Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
I just got back from the King James Bible Research Council annual conference in Corona,
Michigan. This is just a quick review of that conference. Now I had never heard of this group
before until just a week ago when I found out about this conference. I read up on it
a little bit and just spur of the moment decided to just book a flight a few days later
and be at this thing and I'm really glad I went because I had a great time. I had a lot of great
fellowship with the people that were there as well as I heard a lot of good messages. So I
heard 12 different messages because there were different split sessions so I couldn't be in two
places at once but I went to everything I possibly could go to in those two days which
was 12 sessions. I can't really go over everything right now in this video obviously because there's
a lot of information but I'm just going to hit a few of the highlights at this thing. Now the
only person that I was pretty familiar with going in was Dr. Phil Stringer because of the
fact that he is in the documentary film The Preserved Bible and so by the way if you
haven't seen The Preserved Bible you definitely want to watch that film. It's an excellent
documentary and Dr. Phil Stringer is featured prominently in that. So I was the only person
I knew by sight. There were a couple other preachers that I was vaguely aware of. I'd
heard their names before and everything but I went into this conference pretty much cold
not exactly knowing what to expect but again it was a great time. The first message
of the conference was by Pastor Jason Georges who was the host of the conference there at
Emanuel Baptist Church in Corona, Michigan. I got to talk to him a lot also just throughout
the conference. We did a lot of fellowship and he's a great guy and came across as a really
smart guy nice guy and so I enjoyed talking to him. In his message he made a great point
about the fact that the King James Bible is still really popular because you know all these
other versions are are always trying to take the place of the King James Bible and they have
all kinds of advertising behind them and people are pushing to replace the King James Bible but
yet the King James is still the most read Bible in America super popular the best sellers
on Amazon are King James Bibles. Anyway so Pastor Georges made this great point that you know
we should not be ashamed of or hide the fact that our church is King James because for a lot
of people that's a selling point. It actually differentiates us from the liberal church down
the street. A lot of people are looking for a church that preaches the King James Bible
and I know that's been the case over the last 18 years that I've pastored that a lot
of people will show up and say hey I was looking for a church that preaches the King James
Bible. There's still a huge demand for it out there. People can tell the difference between
the King James Bible and these doofus modern versions. So then another highlight was the
session that was held by a guy named brother Josh Levesque called One More Exact Translation
Examining Translators' Purposes and Perspectives and basically this was going over things in the
preface to the King James Bible. So the King James Bible has this really long introduction
called From the Translators to the Readers and a lot of times opponents of the King James
will cherry pick statements out of that preface to try to claim that the King James Bible
translators themselves would would not even be King James and they'd love the modern versions
or just stupid stuff like that and so he did a really good job of debunking that. First of all
he did a good job of pointing out that this essay From the Translators to the Readers is
predominantly the work of one person okay but a lot of times just like this is what all the
translators thought or believe. You know he rightfully pointed out the fact that it's written
by one person and obviously it does express the general view of the translators but he showed
that from their own statements that they talked about the need for having one translation
one authoritative translation that was the whole point of the project with the King James
Bible because you had a lot of people with the Geneva Bible a lot of people the Bishops Bible
and you know they wanted to have one accurate authoritative translation and you know what when
the King James Bible came out and a little bit of time went by pretty soon it became the
virtually the only English Bible that anyone used among saved Christians among evangelical
Christians obviously the Catholics have their you know Bible but the point is that you know
among Christians the King James was it for hundreds of years because it is so good and so
he he did a good job of of showing the quotes that the the modern version crowd will take out
of context and putting those in the context of the preface and showing how they definitely
would not approve of these modern versions where the Old Testament is deviating from the
Hebrew text and following the Septuagint and and they wouldn't think that it's good to have this
sort of Tower of Babel you know multiplicity of English versions God's not the author of
confusion so that was a really good session I enjoyed that another one that I want to bring
up is there was a guy by the name of Pastor Jared Longsign and he went over the ESV
versus the King James just with regard to style because obviously there are textual issues and
doctrinal issues in the modern versions but I don't think we talk about this enough the fact
that the modern versions just kind of suck you know like that the style is lacking the King
James Bible sounds awesome and the modern versions are just so drab in the way that they sound
and they're not poetic they're not majestic and they just completely just drain the life out of
the original and it's funny because uh Brother Longsign in his message he actually updated
the Gettysburg Address to you know contemporary English the way that we talk now and he read his
own like updated version of the Gettysburg Address and obviously it was just hilarious
because it was just it just sounded ridiculous and it sounded like modern Bible versions right
uh because obviously the Bible is very powerful and majestic and beautiful in the
King James Version and then you have these bunch of egghead scholars who although they might
produce a lot of verses that are accurate they're just they're just so uh ugly in in the the
style of English um they're and you know he showed us a lot of examples I've actually done
the same thing in some of my old sermons where I would just read passages from the the ESV
just to show how bad they sound whereas the King James sounds so beautiful and majestic
and everything like that because here's the thing translating isn't just about getting the
right meaning it's also about getting the right feeling right it's about getting the the feel
and and the the the style of the original as well okay because you could say something
that means the same thing technically but you could also just say it in a way that sounds good
or a way that doesn't sound good and so uh I like that he emphasized that and that he
was preaching on that because I think we need to talk more about that
uh there's another session that we went to uh called uh so you want to update the King
James Bible by a guy named brother Mark Reno and he was and this this is something that
kind of came up throughout the conference people claiming that the King James needs to be updated
a lot of the speakers talked about the fact that people will exaggerate how archaic the King
James is or you know how many problems there are with it as far as uh you know modern
audiences understanding it and typically when they give you a list of archaic words
it's like 50 words or something that are that are too archaic you know the Bible has 31,000
verses in it it just has so many words and then and then you know it's just this little handful of
words that you can just look up in a dictionary you can just expand your vocabulary a little bit
but anyway uh that session was good because he talked about the fact that you have all
these different dialects of English and different people talk different ways you know
you're never going to be able to please everyone with a Bible that is just exactly how they talk
in California or Florida or Kansas or Massachusetts or Australia or England or the Bahamas or
something obviously there are all these different dialects of English and people often speak
different registers of English there's kind of a higher register so-called or a lower register
of the English language you know the King James Bible is written in English and it's so
hilarious when people talk about how it's just so hard to understand because I've been evangelizing
with the King James Bible consistently every week for the last 25 years and when I'm out
knocking doors virtually never does anyone say to me I'm sorry you know this Bible you're showing
me it's just I'm having trouble understanding it the language is too okay okay did I say
virtually never let me let me rephrase that never have I had an unsafe person say to me
I'm having trouble understanding because you're using an archaic version of the Bible
okay it just doesn't happen when you're out evangelizing you're out soul winning uh you
know people understand it no problem are there a few things in the King James Bible that are
archaic or outdated yes there are but but it's not enough to warrant you know creating a whole
new Bible version and and you know throwing out the the magnificent King James Bible because you
know what do you replace it with who's going to do the new translation right you know God
worked it out so beautifully with just such a an amazing group of scholars they gave us the
King James Bible in 1611 and it was providential and it'd be that's a pretty tough act to follow
folks and so he was making a lot of good cases for uh you know why we don't need to update the
King James Bible he also made a great point that that many people have tried to update it
and people are trying to update it now it's always a flop it's always a failure everybody
wants the King James they don't want the update and then uh yeah I mean they're like
I said I can't really bring up every uh session but uh the final session was uh Dr. Phil Stringer
and he was talking about 1st John 5-7 he gave this really great handout
there was just so much evidence for 1st John 5-7 tons of quotes from scholars and reformation
era guys talking about why 1st John 5-7 is authentic and just all the historical
and scholarly reasons why it's authentic and so uh that was that was good stuff as well
so anyway I could go on and on I just wanted to kind of hit a few highlights as far as
some of the things that we heard certain themes came up over and over again about how you know
we don't need to update the King James uh yeah there are a few things that are archaic but
not enough to be really worth making a big deal about and one of the things that I liked
about the conference is that this group of of guys in the King James Bible Research Council
they seem to have a pretty healthy view of the King James like they don't seem to be
over the top radical this overboard like ruckmanism that doesn't seem to be their their viewpoint
obviously you know there are different guys at this conference that that had slightly different
beliefs and some guys are a little more radical than others and whatever but in general this
conference had a healthy view toward the King James it seemed like where they not only believe
that the King James Bible is God's preserved word but that they also respect and understand that
the Greek original and that the Hebrew original are also authoritative right not not like these
bozo ruckmanites that are saying that the English corrects the Greek or something stupid
like that they also respected the Masoretic Hebrew text and they also believe that it's
authoritative they believe that the that the you know received text of the of the Greek
New Testament is authoritative as well as the King James Bible you know I just always say
you know the the the Greek the Hebrew and the King James these three are one these three
agree in one you know I believe all three of them are authoritative because the King James
Bible is a accurate translation of the Greek and Hebrew so all three of them are right
we don't have to choose and so I like the fact that they were not too overboard or too
radical in their defense of the King James but that they actually had a good healthy you know
right view on this from what I heard and from the conversations that I had with these guys
outside of the pulpit and so anyway there's another conference like this coming apparently
a year from now this time it looks like it's going to be in Oshkosh Wisconsin I'm hoping to
be able to go uh over the last several years I've gone to a different conference
about the King James called the Kept Pure in All Ages Conference but the thing about that
conference is that it's put on by Reformed guys so it's it's Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists
uh the one good thing about this conference is that these are independent fundamental Baptists
putting on this conference so obviously I have more in common with them of course doctrinally
and so forth and and there were some Reformed guys at this conference over the last couple
days obviously Reformed guys are you know allowed to attend they're welcome just like
I was welcome at the at the conference put on by the Reformed guys but this is cool because
it's actually independent fundamental Baptists preaching on the King James you know they
had a good viewpoint toward it so anyway I'm hoping to go next year maybe you you might
want to think about going next year in Oshkosh Wisconsin God bless you have a great day