I simply said it was a look at the history of our English Bible, and I'll introduce it this way. This little book here by Dr. Carl Sadler was the product of a Bible conference held at Addison Baptist Church in December of 1977. I really cherish this copy of Brother Sadler's Along with the Lord that I have. It's an autographed copy. And I really am glad for it, and I'm thankful for it. But it deals with this whole subject we'll deal with tonight. and summarizes how I would describe the history of the English Bible. I also like the foreword, because it's written by Rick Sinsley, pastor of Addison Baptist Church. And I appreciate the fact that Addison put this book into print. I'd like to see it brought back into print, if that's possible. But that's sort of my connection with some history of this subject at the Addison Baptist Church. I wanted to do a Q&A because I hope that you would have some questions. I have to be careful because this area is where my vocation and one of my applications collide. I preach the Bible, teach the Bible, study the Bible, but I am a, one of my hobbies, one of my real interests is in bibliology, so the history of the Bible, not just the English Bible, but the Bible itself. And so I have to be careful that I don't go too far off into the minutiae But I do think our importance, and I'll tell you why at the end, but I thought if I had an interviewer, he could say, okay, that's enough. No, or some signal maybe to help me keep on track. So I'll turn it over to Brother Dewberry, and we'll go from there. Okay. Well, anyway, I appreciate the opportunity we have to discuss this. I know this is an important issue and probably not going to delve all the depths of every single bit of it tonight. It's a very complicated issue sometimes. And I suppose if you have other questions, we can maybe even continue on again, but hopefully this will be helpful to you. So our first question is just where did we get our English Bible? Where does it come from? Well, the English Bible, I'll just back up and say, of course, you all know that the Old Testament is written over a period of, from the time of Moses to the time of the book of Malachi, and there are 39 books, and they were originally written in Hebrew. written in probably a 100-year span, maybe a 60-year span. And by AD 100, the canon that we now know today as the whole Bible was complete. So that's the Bible. Fast forward to English. In AD 100, I don't think there was an English language. Some of you historians could correct me. I'm not sure what the language of the British Isles was then. That's long before Babel-Pastings and the Normans and Saxons. So there wasn't an English language when the Bible was originally given. But we can really thank the Lord for a man named William Tyndale, because with the onset the invention of the printing press, and along with the Reformation era, there was a movement to recover or to produce languages of Bibles in the language of everyday people. There had been some Latin versions of the Bible. There had been some of the Greek Bible. But William Tyndale is the one who really got used to bring the Bible into English. And I can say more about how that happened, but it ended up costing Tyndale his life. What he was doing was actually forbidden by Roman Catholicism and by European monarchs, and the governments did not want the Bible in the language of the people. The King of England did not want the Bible in English. That sounds very alien to us, very strange, but what William Tyndale was doing was translating the Bible into English. He didn't actually complete it. One of his helpers, a man named Matthews, used his notes to complete part of the Bible. But really, every English Bible today is the heritage of a man named William Tyndale to put the Word of God into English. So our English Bibles come from William Tyndale. Even to this day, no matter what copy of the Bible you have. The estimates are about 85% of it are the direct product of William Tyndale. That's how effective he was, that's how respected he was. So our new Bible, I think God providentially led for that to happen, but we can thank the man named William Tyndale for our new Bible. All right. So there are, of course, we know there are a number of different translations. We're very familiar with the King James Version, which is kind of in a little bit after that history you're talking about. I will point out that a lot of people think even Jesus used a translation in the Bible. I guess he used the Septuagint, maybe. Possibly, possibly not. But that was a prevalent thing back in the day. A Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Why are there so many different translations? Well, I think there are two answers to that. I would assume we're going to talk about English translations. Probably so, yeah. I mean, obviously there have to be as many translations as there are languages. And the difference in I think there are about 80 different English translations now still currently available. There are two reasons that there would be a translation of the Bible into English. One would be for ministry. A group or a group of scholars or a publishing house a group of Christians would say, we need a Bible that is in English for this particular purpose. And so you could credit it to ministry. I also have to think there's really a marketing side to this. It's sort of the obvious. The reason there's so many different versions, one of the reasons is there is a market for it. The King James Version of the Bible was originally authorized by the King of England. And essentially, the crown held a copyright on it. That copyright was never enforced in the United States because it just wasn't enforced. But it was copywritten by the crown. The current British editions of the King James Version are still copywritten to the crown. And so to avoid that, different companies, different groups would produce versions so that they could sell them and produce them. Especially modern English Bibles are also often associated with a particular study Bible. We'll get into that maybe later. But a lot of modern English Bibles are not just a basic text, but they're full of notes, chain reference notes, center problem references. You're probably holding a Bible. Some of you have study Bibles. I often talk about study Bibles. So a lot of those study Bibles have added to the market. I think this is as good a time as any to address this chart. I don't know if you can see this very well. But one of the reasons there are different translations into English is because there are different approaches to how to translate from one language to another. what we would call word for word translation, which is sometimes called verbal. Verbal meaning word, verbal equivalency. And then there is what we call dynamic equivalency, where you're actually trying to translate the thought contained by a sentence. It's a spectrum. And this one, this chart, does a pretty good job of showing this. Over at the left, I think that's your left, over at the left at the bottom you see interlinear. I've got some examples of these up here if you want to stay active service. I really love to talk about this stuff. But an interlinear, some of you see an interlinear, it may have a Hebrew and underneath it would have an English word where the translator thinks that word translates that and it's It's not really done in sentences. It's just sort of like word translating. It's very useful for study, but it's not something you can read for devotional purposes or preaching or teaching. So interlinear is on the left extreme of verbal equivalency. Over at the right, the farthest extreme over, what we would call paraphrases. Paraphrases are not word-for-word translations. They're not really even thought-for-thought. They're paraphrases. They just take a sense of a paragraph and try to communicate it. I sometimes use the message, not because it's my favorite translation, but because he can sometimes modernize thoughts. and give you a paraphrase. Everybody probably has, at one time or another, used a children's story Bible, where it is in chronological order. Mary is from the Bible, and it's written for children. We had one, as a matter of fact, one of the first books I remember in our home was some kind of Bible storybook that my mother used to read to us. It had pictures in it. It turns out those pictures were not actually from Bible time. But there were pictures in it and simple little stories that she could read to us. And I remember her reading these to us before we ever went to church or anything. She would read us stories from this Bible storybook. And those were obviously paraphrases. They're very short, very succinct. So that's the spectrum of Bible translation from interlinear To paraphrase, along the spectrum, you can move, you can see the NASD, and you have to look up some of these translations. I don't know all the acronyms, but the English Standard Version, and then the KJV, the New King James, those are clearly word for word, verbal equivalent translations, and then you move on to The NIV is really in the middle, and I think that's pretty accurate, pretty fair. But what is all this about? Why do you have a different translation goal? Well, it turns out all of these translations use different reading levels. I don't think there's any doubt the most objective English scholars would tell you that the King James is translated at a college reading level. Given literacy, where the state of literacy is now, I would say the King James is probably, I would say it might be graduate school English. The NIV on the other hand is written with a vocabulary and a sentence structure designed for probably junior high. Don't be offended at that because a lot of media is produced at different levels. I'm told that USA Today newspaper, does anybody know what a newspaper is? USA Today was written with a fourth grade vocabulary and sentence structure. That was their target audience. And it also had a lot of pictures in it. So it was, for a while, it was pretty popular. Whereas the Wall Street Journal, I remember one day on an errand to college, I noticed suddenly we were getting the Wall Street Journal. And I tried to read it. It was like, It was not fourth grade level. It was probably college level English. I could read it, but you have to be serious about your news if you're going to use a Wall Street Journal, I learned. So that's the explanation for the vocabulary and the sentence structure and why it's different. We're not yet talking about issues behind the translation. We're talking about just how it comes to be that there are different approaches to the vocabulary and the sentence structure. They're going to be different as you move to the right for thought-for-thought production. Right, and I'm thinking there's also maybe some good reasons for some of these different approaches, too, depending on the circumstances. Like there might be some times where you would want more of the ideas expressed, whereas other times you might want to know what is the exact word that's used here. And so you would want to maybe look at a different source, depending on what you're aiming at. but might be an argument for using maybe more than one on occasion. Let's go ahead and move into some of the issues that are behind translation. So we know that the originals were in Hebrew and Greek and a few other languages. And we don't have the original autographs, none of the original copies of those Sometimes people are shocked to hear that we don't have the original version of the Bible. Like there's no part where Moses is actually wrote down. We don't have those, but we do have copies of those. And it turns out we have many, many copies. which far many more than most ancient texts that you can think of. But here's sort of a question that kind of gets at that. This person says, in the past, Addison used both the AIV and the KJV. And they've heard that different manuscripts were used for each, or different texts were behind those. What sort of texts were behind them and were used to make those translations? And why do we have multiple texts and manuscripts? How does all that fit together? Well, part of the story of the manuscripts, and typically what you hear, there are 5,000 copies of the Greek New Testament. Now, some of them are just portions. I brought my papyrus. This is not ancient papyrus. But it is papyrus, if you want to touch it later. And it shows you, like, this is, papyrus was a reed, and they milled it out to make paper. And sometimes they wrote on animal skins and things like that. So a lot of ancient documents were written on papyrus. perishable materials. So if people would stop and think about, well, why are there so many different copies? That's the way God preserved his word, by making copies. are lost to us, not because of any cynicism or conspiracy or anything. I just think they wore out. And I think there were wars and conquering armies, moving across Islam, moving across North Africa, and destroying Christianity and probably their documents. I think a lot of copies were lost. But still with that, the Bible is more manuscript evidence than any other book, exponentially. No other writings, Romans or Egyptians have the number of copies that the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament have. So, God chose to use this copy as his means of preserving his work. He could have given a gold-plated, silver-embossed bound volume and stuck it in a library somewhere, I guess, but then we would be worshiping it. And somebody would have access to it and wouldn't allow us to touch it or open it. It's much better to have thousands of copies than it is to have, say, the original float down out of heaven. Now, we might be more comfortable with that. We might say, oh, now we don't have to have this discussion or nobody will get confused. But that doesn't mean that that one copy would be more accessible or available. So if you want to quarrel with how God preserved his word, this is the history of it. Interestingly, in 1947, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, what scholars learned is they actually verified that the copies that we have in the Old Testament have been done faithfully and well. No shock there. But God has used this multiplicity of copies to preserve the Word. eventually before we're done here, and see if you'd rather have English or Hebrew Bibles. But here's what I wanted to show you. In the copies, sometimes there are variants. I guess the best way to explain the variants is to talk about COVID. How many different COVID variants were there? I don't know. It seemed like I heard about a lot. But it kept changing a little bit. So when you hear about translation copies, sometimes we'll say, well, there is a word different in this copy than there is in this copy. I'm going to use an English Bible as an illustration And remember, those other copies were handwritten. We don't have the printing press of Gutenberg, right? But those copies were handwritten, and the opportunity for writing a word twice or skipping a line or leaving a letter off was pretty significant. But it also happens in printed files. This is a... a picture of my Briary Study Bible, 1 Corinthians 10.1. Can you read that? Moreover, brethren? Okay, I also have another version of Briary Study Bible, 1 Corinthians 10.1. Can you read that top line? You see something different here? You see something different here? I'm going to go out on a limb here, a solid limb, and say, that's some estate. Right? It's supposed to say, moreover. It's not supposed to say, move over. Now, you'll preach that way. I might have to use that text. No, I'm just kidding. That's clearly a typographical error. Now, if you have a King James Version of the Bible, you can open it right now, and I think you can turn to 1 Corinthians 10 and 1, and I would be shocked if anybody here says, mine says move over. If you do, you'll win a prize. People are digging in their Bible press. Now, if online doesn't count. You can't go online. You have to open your Bible and say, my Bible says move over. How did that get past the editors? How do mistakes ever get into bulletin, Steve? I don't know. How does that ever happen? You can't possibly do that. That's a typographical error. It still happens. I know I had another one of these. I couldn't find it, but it was in one of the Thomas Nelson editions of Psalm 1, their open Bible they produced. It was team change, but they had a typographical error that somehow snuck into the printed text. And of course, it was corrected in later editions, but we clearly know that that variant, we don't say, well, that's theory, it's supposed to be moved over. We have two different ways that we decide how to do textual criticism. This is really getting into the weeds now, and I love it, so you may have to reel me back here. When you have 5,000 manuscripts, There's more copies of the New Testament than there are of the Old Testament, and probably more issues with the New Testament than the Old Testament. I think one of the reasons is because of that. The Hebrew text has been more subtle for longer. But I think the vast majority of manuscripts and manuscript evidence lead to these discussions about, well, we found a manuscript that the word is spelled this way, or this line is missing, which is right. Two ways to approach that question, and this is a serious question. Oh, I might be on another question here. You're fine. Go ahead. One way is to approach and say, well, what does the vast majority of all the copies we have say in kind of majority rules? That's sometimes called majority text. And the other view is, well, which copy do we have is the oldest? Which copy are we going to have now? And you can date this through the paper use, the ink use. You can do some dating. You can think, well, this manuscript is the oldest. So some argue sometimes that the oldest copy we have. Some say the majority. And you might think, well, Which text does my Bible use? You might be surprised to learn that your copy of the Bible, sometimes the editors used the majority, sometimes they used an eclectic text. In the ESV, sometimes they chose to use the majority text. In the King James, sometimes chose to use a single text. Not every verse in the King James is linked to the majority text. Now, how did they come to those decisions? Well, they did it through careful scholarship, comparing documents. I've got a book here. Can't touch it, but you can look at it. It's the diary of John Bortz, one of the King James translators. where he actually takes us into the meetings and saying, let's look at these manuscripts, let's look at these variants, how does this work? It's very thin, it's very solid, it's very, it's wonderful how they were guided and I think helped, but the variants are solved by two approaches. Some lead to the oldest copies. Some lead to the great majority of copies. But there again, both versions, using NIV and the King James, sometimes the King James used a minority report. We can maybe go into that a little bit later. But that's really the history of variants. All right. Well, I guess maybe one of the big points is, because I think some people when they hear, oh, there's variance in different ways, like whether we have this Texas as this, we have that Texas as that, and how do we know which one is right? Are these significant differences, or mostly spelling, or what are we looking at? Well, I think the way the best English translations handle this is, I think they have to approach it respectfully and reverently. We could wish that there weren't any question about oldest or the most manuscripts, but that's not the history we've been given. So if we're going to quarrel with, I wish God had done it in a different way. draw parachuted Bibles into each of our hands, and we wouldn't have this discussion. That's not the way it happened. So I think the problem is, how do we know? I think the honest translators And I think any conservative, honest translator will tell you when they've made a decision. They will put it in their marginal notes. They'll put it in their flip books. They'll put it in the center column. And they'll say, here's what we did here. And you, as the reader, are left with some responsibility there. Sometimes it's more than a verse. Sometimes it's more than a phrase. Sometimes it's a paragraph. The most famous one, I guess, is The Woman Taken in Adultery, John 7, 59 through 8, 11. I personally believe it is part of the canon of scripture, and I believe it's where it's supposed to be in the Bible. Some modern English Bibles, they say, you know, in a different place, and they will put a note around it. But I think the ESV includes the pericope adultery. Does it not? It might put brackets or something. I don't know. But it's there. And it says, here it is. And you have to do your own research here to say, do you believe it's part of the scripture? Should it be contained in the scripture? Now, at the risk of playing my ace here, I have done my homework here. This sounds terrible, but I've spent my life studying the Bible. I've been paying to do it. So I should study the Bible. I have read the Bible, and I've looked at these questions, and I'm absolutely convinced that the Pericape adultery is part of the scripture. However, I don't think I should have to be afraid to say, well, it's missing from Codex Vaticanus or Codex Sinaiticus, the two oldest And it's interesting. But you see, I'm convinced that it is part of scripture, but scholars disagree about that. I think the real problem comes when people think that maybe there's some kind of a conspiracy afoot. I just think scholars and translators and publishers need to put their of reasoning up front. They need to tell you why they chose a certain text in a particular verse, or why they chose a particular translation. And those are two different things, and maybe we'll talk about it. Text and translation are two different things. You've got a Greek text. You've got to translate it into English. Once we agree to what the text is, then we can talk about what's the best way to translate this Greek sentence into English. Maybe to just round that out and go to the next thing here, I do think it's maybe comforting to know that most of these so-called variants are very, very tiny, like even a letter that looks a little different, sort of like your example of the moreover or moveover. pretty obvious, you can look at most of the things and say, oh, this is really a mistake. And that covers, like, I don't know, 90% or more of all the variants. And so a lot of people, I think, make a bigger deal of that than maybe they ought to. And then, another point I think is that no doctrine of the Bible is under any threat from any of these variants. Like, there's even parts where, well, I don't know if it says Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in this one place, and maybe it doesn't in another. But it does talk about the Trinity in many other places in the Bible. So it's not as if that doctrine just disappears because it doesn't appear in this one verse like maybe we thought it did, or this or that. Really, I don't think anybody would, any of these scholars would really disagree with huge swaths of doctrine based on some sort of manuscript issue. No, I'm not aware of any conservative scholars, by that I mean scholars who agree with me. I'm not aware of anyone who feels like there's some kind of theological conspiracy in any faithful translation of the English, of Greek into English, or the Hebrew into English. I know people who use, and by the way, one of the concerns that people have is they say, well, if you use this version, maybe it'll be a slippery slope and you'll gradually move to a less position of doctrine. Most of these English Bibles have been around long enough. We know their track record. There has not been a theological decline because of some version of the Bible. Now, having said that, I do know people who use the NIV who are liberal. But I also know people who use the King James who are nuts. Now, that's the technical term. By that I mean charismatic, or an apostle, or have some weird view of theology, and they use this version of the Bible. I hope we get to this tonight. I think we have time. The text and the translation are important, but teaching the text It's the most important thing we do. So, I know it would be easy to say, like, well, if you use this version, you will be conservative. I have to tell you, I love the King James translation of the Bible. I cut my spiritual teeth on it. all of my early education, all of my memory works in the King James. I know where all of the theological questions are in the King James. By that I mean I know what ekklesia means. The Greek word is ekklesia. Ekklesia means what, class? A called out assembly. Now, the King James translates it, most places, church. Now, I love the word church. It's a good old English word, but it really doesn't convey called out assembly like called out assembly does. I know what baptizo means. Class, what's the Greek word baptizo mean? Immerse means to dump beneath the water. How many Baptists do we have here tonight? Any Baptists here tonight? Any Immersionists here tonight? It could be called that. I like the word immerse, but I know why they didn't translate it immerse. It's because King James told them don't take the religious words and tinker with the religious words. He did not want baptized translated as immersed. You know why? Because he was a sprinkler. Now, baptized is a good word. I've even heard arguments that say, well, that's what baptized means, too. But they had instructions not to translate ekklesia as called out assembly. Keep the word church. Keep the word baptized. And they did. But I know all those. I know in Acts 2.38 when the King James says, be baptized for the remission of sins. I know that means that I'm to be baptized because of the remission of sins. We don't put people in jail for stealing chickens. because the Greek word is Sigma Ace And it could be translated for, and it is translated for, but it means because. You know how I know that? Because the Bible teaches that baptism doesn't wash away your sins. So whatever that verse is teaching, it can't be teaching that baptism washes away your sins. I'm very comfortable with the theology of the King James because I've been reading it for 50 years. I can also say that about the NIV. I've read the theology of the NIV. I haven't read it as many times, but I don't find any theological errors that I can't teach or explain. And I usually handle these questions individually with people come and ask me, what do you think about this version? It's not the first time I've dealt with this. Usually I get asked these one-on-one in an email or a text. Pastor, what do you think of this version of the Bible? And I have opinions about everything. One of the things you have to remember tonight, that a lot of things I'm telling you tonight are my opinion. It's a very strong opinion, but there's nothing in our church's doctrinal statement that tells me, that doesn't mention a Bible version in our doctrinal statement. It just says what we believe about the Bible. So that means I'm responsible and you're responsible for how we use that, but All right, that takes us to, I think we'll just go with our last sort of wrap-up question. Can we be confident that we have the word of God? I'm confident that we do have the word of God. This verse, I've been determined to read this. Barashit bara Elohim. We recognize the word Elohim. Ket Shemayim V'yet HaYeris. That's Genesis 1-1. In the beginning, God, in the beginning created God, the heavens, and the earth. Now, I don't know about you, but I like the English. But I can read the Hebrew. It's hard for me to read the Hebrew, but I can read the Hebrew. I can translate the Hebrew. It's hard for me to do it, but I can do it. I like Greek. The Greek is easier for me. In our cave, hey halagas, kai halagas, hain kras haun theon, kai theos, hain ha lagas. You all recognize that as John 1. In the beginning was the word, halagas, and the word was phras, and this is the part here. It could be face to face. It's a preposition, phras, a preposition. Here, I think a good translation is with. The word was with God, and then it says, and God was the word, and my English, version says the word was God. Why does that? Because logos is articular, and theos is not. What does that mean? Well, logos has a definite article. Ha, that's like the. Theos there, if you see chi theos, it doesn't have the article. So that indicates that it probably is This is fun. This is exciting. We should do this more. I love the Greek New Testament. I'm so thankful for my English Bible. When I get up in the morning, I read my English Bible. When I'm preparing sermons, I look at the Greek New Testament. I don't always look at every Hebrew text, because I'm so slow in Hebrew. And there are a lot of things to do. But I love to read the Greek and the Testament. But I've studied the English Bible. And I'm so thankful for it. And I believe we do have the Word of God. What are we supposed to be doing? Nehemiah 8a says, after they came back from captivity, from the Babylonian captivity. Ezra is preparing to teach this. It's been 70 years, and he's got to ground this generation that's come back from captivity. And Nehemiah 8, he says, so they read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly, and gave the sense and cause them to understand the reading. This is one of my favorite verses, because this is what we do, Sunday School teachers. This is what we do when we preach. We have to read it distinctly. Now, what version should we read? Well, if we're speaking to English people, we need to be reading English. William Tyndale said, put the Bible in the common language of the people. And the reason that sometimes modern English Bibles want to revisit this is they say, well, English has changed. In 1 Thessalonians 4, the word prevents, talking about the rapture chronology, the word prevent doesn't mean what some people think it means. I know what it means because it's Latin. A derivative is a prefix. It means to go in front of somebody. It means to hinder them. In modern English, it means proceed. So that word changed. Is prevent wrong? No, it's not. I don't talk about errors. I don't talk about mistakes. I'm talking about reading it distinctly in English and giving the sense When I preach to you, I tell you what I believe the Bible's saying. You say, why don't you just read the Bible to us? Because that's not my job. I am supposed to read the Bible, but I'm supposed to give you the sense of it. Now, you're responsible to get in your Bible and say, I don't know about that. I better read. I better look in the Bible and study the Bible. But my job is to read it the same way and give the sense and cause you to understand it. It's not enough just to put a Bible in somebody's hand. It's not enough just to put the words in their ears. You have to get the understanding to their heart. Now, what if somebody reads at a certain level? What's the best way to tell toddlers teach toddlers the word of God, I think you've got to put it on their level. If you've got a class of people who read at a level lower than a version you're trying to use, then try to read to them in a different version and say, well, what if we disagree? I think the text question is important. I can answer specific questions. I know how to read a critical apparatus. I'm not intimidated by critical apparatus. I understand what the discussions are. I'm comfortable, I'm very comfortable with the Texas Receptus and the Masoretic text underneath the King James translation. I love the King James. I don't lie for it, but I love it. And I know that sometimes it uses a majority text, and sometimes it doesn't use a majority text. I'm comfortable with it. I understand how difficult it is to translate into another language, but the teaching is the most important part. Here's where I want to say this. When you come to a disagreement in a text of the Bible, you come to a verse and you think, oh, there's a note here that says maybe this word should be translated this way, or maybe this, and you come to a disagreement, then you have to do, you have to dig deeper. Don't ever despair in thinking that, well, there's no answer to my question because Is it precede or prevent? If you think that's important, then you have to do additional study. You have to honestly go back to the original text. You may have to seek counsel or advice from other people, and not just your preacher. I mean, your preacher doesn't know everything. He's not the greatest scholar in the world, but he might be able to steer you in the right direction. If you have a misunderstanding about a verse or a phrase, even a question about how it's translated, then you can do further study. But I think the spectrum here, from devotion to disagreement, I would say 90% of the time, I wanna say 99% of the time, this is my experience. And I consider myself a technician, a Bible technician, I really do. 99% of the time, I'm reading the Bible devotionally. I'm not reading the Bible trying to to critique it or to take it apart. I'm trying to read the Bible to warm my heart, to comfort me, to help me. And that's my personal Bible reading. Now, when I'm preparing sermons, that's a different question, or I'm teaching a class. But most of my time is spent reading the Bible devotionally, because God's word is quick and powerful. It is living. And I read it in English. And it ministers to me. So, when we disagree about what a verse means, it isn't the version of the Bible that's going to decide it for you. Because I know pedo-baptists and baby-baptizers who use the King James Version of the Bible. I think they're wrong. I don't think their Bibles are wrong. But I think baptizing babies is wrong. They've taken a good English translation, and they're teaching something that's not true. I also know people that use the English Standard Version and teach pre-Orthodoxism. They're teaching salvationists by grace and faith. So we have more in common than the particular version. And what you're going to hear from the pulpit from me is the King James will always be my primary text. I know where it is in my study Bible, what page the verses are on. I know what the footnotes are. And I'm not going to be able to change that. I'm not really interested in changing that because I don't have any problem with it. However, the best Bible is the Bible you read. This is all academic. Saying, I like this version of the Bible. I don't like that version of the Bible. Which Bible version do you read? Do you read the Bible every day? That's my question. If you're not reading the Bible every day, we're having the wrong perception. if you're not in God's Word every day. And if one of the reasons you're not in God's Word every day is you're like, I really can't comprehend this. When Isaac Kyle was trying to teach Chinese students English, he wanted to use the Bible because many of them were not Christians. He thought, I'll use the Bible to teach them English and that way I can. He found that the syntax of the King James was just impossible for these Chinese English second language people. And he found that in the new King James, the sentence structure was just simpler enough. Now, side by side, you might not notice a difference. But the Chinese person, the sentence structure was just that much harder. And if you know how hard it is to translate or understand a foreign language, if you've never learned a foreign language, it is hard to translate. It is difficult. So, use your Bible devotionally. Make sure you love the word of God before you start arguing about it or before you start debating other people. I'll tell you something else. Make sure you love the other person before you start debating and discussing with them, too. Maybe they don't know everything you know. Here's the shocker. Maybe they know more than I know. And we love God's word. We love God's people. I think we can avoid a lot of controversies. Okay. All right, I think that wraps us up. I did? I didn't get to, I got a lot of stuff up here. I'll post. Some show and tell. You got more questions for me? No, I think that's it. Thomas Nelson produced this in 1977, I think. It's a beautiful edition of, I think Brother Edgar was taking this today. It's got a beautiful edition of the 1611 King James. It's fascinating. If you haven't seen one, you need to look at it. You can't touch it, but I'll let you look at it. No, you can. If you look at the 1611, you'll be very glad that you're using the 1769 King James, because those Fs that look like Ss or whatever, backwards, that old English font, And you don't need the apocrypha, as it turns out. That's another question. But you can appreciate that. And that's one of the things that Dr. Sadler is talking about in this little book. His favorite version of the Bible is the King James, because he uses the most. But in the college, he had been required to use the New American Standard in 1901. That was B.H. Terrell's favorite English. And so a lot of the things that Rosetta taught, he would refer to the 1901. Now, some of that's very academic, and it's maybe distracting. But actually, you can have great confidence in the Word of God. I'm thankful for teachers I had, like Clarence Edwards and Carl Sandler, Ed Overby. I had several discussions with Ed Overby about this. He loved the King James Version of the Bible, but he said, you need to understand what the text is. You need to understand what translation is. You need to understand the key thing is teaching, teaching people what the Bible says. And so I'm thankful for good teachers like that. And I'll just close with this, as I told you. I really think it's a mistake for a church or a missionary to say, we will only ever use this version of the Bible. I think there's a reason why Addison Baptist Church doesn't say in their doctrinal statement, if God's word, the canon was complete in AD 111, that the Bible was available, not to every person on the face of the earth. I mean, the Great Commission was still in effect. We were supposed to take the Gospel to the whole world. But the Bible was complete. In 1599, you could hold up a Geneva Bible and say, this is God's Word, and you would be correct. You could have held up the Matthews Bible, or seven or eight other English translations that took what Tyndale had done, and you have the word God. If your Bibliology isn't true in 1500, then it's not true in 1600. So make sure you're Belief about the Bible goes all the way back to the New Testament, not just to your favorite period of history, not just to your favorite monarchy. The Geneva Bible is probably as influential in the founding of the United States, perhaps more so than the King James, but it's not a familiar history. But it's a wonderful translation. I'm waiting patiently for a reprint. My wife bought me a reprint of the William Tyndale New Testament. It was a Kickstarter plan. They had a lot of setbacks. But they are actually reproducing an exact copy of William Tyndale's first, or I think it's his 11th edition of his English New Testament. And when it comes, I'll let you look at it. But I'm really excited about it, because I would love to be able to try to read William Tyndale's copy. I warned you, this is where my vocation and my application hit head-on, and I may have created some questions, but that's good. And like I said, this isn't the first time people have asked me about this. A lot of people ask me about this privately, or email or text, I have a question. As long as you love God's Word, as long as you love me, I'll try to answer your question, or I'll find somebody who might be able to answer your questions.