KJV-Only: Reason # 1

The King James Bible is the perfect, inerrant, accurate, inspired and glorifed word of God in the English language. I believe that to be true.

• Perfect = free from defect and complete in the source/texts from which it was translated
• Inerrant = there are no "mistakes," "mistranslations," "bad renderings," "careless oversights..."
• Accurate = it is a perfectly accurate translation of the word of God from the original languages
• Inspired = in that the original autographs were inspired by God, and subsequently they were preserved by God, a perfectly accurate tranlsation of the inspired word of God, makes it an Inspired word of God as well, in the English language.
• Glorified = inasmuch as we give it the glory that it is due - by reading, meditating and obeying (the text above is 2 Thessalonians 3:1, speaking of the word of the Lord being glorified)

That's my stance on the King James Version. You really have to take some kind of stance on the issue, because the King James is different than the "other translation." I call it the "other translation" because all of the rest could really be lumped into one - there are exceptions, but the generalization is strong. It is the King James Bible vs. the rest of them. (For fairness sake, you could divide the other translation into two: literal translation vs. paraphrase/dynamic equivalence translation).

I have to clarify, before continuing, the issue: The King James translation was translated from a different set of original language texts than the rest of the versions were. Therefore, the other translation will have verses and phrases that are not found in them, because the texts they translated from did not have those verses and phrases in them. Sometimes, the translation will be different just because the translators of the other translation thought it would be better that way. It is NOT an issue of: "they just updated the language..." That just simply is not the case, yet I suppose that phrase would be the understanding of the vast majority of what Christianity thinks of when they hear of this issue.

I would like to share with you reasons that I, Andy Hinds, happen to hold this position on the King James Version.

Reason #1: Because a man of God challenged me on the issue when I spued my ignorant challenges against it.

I didn't say I was going to give you the best reasons, or the most conclusive reasons first. But the number one reason that I, Andy Hinds, believe the King James Bible to be the perfect, inerrant, accurate, inspired and glorifed word of God in the English language, is because Rick (who needs no introduction) held his ground against my charges of, "oh, that's not fair that the Spanish doesn't have a KJV." and: "Oh, where was the perfect word of God before 1611," and "Oh, why can't we just update the language - the KJV is so old!" and other such things. Rick left me one night after Bible study with a piece of wisdom: "I'm not going to convince you of this, you'll have to be fully persuaded in your own mind." Rick realized my stubbornness and pride, and realized that even if he won the argument, he wasn't going to win me... Anyway, he challenged me to look into it for myself - and I did!

Those next few weeks I had spent hours upon hours studying the issue. I was self-employed at the time and could easily move around my schedule, so I was spending many, many late nights up in my office reading books and browing pages on the Internet. A few weeks later, as I was going to be presenting the results of my study to our Home Bible Study, Rick asked me how long I had spent on studying and preparing. The answer I gave him, after figuring it out in my head, was about 80 hours - and that was even without the Baptist round-up!

The study showed me my ignorance of the subject, but more importantly than that, MUCH more importantly than that, during the process of studying out different changes made between the KJV and the other translation, I started realizing that I hardly knew my Bible at all - that there are things in the Bible, important things, that I really had no clue about! Throughout those couple weeks of me diving into my Bible head first, God used that to get a hold of me. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. I really started to fall in love with my Bible - my King James Bible!

Thanks again, Rick! (Yeah, I know he doesn't read this blog - but it's the thought that counts!)

... and a reminder: This is Missionary Prayer Meeting week