You are listening to the Patriot Pastors Podcast, where we talk about today's issues from a pastor's perspective, as well as calling America back to the faith of our fathers. Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under. Here's your host, Wade Lentz and Harold Smith. Hello and welcome to the Patriot Pastors podcast. I am your co-host Harold Smith joined with my good friend, Wade Lentz today. And wait, I just want to start off by saying this is probably the best looking version of me we've ever had on the podcast. I got my teeth cleaned at the dentist office. I got a haircut and I got my wife's oil changed in her car. And that doesn't have anything to do with my looks, but it sure helps with her. I mean, she'll think a lot more of me. How about you? How you been doing good? Uh, you know, about two weeks ago I had a horrible back spasm. My back went completely out and I've, I've never been shot by a 12 gauge shotgun in the back, but, uh, I think I know what it feels like. And, uh, so some of you who have had extreme back pain, no, what I'm talking about, it absolutely crippled me for at least a solid week where I just could not hardly move. But you know, I surprised you pay when you get old, Harold, you turn 46, I'll be 47 this year goes downhill. Yeah. So do you think Amanda, your wife is going to continue to pick up stuff off the floor for you and do all the things you're going to notice? I'll have to do just grab my back. It's like, baby, I can't, I can't reach that. Yeah. You know? So, uh, yeah, her and the boys are going to have a extra load from now on, from now on. Yes. Well, that's their heart. We've got a good podcast today. I think, I think we're going to, unless you're a pretty studious student of history, you probably thought that the apostle Paul used the King James version. We've heard King James only guys make statements similar to that, but no, the King James Bible was not the Bible used by the pilgrims when they came. to America to start their new life here in search of religious freedom. And it was actually the Geneva Bible and predates the King James Bible. And I think what would be good, Wade, is for you to just kind of explain to us some of the problems that the pilgrims had with the King James Version and why they chose to stick with the Geneva Bible. And I think that would be eye-opening. In America, we're acquainted with the pilgrims. I remember my first understanding of the pilgrims was in kindergarten, where we had to bring a brown paper sack to school, and we cut armholes in it. And we made vest like Indians or top hats like pilgrims out of a brown paper sack. Yes. And so we've learned of the Mayflower compact. We've learned of all these documents that have to do with the pilgrims arrival here. But why would they choose the Geneva Bible as their preferred translation of God's word? Yeah. And let me just say what really spurned this topic today is the fact that I saw on somebody's social media that they said, oh, the pilgrims, they use the King James Bible. And I'm like, dude, that's not that's not right. That's not correct at all. So they kind of spurned that thought, why that was not true, why the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620 did not use the King James Bible. On a side note, why hasn't Plymouth Rock gone under the ocean? Why hasn't the ocean levels rised over Plymouth Rock? It's carved 1620 on the rock. And Al Gore said this would all be underwater in 10 years. What happened, Wade? I'm not sure. They're off on their calculations by a few thousand years, I think, or something. I don't know. Yeah. Statue of Liberty should be underwater by now. I know. We should all be crappie fishing right around the top of that. Yeah, but one of the main reasons the pilgrims did not use the King James Bible is really to recall who the pilgrims were in the first place. They were a group of English separatists, okay? Who were the English separatists? Well, they were a group of really religious dissenters who emerged out of England in the 16th, 17th century. And so the state or the Church of England saw them as rebels. And they were religious dissenters for a number of reasons, but let me just give you a few. Number one, they believed, now they were Puritans, they believed in spiritual purity of the church. They believed that the Church of England had not really fully reformed from Catholic practices, and that true worship required a pure form of Christianity. a Christianity that was free from what they perceived as remnants of Catholic rituals and structures. And so the church at this time was mainly Anglican, which is what we call Catholic light, very much Catholic forms and rituals and liturgy. And these English dissenters did not agree to that at all. And so they believed in the spiritual purity of the church. They also believed in what we call congregational autonomy. These were a group of people that emphasized the autonomy of a local church, of a local congregation. And so they believe that congregations should have the freedom to what? Govern themselves. They should have the freedom to choose their own leaders and determine its own worship practices, really things that were independent of any centralized ecclesiastical authority. And so they believe in congregational autonomy, Now, since they were dissenters of the Church of England, thus dissenters of the state, they faced significant persecution and opposition from the authorities because their views challenged the established religious and political order. And so because of that, they were subjected to fines. They were subjected to imprisonment. They were subjected to really harsh forms of punishment because in the eyes of the monarchy, In the eyes of the king, they were rebels. So knowing that this is why these English separatists left England. This is why they fled out of England in search of a new land where they could have religious freedom, freedom of religion. So again, having that background, let me just very quickly, uh, give you some reasons why the pilgrims primarily use the Geneva Bible instead of the King James Bible. Number one, as we stated earlier, anti-royalist sentiment, okay? So the pilgrims who were separatists and those who held dissenting religious and political views that did not align with the Church of England, and its association with the monarchy, the last version of the Bible that they would bring to their new world, their new land, would be an authorized King James Bible. So they rejected that King James Bible. The Geneva Bible, on the other hand, was translated and published during a time of Protestant exile in Geneva, Switzerland, and reflected the reformist ideals cherished by these English separatists, these pilgrims. So again, the anti-royalist sentiment was why they rejected the King's Bible. Yeah. So why, why would they, they were okay with King John Calvin, just not King James. Exactly. Yes. Another reason they didn't, uh, use the King James Bible was, uh, of its availability and its familiarity. They were not very familiar with it. King James was completed as you know, in 1611, uh, the pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620. Now, that only allowed about nine years for there to be a widespread circulation of the King James Bible. Well, going back into this 16th century, 17th century, printing Bibles was a much slower process than it is in these days, of course, and we live in the days of digital Bibles and so forth. So the Geneva Bible was a widely used English Bible. It was readily available and widely read by the common people, including the pilgrims who were very familiar with this language and style. Another reason why the Pilgrims really cherish the Geneva Bible was because of its annotations and commentary. You could say that the Geneva Bible was really the first study Bible. And I have a digital copy of the Geneva Bible, and it is very much structured as a study Bible. It has very extensive Bible study notes, cross references, commentary, and it's very doctrinally sound. A father could teach their household certain doctrines, certain definitions, commentaries. So it was a cherished Bible. And of course, Geneva Bible was Published in 1560, you know, several years before their landing at, uh, Plymouth rock. So they were just very familiar with that. And again, knowing the dissension that they had with the King, they were not at all willing to use the King James Bible in this new land. Yeah. I think you would see that today if a new translation were to pop up i don't think you would instantly see everyone switch over unless you said we're in the digital age and mass printing is not done by one page at a time turning a lever setting type i mean the ability that we can print material and distribute the information today way, way faster than you could have in the 1600s. And, you know, you just don't see new translations getting footing that fast, especially by a group of people that are serious about what they believe. I mean, they take serious, some people, even today, Wade, as long as it's a Bible, they don't care what translation it is. They don't care if it's a paraphrase, they just want something easy to read maybe or. But the Puritans were not that way. They weren't looking for something that was easy to read. They were looking for something that was accurate and trustworthy. And so if they arrived here with the Geneva Bible, and that was the accepted, the prominent Bible amongst reform groups at the time, How did the King James Bible get such a foothold in America? If we were started with the Geneva Bible, what took place to go from the Geneva Bible of the Reformers to the King James Bible? Yeah, and that's true. The Geneva Bible was the Bible of the pilgrims, but it was not too many years later that the King James Version in North America became the prominent Bible version. And the main reason for that is because of British colonization, the British wanting to expand their empire. Expanded into north america which is why we know it as new england today or the second england they wanted to expand and so obviously the rise of the british citizens coming in and creating colonies use the authorized version of the Bible. That would be the Bible of choice. And because of that, um, the King James Bible quickly became the prominent Bible of North America and, uh, and really stayed that way for several, several, several years. So in my opinion, to those guys who are King James only, really they're, they're British sympathizers. Pretty sympathizers. Oh, wow. Yeah. That was said by Pastor Wade Lentz, not Pastor Harold Smith. I will not give you my email address. Okay. Well, we went from the King James becoming really the predominant Bible in the Americas, English speaking Americas. But I guess I want to kind of take us from there and explain why the King James is now such an issue for some people today. So what happened is over time, people began to criticize some of the text that the King James was written off of. And so at the same time we were doing archaeology, caves were being explored, old documents were being found, monasteries were being cleaned out. and other Greek translations of various New Testament books were being located. And so then we had the era of textual criticism. In textual criticism, what was happening was people were saying, well, I found this copy of, let's say, Mark. And this copy of Mark ends about halfway through chapter 16 and it's older than your copy. So this is the original and you have a copy of it and somebody added something to it or they would say that verse you have there doesn't belong there because I've got an older copy that I found over here and it doesn't have that verse in it. And so this is a some people would call it a science, but it also requires a good deal of speculation to be a textual critic, because what you're trying to do is date a document based upon the way it was printed and the type of lettering and spacing that was used. And so what that did was that that brought about what we would call a revised text. yeah the latter part of the 1800s there was a a really a the king james bible was the bible i mean that was the commonly accepted text of the time textural criticism came this hey look we've got a we've got the real bible here the king james that's been good for a while but now we've got this revised text with the updated greek translations that it's been translated off of sure and then we opened up the floodgates of bible translations again based upon the the critical text. And so you have people now when you open up the floodgates of translation, everybody wants to wait in there. So you've got the the Jehovah's Witness and their Watchtower Bible. And I mean, they revise that thing and rewrite it about every two years. Every time we point out one of their contradictions, they rewrite their Bible. You also have people trying to make the Bible easy enough for kids to understand, so they do a paraphrase and it really doesn't read anything like scripture. There's really not translation involved. We read a chapter and then tell you what we think the chapter says. That's a paraphrase. So anyways, I can see people now going, well, wait a minute, you know, King James Bible was good enough for grandma and grandpa and the pilgrims. Some of them would say that the apostle Paul, as I said, they always want to go back and lend credibility to the King James Bible. And they're doing that as a reaction to all of these crazy. And I'll be honest with you, there's a ton of crazy translations out there. Absolutely. Some of them even use modern slang like, you know, calling Jesus Big Daddy and Scott God and all kinds of crazy things. But I see a problem with King James-only-ism. And the problem that I see is that you're going back to a translation, which is really just a group of scholars reading a document in another language and translating it to the language you're speaking in. When you elevate a translation, which is the work of men translating what God has recorded, you end up with guys like Sam Gipp or Peter Ruckman who believe in double inspiration. God inspired the Greek manuscript, but then he also inspired these translations of it. And Sam Gipp even said, when asked if a Russian-speaking person wanted to learn the Word of God in its purest form, does that person need to learn Greek and Hebrew? And Sam Gipp said, no, he needs to learn English so he can read the King James Bible. That's just, wait, I mean, I think you and I both would reject that the King James is double inspired. Right. And that's the, uh, that's what the Ruckmanites believe Sam Gip would teach is that the, uh, King James Bible is double inspired, not only the originals, but really the translators of the King James. Uh, it really supersedes the originals and. Wow, that's so wrong. So you're saying that the translators themselves were inspired. And here's the funny thing about that. This is predominant among Baptists, and they're saying that God inspired these Anglican translators who were persecuting Baptists at the time to write the Bible for them. It's really a contradiction. And a majority of the King James only are anti-Calvinistic. Yes. The majority of the King James translators were Calvinists. Yes. So, uh, again, that's puts him in a, in a, it's an awkward position. It's an odd tension and I still use the King James Bible. I read from it every day. I don't have a problem with the archaicness of it because I've been reading it since I was old enough to read. So I use the King James. I've tried other versions, but it's awkward for me because most of my scripture memorization is in King James, and if I'm trying to read a modern version, I want to just start quoting it the way I remember it, not the way it's written. And so I said, hey, I'll just go back and stick with the King James. It was good enough for Grandma and Grandpa. It was good enough for me. And so I often get confused with being King James only. Some people would see sermons of mine on Sermon Audio, and the version is listed King James. Our church, when I pastored Lee Creek, our church was often listed on King James-only websites as our church locators. People would come into our church, they would hear me preaching from the King James, and they would say, boy, it sure is good to be in a King James-only church. They would hold up their ESV or NASB, and they would be like, you're a heretic," and then they would come to me. Do you know you have people? And I'm like, yeah, I do, because I'm not King James only. So let me explain my position, and I'm not dogmatic about this. I host a Bible conference with preachers every year, and I don't tell them what translation to preach from or But my own personal conviction is I believe that the Textus Receptus, which is a compiling of Greek text, is what we should be getting our Bible from. I reject the critical text guys that say, hey, wait a minute, I found a new document. Because the Textus Receptus was assembled in about 1516, and it went through some revisions all pretty quick after 1516 as people began to look at it and read it. But it was the first printed Greek New Testament, and so it was put out there. And then the Bibles that we have in the English language all came off that Textus Receptus for several hundred years. And so Tyndale's New Testament was translated from the Textus Receptus, the Coverdale Bible of 1535. Tyndale's was 1526 and 1534. Coverdale was 1535. The Matthew Bible was 1537. The Geneva Bible that we began talking about was The Great Bible was translated in 1539, the Geneva Bible was 1560, and it went through some revisions until about 1644, but still yet the core Bible was translated off of the TR, the Textus Receptus. In 1560, the Bishop's Bible came in between the King James and the Geneva. That was 1568. The Textus Receptus was used. King James Bible, 1611. Textus Receptus revised in 1769. Also, Textus Receptus. 1764, the Quaker Bible came off the TR. 1833, the Webster Bible came off the TR. 1862, we got Young's Literal Translation, which you'll still see sometimes online when scholars compare words. That came about in 1862. And then really the next, I would say, well-known Bible based on the Textus Receptus was in 1975, the New King James Bible. And then you've got the J.P. Green's literal translation, 85 to 1993. And then probably more recently you have 2014, the modern English version. Now I would say any of these Bibles would be good worthy Bibles to read. I would also say all of these Bibles are subject to translator error. And so you must go back to the Greek. And I would say if you're going to go back to the Greek, go back to the Textus Receptus, and here's why I'll go back to the Textus Receptus. I don't elevate one translation, I'm elevating one collected text. The reason I'm doing that is because when that text was printed and put out, that's what everybody accepted as the Greek New Testament for about three, four hundred years. If we say, well, everything should be subject to textual criticism, then we would say we didn't have an accurate Bible in our language in 15, whatever, 26, when Tyndale wrote his. And we could also say we may not have an accurate Bible now, because we may find a Greek manuscript in a cave somewhere that 1 Timothy 1 shouldn't be there. Or we may have three more chapters of Ephesus. It may go to chapter 9 now. Right. And so when you leave this open ended, when does it end? And the textual critics would say, well, it never ends because we're always discovering new manuscripts. That makes me wonder, well, did God preserve his word or is he progressively revealing what's been written once for all? Right. And so that's my reasoning. I know there's flaws with that. I know people are going to get up in arms. I wouldn't debate James White on it. He's smarter than me, but That's where I am. And so we had a student graduate college at church and we held a reception for him after church and the church presented him with a Bible and I gave him a new King James Bible because that's an accurate translation of the Textus Receptus. And I wouldn't have a problem with any of the Bibles. I wouldn't have a problem with the Geneva Bible, right? Because if I had a problem with the way it's translated, I wouldn't go to the King James or I wouldn't say the King James said it. I would go look at the Greek. And I would look at the Textus Receptus because that's what we've been looking at ever since it's been printed. Sure. That's my personal view, Wade. Yeah. The views expressed on the podcast are just the views of this co-host, Harold Smith. That's funny. You know, you know, our listeners do not know. I grew up in a church and I pastored the same church I grew up in, which was strongly King James only. Now, you had a pastor there one time that found an NIV Bible in the church and threw it away and told the church, if you left your NIV in here, I threw it away. Wasn't that true? Yes, on a Sunday morning. He said, folks, I found, I just want to let y'all know, I found an NIV Bible translation in the foyer. He said, I'm not sure whose it is. I didn't look. I just ripped it up and threw it in the trash. That's how he started out the service. So you think about how many, you know, there were visitors there that thought, okay, this is, they rip up Bibles here. What kind of church is this? So, yeah, that's the mindset I grew up in. They were King James only and mean about it. And I started having some really big issues with that, some questions that I had that, you know, if the King James was all that these pastors and Bible teachers were saying all that it was, then why were guys like Adrian Rogers, guys that I really Loved and cherished. Why were they not King James only? Yeah, and so I started questioning I started digging and Honestly the book that James White wrote the King James only controversy was a big help to me and for answering some of those questions that I had concerning King James only ism. And really the premise of his book, the thesis of his book is not that he criticized anybody for using the King James. He thought it's a great version, but he's really criticizing the King James only ism mindset. And but me personally, I use the New King James Bible, which is when I first started doing that about five years ago, I was deemed a heretic at my own church. How dare you use that New King James Bible? You have fallen away from your roots. For me, I was tired of the archaic words. I always question guys like, okay, you're a King James only-ist. What do you do when you read verses like 1 Corinthians 16, 13, where Paul says, quit you like men. What do you do? We tell the people what it means, act like men. Man, you do the same thing that what the new version does. You're translating it in modern vernacular, just like the new versions do. Same thing with Romans 13, 13, where Paul says, let us not walk in chambering or wantonness. Now, what does that mean? Well, you have to tell the people what that means. It means sexual immorality. And so, again, you are correcting, in essence, or updating the King James. And, and I think eventually, you know, even the King James are gonna only guys in the next. I'm just going to throw a long number and the next 200 years, the English language is changing so drastically. It's going to have to be updated because so many of our words become obsolete or archaic every year. But I think when it comes time to update it, we don't translate it off of its original translation. We translate it off of the original manuscripts that it was translated from. The text is receptus. I'm just not a, I'm not a critical text guy. And so taking the position I have, I have a closed cannon. We can alter any of the verses, what those guys were working off, what the pilgrims landed with was a translation of the Greek text I'm reading today. And if I live to be an old, old man and nobody understands the King James anymore, I'll probably have to go to a new King James or maybe even a new translation. But I'm going to go to one that includes all of the verses used and the text is receptus. And so I think if you're like me and you hold the conviction of TR only, it avoids a lot of the goofiness of King James only that's really sensible, but it adheres to look, God preserved this. And when the reformation worked, those guys were carrying a Bible off of this Greek manuscript. And I think once you open Pandora's box of letting scholars, some of them don't even believe the Bible by the way, determine what belongs in it, I think you've handed the word of God over to secular scholars and said, here, you tell us what's in our Bible. And I just don't think it should be that way. Mm-hmm, right. Let me give you another book that our listeners might be interested in and that is, I don't know if you can see that or not, God's Secretaries, The Making of the King James Bible. It really outlines, number one, why the King James authorized the people to translate the Bible, but also articulates the different translators themselves. tells us about him, tells us a story. Very, very interesting read if you're interested in the background behind the King James Bible. But, uh, you know, it's it is a very controversial. I believe the King James only is camp. Harold is a shrinking circle. Yeah. I mean, honestly, it's I've seen it in my lifetime, especially the last 10 years. How many people are who are in that circle are either getting out or just it's just shrinking. There's more dying out than there are adding to, I think it's going to be a less than less. I mean, you're always going to have in certain areas of the country. It is, there's got a rabid following and there's always somebody that wants to be the head of a following. So there's always going to be young guys. saying what they're supposed to say to rise to the top and be in control of a circle of our network churches and groups. But yeah, by and large, I think you're seeing that fade away. I think also you're seeing a lot of people who would be normally using. Say an ESV or an NASB saying, you know, I really think some of these verses that are removed or phrases that are removed, you know, when I read the older preachers preaching, they were preaching on those verses. Edwards was preaching on those texts. Virgin was preaching on this text and it's not in my Bible. And so I think you're seeing a lot of people going back to the, the, uh, traditional or received text. And, uh, so I, and I think it's a more sustainable position. Um, but there again, I'm not a scholar. I'm just a hillbilly from the backwoods of Arkansas and these are my convictions and they work for me and the Lord's blessing my ministry. And I have no convictions to To chain. Right. Right. Well, if, uh, I wonder how many viewers will lose on this podcast here. Uh, most of our viewers were in the closet about listening to us anyways. Yeah. So they may start saying, I don't listen to that Patriot pastor podcast, but maybe when they're in the car alone or on the treadmill, they might, they might still tune in. Right. I told you earlier what I want to do this Thanksgiving, this Sunday before Thanksgiving is I would like to preach from the Geneva Bible. I bet you have a revival breakout because probably so. Yes, we might wear, I might wear one of those Pilgrim hats and shoes and belt buckle, all that stuff. You know, I might dress like an Indian and shoot you from the back row. Make it real squanto. Oh, man, it's been good, Harold. It's always a joy to discuss these things. And hopefully in the future, we can discuss more about the historical things of our country. I would like to look at some of our Baptist pastors, even Presbyterian pastors who were inspirational or not inspirational, but leaders in the Revolutionary War. Right. And I think that would be neat to something to discuss in the future. But I want to thank everybody for listening to this edition, this episode of the Patriot Pastors podcast. Do you have a final word that I cut you off? No, no, you didn't cut me off. You're doing a good job. Just keep going. All right. We want to thank you all for listening to the Patriot pastors podcast. May the Lord bless you.