Hello, my name is Chris Thomas. As you can see, there's no movement on my face. It's a picture. Welcome to the third episode of the Confessional Bibliology Roundtable, which we're privileged to have William Resharhi from England give a discussion on the importance of the Texas Receptus and translations from it in witnessing and ministry. As all of you know, we have Christian McShapery, Dr. Jeffrey Riddle, William Resharhi, of course, and myself in the Confessional Bibliology Facebook group. We're going to keep this intro short so we can focus all the time on Koyaan's presentation. And we'll go ahead and open with a prayer right now. Koyaan, go ahead. Our gracious God and ever-merciful Father in Heaven, we ask that Thou wouldst presence Thyself with us and help us as we seek to speak of Thy truth and to speak of Thy glory in preserving it. and in the way that us use thy word in saving of souls and in bringing sinners to a knowledge of thee. We pray for thy blessing then in all that is said and done for the sake of thy dear son we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right our biologists go ahead and mute themselves we'll turn it over to Booyah. Well, it is a privilege to be with you today to speak to you about the usefulness and the advantages of using the TR-based Bibles for apologetics for evangelism in general and with Muslims in particular. I begin with quoting from Proverbs chapter 24 and verse 21 which the wise man of Proverbs gives this counsel to the young. He says, my son fear thou the Lord and he goes on to later on to say meddle not with them that are given to change he says don't meddle with those who are given to change and the Hebrew there is is the term changers those who are changing then also in James chapter 1 and verse 8 the scripture says this a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways I think these two texts, for me, they have been very critical when I have come to evangelize, especially Muslims, and to seek to win them over, to know something of the Gospel. When I've come to speak to them about the Lord, one of the critical things that always is discussed is, where do I get my authority? Where does the Christian's authority come from? What gives me the basis from which to present the gospel to those who deny the gospel, who will not receive it, who have their own books, who have their own basis for their own authority, and from their truth? And here I want to speak to you that we cannot base our evangelism, our apologetics, on a text which is ever-changing. We are told today by well-known leaders in the field of apologetics and teachers of all sorts, and especially now within the reform camps, that if one embraces the confessional text position, which is what we are encouraging people to hold to and what we hold to out of conviction, We are told that if one embraces a confessional text position, a TR position, that he necessarily abandons any meaningful apologetics. And according to these individuals, one can only do apologetics in the real world, we are told, if he embraces the modern critical text position. I would argue the opposite. the opposite, I believe, to be true. The confessional text position is very much attacked, in particular for claims of certainty that the true text has been preserved within the traditional printed text of the Reformation. And it is suggested that such claims are but a form of narrow-minded fundamentalism. We are branded as King James-onlyists. and it is supposedly to trade the truth for certainty. But are truth and certainty incompatible? Can we not have a certainty on the truth and the authority of the Word of God? Can we not have both? Can we not seek both truth and certainty? And my question to those who criticize a confessional text position those who claim the modern textual criticism position and they hold to the ever-increasing modern Bibles. My question to you would be, and challenge to you would be, what has been the fruit of these things? What has been the fruit of modern text criticism in these postmodern days? with over a century of modern textual critical practice and modern Bible publishing, does the Church of Jesus Christ find itself in a state of revival? Do we find ourselves in a state of health? Do we find ourselves in a state of strength? I believe what we are seeing, especially in the Western world, a church that is very much diminishing in strength. Apostasy is rampant everywhere. There has been this great evangelical departure that has been happening. And that has been while we have had every few years a new Bible, a new translation, a new text, a constant revision of the Greek text and various forms of the Hebrew text also. which and with all the modern versions that have flooded the western world especially the english-speaking world with these modern bibles and easy to read bibles and we have ample publicity after publicity and advertisement is the church in a healthier state are we with our modern bibles achieving the thing that we are promised by them. By way of introduction, we must realize that the Bible itself, when we think about the text of the Scripture, when we discuss the textual basis of our Bibles, whatever view we might take, we must appreciate that the Word of God itself is relevant. We do not make it relevant by merely making it modern sounding, The Word of God itself, by nature, it is relevant, it is powerful, it destroys philosophies and vain deceits of men. It is the eternal Word of God of the Eternal God. It is the revealed mind of God about Himself, about who He is, about His nature, about this world, about His relationship to us, about our relationship to Him, about His Church, about His sovereignty over it. The Bible, the Word itself, is relevant. You cannot make it more relevant, as I've read recently in some new books that have come out, to say that we must have an easy-to-read Bible. And the problem that we are finding in our society, in our culture, the reason people are not reading their Bibles is because the text of the old Bibles are no longer readable by people that they cannot understand it. And I would put to you the opposite. We have ample amount of easy-to-read Bibles that do not give the sound of authority. We have ample amount of ever-changing Bibles that are destroying the view of people that the Bible has any more word of authority in their life. They see the religious leaders, and by that, then they transfer that to our ever-changing Bibles. When they see people speaking all kinds of things, they change their mind about all sorts of things, and they see the same thing in the changing Bibles. We don't allow the Word of God to be relevant. It is already irrelevant. And it is, however much a person tries to make the Bible easy to read, and in our evangelism, we have to appreciate that it is not the easiness of the words that saves the soul, but it is the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of sinful men, and those who could, in the times of the apostles, could read the words of the Apostle Paul in their own mother tongue. They didn't have translational issues. Peter could write and say that there were some things that the Apostle Paul wrote that were harder to be understood because they're spiritually discerned. Our problem is not one of having, if we just get an easy to read Bible, then we are going to win the world for Christ. No, we need that outpouring of the Holy Spirit in saving of souls. If God speaks with just one word into the heart of the sinner, God saves that soul. There is power in just one word of the Word of God when it is blessed by the Spirit of God. So when we talk about apologetics, a person can get into this attitude of intellectualism for the sake of intellectualism, academic learning for the sake of it, and the pride it brings with it. And then we look down upon those who do not hold our position, as I experienced it so many times, and we are patted on our backs. And we are told that if you only read these books, if you only read Dr. Such and Such, then you will change your mind and then you will be a better man. But many of these people, they don't understand. I used to take that position. That was my position. I was in their shoes. I reveled and I promoted those things. And so it's not that I have not experienced and I have not held to a textual critical position. But my friends, it's the Word of God, it's the unchanging Word of God that has formed nations. It has been the unchanging Word of God that has changed barbaric, idolatrous, superstitious societies into orderly, industrious, prosperous, and God-glorifying cultures. It has changed people's lives and it shall continue to direct people's destinies. A single text, as I said, it changes people's worlds. A single text changed Martin Luther when he read it and was blessed by the Spirit of God. So let us not hide behind this false intellectualism. that thinks that if we hold to a confessional text position, if we use a Bible that is over 400 years old, we cannot do apologetics. God cannot bless it in evangelism. I encourage you, my friend, that the very opposite is true. Now let's think about the relevance of the Word of God in evangelism. and the relevance of the Word of God for the Bibles that are based upon the received text of the New Testament and in the view of the doctrine of the providential preservation of the Word of God. Many believe that Bibles such as the Authorized Version, the King James Version, and others like it, it cannot serve its purpose because of its language and was ready to retire decades ago. And as I said, the Bible, it is relevant. We cannot make it relevant ourselves. The church cannot make the Word of God relevant. What do we mean by relevant? The dictionary defines it as to have significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand, to make connection, to be applicable, to be fitting, and in our context, to relate in the right way. And the question is this, that if we hold to such a view, a confessional text view, does that fit in with our society? Well, the Word of God fits in with our society. And our conviction and conclusion regarding this must be based upon the fact of history, reason, scripture itself, and the doctrines that come out of this book, out of the Word of God, and its relevance must apply not merely to young people that we are trying to reach the millennials but also to the old not only to those from a multicultural society but in any culture in any time and in any place um and so let's let's think about this my friends as i have sought in my ministry here in England and also amongst my own people group of Iran and Farsi or Persian speaking people around the world, I have been engaged in weekly open-air evangelism at least once oftentimes twice we go out on the streets evangelizing i'm not speaking as an armchair evangelist i'm not speaking as someone who is conducting evangelistic meetings and debates online i have not done any debates online but i have done plenty in the open air i have done plenty in reaching out to muslims I have and I have by God's grace I've had openings to preach to hundreds and thousands through the satellite TV channels and also the videos that are then published on the internet. Our website is being visited from within Iran and other Islamic countries by in thousands weekly And so I'm not speaking, and our emails are flooded with requests and questions by Muslims and ex-Muslims. And one thing I would say to you is this, that in terms of apologetics, real apologetics, I'm not talking about having a little meeting in some university and having a debate with a Muslim, but in real world evangelism, what we need is a standard Bible. And that is why we need one, for example, in the English language, we need just one English Bible. And I would put to you, it is the authorized version, the King James Version, that will meet that need. The church did have just one Bible until recent decades. And think about the society in which we are dealing with, pastors are dealing with, people are coming in, for example, in my setting in United Kingdom, in England, we are living in a society where the world is coming to us. And in the Western world, this is the case. The only Bible that will be culturally effective and useful is a Bible that the majority know, a Bible that is standard and stable, The Church of Jesus Christ once had a standard Bible. Christians were all united on this point. We had one Bible, but now you only have to go to Islamic apologetic websites that are defending the Islamic faith. What do you see as one of the major things that they criticize Christianity is of their many versions? There are many different versions. If we had one Bible based on one true text, we would not have that issue to deal with. So you have that problem to deal with. The church does not know which Bible to use, which text to use. How people engage in evangelism are to deal with such things. And so I would put to you that we should return to one book in our evangelism. And that for the English language historically has been the authorized version which was used throughout the Commonwealth and it quickly became the Bible of the United States and any culture that has English as their first or second language or was affected by missionary movement of the 18th century and beyond had only one Bible. So I'll leave that with you regarding that. of the need for having one Bible based on a faithful text. But also in evangelism, the need of evangelism is a stable, unchanging Bible. This is where the TR-based Bibles, the Textus Receptus Bibles, or confessional text position, and the Bibles based upon the confessional text are most useful in evangelism because it is the most stable text. Christians who engage in evangelism, real Christians who are dealing with Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses and Unitarian-based religions, need to rely upon a stable Bible which does not change every few years. And this is the thing I've found. As I have gone into the open air, as I have had groups of Muslims who have come and spoken to us and have claimed that that our Bibles have changed I'm thankful that if that I hold to a confessional text position if I took the opposite position I should say, yes, we don't have a true text, and the text is ever-changing. And I would have to rely on all the other arguments that people use, weak arguments, that, well, no doctrine has been changed by that. That does not wash with the Muslim that for them they have one text, one Koran. And evangelists, should not need to face people of other cultures ever explaining, ever apologizing, ever having to say why we have a new version with different wording and with different footnotes. I have seen Muslims coming with their ESVs and they point to the footnotes to me while I'm preaching the gospel to them. I've had Iranians who are seeking genuinely, and they are considering the Word of God, and they have been given a modern English text while they have moved to the United Kingdom. And they have said, well, how can I really rely on the Bible when the Bible says in the most ancient and best manuscripts, this text is not found? And he comes to me with this puzzled look and he says to me, well, how can I rely on this? I don't know which one to choose. Or when in the introduction of certain Bibles and editions that says that you be your own textual critic, you use the footnotes according to how you feel, right? Well, how can that not produce much confusion amongst those that we are trying to reach? And that's what I have seen. um people are living people of all ages and cultures and backgrounds they are living in an ever-changing world one thing that should not change and this rapidly changing world one thing that should not change are is our bibles we must have a spiritual anchor which does not change. And that is not merely a translation, that is the textual basis of our translations. And there must be a stable translation for English and other languages too. The psalmist says in verse 11 of Psalm 119, Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee. How can an ever-changing Bible be retained in heart and mind if it is changing? It can't be memorized. And we have a culture of, if you look at churches that have been teaching from the critical text Bibles, I would ask you, this generation of young people that have come through, how many of them are able to be reciting words of God? Are they able to do that? And then those who were there 30 years ago, 20 years ago, using one form of Bible, are they able to recite those words and will they be acceptable to modern hearers? Because they are using different Bibles. Are people more Bible literate in our churches? I come back to this again and again. And on another way, are we having difficulty finding deacons and elders who are faithful and spiritual and serious about the things of God and have our Bibles, modern Bibles that we are told it will make the Word of God easier to read, helped us regarding that or not? So I put this to you as well. denoted Puritan John Owen he saw this he saw that when the text that the Greek text of the New Testament and the Hebrew text of the Old Testament come under question if we begin to move away away from the doctrine of the providential preservation of the scriptures that we would then give way and we will hand over ammunition into the hands of atheists and heretics and the Romanists. And he saw the advantage for them, for the heretics and the Romanists, if they had a critical text in their hands. And he suggested that they would use this to their own advantage, to the destruction He used this term as an engine suited to the destruction of the authority of scripture. It would serve, he says, as a fit weapon put into the hands of men of atheistic minds and principles, such as this age abounds with all, to oppose the whole evidence of truth revealed in the scriptures. He says, I fear with some either the pretended infallible judge or the depths of atheism will be found to lie at the door of these considerations. And this is what he said so many years ago. And this is what I am seeing right now. When you seek to go into the public square and preach the gospel and you are faced with people who have been on certain websites and they have done some investigation on the text of the scripture and they say, you have no authority because you have an ever-changing Bible. And I have seen Muslims who do this very thing. They are actually using the words of the famous apologetics men to defend their position. and they quote, well they used to quote Bart Ehrman, they don't quote him anymore, they are quoting evangelical leaders, and even on a personal note, I have been seeing in recent years how the Iranian government in their headquarters where they train the Mullahs and the Islamic clerics in the city of Qom, they are translating and publishing much so-called evangelical literature, evangelical commentaries, evangelical papers, and they are publishing the works quoting Bruce Metzger, Bart Ehrman, and D.A. Carson, N.T. Wright, and such people are being translated, funded, and published by the Iranian regime in defense of their position. So their scholars are saying, look, we are not being biased against Christianity and the text of the New Testament. It is them, they themselves are speaking. They themselves are saying that this passage is not part of the Word of God. And this is mind-boggling that then certain evangelicals and those who are dealing with apologetics, they pat themselves on the back. They think that their opposition to a confessional text position is actually advancing the work of God, but actually their holding to a critical text position is destroying evangelism amongst Muslims. And this is what I'm finding again and again. So I would put to you, we need to have a clear textual basis. We need to have a stable text, an unchanging text. And all of these things obviously are built upon the foundation of our theology, our view of the Word of God. That's our presupposition. It is the Word of God that teaches us that God preserves His Word. His Word is unchanging. That it will not be diminished. It will not be destroyed. One jot or one tittle shall not perish from it. And a need for evangelism is to have a theologically sound and stable Bible. That's another thing I would put to you. This is the kind of Bible we need, based upon a theologically sound text. That's what we need for evangelism. We don't need Bibles that deny the deity of Christ, or weaken the deity of Christ. And we have already had two texts that were defended, the texts that deal with the doctrine of the Trinity, deal with the eternal sonship of Christ, and the eternal generation of Christ. We must have Bibles that do not put question mark over the virgin birth of Christ. That don't say whether this verse or that verse is correct or not. People that we are trying to reach with the Word of God need the scriptures that is theologically accurate. translated, for example, the Authorized Version, the King James Version, they believed in the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. Hence they have given us a Bible that is theologically sound. No doctrine of the Word of God has that has been revealed is compromised in that translation in English. And same could be said with other translations that you have in other languages based upon the received text. And that makes it very relevant. When a Bible is theologically sound, it is the most relevant Bible that you could give to this world. How can a theologically weak Bible, even though people say, well, we can find the doctrine of the Trinity, we can find the deity of Christ, we can find eternal punishment of the wicked in other Bibles and other texts. Of course you can. But how can a theologically weak Bible or one that compromises or questions truth be relevant to any people? How can you use that in evangelism? At least it pulls the rug from underneath you because you do not have a basis of authority. Where does your authority lie? That's my question to you. And that has nothing to do with what kind of age we are trying to reach what kind of people group we are trying to reach what kind of culture we are trying to reach what kind of religious group we are trying to reach it's for anyone when doctrine is weakened a bible is no longer relevant for the for those that we are trying to reach for the readers And it is not good enough to say that, well, we need to hold on to our certain Bibles that have been used traditionally in the church. I was reading someone recently, and very kindly this man was saying that we should still keep the authorized version in our homes, that we should give them as gifts to our children. But how can they appreciate it if they're not reading it every day? If they're not memorizing it every day? It will be just another relic on their shelf gathering dust. As I have on my shelf, I have the Revised Version gathering dust, I have the New King James Version gathering dust, I have the ESV Version gathering dust. I don't read them. If I was to read them every day, then I would imbibe them. but but these people that say we should we should still they pay lip service to the majesty of the authorized version but if it is not being used every day it is useless it will not affect people what text has been soundly tested throughout the ages sound theologians in the past past 400 years have quoted from the received text. Church Fathers quoted from the received text. But today those who advocate the critical text position in their systematic theologies have to apologize for certain points of the rendering of some of the modern Bibles. I have read some modern theologians writing, quoting from the ESV and the RSV, and then they have to apologize for certain renderings because of that, and they claim, and they admit to the fact that this wording here is weak on the eternal Sonship of Christ, or it is weak on the virgin birth. And well, the question is, well, why do you use it? Why do you use such a weak text that you have to apologize for it? And so the question again to us is, do we have a text that is sound theologically? Because if we don't have one, then we don't have any apologetics. If you don't have a sound theological text, you do not have a strong point of evangelism, because you do not have authority. The authority of the Word of God is not behind you. And so I must move on friends but there are many in our in our pulpits and in the pews within evangelical and reformed churches who do not know that the textual source of the various new bibles differs from that used for centuries and and that is quite interesting that they do not know this and then what you have when sermons are preached and I've had people who are interested in the Christian faith who are beginning to listen to sermons online by various famous preachers and they come across for example preachers who say that the last 12 verses of Mark I had one man listening to John MacArthur and I appreciate much of John MacArthur's teaching or John Piper and they have listened and they have come to me and they said well you use I'm listening to this man and he has when he has come to the last 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark, he has preached a sermon, why he is not going to preach a sermon on it. And my heart sinks when I hear such things. And these are people, these are Muslims who have become disillusioned with Islam, and they are now seeking to find peace and rest in Jesus Christ. and the preachers of the Word of God that they are listening to, and then this man wanted to listen to the whole of the Gospel of Mark, and sermons on the Gospel of Mark, and for him to come and say that, it was very disheartening for me, and I had to explain to him about these matters, the textual matters. For me, that actually undermines evangelizing Muslims. The question of the text and evangelism, it has to come from the scriptures themselves. Do we have, in our modern critical text position, textual stability? The answer is no. We do not have a textually stable Bible. And my then question is, how do you then evangelize with authority? as i said the wise men of proverbs in proverbs 24 and verse 21 gives a counsel and it is a good counsel for us to listen to my son fear thou the lord fear of god is the issue not fear of man not fear of scholarships meddle not with them that are given to change and that word given to change it means changers don't meddle with them How can we defend the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ when the text in our Bible says He appeared in a body in 1 Timothy 3.16? How is it that I can come at my door and Jehovah's Witnesses are there? I've had to, in the streets of the town, when the Muslim clerics have put a book table out with their Korans on the table, and they say to me that, well, the Bible itself does not say that Jesus Christ is God. And I point, I take out my Bible, and even my Greek Bible, and say to him, here it is, it says God, Theos, was manifest in the flesh. And he says, no, but my Bible does not say that. And he then has a copy of the word of God. And this man was using the ESV on his Muslim table to say to the passersby, here are the footnotes. They defend my case, he said. And he said to me, who are you? Are you saying that you are better scholar than these ESV translators? Now what do these evangelists, what do these apologists of the Reformed and Evangelical Church say to these people? And this is real work amongst real people who are there on the doors. And when Jehovah's Witness comes to our house and he says to me, Well, the Bible does not say black and white that Jesus Christ is God. And I point those texts out to him and he said to me, do you not have an NIV? Do you not have an ESV? And it is interesting that in the latest versions of the Watchtower their books and booklets, they are quoting from these texts, these modern texts. Why? Not because they are more accurate than their Bible, but it is because of their textual basis. They say the same thing. How can I defend, then, such things with the Muslims? But talking to them, I can say, as I have preached many times and the Lord has used it, to the salvation of many, many, God was manifest in the flesh. And this is crystal clear in the Word of God. When I'm dealing with the subject of eternal punishment to those who do not believe, as some of the Muslims do not believe, they believe in a state of limbo, and I am speaking to them the eternal punishment from Mark chapter 9, particularly when there are texts there that speaks about where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. How can I defend that from Mark chapter 9? I cannot if I'm using a different text. Our Lord said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God, in Matthew 4 and verse 4. Every man, whatever background, whatever culture, is a living soul that needs every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Not most of it, not hopefully 99% of it, but every word of it. that is what we need in our evangelism every word of God must be preached making disciples of all nations through what everything that Christ has commanded but if we are our textual basis is is such that we cannot with assurance no text is sure. Every text is under question. If you hold to a critical text position, every text is under question. It all depends on what they will find tomorrow. And so you have no basis for authority because that very thing, and it's a presuppositional thing, that very thing that you say today you are relying your faith upon is under question tomorrow. And it all depends on what these textual critics will say. And in evangelism, those that we are trying to seek, and for me as I seek to evangelize Muslims, they do not need a text that lacks the purity and the fullness of the Word of God. you would not feed your child food that, you know, has most of the vitamins and nutrition removed. You would want a diet that is complete. And so this idea that, well, any Bible has, you can prove any text or any doctrine from any Bible, it is a false notion. It is a red herring to my view. um to to say that uh in evangelism we ought to be um speaking with authority on every text now i'm not saying that god cannot use other bibles i don't say that i was converted when i was using the niv when i was reading the niv um god blesses his truth But I do not want to feed upon it, upon something that has only most of the truth. That kind of an argument, for me, it is illogical. I know of one Iranian man who began seeking the Lord because of the reading of the Koran. You might be surprised at that. But in the Quran, the only person who is called holy and sinless is Jesus Christ. And this man read this, and it pierced his heart. And the question arose in his mind, why is it that Jesus Christ, not Muhammad, why is it Jesus Christ is singled out as being the sinless one? And so that intrigued him. That made him to go and read the Bible for himself. and ultimately he was converted now does that mean that i should begin evangelizing using the quran because this man was converted no it is illogical it is unreasonable but this is what we are told by in ultimately by um the those who hold to a critical text position that that since we have all of the doctrines Even though they are in a weakened position, we can use it and we must use it. This is the point. We must use it or else we do not have a basis for evangelism. That, to me, it is foolish. And it is not something that I see. As I am preaching the Word of God and seeing in the past 15 or so years of working amongst Muslims and working on the streets preaching on the streets and i have seen the fact that i am using a text based upon the received text to be my best friend it has the lord has used it mightily in the salvation of many many and i have counted i have lost count of the numbers of muslims who have come to the lord jesus christ through the Bible that we are being told it should be retired, God is not using it, it is too difficult for people to read, and also the textual basis for it. How can God save people when he uses a text which is not found in the critical text? This is the thing that amazes me. that I preached a sermon on that very text that was opened up last week, 1st John 5-7 and preaching on that to a group of Iranians and seeing God using His Word for the salvation of these men. It is foolish in the eyes of many people today that we should preach from these texts, but We are told that we cannot have an outreach amongst people, that our outreach would be weakened. No, my friends, what weakens it? What weakens our outreach when we do not have authority, when we do not have an unchanging word? And more could be said about things. I find it interesting that how even working with Muslims, how when they translate their Quran, their most respected translation, which is called Yusuf Ali translation, if you were to read it, it sounds like the authorized version. It is using the and thou, and it is using the same kind of linguistic. Why do they do that for the Quran when they translate it? It is because the language of the Authorized Version, it has the authority of the Word of God. It sounds like the Word of God. And so the Muslims are mimicking it. And I find that interesting too. Someone has said that the modern unbeliever, if he has any spiritual concern at all, is well aware of that the contemporary scene really offers him no help. And he wants the church to speak in a way that is timeless and from another world. And you can speak to the young and the old. Westerners, as well as people of other cultures, are more likely to take seriously what is said to them if they sense that this is something more important than just casual conversation. In time past, when people read books, when they went to conferences, when they heard sermons, when they were not confused by the multiplicity of different renderings or various changing texts, because they use the same Bible. The source of authority was and should be one text. And it doesn't matter what language it is, it must be one text that should be our authority. But my friends, the world has become confused. Evangelism has weakened, I put to you, because of our confused notion of the text of the Word of God. In an age of apostasy, in an age of spiritual weakness, we must go back to something that is certain. And so much more could be said, friends, about these things. But let me finish with the following things. Something that I stated earlier, the problem is not the youth culture. The problem is not the people that we are seeing, the people that are either educated or uneducated. I fear in the Western world, by what I have seen, I fear the problem that we are finding within the evangelical and the reform world. It is the educated, well-taught, and well-to-do English-speaking people whose language, first language is English, is the fault, I believe, must be left at the feet of the educated Englishman or English-speaking man who says that he doesn't understand the so-called, and this is a misnomer, Elizabethan language, and they then So they cannot hold to a text that is stable and that is constant. The fault, I believe, lies at their feet. What I am finding in open-air preaching, no one in 15 years of me going nearly twice a week and preaching in the open, and no one has said, why are you using that text, except the cults, except the Muslims, and except some modern Englishman who's come and criticized me for the Bible that I'm using. But the common man has heard the Word of God. And common man who has come, their problem was not because I was using a confessionally based text. Their problem was a spiritual one. Their problem was with the gospel. Their problem was with Jesus Christ. They could hear very clearly what Christ says in this old book, the 400-year-old book. They could hear it clearly, what the demand of the gospel is. But it is those Christians who say, well, you need to use the language of the people. Well, in my preaching, I am using the language of the people. I've never had, when I've gone into public schools and preached to the children, no one has said, I misunderstood the language of the authorized version. But it has been the well-taught English teacher who has come and criticized this. A person coming from another culture like myself, remember, is learning the language and simply accepts it. Simply accepts that we must learn the vocabulary of the Word of God. The Muslims who are beginning to read the Word of God and hear sermons and hear the preaching of the Word of God, they don't have a problem with that concept. They're learning. It's part of their learning culture, their learning mindset. Dictionary is our friend. We are asking questions. What does this word mean? What does this word mean? And so it is that with a child, you don't have to, you don't hear a child complaining about the use of the authorized version. It is always, as I say in my experience, the adults who are well-educated, English-speaking men and women who complain about this book. And then what I find textually speaking, it is the same. Well-educated people who say, we do not have a basis for apologetics. We do not have the basis for evangelism. And yet, people who are converted in our congregation, the Muslims who turn to Jesus Christ, They are not turning to Jesus Christ because I am using a specific thing. They are turning to Jesus Christ because they are believing in the authority of the Word of God and the Gospel that is declared from it. So, friends, let us, I encourage you, let us not fall into the lie of trying to believe that we must both have a constantly a modern Bible that the world is crying out for modern Bibles and easy to read Bibles the world is not crying out for it it's the educated evangelicalism that is crying out for it the Muslim world is not crying out for it but let me say what I see in evangelism that is undermining our evangelism, especially in my work amongst the Muslims, when I see Muslim scholars quoting evangelical leaders in their own defense, in the defense of Islam. And they point to me in the talks that I have had and in the outreach work that I've done, and they point to me and say, well, even the Christian scholars do not believe that they have a text. Spurgeon said this, I am a Christian minister and you are Christians or profess to be so. And there is never any necessity for Christian ministers to make a point of bringing forth infidel arguments in order to answer them. And what we are finding, what I am finding is that The Muslim world is quoting Christians who are quoting infidel arguments to undermine the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is being pumped out in the northern Iran, in the publishing houses, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, to undermine the growing Christianity within Iran. And they are using Christian evangelicals to do that. And Spurgeon said this. It is the greatest folly in the world, he says. Infidels, poor creatures, do not know their own arguments till we tell them. And then they glean their blunted shafts to shoot them at the shield of truth again. It is folly to bring forth these firebrands of hell, even if we are well prepared to quench them. Let men of the world learn error of themselves, he says. Do not let us be propagators of their falsehoods. True, there are some preachers who are short of a stock and I want them to fill up, Spurgeon says, but God's own chosen men need not to do that. They are taught of God and God supplies them with matter, with language and with power. Friends, The modern Reconstructionist textual criticism plays into the hands of the Muslim apologists, arguments of Tahrif, what they call Tahrif. In the Islamic religion, they are constantly taught, as I was as a child, that the Christians have changed their text. And the sad thing is that modern evangelical leaders are saying the same things. Friends, so much more could be said about these things, but I finish with James 1.8. A double-minded man is unstable, he says. A double-minded text, I would put to you, is unstable. And the scripture says, in all his ways. And so much more than a Bible, which is not sure, a text, the Greek or the Hebrew, is not sure, What are the authentic readings? One cannot rely upon them. One cannot use them in evangelism. The church is not revived through unstable texts. May God then bless these things to you and that you be encouraged to go back to the source of the Reformation, which was the Reformation texts. and the received text which was used in those days. May God then bless you. Thank you for the opportunity that you've given to me. Thank you. That was a fantastic presentation. One thing I would like going forward, Christian, you had mentioned this, I think it was before you gave your first presentation, about your ministry amongst the prisons and your use of the authorized version. And that seems to tie in quite well with Puyon's presentation here today. Could you go ahead and discuss a little bit of that? And I believe you have the only question that was given, Puyon. Yeah, I think you touched a lot on that. But if you would go ahead and read it after Christian discusses his mystery amongst the prisons, and then y'all could discuss that. And I think that'd be a great way for us to end today. So Chris, I have to correct you. I don't have an active ministry in the prisons. I write letters with two or three inmates that are in my jurisdiction. But in our previous conversation, I was making reference to a friend of mine who serves in our presbytery, in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And he is a minister and he serves in a prison. And You know, people end up in jail typically because they are not the brightest people. Sometimes they have an IQ that is room temperature, even though that's kind of mean. But it's the fact. People that end up in prison tend not to be the most brilliant people in the world. And by far the most popular translation is the King James Bible in the prison. and they understand it, they do not complain about it. As Puyon said, they understand everything there, including what it calls them to do, repent and believe the gospel. And the dictionary is a man's best friend. I remember very well learning my Bible and having the Strong's Concordance there in the dictionary, and learning to understand what God said to me. So minor correction, but that was the conversation we had. The King James Version works fine in prisons, and it also works fine on the street. Thank you, Puyon, for preaching in open air. I've done that before, and it's very difficult. but not because of the translation. The difficulty comes because people hate the word of God and they hate the authority with which street preachers proclaim it. That is the problem. No one ever says, what does whatsoever mean? That's foolishness. But the question, Chris asked me to read it. We received this via email yesterday. What would you say to a Christian who is getting stuck on their desire for intellectual respectability, and so is reluctant to use the received text? So what would you say to a brother who is stuck on this concept of wanting to maintain, quote, intellectual respectability, and that's what's slowing them down from joining the received text camp? Who'd like to go first? I nominate Jeff. Jeff has been nominated by the host, so let it be. Well, I mean, it's a great question. And I think there is sometimes, maybe especially among evangelicals, and there's a sense of you know, that they want to be well perceived, they wanna be well accepted. Young men go to seminaries and the fellow at the front of the class has a PhD and he's somebody they wanna emulate and he suggests books by people who are in the academy. And, you know, it's kind of a, it's sort of a university model for education. as opposed to perhaps what a seminary should be. It's learning information, but more importantly, it's learning about the care of souls and how to lead worship and how to counsel and so forth. But men have the idea, if I don't follow along the latest academic currents, then I won't get respect from people. I think Puyon made a great point that most of the people that we encounter, everyday people, their heads aren't swimming with all the questions that came out of the seminary classroom. You know, I remember when I went to pastor my first church, and I had gone to a relatively moderate seminary, and I'd been taught a method of preaching that was very popular, you know, narrative preaching, and there was a fellow named Fred Craddock, you know, and he wrote a book called As One Without Authority. And the idea was that you need to get into the pulpit, and you need to share your questions, share your doubts. And I went into my first church as a pastor, and it was in rural northern neck of Virginia, the northernmost peninsula of Virginia. And the people in my little congregation were farmers, and they were tradesmen. And they didn't want to hear my doubts about the faith. They wanted to hear a reason for the hope that is within me. They wanted to hear about Christ, and they wanted to hear truth, and they wanted to hear from the authority of God's word. And God was already in process of working in me to discover that in previous years and experience as a missionary. So I wasn't a liberal by any stretch of the imagination, but it was striking to me how different the reality of real world ministry was compared to sort of the fantasy world that had been conveyed you know, in the moderate liberal seminary classroom. And it was part, you know, the Lord was, you know, working a process in my life that was leading me towards understanding, embracing the authority of Scripture. And then another step along the way was embracing the proper text of Scripture and a faithful translation of Scripture. It didn't come all at once, and I would say that maybe to some of the brothers. I know we've got some younger brothers here and some men who are in the ministry who will listen to this. Some men have been to seminary, and I'm not downing the pursuit of good theological education. But if you're thinking through these things, It's okay to be thinking through these things, and it's okay for it to be maybe a process that takes some time. It did for me. I preached from the NIV for a long time. Glad to hear Puyon heard preaching from the NIV. And then I went from the NIV to the New King James Version. And then I made a transition for the last decade. I've been preaching from the authorized version, and I've found it has absolutely been no impediment at all in the effectiveness of my ministry. In fact, it's very much deepened it. I've never had a problem in my ministry, my local church, with people understanding what I'm talking about from the pulpit. Never. with my children, catechizing my children around the table, reading from the King James Version, and even singing from the Scottish Metrical Psalter. It's not been an impediment to discipling. And anyways, yeah, I'll quit talking, but I was gonna say one thing, Puyon, you were talking about the, the biggest, the people who sometimes give the biggest objections when you were doing open air preaching sometimes were not necessarily, although it might sometimes be a Muslim or somebody or a Jehovah's Witness who understands what the modern translations mean for undermining the authority of God's word, but ordinary people don't usually bring objections. You said the educated Englishman or English speaking person, and it seems to me like it's the educated Christian person. A lot of times I've found actually educated people who love literature. and who loved the English language often prefer the King James Version. And when I was a college student, I spent a semester in London. My university had an exchange program, and I spent a semester in London. And I went there with a professor from my university who was an English professor, And he knew I was a Christian. And one day in one of the classes we were talking and he turns to me because he knew I was a Christian in the class. And he said, he said, tell me something riddle. He said, he said, why, why is it that you Christians have abandoned the King James version? It's the most beautiful translation. He said, I can't abide to hear these modern translations. And this was a man with a PhD. teaching at Wake Forest University, and was actually the head of a publishing, a poetry publishing house, and published a number of very well-known English poets, including Seamus Heaney and others. And he loved the King James Version, couldn't understand why Christians had abandoned it. And that's coming from an intellectual, So, there might actually be some avenues to ministry that are actually cut off from us by cutting ourselves off from the great heritage. And I don't mean just the King James Version as an English translation, because we so often get put in the category of being KJV-only and written off. But I'm talking about the great heritage of Christianity. that from the traditional texts underlying the traditional English translation. But anyways, there is a great desire for academic respectability, but it actually might be found sometimes if we embrace the traditional texts. And I would commend Ian Murray's book, And I've done a book review of it. I've recently did a blog post on it, and the name of it just flew out of my mind. I think it was called Evangelicalism in Crisis, and it's about evangelicalism in the UK from, I think, 1950 to 2000. And he surveys there some of the problems with evangelicals, in particular in the UK, but Americans as well, who thought, I'll go to a respected British university, and I'll get a PhD in New Testament or theology, and I'll influence the academy. And the influence seems always to work in the opposite direction. Evangelicals don't influence the academy. The academy influences evangelicals. And men sometimes seek that academic respectability and it puts them on a road to compromise in the end. So that's a long answer. I'll yield the floor to Piyan if he wants to add something. I fully agree. As I read that question, which is, again, what would you say to a Christian who is getting stuck on their desire for intellectual respectability and so is reluctant to use the received text? I would be interested to know what they mean by intellectual respectability. What is intellectual and from whom are we seeking respect? Whose smile do we seek? Is it the Lord's smile or is it the world's smile? And where is, when we talk about intellect and intellectualism and knowledge and education, who is the source of knowledge and what is the source of knowledge? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and elsewhere it says beginning of knowledge. It is fear of God. This issue that we are talking about is not a theological, just an academic issue that we are talking about. It is a true conviction based upon our fear of God and the fear of His word, to tremble at His word. And so intellectual respectability, it gives me the sense that that we are to nod at and pay respect to this world's attitude to things and who has been forging and who is at the forefront of the modern reconstructionist, textual reconstructionism. It is not the so-called evangelicals and the reformed folk. It is the ungodly, it is the unbelievers, it is those who do not believe in the Word of God. The Bruce Metzger's and the Ehrman's of this world and the DC Parker's of this world and they are not and the Kurt Allen's of this world. Why would I want their smile? Why would I want their respect? Why would I want to borrow from them? So again the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and so our intellect must bow before Christ and we must bring everything captive to the obedience of Christ and even our thoughts, our views and die to self. rather than men's men's smiles. That's that's what I say. And when I see sometimes, you know, in our outreach, I see people in our open air work. And even this last week, I have, I received a phone call from from a, an Iranian evangelist. And, and he said, Do you do you know with your position that you're taking? Do you know that there are Iranian organizations and Iranian Christian organizations who are being influenced by the modern evangelicalism and the new evangelicalism who are going to undermine you and they're going to limit what you're trying to do in your outreach and I thought to myself how sad it is these groups and organizations who are seeking respectability by the world have become, they are bowing to this intellectual respectability and they are seeking to have their leaders receive certification and and the academic training by some of the leading seminaries in the USA, it is so sad, I think, that this intellectual respectability is causing damage to actually seeking to evangelize Muslims. That's where we are at. For the one who has asked about this, it's go back and renew your fellowship with the Lord, I would say. Go back and read the scriptures and ask yourself have I really studied do I really think so low of even those of past who held to these views you may think little of us and and you should you may think that we are not scholarly and that's fine there is no problem in that we are not and we are not aiming to be we are not claiming to be but go and read John Owen. Go and read Dr. Edward Hills. Go and read these men. It is after you have looked at the writings of Turretin and Owen and such people, and then you see that it is actually the intellectuals of today are pygmies in their sight. They are so small. These giants who were both theologians and linguists and everything that they were that the intellectuals of our day are not. It is then that you can say to yourself, well, I now can think clearly and wisely about who I am going to bow before and seek the respect of. So I'll leave it at that. Well, it'll be the third time around, so perhaps I could rephrase the question and use a false friend, because we know how much everyone likes those. Did the brother who was halting between his opinion, perhaps feeling sympathies toward the textus receptus position, but that desire to maintain intellectual respectability, I think Puyon is very correct. It need not be a problem because our position has been held by brilliant men and our fathers in the faith. It shouldn't be an embarrassing prospect to embrace the old ways and the old doctrines, but it could be a problem. So I do want to add to that encouragement a warning. Be careful with the desire to maintain intellectual respectability, because the Word of God has given a warning about that. You remember what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? We all have to be careful that the desire to be well-regarded by our peers or our superiors, we have to be careful that that desire does not lead us to compromise, to compromise our convictions or our character. And I say that because there is really nothing new under the sun, including that temptation. For those who are familiar with the history, and I would encourage you to become students of history, This is how recent eclecticism came into the Reformed camp in the first place. For those who are familiar with it, think back to the turn of the century, 1899. A man named Buckminster pushed for the publication of an American edition of Griesbach's critical text because he saw it, quote, as a most powerful weapon to be used against the supporters of verbal inspiration. Warfield recognized it as a threat. He sought to alleviate it, but he had unfortunately adopted a different apologetic than that of Alexander and Hodge and Dabney. Those dogmaticians were the true children, the intellectual heirs of Turretin and Owen, but Warfield chose to work within a different framework. what we might even call a more respectable epistemological paradigm. It was prevalent in his day. It's called common sense philosophy. And when you apply that to the text of scripture, disastrous things happened. In Warfield, my heart was broken when I discovered this. One of my theological heroes, he even adopted a baptized version of Griesbach's text critical canons. Now, that paradigmatic shift in textual critical theory in the Reformed world is well-documented. We were recommending books in previous episodes, so let me recommend the Ecclesiastical Text by Theodore Letus. He documents this radical shift of text-critical theory within Presbyterian and Lutheran circles. It's a must-read for all who want to understand how did we get to this point. How was the Textus Receptus displaced as the Protestant text? But back to the question at hand, the practical matter is this. Intellectual respectability from whom? And for what purpose? The old view of the text, the view we are together affirming here was not held, was never held by theological dunces. We are talking about Francis Turretin and John Owen and R.L. Dabney. You know, you read modern works on the critical text, and I can plow through them in a week or two and comprehend the writings thereof. But when I sit down with the fathers in the faith and work my way through Turretin's elliptic institutes, it takes months. to understand, to receive, and to appreciate the things that are there being set forth. It's a different class of men. And I say that not to congratulate myself, because I'm the lowest of the scholars. I'm a modern man, and it takes me time to understand what my fathers wrote. But let me say this, the views of our fathers they're actually more intellectually sophisticated than those of the modernists and even those of the German enlightenment scholars. And I say it's more sophisticated because they allowed the queen of the sciences, theology, to inform and to enlighten their engagement in the lower disciplines of science. So my encouragement to the questioner, and I don't think he's a skeptic, I think he's probably halting between these opinions, is this. Choose the more classical road, the more intellectual road, the more theological and piety-driven road that you're hearing about in these broadcasts, and you will find yourself standing in good company. even in the shadow of intellectual giants, who should, and this is final, I'll just issue this call to the critics out there, the men of which I speak should have the utmost respect. of all modern scholars. And if they don't, that is a problem. And it is probably a problem of sin. So let's show all due respect to those who went before us, who in some ways gave us the problem we're wrestling through today, and let us learn from them. Let us learn from them. So that'd be my answer to the brother. And I hope that would be, you know, a word of encouragement, but also warning to all. I know we're trespassing, oops. Go ahead, Jeff. I know we might be trespassing on the time, Chris, and if we don't have time, let me know, but I wanted to follow up with a question for Puyon. First of all, I love the quotation from Spurgeon, and I wish you'd send me where that's located. Let men of the world learn error for themselves. And that raises a question, and you address it to some degree, but we were talking about, you know, there are some modern evangelical apologists who want to have, you know, dialogues with Muslim apologists and have an intellectual discussion. And I had shared on my blog not too long ago quote from one of the best books I've read on evangelism with Muslims by a Fellow who was a brethren missionary in North Africa Charles Marsh. He wasn't reformed but But anyways, he had a section in his book called called The Challenge of Islam, titled Mistakes to Avoid. And at the end, he said, do not give him, meaning the Muslim person you're trying to evangelize, a free tuition in Islam. Remember that not every Muslim is a theologian. And he says, in fact, many who come to Europe as students or workmen know very little about their faith. And he talked about running into a fellow in a village in Algeria who once told him, everything I know about Islam, I learned from the missionaries. And so there were some well-intentioned, well-meaning missionaries who thought, what I have to do, what I have to start with is teaching people about Islam and telling them how different it is from Christianity, et cetera. But Charles Marsh's response was we shouldn't focus on, he calls it the comparative religions approach, but instead we should just talk about Christ, talk about the gospel. And I'm curious, I have a feeling you'd probably be sympathetic to that also given knowing you and what you've said and what you said today, but what's your response to that? Is there a place for intellectual discussions or should we focus more on simply from that stable standard text preaching christ yeah there are those who are very keen on uh on discussing intellectual issues and textual issues um but on regarding the muslim man on the street the normal person and normally those those people who who would like to uh discuss in intellectual issues and textual matters, they are the ones who have been investigating online. Those are the ones that I deal with and they have been investigating. They already come with their ammunitions in hand, handed over to them by these missionaries that you were talking about and these popular apologists that they find online and they use their quotations against people like me. But the man on the street, the Muslims down in Gloucester, who I converse with regularly, or near our church in Cheltenham that I converse with, what amazes them is the claim of Christ, the claims of Christ about who he is, and that is their issue that's what they want to talk about and the fact that what i bring to them my central approach to deal with muslims is the authority of god the holiness of god and the claims of christ about who he is when i when i challenge them and say that allah is not a holy god the holy deity it offends them it shocks them and I said that actually Christ and Jehovah he is holier than Allah and they cannot fathom that and I then deal with the issue of the law of God and the nature of God and the fact that how a holy God cannot receive sinful men that sin must be dealt with. So it's the issue of holiness of God and the sinfulness of man that then I must speak to them with authority from the authority that we are given from the Word of God. That's what I deal with. And I find it destroys all their... If they want to speak to me about the doctrine of the Trinity, about the deity of Christ, and all of those things pales to insignificance. when we actually deal with the heart of the issue, how can a holy God receive sinners? And ultimately that I spent three hours in a field with a group of Muslims just some months back, where this was the critical issue. One of them was a man who had gone on the internet and had listened to some debates by one man that we very well know and another Muslim and he was claiming that this man was actually the Muslim cleric had won the debate he was claiming but the rest of this gang of Muslims they were not interested in that and one man said how can I be forgiven that was his issue and he couldn't understand how could And he understood the case that if Allah is holy, he must punish sin, that the claim that Islam makes that Allah is merciful, that he couldn't understand that. And he actually sided with me and he said, yes, if God is holy, he must punish my sins. But my problem is I must be forgiven. And so he was interested in talking about um the way of salvation and and the group and they all took except this one man who had been influenced by these islamic debates online everyone else took a gospel from me um at the beginning they wouldn't but after discussing with them about holiness of god and sinfulness of man and the way of salvation through christ they were willing to talk um And our folk from our church, they were standing in amazement of how this argument was folding. Yeah. You said, you know, in your presentation, I think you're absolutely right. You know, that many people tend to use the writers who think that they're engaging in this incredible intellectual openness in talking about, as Christian scholars, about the textual transmission of the New Testament. And they think they're actually proving the reliability of that transmission. But as you said, what many of the Muslim apologists hear is ammunition to back up You said what they're taught as children, and that is the Christian scriptures are corrupt. And I think that a lot of these fellows don't mean they're well-intentioned. Maybe they're coming at it from a Western Protestant evangelical perspective, a society that's been through not only the Reformation, but the Enlightenment. And they think this is appealing. but they're speaking to people who see it as them capitulating to giving over that, yes, the New Testament is corrupted. And so I think that's just a very striking thing. And also, what you shared, you shared this last time, it's amazing to think that the government in Iran is in the business of translating and publishing the works of evangelicals. That should give people who write in this field pause about the positions that they've taken, I think. We've gone almost two hours. That's fantastic. This is what I was hoping for with this last one. Alrighty, well, let's go ahead and end. Just so everyone knows, there will be another one of these in June. But it's going to be focused on the topic of John Goodwin, who the reformers called the Grand Heretic of England. And it will focus on how he is the precursor to the modern restorations. You'll find the vast majority of his views, even the no major doctrines, were changed in his writings. So that would be the end. It may just be a presentation, PowerPoint, stuff like that. And it'll be done over YouTube. you would go ahead and leave us a prayer and we'll end this. Eternal God, we bless thee and thank thee once again for thy mercies of today. We thank thee that we are eternally blessed because of Jesus Christ and the blood that he shed upon Calvary's cross. We thank thee, O Lord, for the truth of thy word that it is settled in heaven forever. and that thou hast revealed thyself in the pages of scripture and we pray that we might bow before and tremble before thy word and before the god of the scriptures lord we pray for all of our brothers and sisters who view these videos and programs and talks that thou wilt bless them richly and help them in the study of thy word And Lord, we long for days of reformation, days of revival, O God, that thou would pour thy spirit upon us and give us a heart for thee. We ask that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ would be glorified and magnified in our lives and hearts. Forgive us for anything that has offended thee. Forgive us for our latest sins. And we pray that we might know that cleansing that comes from the Christ blood. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.