Letters    

 ON THE SIMPLICITY OF SCRIPTURE

Dear D. W.                                                                                                        May 12, 1987

      ...Go to the Scriptures, not to your own understanding. God designed His Word for the common man, and not for a few brilliant egg-heads. "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen ..." (I Corinthians 1:26-28).

         "Lean not unto Thine own understanding", Solomon counselled. The Bible, and not our own minds, is the source of truth. What a blessing to mankind that God has not left us without a witness of Himself! Thank God He is "Lord of the whole earth" (Zechariah 4:14).

"SOLA SCRIPTURA"

Dear M. K.                                                                                                          June 29, 1988

      ...Regarding the matter of the Scriptures, we ought to turn to the writings of the Apostles to learn in what the early Christians placed their convictions.

      In Acts 17:1-10, Paul and Silas preached in Thessalonica that Christ "must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead" (vs. 3). But the Jews gathered a company of "certain lewd fellows" to incite a mob, and to persecute the believers. For this reason, the brethren found it necessary to send the preachers away by night; and they came to Berea. "These (the Bereans) were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so" (vs. 11). The truth of God as embodied in the Scriptures, was precious to the Bereans. It was to them the settler of all disputes. Instead of forcing God's Word to read like their opinion, they allowed God's Word to become their opinion.

      They did not excuse those Scriptures that violated their reasoning by saying, "There are some things we cannot understand," but they rather labored to understand what God's Word plainly taught. They did not allow a system of interpretation to "decipher" God's Word; nor did they accept the message of Paul carte blanche, rather they turned to the Scriptures and searched, searching every day, whether the message Paul preached agreed with the Bible.

     The Scriptures were their authority. By them they judged all things. And, it was this conviction that the Word of God was the basis of their Creed and Conduct that made them more noble than those in Thessalonica.

      The historic position of the Church is "Sola Scriptura", i.e. "Scripture alone" is the basis of our Doctrine and Practice.

     "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5). "May God Smile On You."—J. S. Bach

ON THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION

Dear B. E. B.                                                                                             November 10, l993

     Thank you for your letter of November 10th. While I certainly agree that homosexuals use the Authorized King James Version as well as the New International Version, do you not agree that homosexuality is a sin evidencing reprobation (Romans 1), and further, that to be abandoned by God must necessarily darken one's ability to exercise sound judgment?

      The sin of sodomy implies more than homosexuality: it also includes bestiality. Therefore, it is incorrect for the translators and literary consultants (for the New International Version) to propound that the word "sodomite" found in Deuteronomy 23:17; I Kings 14:24; 15:12; 22:46; and 23:7 ought to be rendered as "shrine prostitute."

         When the Bible says the land of Israel was corrupted by Sodomites, it amounts to a watering down of the sin to relegate them to shrines, and to call them "male prostitutes."

       Since Dr. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, a professed homo-sexual, was one of the literary consultants for the NIV, would not the watering down of the sin be directly attributed to her influence?

          Dr. Mollenkott attempts to prove that homosexuality is not wrong, but only the violent forcing of such sexual activity is sin. Where I was reared in New England, I was taught that one rotten apple would corrupt an entire barrel of perfectly good apples...

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