Textual Variants & the Glory of God

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Beloved, I want to invite you to remain standing as I read our text this morning, and then we will pray and we'll be seated.
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Now, I'm going to be explaining this later, but I'm not reading out of the Pew Bible this morning.
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I'm going to read from the New American Standard Bible, and yet we will see later that even it makes a point at this particular text that we all need to learn.
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The text is Matthew chapter 6 and verse 13.
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If you want to turn there, you will see that at Matthew 6, 13 in the Pew Bibles, it reads differently than it reads in the New American Standard Bible and than what it reads in the King James Bible.
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I brought all three with me this morning so that we can discuss this.
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But I want to begin by reading it from the NAS, it says, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
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For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
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Amen.
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Father in heaven, I come to you today asking for your strength, for Lord, to preach such a message.
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I certainly cannot do so under my own strength.
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I need your wisdom.
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I need the power of your Holy Spirit, and I need your strength.
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I pray that you would keep me from error, keep me from going too far and not far enough, but keep me right in the center of your will.
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So I pray, Father, for the congregation that you would open their hearts to understand these truths and that they would not leave today confused, as I know that Satan has tried to use this subject to bring great confusion into the hearts of people.
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And I pray that I would not be used as an instrument of Satan, but father, rather as an instrument of your Holy Spirit to bring clarity to an all too emotional issue.
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And I thank you and praise you for all your goodness and leave it to you now to lead me.
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In Christ's name we pray.
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Amen.
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This week I am doing something that is very different than the norm, obviously.
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Normally, I would simply read the text, explain the text and apply the text.
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That is the very definition of expository preaching.
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But this morning we have reached a point in the text that is also part of expository preaching, and that is dealing with hard things.
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A man who preaches a verse here and a verse there never has to deal with the hard verses because he picks and chooses what he will preach.
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But when you preach verse by verse through the text of the Bible, you will come to passages that require you to dig deeper than simply that which is superficial.
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And that is where we are today.
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We have come to a text wherein there is an entire sentence which is included in some Bibles and it is not included in others.
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This is not an issue, as is normally described when you talk about the difference between King James or other translations.
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Oftentimes people will say, well, they're just reading it easier, making the English easier.
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No, this is a time where there is not unanimous agreement among the manuscripts which are the foundation for the text.
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And so we have to deal with this issue.
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And here's the thing.
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Many people gloss over this issue.
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Many pastors would never.
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Come to this issue before their people and lay it before them and deal with it openly and publicly simply because this requires more thinking than what the average person is willing to devote.
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So I'm asking you today to think harder than you maybe ever have about this particular issue and come along with me as I seek to bring clarity on an all too emotional issue, because that's the problem with this issue is one that most people are ignorant of it.
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And because of that ignorance, many people don't ever even address it.
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And when the Jehovah Witness shows up at your door and he attacks you because he knows this and you don't, you stand there with your mouth open and your hands up because you've never thought about it before.
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Beloved Dr.
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James White says this.
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He said the biggest weapon we hand our enemies is an ignorance of the history of our Bible.
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The biggest weapon we hand our enemies is an ignorance of the history of our Bible.
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I said that twice.
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So as to get your attention.
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And I know that I am treading on some dangerous ground this morning.
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I am treading on tradition and emotion.
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And if there are two sacred cows in the church, tradition and emotion are there.
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I was asked once to come and teach on this subject at another church.
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I've taught on this subject here, but it was years ago.
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It was in the midst of a conference that we taught on the history of the Bible, and very few people showed up.
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So it wasn't a it wasn't the most exciting thing that people came to.
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So I figured I'd bring it to Sunday morning.
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I get more and more people.
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No, no, I'm saying I'm what I'm saying is many of you haven't heard.
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But I have taught on this subject for years.
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And when I taught on this subject in another church, one of the funniest stories of my pastorate, I was asked to come and teach on the history of the text of the Bible.
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I said, OK, I will do that.
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So I went to the church and I brought along with me a PowerPoint presentation, which includes all kinds of graphs and all kinds of stuff, very intricate, diving deep into this subject.
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The worship leader introduced me, I came up to the podium and I spoke and I had my screens and I taught on this subject on the history of the text of the Bible.
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When I was done, by the way, the people were stunned, they were sitting there, they couldn't believe what I was saying.
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And when I was done, I I prayed and I walked down from the chancel.
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The worship leader walked up, he looked out at the congregation and went, hmm, well, and I and I don't remember his exact wording, but it was something like this.
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That certainly was a lot of information.
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Be sure you go and study and check him out to see if he was right.
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Now, I appreciate the fact that he said that, but I knew the reason why he said it, because he didn't think I was he really he didn't agree with what I was saying.
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And I could tell it in his inflection and tone and by the very fact that while I was preaching and teaching, he was looking at me with daggers coming out of his face, so I mean, I could tell he was displeased.
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So my experience teaching on this subject has not been overly encouraging because, again, it tends to trample upon both emotion and tradition.
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A few years ago, I was in Sunday school at this very church, I used to teach in Jack's classroom, the one he has now, which is the bigger room.
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And I was teaching on a particular verse of the Bible, and I had a lady here who was not a member of our church, but she had a King James Bible.
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And we came to a passage where the King James Bible does not agree with the modern translation, similar to the one we're at today.
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And I read it from my Bible.
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She said, well, my Bible reads differently than yours.
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And I stopped and I said, well, the reason why is because there's not manuscript agreement at this point.
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And she said, well, yours is wrong.
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And I said, I'm sorry.
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And she I mean, she wasn't having it.
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She she said, well, this is the Bible she had in what I'm holding here is the King James.
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She said this is the Bible and anywhere that yours disagrees with it, it is wrong.
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And that was her position.
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And that was mouth impassable.
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She was not coming off of that recently.
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We have a certain audio page where I put out all of our sermons.
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We have a lot of people who listen to our sermons.
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And I'm very thankful to God that he's used our ministry in that way.
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And one of the things that recently I very seldomly get comments on our sermons.
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A lot of people listen, but very few people comment.
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It takes a lot to go in and actually comment.
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So I understand a lot of people don't do that.
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The most recent comment I got was this quote, Great sermon, bro.
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But honestly, you need to put down both of those NAS and ESV and pick up the old KJV.
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End quote.
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That was the last and I thought somewhat fortuitous quote comment that we've had on any of our sermons was that particular comment.
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Some folks get very upset when you deal with this subject, primarily because they are unfamiliar with the issues which are at hand.
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I want to.
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I want to teach on this subject this morning, I've labored over this message in prayer for fear of confusing you.
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So I want to I want to offer up something today that I don't think I ever have.
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If I confuse you during this message.
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Put up your hand and I will stop and try to explain it, but I will not be able to take questions during the sermon.
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But if you if you hear something didn't make sense, put up your hand.
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I'll stop and try to explain it a little further.
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If it's too much.
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We'll talk about it later, come and see me later, because I don't want the Bible says that God is not the author of confusion and I don't want to be an agent of confusion.
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Understand, I see one hand already.
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Hey, all right.
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Well, let's begin.
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All that was my introduction.
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The issue that we are going to discuss this morning is the manuscripts which underlie the Greek, I'm sorry, which underlie the English translation.
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There are thousands of handwritten manuscripts which underlie our English Bible.
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These manuscripts traverse hundreds of years, so we have thousands of manuscripts that were handwritten up until the point that Gutenberg created the printing press in the 1500s.
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And those manuscripts, every one of them was written by hand.
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There was no other way.
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There was no other process.
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It was a labor intensive process.
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It was it was a journey when a man sat down to copy the text of the Bible.
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It was not something which was done over a long weekend.
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Like Labor Day.
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Now, this was this was many months and sometimes years of laborious work.
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And right now, today, we have over 5000 manuscripts or partials of manuscripts that still exist today in the handwritten Greek form.
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And while there is an amazing and I would even say miraculous amount of agreement within them.
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There are points wherein those manuscripts, because they are handwritten, do not agree.
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Now, does anybody have a problem understanding that it's just the fact if I came to you and presented you a myth, would that help you leave today with any certainty? Well, it might make you feel better, but it would not encourage you to the truth.
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There are portions of the text of the New Testament which are in question in regard to whether or not they are what the original author actually wrote.
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Now, here are two points to consider.
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I want to give you two points to consider before we move on.
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Well, number one, the New Testament is the best single best.
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Documented work of antiquity, it is the single best documented work of antiquity.
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What does that mean? I said that to Jasmine and I talked about this at length on Friday.
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We were we were downtown working together and we were talking about this.
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And I said, this is the New Testament is unparalleled as to its evidence and documentation, not even close.
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I'll give you an example.
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The New Testament has over fifty seven hundred.
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Handwritten manuscripts that are still in existence, we have handwritten manuscripts, partial manuscripts that go back to within one generation of the original.
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Dating back to the early second century, the Bible was written in the first century, so we have manuscripts that date back to the earliest part of the second century, within a lifetime of the apostles, we have manuscripts that go back.
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We do not have the originals.
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The originals do not exist.
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People ask me, why don't you think the originals exist? Well, number one, I'm not God, so I can't tell you exactly why, but I can conjecture an answer.
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Can you imagine how much a document would be worshiped if you knew it was what John actually wrote, the actual writing of John? I mean, people worship tiaras because they're because they were worn by the pope.
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People worship toast because they think they see the picture of the Virgin Mary in the toast.
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Can you imagine the treatment that the gospel of John, the autograph, the original would receive? The veneration it would receive would be outstanding and ridiculous.
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In fact, the manuscripts get that treatment and they shouldn't, but they do.
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They get put under glass.
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People go in, they bow to them, they kiss the glass, they do all kinds of things when allowed.
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So a lot of times they're not allowed to touch that glass.
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But the idea is that there's this veneration to the object, which is never intended by God.
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Now, we said fifty seven hundred manuscripts, they date within a generation of the originals.
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We have the best attested work of antiquity.
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What is the second best? Attested work of the ancient world, the second best is Homer's Iliad.
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You've heard of the Homer's Iliad.
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Many of you in school were forced to read Homer's Iliad.
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We have fifty seven hundred manuscripts of the New Testament, handwritten manuscripts.
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How many do we have of Homer's Iliad? Copies, how many do we have? We don't have the original.
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How many copies do we have? The fifty seven hundred New Testament, second best work.
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We have six hundred and forty three.
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The earliest copies of the New Testament we have are within one generation of the original author.
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The earliest copies of Homer's Iliad are five hundred years after its writing.
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And that's the second best.
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It's not even close.
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It doesn't touch it.
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Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars, ten manuscripts exist, and the earliest one we have is a thousand years after it was written.
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Pliny's writings, we have seven manuscripts, seven hundred and fifty years after is the earliest.
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Plato, you've heard of man, Plato and his writings, seven manuscripts.
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Thirteen hundred years after they were written.
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Tacitus, 20 manuscripts, he's got a lot.
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Twenty thousand years after.
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And these are the close.
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These are the best.
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Outside of the New Testament, as I said earlier, it's not amazing, it's miraculous that we have so many New Testament scholars, they don't even play in the same field as these other guys.
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Did you know there's no existing copies of William Shakespeare's writings that all of it are no existing of what he wrote? We all the copies that we have, many of them had to be filled in because there was missing parts.
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And you take for granted that what you read when you read Shakespeare was what Shakespeare wrote.
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You take for granted that when you read Tacitus, that's what Tacitus wrote.
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Not that you go around reading Tacitus a lot, but I'm saying you take for granted, hey, Homer's Iliad was what Homer wrote, right? You never encouraged to question that.
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But people all the time, you've got to question the New Testament because it's not reliable.
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Beloved, it's the most reliable ancient document that we have.
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It is absolutely the most reliable thing to come out of 2000 years of history that we got.
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So that's the first thing.
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Of all the documents, by the way, do you forget sometimes that the Bible is an ancient document because it comes to you in a nice binding.
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It's got gold leaf, you know, around the world.
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You know, it's got the little thumb tips on it and it's got a nice ribbon in the middle.
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And you think, well, that's the way God sent it down from heaven.
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God didn't send it down from heaven like this.
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God sent it down from heaven where it was carried around on the backs of animals held in leather bags in scrolls.
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Handwritten by candlelight, that's how it came to us.
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People say, well, I don't like that.
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Do you realize that the only the only way for you to get an actual physical copy where there are no introduction of any type of error prior or in history would mean that God would have to wait till 1949 before he gave the Bible.
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This was in 1949 that the copier was invented, but before that everything was either handwritten or it was typeset and the typesetting was printed.
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Both, of course, bring along the opportunity for the introduction of textual, sorry, textual variation.
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I said there were two points I want to give you.
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The first one is that the New Testament is the most reliable document of the ancient world.
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We all have to agree.
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Dr.
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Bart Ehrman, the leading textual critic, the leading man who says the Bible is filled with errors.
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I heard his voice say this because I was in the room with him when he said.
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It is the most best, he said, most best, because that'd be terrible.
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He said it is the best attested work of antiquity.
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It is without doubt the best attested work of antiquity.
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Even the people who deny it can't deny that because it's the truth without doubt.
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All right.
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So that's the first point.
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The second point is the New Testament is the most open.
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And I keep saying New Testament because New Testament and Old Testament, there is a difference in the way they've been transmitted.
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The New Testament, the Old Testament was kept among the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, and it was it was very meticulously copied.
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The New Testament was not the New Testament.
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Paul wrote a letter.
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It was copied by anyone who wanted to copy it and went out.
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And there are so many copies because it was open.
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We wanted the gospel to go out in all the world.
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We wanted that to happen, so it was copied by many people.
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There were no scriptorians in the early church.
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They were worried about being fed to lions and burned in Nero's garden.
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They weren't creating scriptorians in the first 300 years of the church.
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It wasn't happening.
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They were worried about persecution.
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So professional scribes, as far as scriptorian scribes, is not present, are not present in the history of the ancient church.
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They couldn't be.
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It wasn't possible.
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Christianity did not become legal until 313, I believe, after the conversion of Constantine.
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It was in 325 that there was the Council of Nicaea.
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And after the Council of Nicaea, then in 381, there was another council which reaffirmed what Nicaea had to say and was in the midst of all this, that Christianity was becoming the religion of the Roman Empire.
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And these things were beginning to build.
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And what we see is after this, there are more manuscripts because it's legal now and professionals can be involved and things like that can happen.
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And the manuscripts become better.
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You begin to have the codexes that are much better written and professionally done.
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Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, professional scribes did this.
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You can see it.
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You can read it.
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You can tell this was not done by those who are not professionals.
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This is professional work.
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Am I losing everybody? Starting to shift a little.
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I don't want to.
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I don't want to lose you.
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Let me let me say this.
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The New Testament is the most open religious document in the world.
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What I mean by that, it readily acknowledges its own issues in the notes of the text.
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You would never see that in a Koran.
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You would never open a copy of the Koran and it's a variant reading is this.
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Because such a thing would not be allowed.
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The New Testament openly acknowledges the textual issues in the text, because here's what your Jehovah's Witnesses will say.
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You guys are hiding all the issues of your Bible.
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I'm not.
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Mine says it at the bottom.
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Go to your ESV.
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Go to Matthew 6.13, the passage in question for today.
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Go to Matthew 6.13.
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Go to the very bottom of the page.
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I should go to Matthew 6.13 right next to the words deliver us from evil.
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There is a footnote.
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Right.
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Follow that footnote down to the bottom of the page.
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And it says in the footnote or the evil one, because that is again, that's a variant reading of how we translate the Greek.
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That's not a variation of the Greek.
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It's a variant of how we translate Greek because whether or not it's masculine or neuter.
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And that's a whole other issue.
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But here is this.
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It says or the evil one comma, some manuscript add for yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever.
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Amen.
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So we're not hiding anything.
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And those who claim that we're hiding it or or or or that we're we're putting it to the side or that we're sneaking it in there.
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We're not.
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Our Bibles come printed with footnotes and the footnotes tell us where the issues are.
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Again, if you compare that to Iran, there's no there's no comparison.
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Great men of the past knew these things.
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They understood these things.
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And yet it did not destroy their faith.
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And that's the thing that I know people that something like this, it could really disrupt their faith.
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It shouldn't.
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We're going to talk about why in a little while.
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But the key to this is helping me help you understand the fact that this shouldn't bother you.
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In fact, in a little while, I'll tell you why it should encourage you.
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Because but I'll give you a hint now, it's because we're being honest about the past, we are saying what actually is not what we hope or wish would be.
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You've got to be honest with the past, folks.
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You've got to be honest with the fact that when things are handwritten, there are variations that result.
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You know, you want to know what one of the most one of the most common variation is, by the way, hear me talk about variation, variation, version.
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You want to know the most common variation is.
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The movable new.
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If I said, hand me a apple.
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Is that right? No, because in English I would say an apple, because when we have a word that begins with a vowel and we use the indefinite article before that, which is a if we use the indefinite article before a word that starts with a vowel, we include the end for phonetic reasons, because it sounds more appropriate to say an apple than it does to say a apple.
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Right.
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That's the purpose behind what we call the addition of that in there.
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Right.
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Well, the same thing is in Greek.
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There are places where there are phonetic additions of letters, the movable new, by the way, the new is the Greek letter in the movable new is is in place and not in place in a lot of manuscripts.
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Why? Because most of the guys who are copying manuscripts didn't necessarily speak the language.
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They read the language.
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And when you read it, it doesn't change anything.
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Only when you speak it.
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If I said a apple on a piece, if I was writing that, it wouldn't change the meaning.
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A apple is the same as an apple.
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Everybody agree? A apple is one.
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An apple is one.
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It doesn't change meaning.
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It changed the phonetic.
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When you say it, same thing for the Greek.
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So many of these variations are that kind of thing.
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So when you hear Bart Ehrman or one of his supporters say the New Testament has 400000 variants, you go, oh, by the way, that's true.
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Does have 400000 variants of approximately 400000 variants.
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They'll say it's 400000 variants and you'll say, oh, how many words are in the New Testament? You may know about 138000.
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So according to their numbering system, that means every word has at least three variations.
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But you've got to remember, you have 5700 manuscripts.
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But now the number starts dropping.
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Oh, wait, wait.
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OK, here's the thing.
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The vast majority, and I'm talking about 99 percent, I'm not talking about 70 or 80 percent, 99 percent of textual variation.
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Is either unable to be translated into English, it wouldn't make sense if it was translated into English, so it doesn't matter, or it has something to do with spelling or word order.
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Does it matter if the text says the Lord Jesus Christ or Jesus Christ, the Lord? No, it doesn't.
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But the point is, that's the type of variation that doesn't matter.
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We call those meaningless variations, but they are in the text.
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The vast majority of variations are neither meaningful nor are they viable.
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And what do we mean by viable? Viable means that it could actually be a part of the original.
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That's a question of whether or not this could have been John's writing.
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There are parts that are in some manuscripts that there is so much evidence that excludes their addition that they're not viable anymore because there's so much evidence that goes against them.
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So we call them unviable variations.
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So the vast majority of textual variation is neither meaningful nor viable.
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What we have to deal with is we have to deal with the one percent.
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We have to deal with those portions of the text wherein there is debate as to whether or not it is a proper inclusion or exclusion from the text.
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And that's where we are now, because we're going to go back to Matthew six and we're going to deal with this, knowing all that you know now, which you may have come today not knowing or you may know more than I do.
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I don't know.
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But knowing what you know now and now that we're all up to speed, we can deal with Matthew six and Matthew chapter six, you have what's called a doxology.
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The doxology means words of glory or glorious words.
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It's a statement of glory for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
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Amen.
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Is that the one we're all familiar with? Yeah.
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Is that the one that we pray when we pray for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever? Amen.
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All right.
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Now, that one is included in the King James Bible.
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It is here in the King James Bible.
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I read it earlier.
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Actually, no, I didn't.
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I read from the NAS, but the King James Bible has the New American Standard Bible includes it in the text, but it includes it in brackets.
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How many of you have NAS? I mean, your NAS, is it bracketed? Is it that way universally? Because I don't have every NAS.
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Did they all? I assume it's that way in all of them.
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OK, so if you have the New American Standard Bible, it's in the text, but it's bracketed off.
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And if you follow the bracket down the bottom, it will probably say this is not a part of the earliest manuscripts or something to that effect.
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Everybody agree? OK, so we know it's in the King James.
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No notes.
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By the way, the King James, when it was written in 1611, did have notes.
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Those notes have since been removed.
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There were textual variant notes in the 1611.
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They're in the margins of the 1611.
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They are not in the modern modern.
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By the way, people who say I use a 1611 King James Bible, they do not.
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I have one.
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This is a in 2011.
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They had a 400 year edition that was printed photocopies of what an original would look like.
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Here they are.
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You can see the little side notes there.
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Here it is.
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Come read it.
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You won't because it will look like nothing you've ever seen.
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The V's look like U's, the S's look like F's.
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The use of language is different.
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The King James that people use today is the 1769 Blaney revision of the King James Bible.
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And they say, oh, it's a 1611.
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No, it's not.
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It's not.
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And if it is a 1769 Blaney revision, it's either the Cambridge or the Oxford edition, and they are not the same.
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So you ask them, I have a 1611.
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No, you don't have a 1769 Blaney.
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Which one? Don't do that.
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You might not make it out.
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You might not make it out alive.
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But it's again, the massive amount of lack of knowledge in this area is amazing.
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The New American Standard Bible has this text in brackets, the ESV does not include it.
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So what do we do with that? Well, we understand that there is a difference here.
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The manuscripts don't agree at this point.
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So what do we do? We look to the evidence, beloved.
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That's all we can do.
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Look to the evidence.
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Now, I'm going to read to you.
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I'm going to read to you some for it and some against it.
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We're going to start with that which is for it.
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I'm sorry, that which is against it.
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How many of you know Jamison Fawcett Brown commentary? Most people have that.
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If you have commentaries, that's one of the kind of stalwart.
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You know, most people have it.
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It's a it's a it's a one volume commentary.
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Nice commentary.
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The JFB commentary says this, and I quote, If any reliance is to be placed on external evidence, this doxology we think can hardly be considered part of the original text.
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OK, so they're opposed to it.
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They're saying they shouldn't be there.
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It is wanting, meaning it's not there in all the most ancient manuscripts.
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It is wanting in the Latin version, the old Latin and the Vulgate, the former mounting up to about the middle of the second century and the latter being a revision of it in the fourth century by Jerome, a most reverential and conservative as well as able and impartial critic.
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As might be expected from this, it is passed by in silence by the earliest Latin fathers, what mentioned by the earliest Latin church fathers when they're when they're commenting on this passage.
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They didn't mention it.
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That's huge.
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But even the Greek commentators, when expounding this prayer passed by the doxology.
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So the Latin fathers didn't mention the Greek fathers didn't mention.
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That's huge.
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According to JFB, that's their reasoning for leaving it out.
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Now, they go on to say this, and this is important.
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On the other hand, it is found in the majority of manuscripts.
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Oh, wait a minute.
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Now you bring confusion.
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How if it's in the majority? The majority of manuscripts come to us later.
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They're talking about the earlier manuscripts.
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And when you start getting into this, you start seeing if all we did was count up manuscripts, we're going to have a lot more of the later ones because the earlier ones are deteriorating and being and going away.
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The earlier manuscripts, we have less of them because they're older.
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That makes sense, right? The fact that they're older manuscripts, so we don't have as many of them.
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OK, I just that's the issue.
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So what do we do? Do we look at the earlier manuscript? Should we look at the later manuscripts when there's a discrepancy? JFB, James Foster, they're saying, go with the earlier one.
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Now, that's debatable.
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Some people really argue that some of them earlier ones had some problems.
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But without getting into it, that's their argument.
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It wasn't in the earlier manuscripts, not the Latin, not mentioned by the Greek fathers, not mentioned by the Latin fathers.
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Thus, it's not to be included.
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Everybody with me.
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This book was brought to me providentially.
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I bought this book five years ago to teach a course on textual criticism.
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I had not seen this book until this morning.
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I was looking for a King James Bible because coincidentally, our church doesn't have many.
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I couldn't find a King James.
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I looked everywhere.
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Only one I found was an old pew Bible.
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We just don't use it much anymore.
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But I looked for a King James Bible and this is looking for a King James Bible.
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By the providence of God, I found my book.
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This book is Comfort's and that's not Ray Comfort, there's no Ray Comfort, it's not him.
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This is Comfort's New Testament text and translation commentary, which basically means this.
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If you want to know about a textual critical issue and you want to know where it is and where it's not and how it came to be and what translation you're using, this is the book.
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As you can see, it deals with all of them at length.
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It is big and heavy.
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And no, you can't have it.
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You're welcome to read it while you're here, but this one's staying with me.
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But I want to read to you what it says, because I picked it up, I said, well, I wonder what I wonder what this commentary says on this passage, what if they're for it or against it, because I was curious.
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And I learned something right before the sermon.
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This is what it says, because I've been I've been studying this all week, but there's so much information out there, there's so much to read.
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I read this.
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There are other minor variations than those listed above, but these represent the six basic variations of the doxology that were added to the Lord's Prayer.
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There are six versions of this doxology that are in different manuscripts.
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For instance, one of them reads, because yours is the kingdom of the father and of the son and the Holy Spirit.
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Amen.
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That's not the same as for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
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Amen.
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Is it? That's a totally different sentence.
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And it includes what the Trinitarian formula, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.
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I was unaware.
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I'm glad I looked because there's five others.
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So Comfort says that that's one of the telltale signs, if there are variations of something that's been added on, it's an indication that it was an addition and not part of the original.
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And especially if you have six different variations that are showing up in different streams of translation.
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All right.
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Have I lost anybody yet? OK, we're all good.
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If I lost you an hour ago, I'm sorry.
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I'm praying that God gets us through this because now I want to go with those who say it should be there.
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Here are the arguments for its inclusion, because we've seen that the arguments for exclusion are pretty, pretty heavy.
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But there are those who argue for its inclusion, the number one argument for the inclusion.
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It's in the majority.
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Some people think that that's how you do it.
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You count the noses.
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You say if there's 500 manuscripts and 300 say it should be in 200 say it shouldn't.
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It doesn't matter their history or background.
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You just go within the majority and that's it.
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That's called the majority text position.
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Here's the problem with the majority text position.
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Most of the people that take that position call themselves King James only because a lot of them use the King James.
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King James does not take the majority reading at many places.
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First on five, seven is definitely not the majority reading in the King James.
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But you will find King James only as who will fight you to the death over first on five, seven.
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And yet it is not the majority reading in any way, shape or form.
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All right, let me let me let me ramp up a little.
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We could go get coffee and come back.
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Nobody wants to.
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OK, no.
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Those who say it should be included say this.
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Those who say it should be included say this.
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It was part of the majority.
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If it's in the majority, it should be there.
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OK, that's fine.
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If that's your argument, fine.
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The second and the argument that I think is the best is that it is in the didache.
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The didache is the earliest extra biblical writing of the apostles that we have.
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I taught a lesson on it when I taught on church history.
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The didache is the earliest extra biblical writing that we have.
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And the didache has the doxology.
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And they say here it's in the didache.
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It was obviously what Jesus taught.
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If that's your argument, I would say, hey, that's that's a decent enough argument.
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My only response would be this.
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How do we know that its inclusion later wasn't a result of it being in the didache rather than the cause of it being in the didache? See that there's the issue becomes which which came first, the chicken or the egg, which came first, the doxology in the didache or the doxology in the manuscript? And that's the question.
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So those who argue for it based on the didache come with their own set of issues.
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Finally, finally, others say this, and this is an argument, this is an argument that I don't think is a great argument, but I'm going to share with you.
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Some people say that Jesus wouldn't have stopped this prayer with the word evil.
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They say that's a negative ending to the prayer, because if the doxology isn't there, then the prayer ends with the phrase deliver us from evil.
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And the word evil is a negative word.
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Jesus wouldn't have been negatively.
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The Hebrew common thing to do at the end of prayers is to offer a doxology.
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We saw that we read First Chronicles twenty nine earlier.
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That was David's doxology reads very similar.
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And they say that Jesus would not have ended on a negative note.
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Now, here's my problem with that.
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I ain't going to go around saying what Jesus would have done.
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But because that's what you're having to do.
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You're having to make an assumption about how Jesus would have taught us to pray.
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And I can't go there.
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So if it comes as a surprise to you, it shouldn't, but it might.
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I am going to take the position this morning as the pastor of the church, not as not not as.
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And I'm not saying this is a point of fellowship.
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I'm not saying that this is a point that we all have to agree on.
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We don't.
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But I would take the position that based on the internal and external evidence, I do not think the doxology was a part of the original.
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Now, does that mean you can't believe it? No, I'm not saying that.
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And I'm not saying that you couldn't bring the evidence next week that would totally destroy my argument and we could discuss it.
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And I would change my mind because this is not a point of fellowship, neither is at a point wherein I am dogmatic.
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I'm saying I believe based on the evidence this is the case.
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But evidence has that way of changing your mind at times.
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So I'm willing to bring it.
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We will discuss it.
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And I will stand before the people of God and say, you know what, I was wrong.
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If I was.
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But the point of the matter is, again, we're coming to an issue.
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We have to deal with this.
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You can't send your children to college.
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With men like Bart Ehrman and have that be their first time that they're ever exposed to this stuff.
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If the first time they're exposed to these issues is before a man like Bart Ehrman, he's going to chew them up and he's going to spit them out.
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We, the church, is an institution of higher learning.
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We are here to deal with the heavy things.
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Let the world deal with the tripe.
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Let the world deal with the flippant.
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Let the world deal with that which is shallow and meaningless.
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But we deal with eternal things.
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So I say we deal with this because we need to deal with this.
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There was the preacher coming out and James White says this in his book, The King James Only Controversy.
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The simple fact of the matter is that no variant in either the Old or New Testament in any way, shape or form materially disrupt or destroy any essential doctrine of the Christian faith.
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No variant interrupts or destroys any essential doctrine of the Christian faith.
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They don't.
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In fact, recently, Dr.
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Bart Ehrman, that guy I keep mentioning, but I won't say recently, it's a while back, he was on a radio show, atheist radio show, and you know, his books misquoting Jesus and all these things.
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He makes tons of money.
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He has made a vast fortune off of teaching on these things, things that we've known about forever.
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But people were so ignorant of them.
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He comes out as if he discovered something.
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And he writes these books in layman's terms, so people read them and go, oh, we don't know what Jesus really said.
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And so we can't trust the Bible.
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He goes on a radio show and the guy is talking to him and he's an atheist and he's eating it up, man, because this guy's telling him what he wants to hear.
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And so he says to Bart Ehrman, he says, Dr.
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Ehrman, do you do you think? Oh, no, here's what he asked the question.
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He says, he says, what do you think the original Bible really taught? What do you think that it really said before all these variations? What do you think the original Christians really believed? And he said, same thing they do now, because even with all these variations, they don't take away from any of the essential doctrines of the faith.
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And that was that was so telling because it's like, sure, sure, like crickets, because the guy wanted him to say, oh, yeah, all the early Christians were Gnostics.
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That's Dan Brown nonsense.
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That's that's that's silly talk.
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He wanted him to say, yeah, all the early Christians didn't believe Jesus was God or all the early Christians believe that that you did that salvation was through multiple gods.
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He wanted them to say something crazy.
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He said, no, they believe what the church believes now.
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And that's the key to all of this.
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I didn't bring I didn't come today to bring you confusion.
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I came today to bring you an issue in the text.
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How do we deal with it? We deal with it truthfully.
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We answer it truthfully and we move on.
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Our statement of faith says this.
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The scriptures of the Old and New Testament are breathed out by God wholly complete and are entirely without error in the original manuscripts.
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And we add that phrase in the original manuscripts because.
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We know there are textual variations and we talk about the inerrancy of God's word.
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We are talking about God's word as it came to the apostle Paul and to John and others.
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We have a copy.
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We have a translation of a copy.
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How many of you read Greek? Aaron's working on it.
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I know Adam and Byron have done some work on it.
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How many of you really read Greek? Not many.
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So you rely on a translation, right? But that's OK.
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Do you know what Bible? Do you know what Bible that most of the New Testament writers used? The Septuagint.
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You know what the Septuagint was? It was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
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So the writers of the New Testament relied on a translation, too.
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And you know what? The Holy Spirit used that and the Holy Spirit will use our translations as well to lead us into all truth.
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I could say more, but I'm not going to.
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I think I've made my point.
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I will say this, though.
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There's nothing about that doxology that's wrong for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
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And I'll continue to pray it as part of the liturgy of the church, because it has stood for two thousand years as part of church liturgy.
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And we can stand on that.
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So let's pray.
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Father, we thank you.
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We thank you for the truth of the word.
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We thank you that it is a tenacious word.
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And that even with the variance that exists, we know that the original stands within the variance, that it has not been lost to time.
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There has not been wholesale revisions or corrections or changes because it would have been impossible with the mountain of manuscripts that exist.
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So we know, oh, father.
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We know the truth is there.
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Help us to be consistent in seeking the truth and not ever to shy away from the reality of the truth, because your word tells us you are truth.
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So we know that we when we come to the truth, we have nothing to fear.
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We praise you.
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We thank you.
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We give you all glory and honor in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen.