These three figures move in the parade under banners of KJV-Only, Perfect Textus Receptus, and Verbal Plenary Preservation. They claim to defend the Word of God, yet they resist the very thing God has always done: bring His Word closer to His people.
When they—however sincere—stand between the church and the clearest hearing of God’s Word, they are not serving God’s cause. They are opposing it. They are becoming the enemy of God.
Scripture has enemies who burn Bibles. But Scripture also has enemies who freeze it, who lock it inside a single historical moment and say, “God spoke then, and He may not speak more clearly now.” That posture does not arise from reverence; it arises from fear.
Here is the idea many have never heard: God’s faithfulness is not proven by textual immobility, but by relentless accessibility.
From Moses to the prophets, from scroll to codex, from Hebrew to Greek, from manuscript to print, God has always moved His Word forward, not backward. The incarnation itself is God refusing to let revelation remain distant. The Word became flesh, not footnotes.
To insist that God perfectly preserved His Word only in one printed form, in one language stream, at one moment of technological infancy, is to say—quietly but decisively—that God stopped caring about clarity once the printing press warmed up. That is not faith. That is nostalgia baptized as doctrine.
And here is the pastoral wound: these teachings do not merely argue about texts. They divide the body, fracture trust, and teach believers to fear scholarship, history, and even the evidence God Himself has preserved. Churches split not because people love Scripture too much, but because Scripture is weaponized against the very people it was given to heal.
Calling fellow Christians heretics for reading earlier manuscripts is not zeal. It is spiritual insecurity disguised as certainty.
Another idea rarely voiced: Preservation is not the absence of human hands; it is God’s sovereignty over human hands.
Scribes copied. Some erred. Others corrected. Communities compared texts. Scholars labored. Archaeologists dug. None of this threatens God. It displays Him. The God who governs sparrows can govern scribes without turning them into photocopiers.
When movements insist that acknowledging textual development equals denying God, they are not protecting divine authority. They are shrinking it.
And yes—this must be said with tears, not triumph—when leaders knowingly teach that the church must reject earlier, better-attested witnesses to the apostolic word because they disrupt a cherished system, they are not shepherding the flock. They are withholding light. Scripture calls that darkness, no matter how many verses are quoted to justify it. They are the enemies of God.
Jesus rebuked religious leaders not for loving Scripture too much, but for refusing to let Scripture speak on its own terms. “You search the Scriptures,” He said, “yet you refuse to come to Me.” The danger is not textual study. The danger is control.
Here is the pastoral call forward.
The church does not need fewer manuscripts. It needs more humility.
The church does not need a frozen text. It needs a living God who speaks through history.
The church does not need fear masquerading as faith. It needs courage to follow truth wherever God has preserved it.
Let us repent—not of loving Scripture, but of loving certainty more than truth. Let us stop treating first steps as final destinations. Let us stop confusing God’s faithfulness with our preferences.
The Word of God has not been lost.
It has been multiplied.
And God has been kinder to His church than our arguments allow.
That is not a threat to faith.
That is the good news.
No comments:
Post a Comment