Your article condemns faultfinding and troublemaking, and the warnings you cite from Scripture and the Puritans are valid in themselves. Division born of pride, rivalry, and cynicism is a real danger. But the irony is unavoidable: the very behaviours you describe are the ones produced by the teachings you yourself promote. The issue is not that others are “faultfinding” because they question you; the issue is that KJV-Onlyism, Perfect TR ideology, and Verbal Plenary Preservation as defined by your system have objectively fractured Christian fellowship and rewritten the boundaries of orthodoxy to centre your preferred textual theory.
You accuse others of stirring up strife, yet the division did not exist until you introduced a doctrine that elevates a specific English translation and a specific printed edition of the Greek text to a level of authority Scripture never claims for itself. When someone insists that their particular textual tradition is the only faithful one and that all others undermine the Word of God, conflict is not caused by the people who resist that claim; conflict is caused by the claim itself.
If a man were to teach that salvation depends on his preferred hymnbook, the ones who raise objections aren’t the “faultfinders.” The one redefining the standard is.
Your article defines a “faultfinder” as someone who “habitually looks for flaws in others rather than the evidence of God’s grace in their lives.” That is precisely what KJV-Only polemics do. They assume that scholars who have spent lifetimes serving the church are deceived or malicious. They assume that pastors who use modern translations are unfaithful. They assume that anyone who disagrees with a particular textual theory is spiritually compromised. This is not a diagnosis from outside your system; it is the internal tone of your own teaching.
Jude’s warning about grumblers does not place a halo around anyone who defends his position loudly. It warns against those who claim zeal for God while elevating themselves as gatekeepers. KJV-Only rhetoric has repeatedly painted the rest of the church as corrupted, worldly, deceived, or apostate simply because they use manuscripts that differ from the TR. That is precisely the tendency toward spiritual suspicion that the Puritans called uncharitable censoriousness.
You quote Matthew 7:3, the “beam and mote.” The beam here is not doctrinal clarity; the beam is the assumption of moral and spiritual superiority. When you treat brothers and sisters as spiritually deficient because they do not grant absolute perfection to a particular textual tradition, you are not contending for the faith—you are measuring other believers by a yardstick Scripture never created.
You describe troublemakers as those who “sow discord among brethren,” yet the textbook example of sowing discord is redefining Christian fellowship around secondary issues. The early church debated real doctrines—Christology, the Trinity, justification. No council ever declared that a believer must commit to a particular printed Greek text to be orthodox. That idea is a modern invention, and its divisive effects are the fruit of that invention, not the fruit of those who resist its imposition.
You quote Calvin on those who disturb the kingdom of Christ by drawing men away “from the unity of truth.” But this breaks against your own argument: the unity of truth has never been defined by the KJV or the TR. Calvin himself used differing textual variants, noted them, discussed them, and held no view remotely resembling modern TR-perfectionism. You appeal to the Puritans as if their heritage endorses your view; historically, it does not. The Puritans used the best scholarship of their day and never suggested that their textual base was inerrant in every letter. You are asking the church to accept a claim the Reformers themselves rejected.
You warn that faultfinders “rob the church of peace.” What robs the church of peace more effectively: the person who says “multiple manuscript streams can faithfully convey the Word of God,” or the person who says “all but one manuscript stream is corrupt and untrustworthy?” If unity is the concern, then the teaching that makes all other believers suspect is the source of the strife.
You call believers to “edify, not break,” yet KJV-Onlyism treats disagreement as rebellion, not discussion. It frames brothers as enemies. It casts suspicion on pastors for using translations like the NIV, ESV, NKJV, or NASB—translations that have borne immense spiritual fruit across the world. If a teaching causes good pastors to be slandered and faithful Christians to be distrusted, the problem is not the pastors or the Christians. The problem is the teaching.
You conclude that “the Christian is called to be a peacemaker, not a troublemaker.” That is true. But biblical peacemaking is never appeasement of theological absolutism that Scripture itself does not require. Peace comes from truth, but truth must be something Scripture actually teaches. Scripture never elevates a seventeenth-century translation or a sixteenth-century printed Greek edition to the status of perfection. That elevation is your own construction. When you bind the consciences of others with what God has not commanded, and when those others resist that new law, it is not they who are disturbing the peace.
You have correctly described the danger of faultfinding and troublemaking. The tragedy is that you have misidentified the culprit. The faultfinder is the one who makes narrow tests of faith where God has left freedom. The troublemaker is the one who introduces new boundaries into the church and then accuses the rest of the church of rebellion for not submitting to them.
True unity will not come by requiring Christians to bow to a doctrine the apostles never taught. It will come by recognising that the Word of God is preserved not in one edition or translation, but in the entire, diverse manuscript tradition God has providentially given His people. This is not lowering the doctrine of Scripture; it is simply refusing to raise human tradition to the level of Scripture.
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