Dear Friend,
Without study, no one can be convinced about whether the King James Version is God's preserved words for English-speaking people. Nor can one understand rightly dividing the Word of Truth using
another Bible.
Now that I think about it, it was a sunny day in 1985 that Annie came to visit me in my new mobile home as I was busy sweeping the patio of the grass after mowing. The mail arrived while Annie waited for me to finish. In it was a tract from the Fundamental Evangelistic Association of California, [who are truly believers but who only partly rightly divide as I learned later]. It was through reading their material that came over my desk for Bill Walker that I became convinced (convicted) with the Word of Truth in 2 Corinthians 6:17 to "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord." That word freed me from the denominational religious systems - all of them. The word that freed me from Romanism was "Flee Babylon!" I didn't even really know how much that verse applied as I do since then. I have also since learned that every step of obedience by faith (just choosing to believe it) brought me more understanding in my spiritual walk.
I handed the brochure to Annie and suggested she go inside and read it while I finished up my clean-up of the patio and put the mower away. Before I was finished, Annie came out and said, "Rita, if this is right, we are using the wrong Bible!" Annie usually followed where I went in our spiritual walk and had in using the NASB. I replied that I would spend the time to check it out and did so that very evening, well into the night.
The brochure presented several comparison charts showing how the NASB had changed or omitted words present in the KJV - important words. I took the time to check out each reference and found no error on the part of FEA's presentation. It was enough to convince me to buy a new Bible.
For instance, if you have questioned my statement in the first paragraph of this letter - the answer is found in doing a comparison search of several or any of the "new" versions of 2 Timothy 2:15 and the words, "rightly dividing." You won't find them in any of the most popular and most used translations. (NIV, NASB, NEB, Douay Version, etc.)
If you believe in your heart that the Bible contains God's words to man, yet all those translations omit or change the words, how can you trust them? How can you learn that God wants us to rightly "divide?" And who do you suppose wants man to be confused about such things? Satan doesn't care if you read the Bible, as long as it is a version that "reads easier!" Satan doesn't want man to know that God's words were written in the KJV at a sixth grade level, so they claim their inability to understand it on the archaic language, rather than on 1 Corinthians 2:14:
"But the natural (unsaved) man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned."
Those "easier to understand" translations have not only changed words, but have actually omitted words at their own peril. As for the 2 Timothy 2:15 example, some have changed the words from "right dividing" (meaning to cut straight) to correctly handling, accurately teaching, properly handling, dealing with, etc. But only the KJV, the Webster's Bible Translation and Youngs Literal Translation use the phrase correctly. Why? Because these are using the Textus Receptus (Received Text) - the approved Greek text to translate into English for English-speaking people.
Note that the other translations occasionally use the word "rightly." The reason is it can throw an innocent person off from the fact that they have all changed the meaning of the verse entirely by changing the word "dividing."
Note that the KJV translators used "dividing" which means to "cut straight." Cut what straight? The verse tells us. We are to cut straight the word of truth (the Bible).
Are we to cut error? NO. We are to cut straight the word of TRUTH.
Now if God told the Apostle Paul to tell us that, he must also have told him HOW!
And He did! In Ephesians 2 where he teaches us about the Time Past, But Now and the Ages To Come.
I spent the time to write this because it CAN save you some time in your spiritual walk by learning something quicker than it took me to learn it. After all, every person who gets saved from every day forward is that much closer - has that much less time than I had - to the day Christ calls his Body home to heaven.
Believe it or not those other Bibles also totally omit God's name in many places so that when the AntiChrist arrives, he will have his own Bible. If you change GOD to "him" it obviously can mean someone other than God! Think about it!