I’m done addressing KJV-Onlyism at the popular level on December 31, 2024 (with a few little exceptions I mention in my wrap-up video), so I’m clearing out my files—and posting a few scripts that never made it to the channel.
I get letters like the one below on a pretty regular basis. I always operate with a sense of holy fear when responding, because I know that times of transition bring temptations—temptations to bitterness, especially. But also temptations to swing the theological pendulum too far away from the people who, you’ve finally realized, have been insisting on dividing from other Christians over a King James Only “doctrine” that simply isn’t taught in Scripture.
I’m grateful to say that, up till now, the people who send me these letters have given me no evidence that they’re swinging into bitterness or into theological liberalism. So far, pretty uniformly, these are gracious people who write like this (this is a real letter):
Hello Mark,
I’m an acquaintance of *********, and he recommended your book, Authorized, which I just finished. I found it to be extremely well-written and most compelling.
I also found the podcasts that you and ******** did together. Those were good for me, as well.
My wife and I have been members of three different IFB churches over the course of the past eleven years. Each church family had different characteristics and charms. We love God’s people, and have even served in leadership positions with each church. I’m presently serving as a deacon, and I will always feel utterly under-qualified for that job. God is teaching me a lot as I serve His children.
So, that being said, I believe that God is working on my heart as a Christian, as a husband, and as a father of a sweet young boy. We may soon be added to the ranks of “recovering fundamentalists” (I don’t necessarily like that term, lol), and for a few other reasons than just changing convictions concerning translations. I am beginning to believe more and more in the need for vernacular translations in my home. (And, we do have some on the shelves… gathering dust at the moment.)
Being candid with you, whom I consider to be my brother (I feel like I know you a little after being in your mind for a few days), I would ask for your prayer for me as I ask God just what I should do. I’m asking you, because it’s all your fault since I read your book, haha! To be clear, I’ve pondered these issues in my head and heart for a great long while, and am not about to make any rash decisions. I’m also asking you because I believe this was your mission for this work, and I believe that God is using it.
I’ve spent more than a decade learning about, preaching, teaching, defending, reverencing, and loving God’s Word, specifically the KJV. Perhaps, God is telling us to start a new chapter. Or, perhaps He is telling us start an old chapter in a new way.
This change would undoubtedly mean a major shift in more than a few relationships with people whom we dearly love, and perhaps even places that we fondly cherish. That is scary for us.
I have more to learn before I’m ready. I have more praying to do. Again, I would ask you to join me in that.
I am keeping these thoughts in confidence with very few people, as of now.
Thank you, Mark.
Your Brother,
************
Here was my reply:
Wow, brother. Thank you for reaching out. You are an answer to prayer, and so is your gracious spirit. I really have encountered this spirit so many times now among people who send me this same letter. 😊 It just delights me; I praise the Lord with a full heart.
I so understand where you’re coming from. I will pray right now, and I will pray that the Lord will give you wisdom to know which of those two courses to take. I myself have tried to follow the practical wisdom of Bob Jones Sr: “Go as far as you can on the right road.” It feels like a way of applying Prov 11:3, “The integrity of a man’s heart will guide him.” If the Bible teaches what I say it teaches in 1 Cor 14, the path of integrity could indeed be either of the ones you’ve mentioned, but I’ve always privileged staying the course the Lord has given me until that becomes impossible.
As you and I both know, “becomes impossible” more than likely means that you make your views clear—gently and privately with leadership, with deference and respect but with clear appeal to 1 Cor 14—and you are given a brief period of patience (your views will seem self-evidently ridiculous to them, and they might think they can regain you) but ultimately told in various ways that you’re not welcome. I’d encourage you as your brother to remember two things, one that will help you be persistently gracious and another that will help you not to feel guilty if and when things go awry.
- This isn’t all their fault. Pastors in the KJV-Only world face a ton of pressure to conform, and the senior pastors face the most pressure: if they waver one jot or one tittle, their livelihood is threatened. And beyond this, they’ve been told by people who seem like they ought to know, their KJV-Only Bible college professors, that the TR and KJV are the hill to die on. It’s very, very hard (as you of all people know!) to push back against that pressure, or to even begin to do so. It’s hard to consider the possibility that people you know and trust have—it appears—told you things that aren’t true.
- Nonetheless, Galatians 5:19–20 make contention, division, and strife over things the Bible doesn’t teach—like the idea that the KJV is the only truly trustworthy translation and everything else is a horrible counterfeit—a “work of the flesh.” If fellow Christians who know you love them and have seen your love for Christ divide from you over an insistence that the KJV is perfect/best/pure, sin is in there somewhere. When the division comes, that issue will get muddied. Conflict almost always gets confusing, mixed up. It’s almost never permitted to be clear: your sensitive conscience will be pricked by accusations about your own sins and shortcomings. Maybe some of these accusations will even bear some truth! But don’t take the blame here: KJV-Onlyism isn’t true. It isn’t right. It’s a work of the flesh.
Your play is a long play, a long play of love. You love them enough to let love cover a multitude of sins and to remember, always remember, that you have nothing that you did not receive (1 Cor 4:7). You see truth now you didn’t used to see: that’s grace. Keep receiving the grace of God, pursuing biblical truth, and remember that you are being watched on social media by KJV-Only friends who want to know if you’re becoming a liberal. There might be some liberties you give up for their sake. You will suffer yourself to be defrauded for them; you won’t return reviling for reviling; you will turn the other cheek. And the only way great injustices like KJV-Onlyism go away is through redemptive suffering. Ultimately, that’s one of the purposes of the suffering of Christ. But we must sometimes bear his marks, too.
If I’ve assumed too much about your story, please forgive me and correct me.
In Christ,
Mark
He wrote back and didn’t correct my assumptions. We’ve started a dialogue I pray will be helpful to us both, a means of the Lord protecting this man and his family from sinful division.
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