Who do we Trust?
 

I'm doing something I should have done a long time ago; Challenge my Faith with questions people are too afraid to ask.

I ask myself this; Would I have followed leaders like Jim Jones in the younger years of my life, while I was deeply searching for God, and extremely gulliable?

My first Pastor, who fell into adultery, was extremely rigid, had "strange" spiritual motives, and is no longer apostolic, did he have the potential to lead us into the dark side of religion (or did he lead me to that side, and I didn't know it)?

Am I so locked into the "Pentecostal" way of thinking, that to ponder another way of thinking would be considered demonic?

Is the King James Bible accurate? With historical reference now at our fingertips, we are finding fallacy, fault, and great manipulation coming from our past. To conceive the King James as the "Word of God", we must preceive who wrote it, why, when, and how it applies to us who want truth. To lock God into this Book, we may find this has completely endangered our ability to comprehend who God really is. Why, because MAN is all over this Book. Failure is intertwined into this interpretation, and that is a fact. To simply conclude, The Bible is the Tell All, this is the same theory behind men like Jim Jones. Accept this or DIE!

If we as Oneness people don't beleive this, we are flawed and guilty of hiding the truth, creating our own cult of fear and oppression. The 47 Bishops responsible for translating the King James were cultured from Trinity doctrine, and bound by Catholic ideals. In fact, it is known, Hell in the form that we teach it comes from Catholisism. Also, England in the middle ages was entirely guilty of horrible atrocity against mankind in the name of religion! Why did people come to America? They wanted to escape Englands grasp upon their desire to ask questions.

To be honest, I see the world of religion becoming shaken by the need to really know God. Confining God to a Book, a Denomination, a Faith, men who claim to have revelation, this zeroing-in-affect is destroying our ability to learn about the One who created the Universe.

I could go on and on about this. I never thought I would ask these questions, because I was afraid. Afraid of the dictorial method of men who slam their fists on pulpits, portraying our God as one who will burn lost humanity in eternal fire for eternity. If this was true, why wasn't this mentioned in the Old Testament? How about all those of the past who had no idea this place ever existed? Is this our God of mercy, or is this the God of men?

I've seen over the last 30 years way to much justifying and not enough answering! We dodge the bullet, making the Bible answer our questions from traditional bondage, all because we can do this with Scripture. Why do you think there are so many different faiths in the World? They all think they are RIGHT, us included!

Our altars are becoming places of mixed ideas and unanswered dilemas. Who spoke in tongues and who didn't? Who got healed and who didn't? This person is spiritual because they shouted, danced, and then got injured when they fell down at church.

It's time to step into the real Light, and see the Real God of Ages! We can glean from the Bible, but we must question its authority, its origin, and what possible descrepencies do exist. You cannot, there is no way possible, to confine God to a Book with so much flaw! We will only go deeper into spiritual apostasy if we bar the One who made man, who loves man, and who reaches for man because we are so needy!

I hope this post will help someone out there who is in "Doubt". Don't be afraid! God LOVES you, like a Father loves his son or daughter!!

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

Ah, yet another noble man heard from. All such men of character who search the scriptures do not live just in Berea. Thank God!

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

I would say if people would find fault with the KJV they would soon find fault with all the others. I have around 13 printed versions right within 2 feet of me. The KJV is not my preferred study Bible. Yet in the huge majority of cases it brings out the Kingdom message as accurately as any other Im aware of.

When we go off trying to follow Yeshua apart from the teachings handed down by his Apostles we will certainly wind up in the darkness.

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

All about proof a little evidence would be nice.....thats why the questions are coming up...

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

You are right,we have got to be grounded in our Faith or we would fall for the Jim Jones of this world.
I stated in another post about the fire and brimstone sermons.Your right this can make a person see God as Mean.I know I did for years.
I just can't bring myself to see the Bible as to having error,except maybe the book of Enoch being taken out after hundreds of years.Lot's of prophesy in the book of Enoch.

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

For issues about where the KJV came from and who was behind it, a good book is THE KING JAMES VERSION DEFENDED, By Hills.

It is not biased and is VERY fair and deals with details not many want to get into. ANYONE wanting to know about the KJV issue, etc., should get this book.

I JUST FOUND IT fully ONLINE!

http://www.biblebelievers.com/KJV_Defended_Hills.html

Edward F. Hills (1912-1981) A.B. - Yale, Th.M. - Columbia, Th.D. - Harvard. Because the Gospel is true and necessary for the salvation of souls, the true Bible text has been preserved down through the ages by God's special providence and is found today in the King James Version. Examine the proofs of this fact. The subject is discussed from every angle. The placement of this online book is by the copyright holder, Mrs. Edward Hills, as implied by her wish that this online edition be made available in its entirety, unaltered and at no cost to the recipient who downloads this excellent book. If you wish to download this file in MS Word, WordPerfect, or HTML, click here... ISBN: 0-915923-00-9

It's not KJV-only bunk.

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

I understand how you feel. You feel threatened to even go where I've gone. It's unimaginable to question a Book you have come to love so much; but at what cost are you loving this Book?

At the cost of truth? At the cost of denying what you may have believed all of your life? At the cost of forsaking the teaching, the people, the heritage you have come to know, love, and live for?

How do you think Paul felt? How do you think others of our past feel, who walked away from a belief that they were certain was accurate, and solid? Who do we trust? How do we know that ancient writings are in fact, authentic, accurate, and complete? Did you know there are potential "Other" books of the Bible, but "Men" of the past have determined them to be uninspired, or lacking worthiness to be in our Bible? Who says??

Did you know many of the 66 books in the Bible, they are not even sure who the Author's are? What about the Book of Solomon? What purpose does this book have in our understanding of who God is, and how His Plan for us is important?

What about the times of old, when before the 16th Century, a Bible was not available to man? Who did men and women trust back then? How did people connect with the Almighty of Heaven and Earth? Did they scream, yell, and pound pulpits from a "Dream" they had, or a "Vision"? Were people "Slain" in the spirit, rolling, jumping, and kicking over chairs?

Until we realize, God is BIGGER than the Bible, we will fall flat on our faces, just like the Scribes and Pharasees did! They knew the WORD better than anyone, had a monopoly on Scripture, and yet, they were the worst of the worst! We are heading down this same road! We know, but we don't know HIM!

We are so far from knowing Him, if Jesus went before the same Board I went before to become a Licensed minister, they would have thrown him and his forrunner out the door!!

Jesus, please stop by and overthrow the tables in my life! I need help from all of this religious maddness!! We talk about revival, while I Corinthians 13:1 is forgotten, lost, and totally ignored! We say we love people, but when they fall or have problems, or questions things, LOVE?, hah, what love?? We call them, Backsliders, Sinners, Repobates, Adulterers, and the list goes on. Fire Breathing HELL awaits them!!

Jesus, come back and tell us what you told those who cruicfied you, "Father, forgive them!". This is where we will begin to know Him!

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

Here is the INTRO to the book:

INTRODUCTION
TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND CHRISTIAN FAITH

Old books have sometimes been likened to little ships which have sailed across the tides of time, bearing within themselves their precious freight of ancient knowledge and culture. None of these books, however, has enjoyed an uninterrupted voyage over the century stretching seas. The vessels which commenced the journey have perished, and their cargoes have been subject to frequent re-shipment in the course of their perilous passage. The original manuscripts of these ancient works have long since been lost, and they have come down to us only in copies and copies of copies, which were produced by the pens of scribes during the progress of the intervening ages. And just as cargoes of merchandise are likely to incur damage whenever they are transferred from one vessel to another, so the copying and recopying of manuscripts has resulted in some damage to their cargoes of words, which are commonly called their texts. Textual criticism, therefore, is the attempt to estimate this damage and, if possible, to repair it.

Has the text of the New Testament, like those of other ancient books, been damaged during its voyage over the seas of time? Ought the same methods of textual criticism to be applied to it that are applied to the texts of other ancient books? These are questions which the following pages will endeavor to answer. An earnest effort will be made to convince the Christian reader that this is a matter to which he must attend. For in the realm of New Testament textual criticism as well as in other fields the presuppositions of modern thought are hostile to the historic Christian faith and will destroy it if their fatal operation is not checked. If faithful Christians, therefore, would defend their sacred religion against this danger, they must forsake the foundations of unbelieving thought and build upon their faith, a faith that rests entirely on the solid rock of holy Scripture. And when they do this in the sphere of New Testament textual criticism, they will find themselves led back step by step (perhaps, at first, against their wills) to the text of the Protestant Reformation, namely, that form of New Testament text which underlies the King James Version and the other early Protestant translations.

1. The Importance Of Doctrine

The Christian Church has long confessed that the books of the New Testament, as well as those of the Old, are divine Scriptures, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. "We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and at a later period by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith.

The Scriptures are perfect, inasmuch as they were uttered by the Word of God and His Spirit." So wrote Irenaeus (1) in the second century, and such has always been the attitude of all branches of the Christian Church toward the New Testament.

Since the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the New Testament has in all ages stimulated the copying of these sacred books, it is evident that this doctrine is important for the history of the New Testament text, no matter whether it be a true doctrine or only a belief of the Christian Church. But what if it be a true doctrine? What if the original New Testament manuscripts actually were inspired of God? If the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the New Testament is a true doctrine, then New Testament textual criticism is different from the textual criticism of ordinary books.

If the doctrine of the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testament Scriptures is a true doctrine, the doctrine of the providential preservation of the Scriptures must also be a true doctrine. It must be that down through the centuries God has exercised a special, providential control over the copying of the Scriptures and the preservation and use of the copies, so that trustworthy representatives of the original text have been available to God's people in every age. God must have done this, for if He gave the Scriptures to His Church by inspiration as the perfect and final revelation of His will, then it is obvious that He would not allow this revelation to disappear or undergo any alteration of its fundamental character.

Although this doctrine of the providential preservation of the Old and New Testament Scriptures has sometimes been misused, nevertheless, it also has always been held, either implicitly or explicitly, by all branches of the Christian Church as a necessary consequence of the divine inspiration of these Scriptures. Thus Origen in the third century was expressing the faith of all when he exclaimed to Africanus, "Are we to suppose that that Providence which in the sacred Scriptures has ministered to the edification of all the churches of Christ, had no thought for those bought with a price, for whom Christ died!" (2)

If, now, the Christian Church has been correct down through the ages in her fundamental attitude toward the Old and New Testaments, if the doctrines of the divine inspiration and providential preservation of these Scriptures are true doctrines, then the textual criticism of the New Testament is different from that of the uninspired writings of antiquity. The textual criticism of any book must take into account the conditions under which the original manuscripts were written and also those under which the copies of these manuscripts were made and preserved. But if the doctrines of the divine inspiration and providential preservation of the Scriptures are true, then THE ORIGINAL NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS WERE WRITTEN UNDER SPECIAL CONDITIONS, UNDER THE INSPIRATION OF GOD, AND THE COPIES WERE MADE AND PRESERVED UNDER SPECIAL CONDITIONS, UNDER THE SINGULAR CARE AND PROVIDENCE OF GOD.

2. Two Methods Of New Testament Textual Criticism

The New Testament textual criticism of the man who believes the doctrines of the divine inspiration and providential preservation of the Scriptures to be true ought to differ from that of the man who does not so believe. The man who regards these doctrines as merely the mistaken beliefs of the Christian Church is consistent if he gives them only a minor place in his treatment of the New Testament text, a place so minor as to leave his New Testament textual criticism essentially the same as that of any other ancient book. But the man who holds these doctrines to be true is inconsistent unless he gives them a prominent place in his treatment of the New Testament text, a place so prominent as to make his New Testament textual criticism different from that of other ancient books, for if these doctrines are true, they demand such a place.

Thus there are two methods of New Testament textual criticism, the consistently Christian method and the naturalistic method. These two methods deal with the same materials, the same Greek manuscripts, and the same translations and biblical quotations, but they interpret these materials differently. The consistently Christian method interprets the materials of New Testament textual criticism in accordance with the doctrines of the divine inspiration and providential preservation of the Scriptures. The naturalistic method interprets these same materials in accordance with its own doctrine that the New Testament is nothing more than a human book.

Sad to say, modern Bible-believing scholars have taken very little interest in the concept of consistently Christian New Testament textual criticism. For more than a century most of them have been quite content to follow in this area the naturalistic methods of Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort. And the result of this equivocation has been truly disastrous. Just as in Pharaoh's dream the thin cows ate up the fat cows, so the principles and procedures of naturalistic New Testament textual criticism have spread into every department of Christian thought and produced a spiritual famine. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to show that in the King James (Authorized) Version we still have the bread of life and in demonstrating this to defend the historic Christian faith.

In the world, which He has created, and in the holy Scriptures which He has given God reveals Himself, not merely information about Himself, but HIMSELF. Hence the thinking of a Christian who receives this divine revelation must differ fundamentally from the thinking of naturalistic scholars who ignore or deny it. In this book we shall endeavor to prove that this is so, first in the field of science second in the realm of philosophy, and third in the sphere of Bible study, and especially in New Testament textual criticism.

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

Friend when you say WE dont know him I ask you to speak for yourself. In his favor YHWH has made himself known many times in my own life. I know others very closely who have known the manifestations of the eternal spirit of Elohim.

I understand and agree that he is BIGGER THAN THE BIBLE. Yet this is how he chose to root and ground us in the teachings of his Son. It was recorded by men chosen for this very purpose.

It is far from the fault of the Bible we have that the Church is in such chaos. It is the fault of those who lightly approach its content. They read and say they are believers. Yet they do not OBEY what they take into their heart and mind.

Because they do not obey Yeshua does not manifest himself to them so they doubt even more. Pretty soon they are out of faith completely. So they leave the writings handed down to true disciples over the centuries thinking to find Elohim another way.

They begin to walk in their "own light". Every man doing whats right in his own eyes. If you think things are a mess now wait till men leave the Bible authority. We cry there are hundreds of various beliefs right now.

But then they will greatly multiply as men follow their own imaginations and teach others the same.

The Kingdom of Elohim is vast enough to contain both the spirit and the truth. I believe they go together. Taking away faith in scripture would be as disasterous as preaching against the Holy Spirit.

The very reason Jim Jones became so wicked is because he REJECTED THE BIBLE! He believed Elohim would show him truths beyond what is written.

Soon enough he himself was claiming to be the Messiah.

Protect yourself. Stay with the word. Be obedient unto the death and he will manifest his glory.

Re: Who do we Trust?
 

I love the King James dearly as it the first bible I read all the way through.
I read it and other translations as well.
I believe the KJV is utter trustworthy,while they are a few copyist errors,I believe the message that God conveys to mankind is able to be understood from reading it.

To me the NKJV is a good go-between the KJV and modern english.
I love the NASB and ESV.