Preach The Word -- Which One? 1 Of 2

However, if they are going to preach the Word of God today, they have to make a judgment as to which one of the many Bibles available is actually God’s Word.

If all the translations, versions, revisions, and paraphrases taught the same thing, there would be no controversy, BUT THEY DO NOT!

Illus: You could visit a church today and the preacher would ask you to turn to a certain passage and read along with him. You may open your Bible to read along, but find when he begins to read that it does not say the same thing your Bible says. In fact his sounds so different from what yours says that you may think you misunderstood the reference, so you ask you wife, “Where did he say he was reading from?” She may tell you the reference you heard, then you will realize that he is reading from a different Bible.

Yes, God’s exhortation to “Preach the Word...” is the same today as it was to Timothy years ago, but today’s pastor has to decide just which of the many versions is the Word of God. For example,

• One Bible today is specifically worded to reach the “Baby Boomer” generation. From this translation they were careful to omit the word “Hell,” because the writers know that many baby boomers do not like preachers to use that word. They become offended at it.

• One Bible is directed to young people. They have a “rap” translation just for them.

• One Bible is for the “Nerds.” This is a multimedia translation in MTV images.

We could go on and on. The liberals think this is just great, but friends, it is a shame that God’s Word is being violated for the purpose of pleasing people.

2 Peter 1:21 tells us, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”

It is horrifying to think that all kinds of people who have no experience in translating God’s Word are today producing Bibles.

Illus: The same thing is happening in the realm of music. Many think they can write gospel songs just because they can pick a guitar. They may write songs, but the songs may not have much gospel in them. Just because a song has catchy lyrics and a catchy tune, does not mean it lines up with God’s Word. In order to write a gospel song, one must know what God’s Word teaches.

Some of the “gospel” songs, and Bible translations, remind me of my wife’s chicken soup back in Bible College days. She would say it was chicken soup, but there was not much chicken in the soup.

Not knowing what the Bible says does not stop these people from writing the songs. Also, many who are translating these Bibles do not let the fact that they are not saying what the Holy Spirit inspired the original writers to write bother them. Just as long as they can sell them and the money rolls in, they keep on writing.

Illus: Have you ever watched a Hollywood produced movie about any Bible story or event? Often the only similarity you will find between the movie and the Bible story are some names that we recognize as being in the Bible. Most producers are not interested in portraying the scriptures accurately. They want to produce a movie that will sell -- THAT’S ALL! That is, they are in it for the money.

It would seem that many are producing books today that they call Bibles, but they have very little similarity to God’s Word.

2 Peter 1:20 tells us, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”

The liberal preacher does not care about PREACHING THE WORD OF GOD. But, if a man is a servant of the Lord, he wants to please the Lord and preach His Word. Since he knows all these translations, versions, revisions, and paraphrases do not teach the same thing, he knows they can not ALL be the Word of God. Again, he must determine which of the many translations really is God’s Word. How can he decide which is God’s Word? He has at least two things to aid him in his effort to discover which of the many Bibles available is the WORD OF GOD!

I. HE HAS HISTORY TO GUIDE HIM IN MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION

English speaking people can look back hundreds of years and see two things:

A. WHO USED THIS KING JAMES BIBLE?

For decades English speaking preachers of God’s Word came to the same conclusion. WHAT WAS THAT CONCLUSION? The King James version of the Bible was the WORD OF GOD for English speaking people. They recognized that nowhere in the King James Bible could anyone point to a passage of scripture and say that scripture: