Across Christian communities, translation debates flare up with surprising intensity. Some believers insist a specific English version—often the King James Version (KJV)—is the only legitimate or “perfect” Bible. Others are accused of compromising their faith simply for reading the NIV, ESV, CSB, or another translation. Arguments like these tend to do more harm than good, and they often rest on assumptions that do not hold up under scrutiny.
Before demanding a perfect translation, it’s worth asking a simple question: Is your church perfect? Of course not. Churches are communities of imperfect people shaped by history, culture, language, and tradition. They preach an unchanging gospel, but they do so with human voices, human limitations, and human understanding. Nobody expects a church to be flawless in order for it to be faithful.
If imperfect churches can faithfully preach God’s truth, imperfect translations can faithfully convey God’s Word. Perfection is not the criterion for usefulness, accuracy, or spiritual transformation. The Scriptures were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Every translation requires decisions, interpretations, and compromises because languages do not map cleanly onto one another. Anyone who has ever translated between two modern languages understands this reality.
This is why claiming one English translation is flawless while all others are suspect creates a problem. It raises the standard for Bible translations higher than the standard for the people reading them. If no believer is perfect, why attack other believers for the translation they use? And if no church is perfect, why insist that the Bible must only be read in one specific English rendering from the 1600s?
The hostility toward readers of the NIV or any other modern translation is unnecessary and spiritually counterproductive. The NIV is not a betrayal of Scripture; it is an attempt—like every translation—to communicate ancient truth in contemporary language. You may prefer the KJV’s style, cadence, or theological clarity, and that preference is valid. But preference is not the same thing as divine mandate.
We do not need a “KJV-only” church because no translation has ever been perfectly preserved in a single English edition. The authority of Scripture does not rest on a translation’s perfection but on the reliability of the manuscripts behind it and the faithfulness of translators striving to render the text accurately for readers in their time.
Christians can hold strong convictions without falling into division. Loving Scripture means valuing truth over tribalism. If the gospel itself can reach imperfect people, it can certainly handle being spoken in more than one translation. The real question is not which English version is perfect, but whether the people reading any version are living out the truth it teaches.
Healthy churches understand that unity in essentials outweighs uniformity in translation. The larger mission of the church is not served by attacking one another over English word choices. It is served when people read Scripture—whatever faithful translation they choose—and allow it to shape their lives.
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