Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!

Holy, Holy, Holy!  Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, Holy, Holy!  all the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, Holy, Holy!  tho’ the darkness hide Thee,
Tho’ the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see.
Only Thou art holy - there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, in purity.

Holy, Holy, Holy!  Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth, and sky, and sea.
Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Reginald Heber

Husband Leads, Wife Responds

“The impression you get from some girls today is that they start out as soon as they are able, and they chase the boys until finally they run one down and marry him.  And then we wonder why those marriages don’t work out.  I risk being thought archaic for saying this, but I believe it is still the prerogative of the man to do the chasing.  The man is always the deliverer, and the woman is the receiver.  God made them that way.  And that’s why He says to the man, ‘Husbands, love your wives’ (Eph. 5:25).  He didn’t turn that around and instruct the wife to love the husband.  Somebody asks, ‘Well, isn’t she supposed to?’  Of course she is, but she’s a responder.  She is to respond to him.  If he loves her, then she will love him.  If he treats her harshly and cruelly, she will become cold and indifferent, and love will die.  In the majority of cases - and over the years I have counseled literally hundreds of cases that have to do with marriage problems - the man is to blame.  You see, he is the one who is responsible because he is to be the leader.”
J. Vernon McGee, “Ruth” (Thru The Bible Commentary Series), p.85

The Light of Christ

“The light is fully aware of the aggressive war being waged against it by the darkness of sinful men.  But it still shines.  As long as He continues to shine, Christ will have enemies fighting Him.  And that is also true of those who have the light of Christ in their hearts and lives.  If the darkness of this world does not fight against us, we may well question whether what we thought was light in us may not after all be darkness.  There can be no peaceful coexistence between darkness and light.”

Spiros Zodhiates, “Was Christ God? A Defense of the Deity of Christ”  p.163-164

Test Your Growth

“This, therefore, seems to me to be a very good test of our whole Christian position.  Is our spiritual knowledge greater today than it was a year ago? Looking back across let us say ten years in the Christian life, can you say that your spiritual knowledge is greater than it was?  I am not asking whether you have a greater knowledge of the letter of the Scripture, as you may have an increasing knowledge of Shakespeare; I am not asking if you have memorized a large number of biblical verses.  I am asking whether your spiritual knowledge and understanding have grown?  Is your grasp of truth more profound?  Do you really feel that you are being led ever onwards, as it were from chamber to chamber in a great mansion, and discovering fresh treasures of wisdom and knowledge?  That is the test. ...

“Do we day by day pray to God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, to enlighten the eyes of our understanding?  It should be our constant daily prayer.  We should always preface our reading of the Word by praying for this enlightenment.  The constant desire of our lives should be that we might ‘grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord.’ ... The fact is that we are but tyros, we are babes, we are merely at the very beginning.  We must press on unto perfection.  Are we interested in Christian doctrine?  Do we really see the importance of it, or do we find it rather boring and dull?   Do we always seek some excitement, something to entertain us?  Do we realize that, having been saved and called and place in Christ, what God desires is that we should grow in our understanding of truth and of doctrine, that we should become more concerned about this than about anything else, that the ‘eyes of our understanding,’ our comprehension, may be enlightened to that end.”

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Promise: An Exposition of Ephesians 1, pp.368-369.

Are You Teaching Discernment?

Cartoon by Answers In Genesis

Pray to Jesus or to God the Father?

“It is interesting to observe that the Bible, speaking generally, teaches us to address our prayers to God the Father.

“I pause to make this point for one reason only, namely, that I have sometimes gained the impression that many Christians seem to think that the hallmark of spirituality is to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ.  But when we turn to the Scriptures we discover that that is not really so, and that, as here [Eph.1:15-17], prayers are normally offered to the Father.  The Lord Jesus Christ is the Mediator, not the end; He is the One who brings us to the Father.  We go to the Father by Him; He is the great High Priest; He is our representative.  Normally we do not pray to Him, but to the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Lord Jesus Christ, relying upon the Lord Jesus Christ.  As the Apostle Peter reminds us, all He has done is designed to bring us to God, not to Himself.  We must not attach too much importance to this, yet it is important that we should observe it, because there is an enemy at hand who is always ready to mislead us; and to persuade us to false emphasis in certain matters.

“I have sometimes thought that perhaps the greatest danger confronting evangelicals at the present time is (and I speak with reverence) so to emphasize the Person of the Son as to forget the Father.  We fail to realize that the Son came to glorify the Father and to bring us to Him.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Promise: An Exposition of Ephesians 1, p.328

See Col. 3:17, for example.

Random Apostasies and Heresies

I want to begin this installment of “Random Apostasies and Heresies” with an open letter from Lighthouse Trails Research Ministry requesting that their detractors demonstrate where LTRM is wrong in their warnings about the “Spiritual Formation movement” and its associated mystical spirituality.  This has been the primary focus of their ministry from the beginning.  Please familiarize yourself with this open letter to see their concerns.

I realize that the Evangelical Free Church of America is a denomination wherein the individual assemblies are really just associated rather than under a hierarchy, and that means they don’t always align themselves with a headquarters.  However, supposedly, according to the official EFCA web site, they should have a “common vision” as well as the “same theological convictions.”  With that understanding, I still think it is important to look at the question posed by the Lighthouse Trails Research Ministry: “Does the Evangelical Free Church of America lean toward contemplative?”

Another examination by Lighthouse Trails is about “Chrislam,” which is a heretical movement blending Islam and Christianity.  It is downright spiritually dangerous.  One cannot be a Christian and a Muslim - the faiths are contradictory.

Rachel Held Evans is in the news again.  I don’t understand why such a woman, who demonstrates over and over her lack of understanding what the Bible says, who demonstrates much of what is wrong with liberal theology, can be so appealing to Christians who should know better.  I understand her appeal to the liberal media and liberal so-called Christians, but too many Christians without discernment flock to her books and writings.  Anyway, now she has decided that if you tell the truth about what homosexual behavior is, it has to be because you are “homophobic” and “hateful,” etc.
It is very apparent that she supports same-sex unions and has no problem with homosexual behavior - all the while claiming to honor Christ.  (The support for Evans in the comments section amazes me.)

Neil had a good article demonstrating the dangers of praying to the “Saints” of Romanism.

The New International Version of the Bible has been a very popular version over the years for many reasons, including its readability and formal/dynamic synthesis of translating.  But over the years the publishers of the NIV have been toying around with all sorts of gender-neutral translations, becoming more and more liberal in their overall translational philosophies.  Now the NIV is gone.  Oh, it’s still around - just in another permutation.  Read the Cripplegate article explaining the situation.

Speaking of the Cripplegate, they had an excellent article about whether the early Church affirmed the deity of Christ.  Some good things to know for your next visit by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Starting to get into the weird stuff now, Pope Francis seems to have caused some confusion by preaching what sounded to be universalism - that even atheists could be saved.  Ah, but he really meant you have to be a Roman Catholic to be saved.

Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS is not a Christian church, rather it is a cult by every means of the word. A prime example of their cultdom is provided by an article reporting on a woman who left the church, and because of that no family attended her wedding.  Yet the media seems to love Westboro - they love to use them to “prove” how horrible Christians are.

The Mormon Church officially condemns homosexual behavior as sinful, and are against same-sex unions.  So my question is, why do they not excommunicate members who promote homosexuality?  What about the organization, “Affirmation: Gay & Lesbian Mormons” - why is the LDS church not publicly denouncing this organization and booting out all members?

Lastly, I’m sure Jesus would approve of a Church who only wants “white” people as greeters because “first impressions matter.”  Yeah, we wouldn’t want the world to know that those dark-skinned people are really just the same as us, would we?  Racism is certainly behind such attitudes, and certainly sinful.  This “church” needs to clean up its act.  Their apology should not have been needed if they had properly taught in the first place.

Life in Christ

“A Christian is a man in whose life and in whose whole outlook the Lord Jesus Christ is at the centre.  He sees everything in Him.  He starts with Him, he ends with Him.  Jesus Christ has become the controlling factor everywhere.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “God’s Ultimate Purpose: An Exposition of Ephesians 1”, p.317

"New Age Bible Versions" - Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Finally: They Worshipped Devils.  The theme of this chapter is that new Bibles have replaced the word “devil” with “demon” because there is no devil - only demons.  

To support her contention, Riplinger cites Madame Helena Blavatsky:  “[T]he Church is wrong in calling them Devils...[T]he word demon however, as in the case of Socrates, and in the spirit of the meaning given to it by the whole of antiquity, stand[s] for the Guardian Spirit or Angel not a Devil of Satanic descent as Theology would have it... Demons is a very loose word to use, as it applies to...minor Gods;...there are no devils.” 

Therefore, as Riplinger tells it, new Bibles are, “Marching hand-in-hand with the New Age they have eliminated all references to ‘devils’ and replaced them with ‘demons.”  Of course this proves that new Bibles are worshipping these demons as gods.

Riplinger then goes into a diatribe about how some satanic groups call themselves “Slaves of Christ,” and that new Bible versions have “anti-Christian terms” for the KJV “servant” and “bondservant”; that Christians have been “demoted” to slaves without the free will of servants.  A chart then follows with NASB on one side and KJV on the other, with about 45 passages where variations of “servant” or “minister” has been translated in new versions as “slaves.”

She has a comment at one example, and this is at 2 Cor.11:15.  The KJV says that Satan has “ministers” while new version have “servants.”  Riplinger then says, “The use of the word servant here obscures the fact that Satan has ‘ministers’.”  Sigh.

Riplinger ends this section with this paragraph:  “Lack of uniformity in the way new versions translate Hebrew and Greek words [although the only passages she cited were all N.T. Greek], rendered as ‘servant’ in the KJV, testifies to the insecure foundation on which their choice of words lies.  They translate the Hebrew word ebed as both ‘slaves’ and ‘servants.’ [no example given, just the claim].  The Greek pais is inconsistently rendered as both ‘slaves’ and ‘servants’.  Doulos, the word most often translated as ‘slaves’ by the recent versions, becomes ‘servants’ by those same pens in Revelation 10.  Schizophrenia in scholarship strikes again as ‘sundoulos’ is translated as ‘servants’.  When in doubt, as Paul admonishes us, ‘Abstain from all appearance of evil...’ (1 Thessalonians 5:22).”

Aside from her misuse of Paul’s statement, she doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the various Greek words.  I just pulled out my Vine’s dictionary to read the various word meanings of the Greek and they aren’t as cut and dried as Riplinger makes them appear.  Doulos, for example, depending on the context, signifies “in bondage” if used as an adjective.  As a noun it can mean subjection without bondage, such as “of natural conditions.”  Sundoulos means “fellow servant” or “servants of the Lord” or even “angels.”  Pais can mean child/children, but also “a servant, attendant, maid, in relation to condition.”

Is it not possible that the new versions are more descriptive of the type of servant-hood?  Even so, are the terms "anti-Christian"?

Once again, there is nothing in Riplinger’s claims which are credible, nothing true.  All she does is make assertions about how evil the new Bibles are because they are not KJV.

Thought for the Day

“No man can truly be a Christian without rejoicing that others also have become Christian.  Nothing should gladden the heart of the believer more than to know that others also are in a like position and enjoying the same blessings.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “God’s Ultimate Purpose: An Exposition of Ephesians 1”, p.313

"New Age Bible Versions" - Chapter 11

N.  CHAPTER ELEVEN:  “King James for Kids.”  This chapter begins with the claim than anyone who says that the KJV is harder to read than newer versions is a liar.  The fallacy here is using research which says numbers of words and syllables determines how hard it is to read!  This is absurd.  It is not how many words or how many syllables which makes reading difficult - it’s the words themselves that must be understood.  Contrary to Riplinger’s assertion, my experience shows that KJV is more difficult to understand with its archaic language.  Today’s literacy rate is very poor, and this is using current English.  It is not a “lie” to say KJV is difficult language for today’s readers.  Riplinger searches for words that, in her opinion, are more “difficult” than KJV, when the words she complains of are most often more accurate and more descriptive!  Riplinger would have us sacrifice accuracy for simplicity.  Yet she claims that using “harder” words demonstrates the fulfillment of 2 Timothy 3:4 when it says, “In the last days...men shall be HEADY, HIGHMINDED” (her cap emphasis).  Let’s take a look.

1.  Charts on pp.197-204.  Most words are just synonymous, but Riplinger obviously has a problem with changing anything from the KJV.  Riplinger gives nearly 200 passages, but I will only demonstrate the most egregious claims here.  She compares the KJV with NAS, with NAS being “hard” words while KJV are “easy” words.

a.. Matt. 2:1, 3:7; KJV “wise men” vs. “magi.”  Magi is the correct term.  “Wise men” would describe anyone, whereas “magi” describes specific persons of the Zoroastrian religion.

b.  Mark 2:21; KJV “new” vs. NAS “unshrunk.”  Again, NAS is more descriptive of what “new” is.

c.  Luke 3:17, Matt. 3:12; NAS “winnowing fork” tells the reader what kind of “fan” (KJV) is used.

d.  Matt. 5:21; KJV “kill” can mean for any reason, including accidents, whereas NAS “murder” is more specific as to the context.

e.  Matt. 9:17; KJV “bottles” is not as accurate as NAS “wineskins.”

f.  Matt. 9:18.  KJV “ruler” can be any ruler, whereas NAS “synagogue official” tells us which ruler.

g.  Matt. 9:20, Mark 5:25.  KJV says “hem,” which is very inaccurate.  NAS “fringes” is more expressive of the “tzittzit,” or “ritual fringe” that Jewish men wore.

h.  Matt. 20:2.  KJV’s “penny” is an English coin!  “Denarius” is the accurate word.

i.  Matt. 27:27.  KJV “common hall” is better identified as NAS “Praetorium.”  Also, KJV “band of soldiers” is better expressed by NAS “whole Roman cohort.”  This goes for parallel passages also.

j.  Mark 4:38 is an ironic one.  KJV uses five words and six syllables to say what the NAS sums up in “stern.”  KJV is the verbose text here!

k.  Mark 13:9.  KJV “beaten” can mean many things, whereas NAS “flogged” is a specific type of beating.  Other passages have the same noted “problem.”

l.  Luke 23:45.  KJV “darkened” vs NAS “being obscured.”  Then Riplinger makes the following comment:  “This has other implications.  It states that the sun was darkened by being obscured, implying the natural phenomenon of an eclipse rather than a supernatural move of God.”   Riplinger has to take her assumption into the text; her meaning is not there unless she infers it.

m.  Col. 1:13.  KJV “power of darkness” vs NAS “domain of darkness.”  Of course this is synonymous.  Ah, but there is something more important than accurate translation here - Riplinger comes up with a very silly complaint.  She says, “new versions divest the culture of our literary spiritual heritage” because Tolstoy used the KJV phrase that NAS changed.   She has reduced the Bible to literature!  Are we not to make improvements in our language because literature quotes KJV?

n.  1 Tim. 3:8, Titus 1:7.  KJV “filthy” is not nearly as harsh as NAS “sordid!”

The point with these few examples is that there is nothing “harder” about newer versions, and they are often more accurate with their English word choices.  Other than that, the vast majority of the word changes are synonymous and even more easily understood by today’s readers.  

2.  P.204 in reference to memorization, and several charts for the next few pages.  The claim is that more words and syllables makes memorization more difficult.  The truth is, from my personal experience of almost a verse per week, that it is easier to memorize what flows more naturally, regardless of syllable count.  One specific complaint must be addressed:

a.  Matt. 26:41.  KJV “Watch and pray” vs NAS “Keep watching and praying.”  6 syllables to the KJV 3.  SO?  NAS is much more descriptive of the intent of the passage, regardless of length.  All other complaints are of similar comparisons.  I’d much rather be reading that which more accurately describes the author’s intent than to have fewer syllables!

3.  P.208b NKJV vs. KJV.  Whereas KJV sticks with one word, “evil,” for all the passages in the chart, NKJV describes the various types of evil.  Not all evil is the same!

4.  P.210 begins the nonsensical claim that the KJV is the “world class book” that “God wrote.”  Riplinger says, “Realize that the ‘thee’s and thou’s’ [sic] are not 1611 English, but Bible language.”  Riplinger’s primary assertion is that God wrote the KJV in “Bible language.”  This is a very cultish notion, with absolutely no facts to support it. “Thee” and “thou” are NOT “Bible language” - they were part of the language of the time!

5.  P.211;  Zech. 13:6.   Riplinger compares the KJV with the paraphrase Living Bible.  Why she thinks this is a valid comparison is beyond me.  Although it appears that Taylor is wrong to call the wounds “self-inflicted,” Riplinger is wrong to suggest the verse is referring to Christ.  Read the CONTEXT!  The messianic prophecy begins at 13:7.  And she still harps on the Lucifer thing, but we’ve addressed that.

6.  In the next section of this chapter, beginning on p.214, the charge is that new versions fulfill the charge of 2 Timothy 3:3, “In the last days...men shall be..WITHOUT NATURAL AFFECTION” (Riplinger’s cap emphasis).  New versions lead to the destruction of family culture, “The whip cracks over women in the words of new versions, as their editors have fallen prey to the Egyptian taskmasters.”  The claim is that new versions enslave and denigrate women.  There are a couple curious differences between the KJV and newer versions:

a.  1 Tim. 5:16 (with Riplinger’s bold emphasis)
KJV:  “If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them.”
“New”:  “If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows let her assist them.”

There is certainly a difference in understanding here.  With KJV both men and women are charged with taking care of their dependent widows, while new versions leave the task only to the women.

b.  Rev. 13:16.  KJV says, “free and bond” while “new versions” say, “free men and slaves” (her bold).  Well KJV is contextually speaking of all mankind, male or female, be they free or slaves, yet in the next passage, with same context, it speaks of “no man” being able to buy or sell.  The new versions (NAS), using the term “men,” appears to me to be contextually speaking of all mankind, be they male or female.  So I think Riplinger is paranoid in this case.

c.  The next two passages cite new versions for changing from the Greek word to “guard or keep” (ouros) for the word to “work” (ergo), which, of course, turns the woman into a slave.  Riplinger says, “New version Marthas will polish while Majority Text Marys will ‘pray’.”  I’m not really sure what she means by this (she tries very hard to make some sort of pun with almost every charge or complaint).

i.  Titus 2:5:  KJV “keepers at home” vs NAS “workers at home” or NIV “busy at home.”
ii.  1 Tim. 5:14:  KJV “guide the house” vs “keep house”

With 1 Tim. 5:14, Riplinger states that the Greek is “guide” (oikod) and not “keeper” (ouros).  This was a bit amusing to me because in the first passage she wants it to be keepers, but in the second one she wants it to be guide.  Now, if in the first passage the word ouros means to “guard or keep,” why can’t “keep” in the second passage mean “guide” without resorting to another word?  It seems she is inconsistent.  Nevertheless, she has found only one passage to “prove” her claim that women are left to do the work (1 Tim. 5:16).  Finding only one passage in a whole Bible which might fit her claim surely demonstrates the charge to be fallacious.

d.  This next passage, Hebrews 11:11, apparently shows that a man has to be superior to a woman and interjected into the passage.  The NIV adds many words which Riplinger says are not in any Greek manuscript, and when I looked at my interlinears of both TR and new texts, I couldn’t find them either.  Bold will be Riplinger’s highlighting the added text.

KJV:  “Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.”
NIV:  “By faith Abraham even though he was past age - and Sara herself was barren - was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise.”

Now this does indeed change the focus of who has the faith in this passage.  While we must remember the NIV is a dynamic translation, and hence will be more interpretive, I don’t understand why they did this.  Even so, I don’t see where this fits Riplinger’s charge that “the whip cracks over women.”

7.  Among her claim of the new versions’ assault on women are passages showing change from examining the sin of both men and women to examining only the sin of women, that the new versions have men who are “lovers of pleasure.”

a.  James 4:4:  KJV says, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses” while the NAS says, “you adulteresses” and the Living Bible says “unfaithful wife.”  I also found that the Amplified Bible (one of the four versions in my parallel Bible) says, “you [are like] unfaithful wives.”

Here’s the thing: The passage is not about adulterers and adulteresses - it is not exposing the sin of women and hiding the sin of men.  The passage is about spiritual adultery; it is figurative!  I think Amp sums up the intent of the author being much like in the O.T. when Israel was said to be adulterous when following false gods.  So it doesn’t matter which version you look at - the intent, the context, the meaning is all the same!

b.  Riplinger then addresses the New Scofield Reference Bible.  For KJV it says “children of Belial,” while in new versions it says, “wicked women.”  Reference page is 314, but I have no Scofield Bibles from which to learn the context.  More important, THIS IS A COMMENTARY!!!!  I thought the issue was the translations of the new versions compared to the translation of the KJV!

c. John 7:53-8:11, the story about the woman caught in adultery.  New versions include this text, but have a footnote about it not being in “earliest most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses.”  Riplinger says the story is “revealing the adulterers among the ‘scribes’ and forgiving the adulterous woman.”  I hate to say this, but it says nothing about adulterers among the scribes, so Riplinger is again practicing eisegesis with the text.  

Riplinger then cites someone who claims the passage is in the majority of the manuscripts, and another who claims the notes “are completely misleading.”  Hypothetically, let’s say they are correct.  The story is STILL in the new versions!  And there is nothing in the text about any of the scribes being an adulterer.  I’m not going to go into the point of the story because that isn’t germane to this examination, but it is certainly not a passage that meets her charges.

d.  Riplinger then lists 13 passages (I DO wish she put them in Biblical order) which, while the KJV lists the commandments against covetousness, including coveting one’s neighbor’s wife, all new versions omit the command against coveting the wife from these passages.  Well, as usual, she misrepresents the texts.

i. Luke 16:14 KJV says only that the Pharisees were covetous, and the context is about coveting money!  Other versions noted that they were greedy, or lovers of money.  

ii. Rom. 1:29, Eph.5:3; Col. 3:5:  KJV says they are filled with “covetousness,” while new versions say, “greedy.”  Strong’s says the meaning of this particular Greek word (pleonexia) means “greediness, avarice.” Jay Green’s literal translation of the TR also uses forms of the word “greed.”  I guess I’ll go with Strong over Riplinger.

iii. 2 Tim.3:2:  KJV says “covetous” while new versions say, “lovers of money.”  Jay Green’s literal translation of the TR says, “lovers of money.”  Strong’s says the word (philargyros) means “money-loving, avaricious, greedy.”  Again, I have to go with Strong over Riplinger.

The remaining passages are all in the O.T., and I see the same translational differences, including that Strong’s gives the meaning as forms of greed or unjust gain.  Riplinger is correct that the new versions omit the word “covetousness” and its forms, but she is very dishonest about the context being EXACTLY what the new versions say.

e.  Col. 3:5:  NAS says “passion,” while KJV says “inordinate affection,” and Riplinger parenthetically states, “passion with one’s wife is allowed.”  Forgive my bluntness, but this is just plain stupid.  In the context “passion” has nothing to do with passion for one’s wife!!  Riplinger searches and searches for something which she can use to buttress her paranoia about newer versions, and she can find nothing, so she has to twist new versions wherever possible to try to make it LOOK like she is right.  This is the kind of foolishness which makes this examination of her book so very frustrating!

f.  Matt. 19:29:  KJV has “wife” as one of the things one can leave behind, and this word is left out of the new versions.  Of course the passage is addressing men and women in the audience, and women don’t have wives!  I wonder what Riplinger would have done if the new versions said “wife or husband”?  I think she’d complain about them adding words!

g.  The final claim about new versions being anti-woman is a chart which she leads into with this statement: “Liberals crying for a bible [sic] which ‘liberates’ women would do well to look back to the KJV.”  The chart then shows 32 passages where the KJV is not man-specific and yet new versions are.  Examples are: KJV “ye” for “men”; KJV “children” for “sons”; KJV “child” for “boy, etc.  What I find is that the use of the masculine gender in new versions in all these passages is consistent with the tradition of using masculine gender when speaking of mankind in general.  There is nothing nefarious, or hints of removing females from redemption, etc.

8.  Chapter summary.  One problem with Riplinger throughout this study is that she will find just one Bible version with a passage to fit her claim, and then she broad-sweeps all English versions under the charge “New Versions.”  Time and again I can find only one version which has what she claims.

a.  Riplinger’s claim in this chapter is that the KJV is much easier to read than new versions.  What I have demonstrated is that newer versions are just as easy to read, and, more than that, are much more accurate in expressing concepts. 

b.  Another charge is that new versions relegate women to working and subordination to men, yet only one passage could be used for the case.

c.  New versions supposedly expose the sin of women but not of men, yet none of her cited passages support her.  Instead they expose her dishonesty and fraudulent claims.

d.  Riplinger claims that new versions do not liberate women because they use masculine language for discussing mankind or people in general.  Yet the use of masculine words has historically been done in the English language when referring to mankind in general.

As with previous chapters, there is nothing demonstrated in this chapter which support’s the premise of Riplinger’s book, and much to demonstrate her apparent intentional dishonesty.

True Revival

“We must remember also that at such a time of revival the devil is anxious to produce counterfeits and cause confusion.  He turns people’s attention to the phenomena, to the experiences, to the excitement; and there are always people who look only for such things.

"So the question arises as to how we can tell the difference between the true and the counterfeit.  There are certain tests which can always be applied.  True emotion produced by the Holy Ghost always leads to humility, to reverence, to a holy love of God.  A man may sing, or may dance for a while; but that does not persist.  It is temporary and due to the weakness of the body; but what is permanent, and what proves genuineness, is that the man is filled with a sense of awe."
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Ultimate Purpose: An Exposition of Ephesians 1, pp.287-288.

Perhaps if people would think about this, false revivals such as at Toronto and Pensacola in past years, and the many more localized events led by Todd Bentley and his ilk, would fall flat.  Forced “revivals” are always false revivals.