Topic #3 in our Spreading God’s Word blog is for everyone who uses the New International Versionª Bible (NIV), as their “Bible of choice”. If you don’t really think there’s any difference between the NIV and the King James Verson (KJV), then you may be in for a surprise.
Get your NIV Bible and answer the following questions. Do not rely on your memory! Use your Bible. Because the Bible is the final authority, you must get your answers from the NIV Bible verse — not from footnotes but from the text since footnotes are not part the Bible.
1. Fill in the missing words in Matthew 5:44. “Love your enemies, ________ them that curse you, _____________ to them that hate you, and pray for them that __________ and persecute you.”
2. According to Matthew 17:21, what two things are required to cast out this type of devil?
3. According to Matthew 18:11, why did Jesus come to earth?
4. According to Matthew 27:2, what was Pilate’s first name?
5. In Matthew 27:35, when the wicked soldiers parted His garments, they were fulfilling the words of the prophet. Copy what the prophet said in Matthew 27:35 from the NIV.
6. In Mark 3:15, Jesus gave the apostles power to cast out devils and to:
7. According to Mark 7:16, what does a man need to be able to hear?
8. According to Luke 7:28, what was John? (teacher, prophet, carpenter, etc.). What is his title or last name?
9. In Luke 9:55, what did the disciples not know?
10. In Luke 9:56, what did the Son of man not come to do? According to this verse, what did He come to do?
11. In Luke 22:14, how many apostles were with Jesus?12. According to Luke 23:38, in what three languages was the superscription written?13. In Luke 24:42, what did they give Jesus to eat with His fish?14. John 3:13 is a very important verse, proving the deity of Christ. According to this verse (as Jesus spoke), where is the Son of man?15. What happened each year as told in John 5:4?16. In John 7:50, what time of day did Nicodemus come to Jesus?
18. What did Saul ask Jesus in Acts 9:6?
19. Write the name of the man mentioned in Acts 15:34.
20. Study Acts 24:6-8. What would the Jew have done with Paul? What was the chief captain’s name? What did the chief captain command?
21. Copy Romans 16:24 word for word from the NIV.
22. First Timothy 3:16 is perhaps the greatest verse in the New Testament concerning the deity of Christ. In this verse, who was manifested in the flesh?
23. In the second part of First Peter 4:14, how do [they] speak of Christ? And, what do we Christians do?
24. Who are the three Persons of the Trinity in First John 5:7?
25. Revelation 1:11 is another very important verse that proves the deity of Christ. In the first part of this verse Jesus said, “I am the A__________ and O___________ , the _________ and the _______:”
Little space is provided for your answers, but it’s much more than you’ll need. If you followed the instructions above, you not only failed the test but you received a big goose egg.
So now what do you think of the “accurate, easy-to-understand, up-to-date NIV Bible”? If you would like to improve your score, and in fact score 100%, you can take this test using the Authorized (King James) Bible. To all the NIV readers out there, do you have enough confidence in the NIV to tell God, OUT LOUD, that the NIV is correct in deleting these words & phrases? If not, you need to get a King James Bible so you can have some confidence.
One final thought, the NIV bible is copyrighted…the KJV isn’t. There’s no need to copyright the Word of God. One needs only to copyright the words of men. Something to think about.
What do you think? Let us know.
To God Be The Glory!
October 1, 2006 at 12:10 pm |
Hi Jeff and Cindy! It is good to see this article. I’ve been saying for years that the KJV is the most reliable version for all of God’s Truth. However, I would point out that you left out another problem with versions having succeeded the AKJV.
Review Hebrews c.4. You will find that in many versions, in verse 4 the words “seventh day” have been deleted; and, in verse 8 the name Jesus has been exchanged for the name of an ancient prophet.
As you well understand, the deletions and change in Hebrews c.4 is to have deleted and changed critical-to-salvation information as well as removing the power from the text by taking away Jesus in favor of an ancient prophet.
The AKJV is so much more than just a translation that made the Bible available to the common man. It also was the first translation that allowed Revelation 10:11 to be fulfilled in the Phildelphia church age. This could not have happened without the AKJV, therefore and as the entire Bible is, the AKJV was translated by “divine inspiration.”
Again, thank you so much for putting a bright light on all those inferior newer versions.
Much love in Christ,
http://bonnieq.wordpress.com
October 1, 2006 at 12:12 pm |
Oh, by the way, “Truth Gathering,” the only exhaustive AKJV Topical Bible available, is copyrighted; however, it’s really only the annotations that are copyrighted.
BonnieQ
October 1, 2006 at 11:50 pm |
G’day
Thanks for that list…I have been looking at a few of them not just in NIV but in ESV (my prefered translation) too. Its very interesting.
One thing i will point out though is that the KJV is not the original bible and you can’t say something is wrong just because it doesnt agree with the KJV. Perhaps the people who translated the KJV got it wrong and this has been corrected in more recent versions.
The original new testament was written in greek and there are lots of different manuscripts in greek. Not all of them agree completely.
Im not in a position to say which of the greek manuscripts is the 100% correct one but i think its fair enough that if something appears in some originals but not all then there should be a footnote saying this. if it only appears in a few but not in most then maybe it should be left out of the text and put in a footnote.
The translators for each edition of the bible had to make their own decisions about this. Obviously the translators of NIV disagreed with some of those decisions made when the KJV was being translated, but they do provide a footnote to tell you ’some versions add this….’ etc.
since we dont know which of the original greek manuscripts was correct we cant know which english bible translation is correct. I think its a good idea to read more than one translation.
The NIV has an advantage over the King James of being easy to read. much easier in fact, in my opinion. I think its good to read an easy translation like that then if you find a verse or chapter you want to look at in more detail then you can look at a few different versions and notice any differences.
Also it is not just NIV that have these differences but most modern translations from what i can tell.
Paul
October 2, 2006 at 2:44 am |
Hi guys I agree with Paul.
The KJV is good and literal but I like the ESV much better because it is literal and its in english. It is not and cannot be the only true bible because God has used the NIV and NLT and lots of other paraphrases to draw people to himself. I received an NIV bible last year and I came to Christ through it, I did not switch to another version till March this year, and since then I have been reading the ESV, I do not consider myself unsaved or in any way inferior to the class of KJV readers.
God doesn’t discriminate and that is why bibles have to be available in different languages and translations. If the KJV is the only true bible, then what would I do if I only spoke hindi? Would you have me learn English to read the KJV? Shouldn’t I just learn greek and read the original texts?
A paraphrase is a paraphrase and it should be called that, NIV is a paraphrase. It is not an impure or lying version, it is just interpreted more than necessary by the translator. If we were to ban NIVs and all versions except the KJV, many christians would not be able to read the bible anymore, me to start with because the KJV just goes right over my head. English is not my first language. I don’t understand the KJV.
I agree that its good for NIV and other paraphrase readers to switch over to more literal translations, though, in order to get a fuller view of what God’s word says. And that can be NASB, KJV, ESV, whatever.
I am very happy for you guys that you have undertaken to blog about God’s gospel and spread the word for his glory. I am praying that believers for Christ will come through you. At the same time I would ask you to consider this verse from Galatians 5.14-15:
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
We’re not against each other. Whether we read KJV, NIV, ESV, NLT, the Message, Philip’s paraphrase, Young’s literal, whatever- our hope is in Christ Jesus and our heart is for the glory of God. Paul said it in Romans, do not quarrel over opinions that divide. Let’s be one in Christ.
To God be the glory! Through all peoples in all languages. Amen
-Diana
October 2, 2006 at 6:45 am |
Thank you Diana for taking the time to comment on this Topic. This is precisely the type of dialogue I’d hoped would surface on this blog. My feeling is that anything causing us to delve deeper into God’s Word is a good thing. I appreciate your comment very much.
If I may, I wanted to expand upon your statement that, “It [NIV] is not an impure or lying version, it is just interpreted more than necessary by the translator.”
For a long time I felt precisely the same as you…until I was shown many verses in the NIV attack the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. After examining the verses and seeing the evidence, I had no choice but to reject the NIV after visually seeing the truth.
Over 100 verses in the NIV have been identified which omit the name of Jesus, Christ, Lord, Son of Man, etc. These names are associated with the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Since Scripture is about the Lord Jesus Christ, translations that attempt to belittle Him are evidence to me that they are not God glorifying.
I give thanks and praise to God that He is sovereign and that He has mercifully used corrupted translations to draw people unto Himself. I am also very thankful that God has given us easy access to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (http://www.blueletterbible.org/index.html) so that we can compare the original Greek & Hebrew texts to any translation.
By God’s grace, in the 21st Century we don’t have to have degrees in the ancient languages to see whether our translation is being as faithful as it ought to the original autographs. Like the Bereans of old, we have the wonderful privilege to search the Scriptures ourselves.
I will be posting the NIV verses that undermine Christ’s deity alongside their corresponding KJV verse (for easier comparisons) under Topic #3a.
October 2, 2006 at 7:18 am |
Thank you very much Paul for your comments — I appreciate it.
You remarked that, “The translators for each edition of the bible had to make their own decisions about this. Obviously the translators of NIV disagreed with some of those decisions made when the KJV was being translated, but they do provide a footnote to tell you ’some versions add this….’ etc. since we dont know which of the original greek manuscripts was correct we cant know which english bible translation is correct.”
You raise a valid concern with what I’ll term the “divine lineages” (or perhaps lack thereof) of the various translations. The King James Bible has a very Godly lineage dating back to the original autographs and has been transmitted to us through the ages without corruption because God promised that His Word would be preserved by Himself so subsequent generations of Christians would have the same authoritative words as the Early Church.
This divinely protected (IMHO) lineage, when coupled with the many verses in the NIV and other translations that undermine Christ’s deity (see Post #3a) or change biblical doctrines, is the reason I consider the King James Bible as the Authorized Version (AV).
Someone once asked me, “If the KJV were inferior, then why did God use it to literally evangelize the world?” Faced with all the evidence, I had to admit to myself that the KJV is indeed the AV of God’s Word.
Clearly, the KJV may not be the easiest translation to understand, but for myself that isn’t a valid biblical reason to reject it. After all, Owner’s Manuals are seldom easy to read, but if I want to operate the equipment properly (or use that new computer, or digital camera, or HDTV, etc), I diligently read and study the specifications so that I have an adequate understanding the equipment. I said to myslef, “shouldn’t I be at least as diligent with God’s Word?”
October 2, 2006 at 9:35 am |
Hi Again
I just read 3a it was interesting. Most of the things seemed to be just replacing Jesus’s name with a pronoun but some others seemed to have entire phrases or even verses removed in the NIV.
I checked my ESV for some of them. each time an entire verse is missing there is a footnote on the preceding verse which gives the missing verse.
A lot of the missing bits are repeated elsewhere in the bible I think but still…having bits missing like that makes the verses less…powerfull i guess.
Thanks for this post and 3A as well its been very interesting to read.
Before today I always said that KJV was not as good because it was not as easy to read…But i bought a KJV bible today after putting my first comment here!
Actually i bought 3, one for my brother to give away and one for myself and one i have someone in mind to send to.
thanks for the link to the blue letter bible too, ill be having a look at it soon. There is a program called e-Sword (http://www.e-sword.net/) which i guess must give similar functionality, but it works offline after you download it so it works pretty quick. pity that for some translations they require you to pay before downloading but it has ESV and KJV for free, as well as greek and hebrew.
I cant agree with you that the translators of NIV made it the way it is maliciously but I still maintain my position that each person should read more than one translation, and different types of translations too. Im going to add KJV to my reading, so i guess i have reversed my position on that.
Gods word is perfect and distortions of it wont stop its power or stop god using an imperfect translation to save people and teach them his will.
Dianna gives evidence of this when she says she came to Christ through an NIV bible. For me, it was reading NIV on biblegateway and then later reading a NLT bible that my brother gave me.
Thanks again for your posts
October 3, 2006 at 10:43 am |
You mentioned, “Over 100 verses in the NIV have been identified which omit the name of Jesus, Christ, Lord, Son of Man, etc. These names are associated with the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Since Scripture is about the Lord Jesus Christ, translations that attempt to belittle Him are evidence to me that they are not God glorifying.” First you assume that the names Jesus, Christ Lord, Son of Man, etc… are supposed to be there. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Words and phrases were added to the King James Bible that are not included in the original Greek manuscripts. This is partly because of the inferior Greek text behind the KJV. And maybe over zealous translators. Second you assume that the reason the editors of the NIV did not include these words, that the King James editors added, it is because they are trying to “belittle” Him. I would think it’s the opposite. They’re trying to glorify Him by making the best translation possible so we can know what the original text said. But then again, I don’t know their hearts.
October 3, 2006 at 11:07 am |
Nicholi, the only words added to the AKJV are in Italics, the fly page indicating that the King James translators had added those words for clarity of meaning– i.e. relative to the gift of tongues, they added the word ‘unknown’ to clarify that it was a language of the world unknown to the speaker, not some language known only to God and the angels– however, in some cases those Itaiziced words have been used to twist the meaning of some scriptures, such as the one about the gift of tongues. Therefore, where other versions have added or deleted, they fail to tell us they did and why they did. Unfortunately, some of the words they have deleted were and are critical to Truth.
Love in Christ,
http://bonnieq.wordpress.com
October 5, 2006 at 5:35 am |
Thanks for your comment Nicholi.
I must respectfully disagree with the notion that the KJV utilized an inferior Greek manuscript. The King James Version of 1611 utilizes the Textus Receptus (Received Text) as the basis for the Greek New Testament. The Textus Receptus is based upon various Greek texts as well as some influence by the Latin Vulgate.
This is directly from the Translator’s Preface in the NIV: “Sometimes a variant Hebrew reading in the margin of the Masoretic Text was followed instead of the text itself…The translators also consulted the more important early versions-the Septuagint; Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion; the Vulgate; The Syriac Peshitta; the Targums; and for the Psalms the Juxta Hebraica of Jerome. Readings from these versions were occasionally followed where the Masoretic Text seemed doubtful and where accepted principles of textual criticism showed that one or more of these textual witnesses appeared to provide the correct reading.”
This is known as eclectic scholarship. In other words, if we don’t like what we read in the manuscripts, there’s always another writing by someone who’ll tell us what we want to hear.
October 27, 2006 at 1:26 pm |
It is obvious that you all need somewhat of an education on how the NIV was translated and how it compares to the KJV (what many call the “textus receptus”). Please read the following:
How did the term “textus receptus” originate?
It originated through a highly exaggerated statement — actually a publisher’s blurb — in the preface to the second edition of the Greek New Testament that was published in Holland in 1633 by the Elzevir brothers. In this Latin preface they called their book “the text which is now received by all, in which we give nothing changed or corrupted.” This is how this Latin term textus receptus (text received) came to be applied to a particular text of the Greek New Testament. On the European continent, aside from Great Britain, the first Elzevir edition (pub. 1624) was for a long time the standard edition of the Greek New Testament.
Did the King James translators use this “textus receptus” as the basis for their translation?
No. Even the first Elzevir edition was not published until 13 years after the date of the KJV.
__________
*The preceding material was compiled by the late Allan A. MacRae, President and Professor of Old Testament at Biblical Theological Seminary, Hatfield, PA. Copyright 1975.
**The remaining material was compiled by Robert C. Newman, Professor of New Testament at Biblical Seminary. Copyright
October 28, 2006 at 9:53 am |
David,
Thanks for your comments. Many of the changes in the NIV affect doctrine. For example, the deity of Christ is attacked in a number of places. One example is 1 Timothy 3:16. The KJV says: “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”
The NIV has changed “God” to “He”. This is a big difference!! In this verse, the KJV clearly states that Jesus Christ is God, and in the NIV it does not.
I’ve heard NIV adherents say, “No doctrine is affected by the changes in the NIV.” But we’ve just seen that that’s not true. What I suspect they really mean is that no doctrine has been removed entirely since there are other verses somewhere that teaches the doctrine. Therefore, they think it’s OK to remove a doctrine in one place as long as it’s not obliterated entirely.
Using that logic, would it be OK with God if we removed the Gospel of Mark? After all, most of the doctrines taught in Mark are also taught in Matthew or Luke… This is faulty reasoning, and there’s no excuse to remove even one word from God’s Word.
In the KJV in Luke 4:4, Jesus says:
… MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD OF GOD.
One final thought… “BUT BY EVERY WORD OF GOD” has been removed in the NIV. My advice if you want to have the words of God — EVERY WORD OF GOD — is to get a copy of the Authorized King James Version.
December 7, 2006 at 1:42 am |
Heres the thing, the NIV was made recently, which means more orignal manuscripts have been found to fix some of the stuff that other manuscripts had trouble with like smudged words, and we have also been able to interpert greek and hebrew with a better understanding…
I personally like the amplified due to word choice, it doesnt matter Gods going to speak to you using whatever version you have if you allow him to…
December 7, 2006 at 1:47 am |
One more thing in all reality
NIV is probably the most accurate, but the other versions make it easier for us in the 20th century to understand, thats why when i study the word i go online and find othe rversions because it reveals awesome different but same things, for me to better understand, thats why i also like the message to help me understand things that are confusing to understnad basically 1st Corinthians 12-14 was hard for me to understand in any version, but the awesome commentary(the message) made it very clear for me to understand and for God to reveal himself in a new light…
December 19, 2006 at 4:37 pm |
This test, which I’ve seen passed around on many websites, is a blatant example of bad scholarship. It merely begs the question, that is, it assumes that the KJV translation is infallible. That is, that those words/phrases weren’t, in fact, added to later manuscripts.
The answers to these questions are found in other passages in the NIV. I have read the KJV since I could read and very recently began to use the NIV. I frequently read college and beyond college level material. This isn’t to point out my intelligence, merely to mention that I am a thoroughly competent reader, not some “stupid modern teenager” who can’t do more than twiddle her thumbs and confuse the truth of the old-timey gospel.
Since using the NIV, the reality of Jesus’s deity has become STRONGER in my mind. There’s a difference between being able to read something and being able to understand it. I could read all of my brother’s books on computer programming. Whoopty-dee-doo. I still can’t write a computer program.
There are many, many verses in the NIV on this subject. You know what? If someone stubbornly sets their mind against the truth of his deity, no Bible, not even the KJV, is going to whack him over the head with the truth and force them to believe. The quaint cult of Jehovah’s Witnesses used the KJV for many years. The truth of Christ’s deity didn’t whack them over the head with old-timey gospel power. They twisted God’s words to fit their doctrine. Now, of course, they have the New World translation (very inaccurate, BTW) but my point is that they didn’t need to have the NW to have bad doctrine.
Also, there’s a difference between making the honest effort to understand God’s word and telling someone that they must force themselves to read a 16th century translation made by Angelican baby sprinklers authorized by a king who was only too happy to drive the Geneva-Bible reading Puritans from his country. This king was also alleged to be a homosexual, but I haven’t seen too much on the subjectg, so I’d hesistate to point to that as fact.
Ok, little vehement there. I think the KJV is an excellent translation. Excellent. I do not, however, believe that a “true” Christian, or even the “best” Christians or the “enlightened” Christians will only use the KJV.
December 19, 2006 at 6:37 pm |
Barb,
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I hope we can agree that the original autographs were divinely inspired and without error. All translations, by their very nature, are fallible — and I hope I didn’t imply otherwise wrt the KJV. By God’s grace, we can all have access to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance via the web and check for ourselves (like the Bereans of old) whether our translation is accurate. Just as you highlighted that the NWT is a very poor translation, I am of the opinion that the KJV is a far more accurate translation than the NIV for the reasons outlined under Topic #3A.
One of your arguments against using the KJV was because it contains some archaic words that we typically don’t use on our everyday conversations. Personally, that never seemed like a valid argument to me. Engineers will pour over technical manuals in order to understand their field of study. Every high school English student had to read at least one of Shakespeare’s plays. Imagine the outcry if we had half as many translations of Shakespeare floating around in our high schools as we have Bibles in our homes… As Bible students (and all born-again believers ought to be students of the Bible), we should diligently study God’s Word at least as thoroughly as we do the technical specifications on our HD television set or iPod.
Again, thank you for offering your comment. We do appreciate it.
September 3, 2007 at 12:32 pm |
If you would dig deeper and research these “changes” you would find that the reason they were omitted was because we now have earlier and more reliable transcripts that did not have those verses. When the KJV came out they didn’t have many of the scrolls that we now have available to assist in bible translation. And for those verses that were omitted in NIV, a text note below indicates what the missing verse states in other translations.
September 11, 2007 at 6:47 pm |
This was a great article, well-written to point out some of the key missing elements of the NIV. Taking just some of the olders manuscripts to come up with the Bible verses without referencing other older versions I personally fell is irresponsible. However I think it is positive to have some different translations that are more contemporary, so long as they do not leave out key verses and phrases that belong there. I wonder if perhaps there was another reason for leaving out a few phrases and verses, perhaps relative to copyright law and having their own version but don’t know if this is true or not.
Thanks for sharing this excellent blog. I will probably continue to use primarily the KJV for congregational Scripture reading except where the NIV or other versions include the important key phrases/verses.
Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Chuck Gafford
September 22, 2007 at 2:02 am |
Hi.
I stumbled onto your blog as a result of searching this very topic, and I was quite interested by it. I have to ask, at a bare bones level, is reading the NIV “wrong”? I have heard it referred to as the bible that the Jehovah’s Witnesses use, and I was unsure of the validity of these claims.
I happened to come across an EXTREMELY fundamental Christian website a while ago challenging that the Pope was evil, and that the NIV was a “Satanic” translation, and after this, began to doubt the wisdom in reading it. That said, this has kept me from reading my Bible at all in the past 3 weeks, as the only copy I have is a NIV. This is causing me to suffer in my walk with God, and I don’t know what I should be doing about it. Apparently, the NIV specifically calls Lucifer and Jesus the same person, and I am quite concerned about how greatly reading the NIV will affect my walk with Christ.
Put simply, I don’t want to end up in hell for reading literature embodying Christ and Lucifer as the same person, and I was really hoping for clarification in this matter.
Thanks.
September 23, 2007 at 9:14 am |
David,
Thank you for taking the time to comment on this topic. I do not recommend that you read from the NIV for all the reasons I’ve outlined in this topic and others on this blog site. I firmly believe the KJV is the most faithful translation available to us today; after that, I would recommend the NKJV. If you wish, you can do a Search of this blogsite using the keyword “NIV” to see all the information on the NIV that I’ve uploaded to this site.
You can buy KJV Bibles at 99% of the Christian bookstores in the country, and most Dollar Stores have unpretentious KJV Bibles for $1.00. What a wonderful bargain!!
Alternatively, you can read the KJV Bible online at any number of websites. My personal favorite is http://www.blueletterbible.org/
May God bless you as you seek to be as faithful as possible in searching the Scriptures — and applying its eternal truths to your everyday life.
– Jeff
January 25, 2008 at 8:57 am |
I agree!! finally somebody else can see it too! thank you so much for actually sharing this. A lot of christians have become so blind and some not even bothering to search for the truth – blissfully ignorant?? however the bible commands that we study to approve ourselves unto Him – we’re not to allow ourselves to be ignorant. May i add that even the king james has not properly translated some of the most critical statements in the bible – PLEASE read your preface regarding the rendering of the NAME – Yahweh’s name has been removed. Not translated or transliterated(by the way names do not tranlate across languages) but removed and replaced with a title, a title that is so meaningless it was used for many dieties.
Pretty worrying when you read scriptures like these…Exodus 3:15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, YAHWEH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: THIS IS MY NAME FOREVER, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
Jeremiah 23:26-27 How long is this there in the heart of the prophets, the prophets of lies; yea, the prophets of the deceit of their own heart? They plot to cause My people to forget My name by their dreams which they tell, each one to his neighbor, even as their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal.(baal = lord)…
Strong’s Hebrew Number 1168 Hebrew word: Ba’al {bah’-al}Strong’s shows: Baal = “lord” (Baal equals Lord).
Hosea 2:16 On that day, says YAHWEH, She shall call me “My husband,” and never again “baali.” (my Lord)
Jeremiah 16:21 Therefore, behold, I will cause them to know, this once will I cause them to know my hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is YAHWEH.
Zephania 3:9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.
As time goes by and new translation are made we are loosing more and more of the precious word of YAHWEH.
Have a look at the meaning of the word VAIN, it basically means to make nothing. Scripture says in the commandments you shall not take my name in vain.
It’s tragic. This is the name above all names! the name in which salvation is. The most beautiful name. The name Yahweh carries so much meaning and in scripture – over 7000 times it is not only mentioned but His people are commanded to use it, to exalt it, to proclaim it, to remember it forever! it is prophesied that people will forget his name, it is prophesied that people will refer to Him as baal! we are watching this happening all around us yet denying that it really is happening. Most of us – His own people will just come up with some worldly argument and help in hiding this awesome name! we are supposed to defend His name – how sad that most of us when faced with this question will try our absolute best to deny that we need to use His name, we will argue and argue – why?? why not call Him by the name by which He said He was to be remembered by FOREVER to all genrations – they are HIS words, why don’t we just take Him literally insteaad of trying to make up some intelectual theory as to what He really meant! His name carries all the meaning of His name as well as the power – if you were the enemy what would you attack? Finally, why not study this and look into it, see which side of this argument is backed up in scripture. It is a lot easier to stick with tradition – no body like to cause ruffles or to be looked upon as some nutter so instead we ignore the truth which i there is our bibles in black and white right under our noses and still deny it – personally i think that is the crazy thing.
The names YAHWEH and YAHSHUA are pertty important names to honour respect and at least try to get right.
With Love …
February 11, 2008 at 11:19 pm |
Too many people these days take their salvation as granted. They do not want to put in too much work to enter the new Kingdom.
The road to heaven is narrow, many are called but few are chosen. These are words quoted from the Saviour. Here I believe Jesus was referring to those who claim to “follow” him. There are so many people on the wide road and they don’t even know it. So many are called but wont be chosen even though they think they will be.
We are commanded to search the scriptures. If asked on the day of judgement “Did you search the scriptures?” I would hope my answer would not be “Yes, only the NIV”.
I used far more variations of literature for my degree. What more my salvation?
I read different version of the bible and cross compare them to reach the truth. I have even started studying ancient Greek and Hebrew.
Nothing is to great for me to do when it comes to finding the truth that will lead to my salvation.
The NKJV is superior, mistakes such as the word “easter” instead of “passsover” have been cleared from the original KJV.
The publishers of the NIV also publishes all kinds of filth. Not that it should matter ( I am sure King James was no saint) but that fact leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And the copyright.
What’s more important is that the NIV tries to conclude arguments. The day of week that Jesus was crucified is something that is usually discussed among many christians. To blatantly say that it was Friday goes against the believe of many. Even if it was Friday the writers never said it was Friday. We must each come to our own conclusion from the unchanged words of the scriptures.
Satan is doing all he can to spoil the truth as we were foretold he would.
All the best for you and yours and hopefully see you in the new kingdom.
February 12, 2008 at 9:05 am |
Justinian,
Thanks for commenting. I agree that too many people these days have a false sense of salvation. They believe they’re saved merely because they recited a prayer, were baptized in water, or because their church/pastor says they are. Only the LORD saves; it’s His electing choice.
Unlike our educational degrees, nothing we do in any way contributes to our salvation — it doesn’t matter how many theology books we study, or how many different versions of Scripture we read, or in how many different languages we read them. None of those are contributing factors; if they were, then our salvation would be 99% grace but it would also include our own efforts/merit. And that cannot be. We cannot do anything to save ourselves.
But…once the LORD saves us, then we should find an increasing desire to want to read/study His Word as thoroughly as possible — and with as much energy as we did when we were seeking our educational degrees. We will come to truth through the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit, rather than through our own intellect and reasoning ability.
Thank you again for taking the time to comment. Jeff