Why The King James Bible
The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation forever. (Psalms 12:6,7)
But the word of the Lord endureth forever. (1 Peter 1:25a)
I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy loving-kindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. (Psalms 138:2)
Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. (John 17:17)
Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (Proverbs 30:6)
Being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. (1 Peter 1:23) For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. (Hebrews 4:12,13)
Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar. (Proverbs 30:6)
If the above scriptures make anything clear, it is that God has given us words which He collectively calls His Word. In describing that Word, He uses some of the following adjectives:
(1) pure and seven times purified
(2) kept
(3) preserved
(4) eternal
(5) enduring
(6) magnified above all his name
(7) truth
(8) complete
(9) incorruptible
(10) living
(11) abiding
(12) quick
(13) powerful
(14) sharp
(15) piercing
(16) discerning
(17) searching.
These words are compared to purified silver. They inspire worship. They are the means of sanctification for the believer. They are not to be added to or subtracted from. They engender eternal life, and the heart of man is naked before them. In Hebrews 4:13 the word of God takes on personality. No effort is made in the verse to distinguish between the written word and the incarnate word, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Himself, when tempted of the devil, said, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God (Luke 4:4).
Sanity dictates to the sound mind this infallible axiom. Things that are different cannot be the same. If the King James Bible says in Colossians 1:14, In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: and another version leaves out the words through his blood, two things become possible. Either one is correct and one is not, or neither is correct. They cannot both be correct! If the King James Bible says in Acts 8:37, And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and other versions leave the verse out entirely, both cannot be what God has so strongly told us He has preserved for ever. The above are just two out of hundreds of differences between the King James Bible and the plethora of so-called Bibles carried by unsuspecting saints to church each Sunday.
If you wish to buy a King James Bible, a visit to almost any Christian bookstore will find you on the listening end of some of the following lies: It is archaic, outdated, hard to read. It is based on inferior manuscripts. The translators were good men who didn't have access to the manuscripts and materials that modern scholars have. The King James is difficult to understand. It has contradictions. It is a poor translation. And the list goes on.
What's wrong with the above? They are either blatantly false, or half-truths designed to talk you out of purchasing a King James Bible. It is not your bookstore owner who is at fault, he is only parroting what he has been told. The truth is, the King James has a few archaic words which can be easily understood from the context by anyone with an eighth grade education. The truth is, of all the "Bibles", it is the easiest to read. Most of its words have only one or two syllables. The truth is, it is based on a far larger and superior base of manuscripts than all the new versions. The truth is, it contains no proven contradictions. It has been called the most outstanding written example of the English language ever printed.
It is difficult to hear a radio or television preacher that does not correct the King James Bible several times in his message by saying something like, "A better translation would be" or, "This word in the original means." It is rare when one of the new versions is given the same treatment. Discerning persons would not find it difficult to detect a conspicuous bias against the King James Bible. For more than half a century we have been hearing the King James Bible is nice, but should be relegated to a museum as far as accuracy or usefulness is concerned. A lie repeated often enough will be believed as truth. Bible Believers Baptist Church takes the opposite view. We have all the documentation necessary to establish our point convincingly for anyone interested.