We're tonight, though, continuing our series that we began now 12 messages ago on God's word in our hands. You know, out of the 100 Americans, out of, rather, 100 Americans who pull a Bible off the shelf today, 55 of them, according to many statistics, will pull down a King James Version. I feel fairly safe to say that King James is then one of the most popular of the Bibles. But 55% is still only half or more than half of those who carry a Bible. The trend is clear that the King James is not the unified version it once was. So what do we do? There are many translations and you can choose from, but which one do you choose? And perhaps, perhaps this is so important in part because pastors and church leaders can really give guidance to folks that they may have been raised in a certain way and that's kind of, that guidance can push them on to make adult decisions for years to come. Ultimately, it is vitally important though that the church, the people of the church, It is vitally important that they want a translation that is truly best for themselves and for their children. That is so important. It is vitally important that we as a church, that you as an individual, want a translation that is best for yourself and that is best for your children. Tonight we continue, really conclude our series on God's word in our hands by finally looking at translations. But before we do so, there are two important opening considerations. Number one, this is impossible for me to cover in one message. Because of that, really, last night's message or last Sunday night's message, is a tie-in to tonight's. If you have not had a chance for me to listen to that message, in order for you to really gain the best out of tonight's, it's best for you to go back and listen to that one. Really, tonight's, while on translation, is a tie-in and really part two of last Sunday night's message. I hardly ever do. a part one and part two message. In fact, entire time as a preacher, I've never had a message where I say, we'll pick this up later. I actually loathe that idea. I'd rather finish my thought, but tonight really truly is a part two, and so I go against my very bent and my very nature by saying that, but I do say that to say if you're here tonight and you haven't listened to last Sunday nights, Go back and do so, and if you're listening to this online as it's been recorded for you later and you're now listening to me talk, make sure you listen to transmission before you listen to translation. And secondly, this is important for me to cover. While admittedly translations can be a dub day hot topic, it doesn't make it an unimportant topic. It's a very important topic. If we're going to be settled on God's word, we need to be settled on this issue as well. We begin our conversation, though, in Acts chapter eight, beginning in verse 30. Acts chapter eight, verse 30. Philip, the evangelist, is running, and he runs hither to him, it says in verse 30. And heard him, the man, read from the prophet Isaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? The verse says, understandest thou what thou readest. Now if I were to come up to you in the parking lot tonight and you were reading something, I probably wouldn't phrase it that way. I would say something like, do you understand what you are reading? Now what I just did for you is the difference between the King James and we could say the New King James. The King James says, understandest thou what thou readest. The New King James says, do you understand what you are reading? Now the subject tonight is much more complicated than just that, but it's also not. It's also just that simple. It's that simple because when I read the Bible, I want to understand what I am reading. and I want a readable Bible. The Bible we are reading and learning from should be one that we really understand. That is vitally important. So while the topic may be more complicated than that, it's also not. It's also just that simple. Now Bible translations have been around for a long time. As I speak, let me say, I don't know if anybody here really misses the Matthew Bible of 1537. Maybe you come to church tonight and you just say, boy, I just miss the old days when they were reading in church from the Matthew Bible of 1537. I use this as an example because this is an English Bible. You say, why aren't we using that one? past use, maybe you're here tonight and you just wish when we were memorizing Romans 12, we were memorizing from the Geneva Bible. Anybody here just, I just wish, we're memorizing from the Geneva Bible. I use that as an example as well, because there's another English Bible. In fact, this was the Bible the pilgrims used when they came over and established America. This was their Bible, the Geneva Bible would have been the one that they were memorizing from. Maybe you're thinking, I just wish we were memorizing from the Geneva Bible. Maybe you wish we were memorizing from the Coverdale Bible, right? I wish our devotional reading was from the Coverdale Bible. Again, an English translation of the Bible. How about the Bishop's Bible? That used to be very, very popular. At one point, one of the most popular English Bibles. Maybe there are some that are saying, why aren't we using that one? It's also an English Bible. We should be using the English Bible. Stretching back a few centuries, we could go all the way back to John Wycliffe and his translation. He really died in order for this to become a translation into English. How about the Wycliffe Bible? All of those are English Bibles. Now much of the English-speaking Christianity has sent these English-speaking translations to that part of the forest where the trees fall and nobody hears them. That's what we do with old translations. When we can no longer understand what is written, we move to something that we can understand. Now before we can go any further in a batter about translations, there are two words we need to understand by virtue of definition that are not the same. Two very important words when it comes to the Bible that are not the same. Number one is preservation. Preservation means God kept intact every word he gave to the original human authors. That doesn't mean we actually have a copy Paul wrote on animal skins, but it does mean that we have exactly what Paul wrote on animal skins. You don't know what I just referenced? We talked about that last Sunday night, hence why this is so important that you listen to Sunday nights a week ago. Even to this day, you can pull up a Greek and Hebrew manuscript and you can read what Paul wrote. That's preservation. But it is not the same thing as translation. Translation refers to the process whereby mankind takes the text of scripture from the original languages, Hebrew, Greek, and, anybody know the third one? Aramaic, and puts them in the language of the people, whether that be English or other translations. Now we have a translation because of preservation. But preservation is a promise. The Bible tells us God preserves his word. It is a promise. Here's why that's so important. If preservation and translation are the same thing, then about 3,000 languages in the world that do not yet have the Bible, to those 3,000 languages, God broke his promise. Preservation and translation then cannot be logically the same thing. God promises preservation. So how do you get the Bible into people's language? Well the answer is you take the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and translate it into the language people, and you can do so because God preserved his word. When you and I are talking about Bible translation like we are tonight, that's what we're talking about. Bible translation. is the transformation of the written text from the source language, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, to the receptor language, whether that be English, or Spanish, or other languages. So, how do you know which translation is best? Because this is much broader than what American church thinks is, right? Oftentimes when Americans think translation, they wrongly think King James. But translations have been around in other languages as well. We support missionaries across the globe that have translations. How do you choose which Bible translation is best? Well, I hope to answer that question this evening. That's why I've prepared this message. Number one, choose a Bible translation that is readable. By way of confession, I grew up predominantly reading and memorizing out of the King James Version, though I did not recognize or even know that there was such a thing as a King James-only controversy until I got to college. And to be honest with you, this hasn't been really too much on my mind until two things happened in my life. Number one, I became a pastor. And number two, I had children and began ministering to children. I remember going, even before I had children of my own, I predominantly spoke to junior camps. And I was speaking to a junior camp that would have and instruct their juniors to memorize and read out of the King James Version, as I was happy to do in that particular context. And I came upon a young boy, about eight years old, reading from 1 Samuel chapter 17, which is a wonderful chapter about David and Goliath, right? and he had to read through it, and as he was reading through it, he had to read it out loud to a leader, so he was reading it to me, and he was reading from the King James as an eight-year-old, and it was quite the jaunt. And every once in a while, he would stop, and he'd say, well, what does that mean? And I'd say, well, that word means this. And then he'd read a little bit further, and then he'd say, well, what does that one mean? What does that word mean? And he'd say, well, and I would just say, that word just means this. And many times, the difficult word with the King James was just translated with another word that's exactly the same, means the exact same thing, and it's just something that the young boy, an eight-year-old, recognized and understood. And eventually, he asked me this question. Why didn't they just write it that way? And he's right. I began to really wrestle with that little boy's question. Wrestling with two questions. Do I want a Bible for my children that they don't understand without my help? Is that what I want? Do I want a Bible for my church that people don't understand without some other person's help or some other tool's help? Or do I want a Bible for people who are getting saved and for children that are growing up in our church that is easily understood by them. William Tyndale, we just referenced him, died for translation into the English language. William Tyndale said this, when pushed against by people that said, you should keep it distant, keep it in the Latin, keep it in the Greek, and he said, no, I want it in the people's language, William Tyndale said, I defy the Pope and all his laws. If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more scripture than thou dost. This translation philosophy is what has been called the plow boy philosophy of translation. It's the idea that the kid working in the farm with his dad driving a plow should understand the Bible just as much as the priest in his clergy robes. The Bible is for every single person in the world. And every single person in the world should be able to read their Bible. In fact, even the introduction to the King James Version itself by the original translators says the exact same thing. By a show of hands, how many have read the introduction to the King James Bible? All right, a few. It says this, this is the King James translators in their preface, and you can see the old translator's picture of one. It says, how shall men meditate in that which they cannot understand? And how shall they understand that which is kept close in an unknown tongue? Indeed, without translation into the vulgar tongue, they're talking about the common tongue, the unlearned are but like children at Jacob's well without a bucket or something to draw it up with. What was the goal of the King James Version when it was first published? The goal from their own preface was to get the Bible into the commonly spoken language of the day. They wanted to make God's word plain and clear. They continued in their preface and said, we desire that scripture may speak like itself, as in the language of Canaan, that it may be understood even by the very vulgar. Why do they use that expression even in the language of Canaan? Often you'll hear it said, well, the Bible was written in Greek. In the New Testament, that's true. By the way, translation debate is only a New Testament debate. It is not an Old Testament debate. King James Only people have the same translation as any other translation of the Bible. It's only a New Testament debate. But why are they only talking about this language of the Canaan? Well, that's because Greek is Koine Greek in our New Testament. There actually were other kinds of Greek that they could have written it into. Koine Greek was the commonly spoken language of Greek. There was a classical Greek, and there was this Koine Greek. And when God wrote his Bible, he wrote it in the language of the people of Canaan, how they spoke. The translators went on to say in their preface, they encouraged folks to continue to update the language of the King James as the years went by. They did not want it to stay the same. And for many years, they did exactly that. But the whole point of translation is to get the Bible out of the original language and place it into the common tongue so that even the smallest child can understand it. That's the point of translation. The Bible must be readable or the Bible might as well have stayed in Greek and Hebrew. But there are two points worth driving home here. Number one, there are things in the King James Bible that you and I don't understand. For example, bray, trow, pate, P-I-A-T, leasing, which doesn't mean leasing like we mean, it means lying, brut, B-R-U-T, colop, C-A-L-L-O-P, durst, D-U-R-S-T, emerod, E-M-E-R-O-D, all of these are still in your King James Bible. Emeraude, by the way, I'll laugh a little bit about that one. I can give you a personal anecdote here. I preached in chapel at my college when I was in college there. I preached from 2 Chronicles chapter 20, but I used an illustration of how God humbles man. If man will defy God, God will humble man. And I use the example of how in 1 Samuel, how the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, and as the Philistines sent it back, the Bible tells us that some of them who touched the Ark, some died, and those that didn't die were stricken with, and the Bible in King James uses the word, emeralds. You know what emeralds are? Hemorrhoids, that's what that means. So I used the example and I said, God so humbles the foolish man, they not only can't stand in front of him, they can't sit. That's the point. Now most people don't use that language anymore, but that's exactly what's being taught there. And the average person doesn't have the tools or equipment to look these words up. I do not think it is critical for a Christian to understand their Bible, they must buy an 1812 Webster's Dictionary or lexicon. By the way, I use 1812 Webster's Dictionary because even if you looked up some of these unknown words in the English Bibles of your King James translation and used a new dictionary, it will not always give you the correct definition because language changes. Do we need tools or a pastor or someone else to explain what the Bible means to us? Let me give you one example of what I'm trying to teach you, because the real issue is actually not what you know you don't understand. The real issue is what you think you understand, but you don't. For example, 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 7, talking about the Holy Spirit, it says in the King James, only he who letteth will let. Now if I were to use the word let in conversation with you today, you would think of allow. Only he who allows will allow, right? But did you know the word let in 2 Thessalonians 2 verse seven actually means to restrain or hold back? The exact opposite of what you thought. The problem with that is you know what let means. Or at least he thought it did. The problem isn't what you know you don't know. The problem is what you think you know, but you don't know. And there's more examples. In Ephesians chapter five verses three and four it says, but fornication and uncleanness let not be named once among you which are not convenient. Now when we use the word convenient, we're thinking of something that is easily acceptable or accessible, right? Something I can have quickly. But the word convenient in Ephesians 5 verse 4 actually means suitable or appropriate. Again, the problem. How about 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 4? But if any widow have children or nephews, let them first show piety at home. Now you know what a nephew is, right? It's the son of your siblings, right? That's your nephew, right? But did you know in 1 Timothy chapter five, verse four, it doesn't mean nephew, it means grandchildren. Again, these are difference. The problem is not then what you know you don't know. The problem is what you think you know, but you don't know. Choose a Bible that is readable. And folks, this is so important. The scary part is not what you know you don't know. The scary part is what you think you don't know, and what's been called by many false friends. A false friend is something that you have a wrong understanding of, and it can trap you into really bad thinking. Bible translation. Now what is Bible translation? Bible translation is the transformation of the written text from the source language, Hebrew, Aramaic, just a small portion of Aramaic, and Greek, to the receptor language, be it English or other languages. And it's vitally important that the people in the church want a translation that is truly best for themselves and for their children. So number one, choose one that's readable. And number two, Choose a Bible translation that is formal in its translation philosophy. Now this comes down to the very process by which people that translate the Bibles look at their translation. And there are really two ends of the spectrum when it comes to Bible translations. Either you can do something called formal equivalency. Formal equivalency could also be known as complete equivalence, or literal translation, or word for word. That means the translators did the best that they could to take the original languages, be it Greek or Hebrew, and put it in the language of the people word for word. The idea being, formal equivalence is to render it exact as the original as is possible. Now for those who study or know any language, they know that exact word for word is not always possible between two languages. There's virtually never a sentence in one language that translates over exactly to the same number of words in the next language. I was actually thinking in terms of preaching through an interpreter. Some people say an illustrator, right? An interpreter, right? You can see I'm up here giving a long sentence and then it's just two words and he's got the message across, right? Or vice versa, and sometimes that's true, but the idea is still the same. Formal equivalency is taking the words supplied and not adding anything else to them to make the sense of them. It's a word-for-word translation. There's another approach that you could call functional equivalency. This could also be known as dynamic, or thought-for-thought, or a paraphrase. This attempts to render the text that we see in the original to a phrase or a thought-for-thought manner. It is not so much concerned with the grammatical form of the original language as it is the thought of the person reading it in this new language. Now the obvious pro to this is that the style of translation, formal equivalency, or functional equivalency, is easily readable. Basically any children's Bible story book you pick up is a paraphrase, right? Anybody ever read a children's Bible story book with pictures? That's a paraphrase. But there's a problem. Dynamic or functional equivalent translations will sometimes even reword expressions and customs that we understand, but they reword them so that they think they can be read and understand better. For example, in Psalm 23, verse five, the text literally reads in Psalm 23, verse five, he anoints my head with oil. This is replaced in the Good News Bible with welcomes me as an honored guest. They changed it completely. So while the strength of this style of translation is readability, there are some major problems with this trade-off. What if the translators misunderstood the meaning? If they do, they will communicate that misunderstanding in their paraphrase, and now the reader is not actually reading God's word, are they? Number two, what if the translators change the historical context? The Bible wasn't written in 2021, newsflash. And so what if they change it? Well, they will change the meaning. Therefore, any dynamic equivalent translation should be studied alongside a formal one, if at all. Now, when I put my stake on the Bible that I trust, I want it to be on a word-for-word translation. After all, Jesus himself said, man must not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. We want to be as close to original source material as is humanly possible. That's the translation I want. Now which translations fall under what category? Maybe I could give you a little bit of a helpful chart. You can see it on the screen. You can see all the way over on one side, formal equivalency or literal translations. All the way over there is something called the Lexical English Bible. How many ever read that one? It's very clunky. Basically they take exactly the Greek And they don't change nothing. They don't even change word order. What's significant about that is if you've studied Greek, you'll understand that endings demonstrate a noun or a subject or a verb, not the word order like we're used to seeing. And so they won't even sometimes change that. You are just reading it cut and dry as it comes from the Greek. It is as word for word as you can. The problem with that is it's a little bit hard for us English speakers to grasp the understandings of, it can be. Right next to that you can see the NASB, that's the New American Standard Bible. How many of you ever read a New American Standard Bible? Okay, many more hands. Like the Lexical English Bible, it is also, can be rather clunky because just like it, it is very, very word for word. they'll try to smooth over a little bit with their understandings a little bit, and then you can kind of intermix these next four, the ESV, the King James, the New King James, the CSB, or the Christian Standard Bible, formerly the Holman Christian Standard Bible, really the ESV, NASB, King James, New King James, Christian Standard Bible, those tend to be the best of the lot when it comes to word-for-word translations. Somewhere in the middle of that sphere we'll find the NIV. Is it word for word? Is it thought for thought? There's some debate there. There's some gray area there. And then you've got the message way over there, and that's just a paraphrase and things like that. It should say not or word for word, it should say or thought for thought on the screen if you're looking there. Those are just a helpful chart for you. You can look up those as well. But again, number one, I want something that is readable. Number two, I want something that is word for word, dynamic, or thought for thought is not something that I should be striving for when it comes to my scripture. Number three, avoid unnecessary allegiance to any one translation. Now here's where we jump back into the King James only controversy. For hundreds of years, there was only one version of the Bible throughout Europe, and hardly anyone could read it. Today, there are countless Bible translations just in English. Now some Christians insist that King James is the only acceptable translation, but don't be too quick to judge them. When I look around the church, I see a lot of one version only-ists. English Standard Version, New American Standard Version, New King James Version. Practically speaking, many of us can be tempted to be only one translation onlyists, and that's not a good thing either. Remember William Tyndale that we quoted earlier? Tyndale worked hard to put the Bible in the plow boy's hand. Why did Tyndale and other reformers like Martin Luther work so hard to get the Bible into the common man's hand? They did so because their study of scripture led them to a radical concept. Every believer is a priest before God, not just the clergy members. If all believers are priests, shouldn't they be able to read the Bible, understand it? And that Reformation theology led to a flood of translations into the vernacular language, the common language of the day. Bibles like the 1611 King James Version were written for plowboy priests to have direct access to God. But in the 400 years since the King James Version, Tyndale's plowboy has changed and so has his language. Some words have dropped out of use in the last 400 years, like colop, or besom. Some words have changed their meaning in the last 400 years, like convenient, or conversation, or miserable, or gay. If the modern day farmer reads the Plowboy's Bible translation of King James, he will miss some things he didn't know he was missing. He needs the Bible in his English, and I think he needs the Bible in more than one translation. There is no best English translation. There is no perfect English translation. Today we have an embarrassment of riches. So many great English Bibles. This is one of the great gifts of the Reformation to us. After Tyndale was martyred for trying to translate the Bible into the language of the people, Miles Coverdale finished his translation. Coverdale said 500 years ago that the best way to uncover the meaning of the Bible is to study multiple Bible translations. So which Bible should you use? The CSV? The KJV? The ESV? The NKJV? The answer is you should use all of them. Remember, translation is the wonderful act of God to allow the preserved words of God to be made available in the languages of the world. Now what do we do with someone who says I should only use the King James? What is King James onlyism? Number one, I didn't grow up with this. I didn't know this existed. It means you believe that King James is God's preserved word for English speakers, and it is the only acceptable translation, so we should separate from others who use something else. Now there are four reasons why this position is hard to defend. Number one, the King James only version has a real problem with history. There was no such thing as the King James only position until the 1960s and 70s. It really wasn't until the 1980s and early 1990s that things really got heated. Before that time, this wasn't a debate. There's no historical record or article that suggests it was. There's a little bit of a problem with history then. It just wasn't a debate. Even large conglomerates like magazines like something, anybody heard of the Sword of the Lord? I only heard of it recently. Some people have. They were proponents early on. Now they're King James only, but early on they actually had full page ads for the NASB when it was coming out. So this is a real problem with history. History has changed. Number two, the King James Version only position has a real problem with interpretation. As we noted last week, this is a matter of Bible translation is actually an extra biblical debate about the Bible. And yet many King James only people will use actual Bible verses to prove their King James only point. And that's actually wrong hermeneutics. You're jumping through hoops for an extra biblical debate about history to make your point about scripture. That's wrong hermeneutics. It's wrong interpretation. And the King James only position has a real problem with pointing out flaws in other translations. Now don't do this unless you're really curious, but you could do a simple Google and find wild conspiracies about the King James Version. How many have ever seen some of those charts? Have you seen some of those charts? Some crazy charts. They remove the blood this many times, they take out the trinity this many times. The problem is, you could do the exact same exercise for the King James the other way around. For example, in Galatians chapter six, verse 11, the King James says, you see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand. Paul is referring to how he had to use large print, because his eyesight was bad. Did you know that every single Greek manuscript available to us, including the TR, that word translated in the King James letter is plural? every single one. It should read how large letters. He's talking about all of the letters he wrote to them. That's a minor detail, but it's obviously a glaring mistake. So we could do the same exercise the other way around. How about the proverb that says, the proverb which says, a man that has friends, can you finish it, anybody know? must show himself friendly. Do you know that every manuscript we have available to us today doesn't read that way? It actually should read, a man that has many friends will come to ruin, and every other translation says that. That's a glaring mistake, and it actually changes the entire meaning of that proverb. If you finish it out, you understand why it reads that way. A man that has many friends will come to ruin, but there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. It's a parallel poem. What is he teaching us? Well these, again, you could do the same thing the opposite way that many will do to the King James. Number four, the King James Version has a real problem with its own revisions. If the 1611 version was the only inspired version for English-speaking people, why did they update it so many times from 1611 to 1789? Maybe you've heard 1611, 1611 so many times about King James, you've begun to assume that's what we're reading from. I have never read from a 1611 from the pulpit. I'm reading from a 1789. If the King James was perfect in 1611, why did they have to inspire it? Number two, along with that, if this is inspired by means of inspiration, then did we not have the Bible in English until that date? Did the pilgrims not have the Bible? These are really big questions that are impossible really to answer. Now as you leave tonight, let me encourage you with an important concluding conclusion. You should allow for latitude with other believers who prefer a different translation than you. When something is not doctrinal, it becomes preferential. And if something is preferential, it becomes a doubtful issue upon which good brothers can disagree. In fact, 1 Corinthians 9, 10, 11, and Romans 12 are four entire chapters in the Bible given to us so we will know how to deal with a brother or sister, but especially someone within the same church, who may differ than me. So what do you do the next time you're in a group reading scripture and you're holding the King James, which you prefer, but someone else is reading out of the English Standard Version, which they prefer? Or the preacher uses the new King James, and you wish he was reading from the old King James. What are you supposed to do? Turn with me as we close to Romans chapter 14. I'm gonna paraphrase a little from Romans 14 to help us answer that. You know Romans 14 to be the passage that deals with the stronger and weaker brother. In this case, we could use Bible translations for a case study as we close. Romans 14, Paul says to the strong man, Paul writes in verse one, as for the one who is weak in the face concerning the King James Version, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions about versions. One believes, one believes he can read many versions, while one believes you can only read one version. And to the weaker brother, Paul writes, Let not the one who reads from only one version pass judgment on the one who reads from many versions. For God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. So what are we supposed to do about this matter of translations that has created such a great divide in Christian communities? Listen to what Paul says in verse five, as I paraphrase a little bit. One person esteems one translation as better than others, while another esteems all formal equivalent translations as being good. And what are we supposed to do on this matter? Verse five, each one of you should be fully convinced in his own mind. Skipping down, why do you pass judgment on your brother in verse 10? Or why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Listen very carefully, church, as I conclude. I want you to know the last thing I would do is tell someone who loves and is memorized from the King James their entire life to somehow pull up roots and do something else. It's the last thing any of us should leave this room doing. This version is beloved for a reason. And it should be. I memorized out of it for years, and so I still think that way. Like, even in my effort to try to use other translations, my mind can still see on the page where the verse is. How many is like that, right? If I see the paragraph formats of some of the newer translations, it totally throws me off sometimes, right? I would never want to tell someone. But on the other hand, It's going to be a lot of people that don't feel that way about your version. It's gonna be a lot of people, including myself, who will teach that the best Bible version you should have on your shelf is not just one, but many. But while we may disagree, we should be able to coexist in the church in love, in faith, and in service. The truth is that whether or not someone uses a particular version of the Bible is about as significant as whether or not a woman wears pants. It's just a matter of preference. Now it is vitally important that the people in the church have a translation that is best for themselves and best for their children. And which Bible translation should you go out and buy for yourself tonight? The answer is you should go out and familiarize yourself with all good formal translations. The King James, if you aren't familiar with it. The ESV. The NASB, the New King James, which is based entirely on the same translation philosophy as the King James. The modern English version, if you're into the TR, which is based exactly on the exact same TR as the King James version. The Christian Standard Bible. You don't need to master Greek or Hebrew to read your Bible. That should be good news to you tonight. You don't need to master Greek or Hebrew to read your Bible. You just need a lot of good translations. And we are, and should be, very, very thankful that when we say, I have God's word in my hands, I do. I can actually hold a plowboy's version and understand what it says. Let's pray together this evening. Lord, we're thankful for the opportunity it is, really, for all of us to read God's word and be familiarized with it. My, how this debate has split the church, and I believe the devil is behind it. Lord, we ought to be the people that want God's word in our hands, and we want God's word in the hands of our children, that they can understand it in a way that speaks to them, that they could come to know you at a young age, just from the pages of your word. Lord, that is our desire. That's my desire as a father. I know that's the desire of other parents out here. Lord, our desire also, though, is in the midst of what has become, unfortunately, probably only an American debate. Lord, may we find unity where unity is sometimes lost. May we understand that God's Word in our hands is a wonderful tool that we should treasure. I pray this in your name. Amen. stand with us this evening as we close. We're gonna sing Take Time to be Holy, even as you do so. I don't do often say, hey, you should read a reference. Sometimes I do. This one's nice. I'll give you one reference if you'd like. It's a really short, quick read. It's called Authorize the Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. The author is a man by the name of Mark Ward. Again, it's called Authorized, The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. It's a very good read, it's very short, and it tackles the subject much like we did tonight versus much like we did last time we were together. If you want all the technical arguments, you can listen to last Sunday nights. If you want something like this, this is a wonderful tool and resource for you. It's called Authorized by Mark Ward. Let's sing together, Take Time to Be Holy. If you want to take something home very practical, Look at these words. Take time to be holy. Humble with thy Lord. Abide in him always and heed not his word. Make friends of God's children, help those who are weak. Forgiving and loving, His blessing to seek. And on the third, take time to pray. Let him be thy guide, and run not before him whatever be tide. In joy or in sorrow, Follow thy Lord, and look ye to Jesus, still trusting his word.