My dear young teacher, come and sit with me for a while. Let an elder, speak plainly to your heart. I see your fire, and I love it. But I also see the ground you are standing on, and it troubles my spirit deeply.
You are building your house on the sand of KJV-Only, and you have pitched your tent right on the riverbank of Verbal Plenary Preservation. The soil looks firm to you because it is close to the water. You think, “Surely this is where the pure stream is—I must guard it with my very life.”
But, my son, sand is sand. And a riverbank is the most dangerous place to build. The water may glitter and shine, but it constantly erodes the ground beneath your feet. The moment the rain comes—the rain of historical facts, the rain of ancient manuscripts that differ from your chosen line, or the rain of honest scholarly questions—that bank will turn to mud.
When the wind blows—the wind of prideful debates, of angry accusations against other believers, of division among brethren—your house will shake. And when the great wave of real pastoral need comes crashing in, when a dying saint asks you for comfort, or a lost sinner asks you for the simple gospel, what will you give them? Will you hand them a lengthy argument about textual variants, or will you hand them Jesus?
That house will fall, my son. And great will be its fall. Not because the truth perishes, but because you built your ministry on a defense of ink and paper, rather than on the Rock, who is Christ Himself.
You study and toil to preserve every syllable, thinking this is the greatest act of worship you can offer. You are bringing a sacrifice of your intellect, your time, and your fervor to the altar. But I must remind you of what the Lord spoke through Samuel to King Saul: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice.”
You are sacrificing yourself on the altar of a theory, but God is asking you for simple obedience.
And what is His commandment? It is not to possess a perfectly preserved set of vowels and consonants. His commandment is this: that we love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind, and that we love our neighbor as ourselves. His commandment is to go into all the world and preach the good news to every creature. His commandment is to feed His sheep, not to fight over which translation is the only faithful one.
When you chase this rigid doctrine, you are too busy defending the fence to tend the garden. You scold your brothers who read other faithful translations, but you fail to pray with the widow. You accuse the scholar who uses a different Greek text, but you fail to teach the child the simple grace of Jesus.
My plea to you is this: step off the sand. Step away from that shifting riverbank. Come and build your house upon the solid rock of obedience to Christ’s clear commands. Love the Lord. Love His people. Proclaim His death and resurrection. That house will stand when every storm of controversy rages, because it is anchored in the heart of God, not in the ink of men.
Do not mistake your defense of a translation for the defense of the faith. The faith was once for all delivered to the saints—not in a single perfect copy, but in the living, breathing witness of the Spirit through the ages.
Have pity on your own soul, young teacher. Obey the greater command. Stop fighting shadows, and start loving the sheep. That is the house that will never fall. That is the sacrifice He truly desires.
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