effective delight-witnessing.
This particular person who caught the Keswick doctrine now sees huge numbers of people pray the “sinner’s prayer” all over the mission field. While only a small percentage of them manifest a changed life comparable to the people in Acts 2:41-47–as is overwhelmingly the case when the Netcasters techniques are used instead of more careful methods of evangelism that plainly explain repentance–the fact that such large numbers of people can be led to repeat the sinner’s prayer is proof that Matthew 9:35-38 is a guarantee that people will always be saved. Other testimonials from various places similarly validate the Keswick explanation of the “harvest” being “plenteous.” Don’t worry about the fact that this view of Matthew 10 would mean that the Lord Jesus Himself and His Apostles lacked the Keswick power since Christ was crucified with the consent of the large majority, while only a small number were truly converted.
Clearly, then, as is regularly preached in Keswick circles taking this view of the passage, if you are not “regularly” seeing people pray the sinner’s prayer there is something wrong with you. You can’t be right with God if there are not enough people making professions. Even if you search your conscience, ask God to show you your secret faults, and as far as you can tell, you have an upright heart before Him, you must really not be pleasing God because there are not enough people making professions. You clearly don’t have enough faith, or you have not received the special Keswick power that you have read about others receiving in easy-to-read and interesting but too often historically inaccurate books on those who got the secret and obtained the special power. There must be something wrong with you, because the phrase “the harvest truly is plenteous” guarantees lots of professions.
Or does it?
The “white harvest” in context
Matthew 10 is what Christ does and teaches based on Matthew 9:35-38. Christ teaches His disciples Matthew 10, and then He sends them forth to preach in Matthew 11:1. Matthew 10:1-11:1 records the following (please read the chapter carefully):
10:1 And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. 2 Now the names of the twelve apostles are these; The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; 3 Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. 9 Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, 10 Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. 11 And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. 12 And when ye come into an house, salute it. 13 And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. 15 Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city. 16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. 17 But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; 18 And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. 19 But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. 20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. 21 And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. 22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. 23 But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. 24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. 25 It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? 26 Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. 27 What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. 28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. 30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. 32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. 34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. 37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. 40 He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me. 41 He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. 42 And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.
11:1 And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.
So what does the Lord Jesus Himself indicate in Matthew 10 about Matthew 9:35-38’s teaching concerning a white harvest? He sends people out to preach–so we should go out and preach (10:1ff.). He teaches that God takes care of His people (10:8-10), so we should trust in His care. He tells the Apostles to find a single place to stay for as long as one is in a location instead of floating from house to house (10:11), a good pattern. He commands the Apostles to greet people when they approach a house, and share the peaceful truth with them if they are open, but to shake off the dust from their feet as a sign of horrible coming judgment if they do not listen (10:12-14). Not only individual houses, but whole cities will be full of people who do not listen (10:14), and their judgment will be worse than that of Sodom (10:15). He teaches His people to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves because they will receive severe persecution (10:16ff.). In fact, all men will hate them and even family members will deliver them up to death; however, if they persevere in faithfulness to Christ they will be saved (10:21-22). When persecution arises in one city, flee and go to another one because the work will not be done before the return of Christ (10:22-23). Since Christ Himself is slandered and persecuted, they should expect slander and persecution (10:24-25), but they should not be afraid because in the coming day of judgment all will be made right (10:26), so boldly preach the truth, and do not be afraid, for the Father cares for them (10:27-31). Fearlessly confess Christ before men and He will confess them instead of denying them (10:32-33). The gospel will divide families, but do not forget that at conversion they took up the cross and must continue to follow Christ despite opposition (10:34-39). If people receive them or help them, God will reward those people (10:40-41). Now go out and preach (11:1)!
Notice Christ never states, hints, or implies in Matthew 10 that the fact that He had spoken of a “white harvest” in chapter 9:35-38 means that there will always be people who will be converted. On the contrary, Christ’s explanation includes the warning that in entire cities everyone will reject them and they will need to flee. He does not tell them, or breathe the slightest hint, that if every single person in a city does not listen it was their fault for not entering into the Higher Life or for not having the special power that makes people listen, or that it was their fault for not believing His (alleged) promise of a “white harvest” that means many people will always believe. Rather than explaining the Higher Life secret, Christ just tells the Apostles to run away and go to the next city; it was the fault of the people who did not listen, not their fault, that they did receive the gospel. The Lord Jesus tells them over and over again, not “lots of people will always listen,” but “persecution, persecution, persecution, persecution.” He tells them to keep going because the Father cares for them and because He will reward them in the last day, but never tells them to keep going because there are always people who are going to listen.
In the parallel passage in Luke 10 Christ also speaks of a “great … harvest,” and then immediately afterwards speaks of entire cities where nobody will listen. Nobody who read the entire passage honestly would conclude that lots of people will always be saved based on the “white/great harvest” language of Matthew 10 and Luke 10.
So should we tell people what Christ told them is involved in going into a “white harvest,” or should we tell them what Keswick theology teaches about the “white harvest,” even if that means ignoring the immediate context of the passage?
What about the Old Testament harvest imagery that Christ was alluding to when He spoke of a great or white harvest? The strong emphasis of the Old Testament harvest imagery in passages such as Micah 4:11-13 is coming judgment. “The harvest is white/great” means “the harvest is ready to be reaped–judgment is coming!” according to the Old Testament, and according to Matthew’s gospel just a few chapters later: “the harvest is the end of the world” (Matthew 13:39). The judgment of the last days involves both the destruction of the wicked and the deliverance of the righteous, but the nearness of judgment justifying urgency in preaching is the point in Matthew 9:35-38, not that a large number will always respond to the gospel positively. To ignore the Old Testament imagery of the harvest, and the use of the image elsewhere in Matthew, is to rip the harvest metaphor from its broader context, just as to ignore the verses immediately surrounding the passage rip the metaphor from its immediate context.
The book context of Matthew is also ignored in order to make the “white harvest” language into a promise that people will always listen to the gospel in large numbers:
9:35 and 4:23 mark an inclusion which underlines the importance of reading chaps. 5–7 and 8–9 together and, when linked with the emphasis on the mission of the disciples in what precedes 4:23 (vv. 18–22) and what follows 9:35 (9:36–11:1), provide a chiasmic structure which enhances the significance of the mission perspective for the whole body of the encompassed materials. 9:35–37 function as an introductory piece for the section that runs to 10:42 (11:1), which consists mainly of the second major discourse by Jesus in Matthew, in a set of five marked by a shared concluding formula (here in 11:1[)] … Mt. 9:35 closely echoes 4:23 … this time Jesus is explicitly named; ‘all the towns and the villages’ replaces ‘in the whole of Galilee’ (probably with the intention of being more general) … Jesus’ ministry is freshly summarised/characterised after the expansiveness that has marked chaps. 5–9.
John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 406–407.
In chapter 4:23ff. Christ never says that many people will always repent and believe. He did have large crowds that wanted to be healed, but He never said that the number who were spiritually saved would always be large–on the contrary, He said: “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:14).
So what?
So why does this all matter? First, it matters because taking out of context Christ’s language about a “white harvest” and telling others that many people will always believe the gospel is telling them a lie. It is telling them what God did not say and claiming His authority for it. Even if done in sincerity, whenever God’s Word is distorted a great evil is perpetrated. Don’t lie to people. Tell them God’s truth.
Second, it is important because whether someone expects what Keswick theology tells him to expect, or what Christ told him to expect, has a huge impact on how he does ministry. If an evangelist or church-planter believes the Keswick wresting of Scripture instead of Christ’s actual promises he will become very discouraged if he finds out that what Christ said is actually true instead of what he wrongly thought Christ promised in Keswick theology. He will conclude that something must be wrong with him and he is not pleasing God if there are not lots of people who are born again. Instead of confiding in the Father’s care in the face of virulent opposition, like Christ commanded in Matthew 10, he will pour over his Higher Life literature and try to find out how he is missing the secret power that will finally make many people listen all the time. He may quit the ministry altogether, concluding that he is a failure when he sees the persecution Christ promised instead of the big crowds Christ never promised. He will probably water down the gospel message and start practicing man-made promotion and marketing techniques in order to get the crowds and numbers of professions he wrongly thinks are promised in Matthew 9:35-38. He will not evaluate other churches based on whether they are trusting in the Father and boldly preaching the way Christ commanded in Matthew 10, but on whether they are seeing the numbers of professions promised by the Higher Life. A church that is obeying Matthew 10 but seeing fewer professions will be rejected as a model for ministry or for fellowship in favor of one that is using marketing techniques and seeing more professions, or has “secrets to success” which cannot be discovered by careful exegesis of Scripture. In short, he will displease God. Whenever Scripture is twisted lots of problems come about.
So you need to believe what Christ taught about the white harvest–it means judgment is coming. It means you need to boldly preach what He said from the housetops even when persecution comes–and it will come. When it comes, trust in the Father’s care, and remember that if you confess Christ before men He will confess you before your heavenly Father. If you are not trusting in the Lord and are not consequently boldly preaching, and as a result you experience no persecution, there is something wrong with you. If lots of people are not listening, that does not prove that something is wrong with you.
Now certainly it is possible that if you are evangelizing to see a church established but people are not listening to you it may be that you are a bad example–if you are soon angry, or are not ruling your family well, or are a drunkard, or are not apt to teach, etc. (1 Timothy 3) then it is true that you are the problem. But if you have an upright heart before God and are qualified, if you can say “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24), then don’t worry about missing out on a secret Higher Life power that supposedly guarantees lots of visible results. Keep boldly preaching, expect opposition, and trust in the Father’s care. Do not change your practices one iota from what you can prove from Scripture based on anything invented by mere men. Do not model your ministry after people who claim to have special powers but who distort Scripture to teach Keswick and are really just good at man-made marketing. Fellowship with churches that derive their beliefs and practices from the Bible alone, and get the sweet encouragement that is truly offered in the Word instead of the false expectations and hopes offered by distorted theological errors.
It could please God in His grace to allow much of the seed of the Word to land on good soil, and you could have a big church like the one in Jerusalem shortly after Christ’s ascension (Acts 2, 5). Alternatively, you could have a small church like the one in Philadelphia that highly pleased Christ (Revelation 3:7ff.) with not the slightest hint that they were doing something wrong because they were small. Reject the Keswick distortion of the “white harvest” and instead keep boldly preaching and obeying all Scripture in faith and love, in light of the fact that the harvest–judgment–is coming: “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown” (Revelation 3:11).
–TDR
Is The Orthodox Church a False Church Within the True Church?
In the mid 1960s, Walter Martin became the first “Bible Answer Man,” exposing cults and false religions from all over the world. In 1989, when Martin died, Hank Hanegraff became the new “Bible Answer Man,” sort of like the line of the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride. Someone else can become “The Bible Answer Man.” It’s passed down. You might not in fact be “The Bible Answer Man.” It’s just a title. You’re actually Joe Slobotnick from Walla Walla, otherwise known as The Bible Answer Man.
We believe a man to be not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which works through love, that is to say, through faith and works.
Even within the professing church, any deviation from the true gospel of grace is a damning lie to be cursed. We understand why the world rejects this. It is, however, a very sad day when people inside the church, even the evangelical church, begin to reject this. . . . . There are about 300 million people worldwide who are in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The sister church in the West is the Roman Catholic Church that has the exact same doctrine, and there are 1.3 billion people in the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. So 1.6 billion people call themselves Christians and believe in a salvation that is a combination of grace and works. That is false Christianity within true Christianity. That is false Christianity teaching a false gospel. It is not to be joined, it is to be cursed. And as I have said, getting the gospel right is the most important reality in the world, because the true gospel is the only way of salvation. We’re not surprised that the true gospel is under assault. We’re not even surprised that it’s under assault inside the church.
The church by definition is an assembly. That is the literal meaning of the Greek word for “church”—ekklesia—the assembly of the called-out ones. A non-assembling assembly is a contradiction in terms.
Self-Love Is the Most Potent Stupid Pill: The Recent Ascent of Self-Love
Scripture does not teach self love. It teaches against self love. If one trait characterizes apostasy (2 Tim 3:1-3), it is self love. When Jesus came to earth, He emptied His self (Philippians 2). At the root of the gospel is self-denial and yet self-love grows today rampant among even professing Christians. I thought perhaps new psychological studies on contemporary narcissism might flatten the curve for self-love into the foreseeable future, but it’s making a comeback like a second wave of Covid-19 with an acceleration of the number of cases.
Importantly, taking charge of our health and well being and proactively loving ourselves by engaging in self-care are radical actions for those of us with marginalized identities, especially in a nation whose leader’s bigotry is self-evident and who seems hell-bent on destroying us.
“Self-care can be described as the practice of taking an active role in taking care of and protecting your own well being and happiness during periods of stress,” Dr. Seely-Jefferson says. “This can involve saying no, prioritizing your own feelings, asking for help, spending time alone, putting yourself first, asking for what you need, setting boundaries, staying at home, forgiving yourself and taking a step back. These are different from the traditional ways we define self-care and are soul-affirming activities that can counter some of the negative insults we get on a daily basis.”
What Is Self-Love?
Self-love is the best love and the ultimate way to boost your self-esteem and become a fully healed and integrated human being. People often come to the idea backward. They look at attributes such as the way that a confident person walks or observe their traits.
But fundamentally, all radical change begins from within. You then start to really value yourself as a powerful creator of your own reality and deserving of love and respect from everybody. Self-love is the opposite of selfishness.
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
It’s not even good for the psyche to do this naval gazing, promoted by false teachers. Millennials especially are fed this poison, a literal stupid pill, because self-love will make you stupid, take the opposite trajectory of wisdom, which comes from above (James 3:15-17). If you can’t explain stupid behavior, many times at the root of it today is self-love. Joyce Marter titles her article, Self-Love Must Come First. Her most fundamental counsel, given in a sub-title, reads:
Self-love is a journey. It takes dedication, devotion, and practice. Resolve to love yourself each and every day and watch your best self blossom and your greatest life unfold! Self-love is an exponential force.
The emergence of social media has created a platform for self-love promotion and mental health awareness in order to end the stigma surrounding mental health and to address self-love positively rather than negatively.
Self-care is a holistic process that we all need in order to foster presence, engagement, wellness, and self-love. Self-care is not a singular skill. Instead, self-care includes a wide variety of tasks tailored to meet your diverse needs. Although there may be similarities between self-care strategies, self-care is subjective and tends to vary from person to person.
Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways. For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
I know that calling it a “stupid pill” could be controversial, but the most stupid decisions arise from me-first. God-love results in God honoring decisions that are the best for others and yourself. They bring wisdom, not foolishness. Self-love brings a multiplicity of selfish decisions with mounting stupidity. It is a recipe for disaster for a person and institution.
Virtual Christian Living or Your Christian Brain in a Vat: The Avoidance or Corruption of Biblical Sanctification
Listen to my session from the 2019 Word of Truth Conference. As an addenda to that one, listen to this session from James Bronsveld and this one from Thomas Ross.
Imagine a Christian life you don’t actually live. Jesus lives it for you. You can’t please Him yourself. Impossible. Instead then, just access the life that Jesus lived by faith or by preaching the gospel fluently to yourself (part of the lingo). This supposedly honors God and Jesus more because He’s the one who does it. It’s virtual Christian living where you just click on the faith button, the equivalent of your Christian brain in a vat wired into a Christian matrix.
This false view of sanctification reminds me of the “think system” of Professor Harold Hill in the musical, the Music Man. Why do the hard thing of learning an instrument and how to read music, when someone can just use the think system? The music is as good as being played, even if it is not. Parents all over America have no need to sacrifice for music lessons or to do the hard work at enforcing the practice of an instrument. Even if the child doesn’t want to play, he can just rely on Jesus to have played for him, and feel no guilt for not practicing or improving.
This avoidance or corruption of biblical and historical sanctification takes the doctrine of imputation to a new and different level. It isn’t just positional righteousness imputed to you, which is biblical, but your whole practical righteousness too, which isn’t. Instead of doing the hard thing, the struggle, the beating your body into subjection, pressing toward the mark, fighting the good fight, and mortifying the deeds of the flesh, you just contemplate the cross and imagine that life you couldn’t live to be already lived. Done.
What I’m describing is very convenient. It really does take all the pressure off you to obey all those imperatives of the New Testament. No expectations. No worries about judgment. No need for approval. That was already settled at justification and it remains settled. You just tell yourself it’s already done.
With the hypergrace view, I don’t need to care for my elderly parents, my alzheimer’s-ridden father. I’m not bothered by any compunction for their needs. Jesus settled that. I don’t have to feel judged by anyone in some form of guilt ridden anxiety as they waste away. I can just enjoy my life. I can reduce my work to the equivalent of clicking a like button and adding a few hearts or emojis under a social network posting.
There is no use feeling guilty about disobeying or dishonoring parents, ghosting them, a wife not submitting to her husband, or even for not practicing the Great Commission, because Jesus paid it all. Satiate in that like a Christian brain in a vat. You preach that to yourself and the guilt is gone. Instead you can go binge watch a season of Handmaid’s Tale, as if it were a virtuous activity. Jesus was checked in, while you were checked out. Apparently, this is true freedom, unchained from the expectations of good works for sanctification.
Biblical Sanctification
James in his epistle explains this dead or demon faith in the second chapter. Rather than feeling the obligation of actual service to someone cold and needy, just say, be warmed and filled, and you have that base covered. James though says, no. No, faith without works is dead. Works? Yes, works. You, that’s you, have to do good works. The good works of sanctification don’t count through justification — just the opposite.
The New Testament is filled with imperatives Christians are commanded to do, things to avoid, activities to abstain, qualities to be, such as “be patient,” “be holy,” “be merciful,” and “be glad.” You can’t just turn those over to Jesus to live and then jump in your car to catch a rock concert for you. Paul said he had to struggle to do what he should and not do what he shouldn’t. That struggle isn’t necessary with “let go and let God.”
Young people today want approval without the actual fulfillment of acceptable behavior. They want to experience fleshly lust and the allurements of the world and not be judged for lapping those up. With this system, God always gives them approval, because they’re in Christ and God always approves of His Son. They didn’t think this system up. Peter says that false teachers ‘through covetousness with feigned words have made merchandise of them.’
Jesus did everything the Father wanted Him to do, and in John 17, He prayed that believers would be sanctified in the same way that He was, sanctified by the truth. That sanctification doesn’t come by His doing everything He was supposed to do and then our just trusting in everything that He was supposed to do, getting credit for living the Christian life because He did it for us. Nope. The Bible doesn’t teach anything like that. That is a monumental lie.
Justification and Sanctification
Justification is by grace alone through faith alone through Christ alone and apart from works. We don’t do good works for justification. We receive positional righteousness by faith. We then stand before God as righteous. We don’t have to prove anything, earn anything, or owe anything. The price was paid by Jesus on the cross, His righteousness was imputed to us, and our sins were forgiven, past/present/future.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
We are not sanctified by believing. We are sanctified by working (and believing). You won’t work if you don’t believe, but the sanctification comes by things like “mortification.” It’s hard work. It’s a struggle. You are doing this work, like Paul said, to be accepted of the Father (2 Corinthians 5:9). We’ve already been accepted for justification. That’s settled. We look for acceptance in our post justification works. Someone can have greater fruit and receive greater rewards (1 Cor 3, 2 Cor 4-5). In Roman 12:1, we present our bodies a living sacrifice, and the consideration for us is that presentation, acceptable to God. If so, it won’t conform to this world (Romans 12:2).
I call on anyone who has received or obtained or borrowed this false view of sanctification to repent. Leave it behind. Forsake it. It is a cultic view formulated to allure its adherents as prey. Sanctification is the second phase of ultimate salvation, the first justification, and the third glorification. Your acceptance of an utterly corrupt, false view of sanctification does not bode well for your justification or your glorification. If you don’t like the kingdom of Jesus Christ now, living it out on earth in your sanctification, why would you think you would enjoy it in the future? You love this present world, not the future one.
My Response to Mark Ward’s Response to My List of Fifteen Deviations of the NKJV from the Underlying Original Language Text of the KJV
The following appertains to two posts that I wrote related to a claim made by Mark Ward in a blog post about the NKJV not deviating from the same underlying Greek text as the KJV (here and here). I gave him a list of fifteen. In a new post, he said none of them are legitimate examples, so I looked at his (and two assistants) arguments, and here is my conclusion about what they wrote.
*Asterick meaning that I don’t accept the argument.
1. In Matthew 22:10—Don’t mind giving this one, although a pattern starts to emerge where the text is different and the translation favors the critical text, but it is said to be a translational decision by those who might hope to cover for the “no deviation” claim.
*2. In Luke 1:35—The translators followed the critical text, but said they were making a translation decision, not following the critical text.
*3. In Luke 5:7—Matthew 6:5 is a different usage of “tois,” which is used as a relative pronoun in Luke 5:7. That relative pronoun isn’t in the CT or the NKJV.
*4. Luke 6:9—The issue here is that the TR uses the plural for “Sabbath days” and the CT doesn’t, which is why the KJV translates the plural “Sabbath days.” The NKJV deviates here. I could follow the argument about other places of the plural translated like a singular except there is a deviation here, making this obvious.
5. John 10:12—This is not a good example by me, so I defer here.
6. John 19:10—This is not a good example by me, so I defer here.
7. Acts 15:23—I defer here.
8. Acts 17:14—I defer here.
*9. Acts 19:9—The NKJV translation matches the CT and deviates. This reads as obvious.
*10. Acts 19:39—The NKJV uses only “other” as “further,” which is following the CT, as opposed to the clear translation of “concerning other matters,” which one can plainly read is the TR.
*11. Romans 14:9—What is very interesting about this refutation is that there is a double “kai” later in the same verse translated as both-and in the NKJV, so Ward and his group have this one wrong. If they really were relying on contemporary English, they would have done it both times. It could not have been grammatical.
*12. Colossians 3:17—This one stands.
*13. Jude 1:3—This one stands.
*14. Jude 1:19—Both the ESV and NKJV have the same translation because they both follow the CT, and you won’t see “themselves” (eautou), as in the KJV. It also changes the meaning as some of these others do.
*15. Isaiah 9:3—the King James translators did not rely on the Qere reading, so it’s different. I had to tell the truth.
I appreciate the service of Mark Ward and his two other assistants in eliminating five of my bad examples, and I believe leaving ten of them. They are saying that none of those are left. However, I believe there is more than the above. I said that I stopped at fifteen, because I think there are more than this, so here we go again
1. 2 Corinthians 3:14—the NKJV departs from the TR to the CT with the TR (ho) and the CT (hoti), so the NKJV translates the conjuction, “because,” and the KJV translates the relative pronoun, “which.”
2. Philippians 2:9—the CT has the article (to) before “name,” “the name,” and the TR has no article, “a name,” and the NKJV reflects this deviation.
3. Revelation 6:11—the KJV follows the TR and the NKJV follows the critical text in the plural “robes” in the KJV and the singular “robe” in the NKJV. The Greek word in the TR is plural and in the CT it is singular.
4. 2 Corinthians 4:14—the NKJV says “with Jesus” following the CT (sun) and the KJV says “by Jesus” following the TR (dia).
5. 2 John 1:7—the NKJV says “have gone out into the world” following the CT (exelthon) instead of “are entered into the world” (eiselthon) in the TR and KJV.
Alright, me and my assistants, well, just me, have added five more, while watching the 49ers preseason game. I’m stopping at adding five more. That doesn’t mean there are only five more. I’m saying these are deviations. Mark Ward asserts that he has debunked all fifteen of the former, and I’m saying he’s overturned five of the original fifteen. I thank him for eliminating the five for me. Good work. Here are five more before victory is claimed, conspiracy theories reasserted, etc.
The “Tabernacle of Witness” and Objective Aesthetic Meaning
In Stephen’s sermon to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7, his theme is that God speaks and Israel’s leadership and predominately Israel doesn’t listen. They “do always resist the Holy Ghost: as [their] fathers did, so do [they]” (7:51) and “they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers” (7:52). The evidence in Old Testament history is Abraham and Joseph (7:9-16), Moses (7:17-37), the law (7:38-43), and then the tabernacle or temple (7:44-50). Their not listening to Stephen was now a long line of not listening to God, which was not listening to God-ordained authority.Israel didn’t listen to Joseph, Moses, the law. And the tabernacle or temple? What was the tabernacle saying that wasn’t being heard by the people? By the time of Stephen’s day, it was a veil rent and shortly before, a few cleansings by Jesus and the threat of destruction. The temple was still testifying. Stephen said the temple was talking too, a “tabernacle of witness” (7:44). Moses made “it according to the fashion that he had seen” (7:44). “Fashion” is tupon, which is transliterated “type,” but BDAG says it is “a mark made as the result of a blow or pressure,” “embodiment of characteristics,” and “technically design, pattern.” All of this says language, like something that expresses a message.God through the human author of Hebrews says in the first verse (1:1, 2):
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past. . . . Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.
The tabernacle and temple were two such diverse manners by which God spoke. And God’s people didn’t hear, according to Stephen’s assessment. Even when the greatest manner, His Son, spoke, they took the same tact. As much focus the leaders of Israel had on the temple, they disrespected it even as they eliminated its witness or testimony in its type of Christ. They disregarded this divers manner in which God spoke to them through its objective aesthetic meaning.Stephen contrasts the Lord’s tabernacle in 7:44 with the tabernacle of Moloch in 7:43. The two could be distinguished, and the Lord’s was set apart by a pattern that was revealed in God’s Word. The two, although both tents, were antithetical. God’s tabernacle was a witness to God’s presence with His people, His gracious willingness to forgive as testified by the connected sacrificial system, and it foreshadowed the heavenly realities of Christianity as a type of Christ in His incarnation (John 1:14, Hebrews). Each piece of the tabernacle had layers of meaning to portray the Lord and His relationship with men. Moloch was a cheap knock-off, a reprobation that presented an entirely different message from which was borrowed later by Jeroboam in Israel’s downward trajectory.The nature of God receives characteristic expression in the arrangements of the tabernacle, the perfection and harmony of the character, the symmetry and proportion. God created within man, made in His image, the qualifications to enjoy these attributes. The harmony of the tabernacle design is shown in the balance of all its parts and in the choice of the materials employed. The three varieties of curtains and the three metals correspond to the three ascending degrees of sanctity: the court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies, all related to the proximity to Jehovah. So much more could be said about the mathematical precision of the rooms and the craft and coverings and furniture. The aesthetics of the tabernacle point to the perfection and character of God. Edmond de Pressensé writes on the temple of the Lord in the Pulpit Commentary:
This idea of consecration ran through the whole plan of the building. Without having recourse to a minute and fanciful symbolism, we see clearly that everything is so disposed as to convey the idea of the holiness of God. In the Centre Is the Altar of Sacrifice. The holy of holies, hidden from gaze by its impenetrable veil, strikes with awe the man of unclean heart and lips, who hears the seraphim cry from beneath their shadowing wings, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!” (Isaiah 6:3.) The temple of holiness is not the temple of nature of colossal proportions, as in the East, nor is it the temple of aesthetic beauty, as in Greece. It is the dwelling place of Him who is invisible, and of purer eyes than to behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13.) Hence its peculiar character. It answers thus to the true condition of religious art, which never sacrifices the idea and sense of the Divine to mere form, but makes the form instinct with the Divine idea. Let us freely recognize the claims of religious art. The extreme Puritanism which thinks it honours God by a contemptuous disregard of the aesthetic, is scarcely less mistaken than the idolatrous materialism which makes beauty of form the primary consideration. It was not for nothing that God made the earth so fair, the sky so glorious; and it was under Divine inspiration that the temple of Jerusalem was reared in such magnificence and majesty as to strike all beholders. Only let us never forget to seek the Divine idea beneath the beauty of the form.
The meaning to which I’m referring in the tabernacle and the temple of God are not communicated by means of words, but the message was still necessary for Israel to inculcate. Israel’s resistance to the Holy Spirit was also contention with the declarations or articulations of the tabernacle, its testimony or witness.God reveals to Moses in Exodus 28:40:
And for Aaron’s sons thou shalt make coats, and thou shalt make for them girdles, and bonnets shalt thou make for them, for glory and for beauty.
Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
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