June 15, 2022 Show with Gabriel Rench on “A Biblically Informed Christian Response to the Current Financial Crisis” PLUS Dr. James R. White on “Further Reflections on King James Only-ism & Confessional Bibliology”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the Church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 15th day of June 2022.

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I am thrilled to have two returning guests today for the first half hour of the program.

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We will feature Gabriel Wrench, a host at Cross Politics Studios, as our guest, and he will be addressing the theme,

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A Biblically Informed Christian Response to the Current Financial Crisis. And then for the remaining 90 minutes of the program, our second guest will be

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Dr. James R. White, author of numerous books, including the King James Only controversy, an apologist at Alpha and Omega Ministries, and we're going to be addressing further reflections on King James Onlyism and confessional bibliology.

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But first, Gabe Wrench, actually, if you want to be technical about it, this will be

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Gabe's first appearance as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio because the first time he joined us, he was actually serving as a co -host.

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And as I said, he's a host at Cross Politics Studios, and we're addressing A Biblically Informed Christian Response to the

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Current Financial Crisis. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the first time as a guest,

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Gabriel Wrench. Hey, thank you, Chris. Pleasure to be here, man. Appreciate it. It's my pleasure, brother.

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And please tell us about Cross Politics Studios. Yeah, so Cross Politics is a

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TV show and podcast that started in 2016. We started it particularly to bring the

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Lordship of Christ into politics. The reason why we believe that emphasis needed to be made was because the church wasn't doing a very good job at discipling its congregation and how to apply the

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Bible to the political sphere. If we believe Jesus is king, well, then he's king over everything.

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You know, as Abraham Kuyper said, there's not one square inch where Jesus doesn't claim mine. And for the longest time,

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Christians have kind of divided their faith from, you know, the public sphere, from politics, and so we thought that was causing a lot of problems and that the

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Christians needed to better learn how to apply the Bible to politics, everything, and particularly politics. That's what

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Cross Politics is. I host it with my pastor, Toby Sumter, and my friend who's a filmmaker, David Shannon.

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His stage name is Chocolate Knox. Give him the black church or he dies.

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So we have a good time, and it's been a lot of fun. Yes, I have often thought about giving myself a nickname, the

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Vanilla David Shannon. Vanilla Chris!

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And if anybody wants to find out more about Cross Politic, go to crosspolitic .com.

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crosspolitic .com. Well, as everybody with a particle of a brain is fully aware, our nation, the

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United States, that is, because this is a global program, but the United States is in the midst of a very serious financial crisis, and you wanted to jump on the program today to specifically address how you believe a biblically informed

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Christian should respond to these things. And so exactly, other than the fact that this is a fact, that we're going through a financial crisis, what was the reason that this compelled you to come on the program more than any other topic?

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Yeah, you know, because I thought that, you know, the economy is a practical matter in people's lives, and oftentimes we think to talk about economy is too complex and too maybe difficult to try to break down as Christians, and I want to bring the

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Bible to apply to our everyday problems that are going on, and right now I think the current economic problems that we're dealing with, every family is facing it, every family is dealing with inflation, every family is dealing with high gas prices, high milk prices, all this stuff, and so I want, you know, us as Christians to be able to apply the

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Bible to every area of our lives, and particularly to what's going on right in front of us, the problems right in front of us, so that's why

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I think the conversation about the economy is important, because it's very practical in our lives, and we want to be able to, if you can't apply the

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Bible to the practical areas of our lives, then the Bible's not going to become real to us in every area of our life, and that's what

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I think is important about this. Now, why don't you start by giving us examples of how people in general, whether they be the unregenerate or even

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Christians, wrongly respond to an issue like a financial crisis, because we who are

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Christians are not perfect yet. We do sin on this earth, and we do on many occasions.

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Very often it's because of one's worldview, one's theological roots, but sometimes even the most theologically sound person can be way out in left field in the way they respond to a crisis.

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So what are some of the wrong ways people respond to a financial crisis specifically?

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Yeah, that's an important question, because I think there's two big major responses that Christians and how

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Christians maybe respond to, let's say, an economic challenge or economic crisis. The first one, and this isn't really an order per se, but the first one is we respond in fear.

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We respond with a spirit of fear, and obviously the Bible has tons of admonitions about that. We fear the Lord. We don't fear man.

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We don't fear our problems. We fear the Lord, and that's the beginning of wisdom, and when we start fearing man or fearing our situations or our problems, then we start kind of not being able to see things clearly.

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So responding to an economic crisis with fear is, I think, a knee -jerk reaction that we want to avoid, and a part of it is we're responding because we can't control it.

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We can't control it, so now it's like, oh, I can't fix this. What can I do? So we start responding in fear, but I think part of our response should be in all this is that when hard things come, when challenges come, we get on our knees more.

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We pray more, and we also try to work harder at what

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God has before us. We try to work harder at our business. We try to use the talent that God has given us to better the situation, and so responding in fear,

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I think, is very important. I think the other response, the other negative response or bad response in all this is we get partisan about it, and what

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I mean by that is where we say, hey, look, this is all the Democrats' fault. The Democrats are driving, it's their fault that inflation is happening.

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It's their fault that high gas prices are happening, and I think you could probably find specific areas.

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I think you can. I can't. Where you can find specific areas where you think, okay, the

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Democratic Party is responsible for this or Joe Biden is responsible for this, but you've got to back up. Back up here.

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The reason why inflation is starting to get out of control is because both

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Republicans and Democrats shut down our economy in 2020. That was the first thing, and then -

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You're talking about the coronavirus, quote, quote, pandemic. Yes, sir.

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And so both of the Republican and Democratic response to the pandemic was to shut down the economy.

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And by the way, I want to interject here. I didn't mention this in the beginning, but there may be many people in our audience scratching their heads saying, where have

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I heard that name, Gabriel Wrench? Well, you were arrested, if I'm not mistaken, in Moscow, Idaho, nearby where your congregation is, just merely because you were conducting an outside hymnsing.

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Am I right on this? Yes, that's correct. So we were, back in 2020, our mayor and our governor shut down our economy, and then our local city council voted in a resolution that if you were outside, you had to be wearing a mask or standing six feet apart from whoever you're next to.

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So that was the resolution. And my church, the way we protest is we go sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs out in downtown, or we went to City Hall this time, and we went and sang psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs in City Hall, protesting the mask mandate, the unconstitutional mask mandate.

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And they arrested me because I wasn't standing six feet apart from my friend while not wearing a mask.

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And so they arrested me, and they cited me as a misdemeanor, as a $1 ,000 fine up to six months in jail, and I won my civil—they were wrong.

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I was exercising my First Amendment rights. The cops violated my First Amendment rights. The city council violated my

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First Amendment rights. So I won my criminal stuff, and now

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I'm in the middle of a civil lawsuit in the federal court against my city for violating my

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First and Fourth Amendment rights. So that happened in 2020. So that's part of the background of maybe why a lot of people know me.

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And just very quickly, because I don't want to derail the conversation, but were all of these police officers involved wholeheartedly arresting you with enthusiasm, or were they like, oh, man,

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I really don't want to do this, but I got to. I'll lose my job if I don't, blah, blah, blah.

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Or, you know, were they gung -ho? You know, my arresting officer,

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I met with him after my criminal case got dismissed, and he said he would do it all over again. So some of the officers involved, and that was

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Officer Will Christoltz who said he'd do it all over again. Some of my officers, I don't think they were excited at all.

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In fact, I know some of them weren't. But some of the officers just were kind of, you know, responding pridefully.

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And, you know, not all cops are like this, but a lot of cops are. They have to be right all the time, or it feels like it's a threat on their authority.

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And so I think that's kind of what was going on there, and that's why he said he'd do it all over again, because he thought he was still on the right, because he just authoritatively had the right to do it.

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Okay, let's get back to your, I think where we left off, was that even

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Republicans were involved in shutting down our economy in 2020. That's correct. Yeah, that's correct.

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So we're talking about, you know, two responses to the economy, two major responses to the economy.

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The first response is that Christians might respond in a spirit of fear. The second response is

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Christians, I think, because we're maybe a little narrow -sighted on the bigger economic situation, we tend to maybe blame one party.

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Maybe we blame the Republicans, maybe we blame the Democrats. We lay blame on one party. But the reality is inflation right now has largely been driven by the shutdown in 2020, so the supply chain being broken in 2020.

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And then the stimulus money that was voted on, $3 trillion of stimulus money was voted on under the

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Trump administration, and $1 .9 trillion of stimulus money was voted on in the Biden administration.

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And so $5 trillion in printed new stimulus money, well, that just drives, that has a direct correlation to inflation.

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And so when you also choke supply lines like we did in 2020 and 2021, and then you print more money on top of it, well, that is the exact formula what creates inflation.

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All inflation is that you have more dollars in the economy than goods and services being sold, which means everything costs more, everything goes up.

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And so I don't want to blame one party or the other. I think you can specifically maybe blame certain aspects over one, let's say, administration over the other.

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That's fine. But really the inflation is being driven by both parties' errors in how they handled the pandemic and then how they've handled stimulus money since.

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And so we want to be honest Christians. We want to be objective Christians. We want to be

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Christians that can criticize people in our own camp, criticize maybe people even in our own political camp and make sure we're honestly assessing the situation, which

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I think helps Christians better deal and better understand, okay, how do we get out of this mess? Well, the answer is not voting

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Republicans in office. The answer is not voting Democrats in office. The answer is repenting of thinking that our politicians could create and print money out of thin air and act like gods in this whole situation and solve our problems financially by printing money out of thin air.

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And that's not – we want to be thinking Christians in how we think about and how we respond to the current economic challenges.

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And being honest, I'm assuming you would agree when we recognize our favorite party, if you will, that they were also a part of the problem and not exclusively those on the left.

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When we recognize things like that, I would assume it helps to reduce the likelihood of burning hatred toward those with whom we disagree politically.

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Obviously, I think it's very right for Christians to hate positions and to hate policies, but to be very visceral and vociferous in our spewing of hatred towards people can be a very dangerous endeavor, especially when you are identifying as a

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Christian publicly. That's correct. When a topic is polarized, it makes it very difficult for both sides to discuss it well with each other and agree on terms, agree on definitions, and agree on the problem.

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And so we want to – and part of the way you unpolarize a situation is you acknowledge where maybe your people have gone wrong, and you acknowledge how maybe your people have contributed to the current problem, in this case the economic crisis.

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And so we – yeah, that's part of what it means to be honest Christians, is that honesty is actually a way that God gives

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Christians the ability to bring the gospel into the world as being honest with your own camp about certain situations, like what we're talking about, how

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Republicans have contributed to the current economic crisis. Now, I think there's examples like gas prices.

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Gas prices are being impacted by inflation. That's true. But I think gas prices are also being impacted by Biden's oil policies, by his climate policies.

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And so he's restricting permits. He's restricting the Keystone Pipeline. In fact, he canceled that permit.

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So I think there are certain things, let's say, related specifically to gas prices, where we can say, okay, maybe this administration is actually causing problems in this particular area.

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But broadly speaking – and the other thing is, I think also in all this is the Biden administration, unfortunately right now, keeps blaming inflation on the

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Russian -Ukrainian war. He keeps – he said it's Putin's inflation, it's Putin's inflation, it's

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Putin's economy. And that's not on it, and that's not true either. Inflation was already increasing significantly long before the war even started.

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Gas prices were already going up long before the war even started. So the Russian -Ukrainian war is really a small problem in our own inflicted problems here with the economy.

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And so I think when you're honest with yourself, it can also give you eyes to see clearer where maybe the other side has actually contributed to the problem in a way that the

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Republican Party or the other way that the one party hasn't contributed to that problem. Because we want to see clearly as Christians.

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We want to see clearly, and we want to be able to analyze the situation healthily and not in a partisan way.

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And so that's a very important part to all this. Now, what is a practical response from the body of Christ that would not only involve thought and belief, but actual actions?

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I mean, are we basically to just passively sit and watch until political officers are removed through the voting process and a candidate that more echoes what we want to see occur in this nation?

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Obviously, when I say passively, we have to be voting and things like that.

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But what else can we do other than just control the way we think and react in our minds and in our speech?

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Yeah, this is related to one of the responses. One of our responses as Christians can be responding in the spirit of fear.

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And so I think instead of responding in the spirit of fear, the parable of the talents come to mind in Matthew 25, where Jesus is going through, for the kingdom of heaven is like this, for the kingdom of heaven is like this, for the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling.

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He goes to this country. He leaves money behind for his servants to invest. He gives one servant five talents.

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He gives the other servant two talents. He gives the other servant one talent. And his expectation is that he leaves.

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And when he comes back, they will have made money off of the initial talent that he's given each servant in his kingdom.

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The expectation is, I'm going to leave. And when I come back, you guys are going to have done well with what

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I've given you. And you're going to actually make a profit on what I've given you. And so when the man comes back, the man traveling from afar comes back, one servant who he gave five talents to made additional five talents.

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The other servant who he gave two talents to made additional two talents. The other servant he gave one talent to came back with that same one talent.

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That servant, the servant who came back with that one talent, got rebuked, not because he came back with what he was given, but because he came back not being faithful with what he was given.

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And so I think you apply this to wherever God has called you in your current work and effort, this is speaking particularly to young men and men in the workforce, that wherever God has called you in the economy is to work in such a way where you are being faithful with the talents

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God has given you, and you're turning a profit on what God has given you. And so the thing we want to avoid when the economy is struggling is we don't want

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Christians to sit and play it safe. Now obviously we want to be wise in our investment and all that stuff, but when things are harder, we work harder as Christians.

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When things are more difficult, well, we don't play it safe. We just make sure we're being wise and we're taking the right kind of risks that are going to return the profit that God wants out of each of our hands.

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It's all different, but he wants us to all turn a profit. And this is actually one way to deal with the inflation problem.

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This is a real practical way to deal with the inflation problem. Like I said earlier at the very beginning, basic definition of inflation is there's more dollars floating around in the economy than there are goods and services.

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So one of the practical ways to deal with inflation is actually become innovative, invent, start your own business, build products that are marketable, push through.

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There's a lot of dollars on the economy. There's not very many goods and services right now because supply chain breaks and challenges.

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So one of the ways to push through inflation is actually create more goods and services out there. And actually that helps.

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That will actually help the economy if we're actually innovative in a very practical way. So that's a way Christians can really have an impact on something that's a struggle is to actually do more, invest with the talents

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God has given you, and do the best you can to bring a return on those talents for the economy.

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And so basically you're not saying become a spend thrift, but other than investing when it comes to our spending habits, we should not be terrified and be hoarders with our money.

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We should be as much as possible generous with our spending and perhaps even be treating a friend to dinner or breakfast or lunch, for that matter, more often and being a part of a contributor to the economy and not hiding in our homes.

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Correct. And to me, it's a given in the conversation that we're being faithful to our church, we're tithing well, we're being kind to our friends, to our neighbors, to those within our church who need money.

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That's a given in this conversation. And what I'm particularly trying to get at is that whatever we're doing, we're being wise with our money, but one way to deal with the inflation problem is actually is to innovate, is to create.

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It's not to go become a crazy person who's spending money like crazy. That actually contributes to the problem of inflation.

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It's actually go and innovate and become a producer in the economy, someone who's innovating goods and services in the economy that actually helps solve the inflation problem.

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That actually will double and triple your talents that God has given you in a struggling economy.

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Now, as far as biblical counsel about that, there are likely a lot of Ralph Cramdons out there.

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I don't know if you recall the Honeymooners show. I don't know how old you are. But Ralph, excuse me?

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I don't recall it. You're kidding me, really? Well, in the 50s, there was a show, and they have been airing the reruns for decades ever since then.

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There was a show called The Honeymooners starring Jackie Gleason. He was a bus driver, and he had schemes and ideas for investing the little money that he had to get rich overnight.

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And we have to be careful not to give people the assumption that you are advising that they be reckless with ideas in starting businesses and making an additional source of income that may be dangerous to them financially because they may be flushing a lot of valuable income that they already have down the toilet and investing something that might be not very wise.

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Yeah. Now, I think there's the foolish investing side of things. The easy things to point out are like putting your money in the lottery, putting your money in a pyramid scheme.

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There are certain obvious places where investing is foolish and unwise.

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And we want to make sure we aren't going into that ditch. On the other side of the ditch,

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I'm trying to also push back of Christians who see an economic challenge coming, a crisis coming, a downturn in the economy coming, and then all they do is put their money in a bank account.

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So I want to push against that, too. And what I want to encourage Christians to do is to wisely innovate and invest well and ask

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God to bless the talents that he's given you and give a return on those talents with wise investing and innovating and not frilless casino -style investments.

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So stay away from the foolish side of this. But there's foolish sides of investing on the casino, on gambling, or whatever.

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And then there's the foolish side of burying your talent in the backyard that Jesus also reveals. So figure out what

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God has given you, the gifts he's given you, and then you make calculations based off the gifts he's given you, and you make the investment based on what is in front of you and what

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God has opened the doors for you to invest in in front of you. And I think that answers a lot of questions about the foolish investing stuff, and it answers a lot of questions about putting your money in your bank account kind of situation, where the one talent

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God has given you, you bury it. And then Jesus returns, and he's like, that's all you did? You just buried that talent?

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You did nothing with it? And so I want to push back against that ditch, too. Well, I would like you to have 90 seconds or so to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today, as we're rapidly running out of time in this first half hour.

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Yeah, thanks, Chris, and thanks for having me on. Just as we enter into all signs are pointing to an economic crisis, that we don't respond in a spirit of fear, but we respond in a spirit where we're trusting in the

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Lord. We fear the Lord, not man. We fear the Lord, not the economy. And with that in mind, that we honestly assess why we're in this situation.

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Why are we entering into this economic crisis? So we need to rightfully assess that.

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If your listeners tuned in a little earlier in the show, you'd kind of get that assessment from what I was saying. And then, thirdly, lastly, that when we come into challenges like these economic challenges, one of the best ways you can actually bless your family or neighbor in your church is being faithful to God's word, not burying your talent in the backyard, but doing the best with what

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God has given you, what your talents are, what your gifts are, and what your abilities are. And you spend them in such a way where you ask

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God to bless it and that he gives you a return on those talents. So God gives you five talents, make sure you're doing the best to turn it into ten talents.

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God gives you two talents, make sure you're doing your best to turn it into four talents. And that could be the guy who's also working for the computer company.

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He's working his best. He's working in such a way where he's going to return more into that company that he gets out of it and he asks

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God to bless that investment, even when you're working for another company. Well, I want to strongly urge our listeners who know

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Gabriel Ranch to use your money very wisely by immediately purchasing him either a

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DVD set or an electronic version of all of the episodes of The Honeymooners starring

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Jackie Gleason and Art Garnett. Because I'm still, my mind is still spinning that you've never even heard of that.

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But you're talking about clean comedy at its best that rivals anything that you would find hilarious in the 21st century.

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And let me repeat your website, crosspolitic .com,

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crosspolitic .com. Thank you so much, Gabriel Ranch. I hope that you can return to the program for a longer period of time the next time you visit us.

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Thanks, Chris, for having me. I look forward to seeing you at our conference on October 6th through 8th in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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They can go to fightlastbeast .com, fightlastbeast .com, click on shop, and that's where they can find out about that conference.

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The topic this year is lies, propaganda, and the storytelling in the story today. It's a very important topic, given where we're at.

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Well, God bless you, brother, and we'll talk to you soon, God willing. God bless. Bye -bye.

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Please don't go away, folks, because our second guest, as I've already mentioned, is Dr. James R.

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White, who will be with us for the remaining 90 minutes of the program. And he is going to be revisiting an issue that we have recently been discussing on the program, or actually two issues,

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King James -onlyism and confessional bibliology. If you have a question for Dr. White, send it immediately to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. James R. White. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here, excited to announce that my longtime friend

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Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading to Washington, D .C.

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for the G3 Ministries regional conference on the theme, Just Thinking About the Bible. The conference will be held

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Thursday, September 15th, through Saturday, September 17th. I'll be speaking along with Stephen Lawson, Josh Weiss, founder of G3 Ministries, and Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, co -hosts of the

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Just Thinking podcast. To register, visit g3min .org, that's g3min .org,

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and click on Events. Your registration will include a ticket to the Museum of the Bible nearby the conference venue in Washington, D .C.

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So join me and Chris Arnson September 15th through the 17th in Washington, D .C.

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for the G3 Ministries regional conference. Register now before they run out of seats at g3min .org,

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that's g3min .org. Stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen, and our second guest today is Dr. James R.

36:07

White, author of numerous books, including the King James Only Controversy, and apologist at Alpha and Omega Ministries.

36:14

We are addressing further reflections on King James Onlyism and confessional bibliology, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

36:24

James R. White. Well, it's good to be with you, Chris. I didn't get to hear anything that Gabe had to say, but I've had to listen to too much of what

36:33

Gabe has to say, so we're good. Well, here's something that I most came out with from our discussion.

36:43

Can you believe that Gabriel Ranch has never in his entire life even heard of Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, and the

36:53

Honeymooners? Well, I was able to detect that because I was listening to you and your utter disbelief that there could be anyone on planet

37:07

Earth that has not spent hours watching the Honeymooners, and therefore, that one cartoon of the two astronauts on the moon, and this lady is laying there in a 1950s -style dress on the surface of the moon, and the astronauts are going, well, he finally did it.

37:33

Bang, zoom! He got to the moon, Alice! Zoom to the moon!

37:39

Yep, I know. It is stunning. The younger generation has, you know, pretty soon they're not going to know who,

37:48

Lucy, I'm home! Anything like that means it's a sad, sad reality, but it does explain what's going on in our world.

37:58

It really does. It's really ridiculous when you think about the feminists who have called the

38:04

Honeymooners misogynists because of remarks like that by Ralph Grandam. Bang, zoom!

38:09

You go to the moon! And yet, it was clear Alice ran that household. Oh, yeah.

38:16

And it was clear that she was the infinitely superior intellect in that household.

38:22

Uh -huh. Oh, yeah, yeah. But anyways, that's not—that is really not the topic for the day, is it?

38:28

That's right. And by the way, I have to quickly find out if you were hearing the commercials during the breaks. No. Okay, because we could hear you coughing and clearing your throat and all that.

38:39

Right, I unmuted to make sure you knew I was ready to rock and roll. Okay, well, in the future, perhaps mute yourself during the breaks.

38:48

All right, well, as you know, I very recently had two interviews, part one on June 1st and part two on June 8th, with Dr.

39:02

Mark Ward, who is on the faculty at Reformed Baptist Seminary. And we were addressing

39:09

King James -onlyism and confessional bibliology. And, in fact,

39:14

I urge our listeners, after this interview is over with Dr. White, that you listen to those interviews with Dr.

39:21

Ward on ironshortanddesignradio .com in the archive. And you wanted to give some clarification and some of your own insight into this whole controversy that may have been left out of those two programs.

39:39

Because even in two programs, it's very difficult to go beyond scratching the surface of many different topics that Christians face.

39:50

And this would be two of them, King James -onlyism and confessional bibliology.

39:57

So why don't we just start with you addressing perhaps your observations of the program.

40:03

In fact, it was from you that I discovered Dr. Mark Ward to begin with, because of your glowing endorsement of a lecture that he gave on this issue that was videotaped.

40:16

And that is how I tracked him down and invited him on the program. So if you could, proceed.

40:23

Yeah. And, of course, that lecture I'd highly recommend to people. That's actually just the audio version of a paper that he wrote that, again, goes into the necessary detail.

40:35

I would say that the entire movement stands refuted until the information that Dr.

40:43

Ward presented there can be responded to. Of course, I would say the same thing in regards to my paper on Ephesians 3 .9

40:52

and Dr. Riddle's comments upon that. I really believe that on a scholarly basis, fatal arguments have been presented in regards to confessional bibliology that just simply are being ignored.

41:07

And, in fact, I used to have interaction with these folks on Facebook.

41:13

And what they did eventually is they just openly decided that this is not the best way of doing things.

41:20

They made all of their Facebook rooms private so they don't have to deal with people who will raise objections to their position.

41:32

And it's amazing to observe, especially from people who are reformed in their soteriology, and yet that's exactly what we're getting there.

41:41

So I'd recommend that people do that because there was a lot of really important information in Dr.

41:48

Ward's paper that didn't get discussed. Places where the various printed editions of the

41:54

Textus Receptus literally contradict each other, that require – if you're going to give an irrational response as to which

42:04

TR to choose, you've got to engage in textual criticism. And as soon as you do that, that position collapses because its entire essence is we don't do textual criticism.

42:15

We've been given the one text, and God's given it to us, and therefore we don't need to worry about all this stuff that's been going on ever since the 16th century.

42:25

We don't have to worry about any new papyri that are discovered. We don't have to worry about any of this kind of stuff.

42:31

We've got our text, and the result of that is that when you look at any particular text, they will have a set of arguments to establish what the

42:45

Textus Receptus says there. So I challenged a young man just a couple days ago on Twitter who is flirting with some of this stuff, and I said, okay, explain to me how we could know what the proper reading of John 118 is.

43:02

Because John 118, very important textual variant. The majority of manuscripts say the

43:07

Only Begotten Son, but all of the earliest manuscripts, papyri, the magisterial texts like Sinaiticus, Venicius, they use the term monogenes theos, unique God of Jesus.

43:21

And so you have to have a consistent methodology that allows you to examine the manuscripts and examine each text and to do so consistently.

43:34

What confessional bibliology does is it has its own text, and then it produces contradictory and different arguments depending on what text you're looking at, because what they need to have at the end is the

43:52

TR. And so when I debated Dr. Riddle, we debated the long writing of Mark, which has the most ancient, has a great deal of ancient evidence to it, and the text in Ephesians 3 that has almost no textual evidence for it whatsoever, and they're both in the

44:10

TR. And so he had to use completely different standards in one debate than he did in the other debate.

44:17

And that would be the same thing if you looked at 1 John 5, 7, if you looked at the woman taken in adultery called the

44:24

Pricope Adultery in John 7, 53 through 8, 11, et cetera, et cetera. So they can never, ever, ever use the same arguments.

44:31

They simply are getting away with using different arguments for different texts, because the end is always the same.

44:40

It's the textus receptus. But so that's all that's very important stuff, and you'll get all of that if you read

44:47

Dr. Ward's article or listen to the lecture. I was, especially the reason

44:54

I contacted you was in the second program, you mentioned a email that you had gotten that you read on the air.

45:04

And I can guarantee you as the author of the King James Only Controversy, which came out in 1995,

45:12

I could plaster my walls with the emails that sound identical to the one that you read.

45:20

They're normally printed out in different colored inks with lots of capital letters, underscores, underlining, all sorts of stuff.

45:34

Rants and notes. Exactly. Death threats and everything else.

45:41

Believe me, there had been a book,

45:47

D .A. Carson had written a book on King James Onlyism before I did. And I honestly, they took it out of print because I think he was like, oh, good.

45:57

There's another one out there we can aim people to. So let's stop. He actually said your book was better.

46:05

Well, yeah, because it's far more in depth. It's longer. It wasn't his. Wasn't meant to answer all the questions.

46:11

But the point is, I think he was just like, oh, please, I'm glad someone else has to deal with this and not me, because it truly is amazing the kind of stuff that's out there.

46:23

But Dr. Ward basically said I would never respond to someone who raised those arguments personally.

46:31

And, you know, to each his own and each has a different. Everybody has a different perspective.

46:36

And Dr. Ward basically said, you know, I want to deal with the need to have understandable translation and things like that.

46:45

And when he had in the first program had talked about my book, he was basically like, yeah, but that books primarily for like the top five percent of King James only as the real, real smart ones that are willing to do some studying and stuff like that.

46:58

And, you know, I sort of disagree with that. I think that I know a lot of people who have left

47:06

King James only as them after reading the King James only controversy. But they they did so and they had a stronger commitment to the inspiration of scripture and to how it was transmitted over time because they did deal with the background issues and the issues concerning manuscripts and textual criticism.

47:26

And, you know, it was Codex Vaticanus found in a trash can. And I you know, you were trying to sort of give your recollection of what

47:33

I had said about that at the same time. And I just I really honestly feel that those issues do need to be addressed, because if you leave that stuff, you know, just sitting out there, then there's always the question.

47:48

Well, what about that claim or what about that claim over there? I don't want to I do not want people leaving

47:54

King James only as them and ending up someplace where they no longer really trust that there is a revealed word.

48:02

And so the the letter that you read, I'm sure probably if I ask

48:09

Rich Pierce, if we've heard from this fellow that we probably have over and over and over again, I, I don't know who he is or anything like that.

48:15

But it was it caught my attention, especially right at the beginning.

48:24

And so let me explain why the very first line says the original writings of the apostles moved from Jerusalem to Syria just prior to destruction of 8070.

48:39

Now, let's let's think about this claim. First of all, there is absolutely positively not a shred of historical evidence to substantiate such a claim.

48:53

None. Nothing. I cannot even imagine where someone comes up with something like this.

49:00

It is completely outside the realm of any type of documentable history, but let's let's let's run with it for just a second.

49:09

The original writings of the apostles moved from Jerusalem to Syria just prior to destruction of 8070.

49:16

Why would there be a copy of Paul's epistle to the

49:22

Romans in Jerusalem? How about the circular letter in Colossians 416?

49:32

Paul says, read the letter that's coming from the church at Laodicea, which is which probably was

49:37

Ephesians. But why why would Jerusalem be the place where the original writings of the apostles were?

49:51

Did Peter go back to Jerusalem after he's gone out in his ministry?

49:57

And did Paul keep all the originals? And then when he goes back to Jerusalem, did he manage to get them into the into the

50:04

Jerusalem apostolic archive before he was arrested as recorded in Acts? How did how did, you know, depending on where you date

50:13

Book of Revelation, I don't have I think it is probably pre 70 myself.

50:21

But let's say you go with the majority view. It's post 70. Well, then what about that? How did how does that get dealt with?

50:28

This kind of claim exposes the fact that many, many people in evangelical churches really don't know anything about church history.

50:42

And, you know, that I've been teaching church history since back when I didn't have a sense of humor and you did.

50:50

And it drove you crazy whenever I tell a joke. That was a long time ago, too.

50:58

Recently, Chris, there are a couple of times I've sort of felt like, you know, I think I've got Chris on on this humor stuff.

51:03

Oh, yeah. I'm not I'm not sure what's going on. But anyway, that's just between Chris and I.

51:09

Chris can tell you all sorts of really embarrassing stories. This is where I bow and say with an Asian accent, student, you have become the master.

51:19

Indeed, indeed. You helped you helped break me out of my my straight laced

51:26

Reformed Baptist shell. And there are many people that wish you had not done that, actually.

51:33

Now that now they know who to blame and they will. But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

51:40

So this, as you know, you know, I I'm now professor of church history at Grace Bible Theological Seminary.

51:49

Yes. And in fact, will be teaching early church history in late September there in Conway, Arkansas, in an intensive form, which is really tough to do.

51:58

But Jeff Johnson is my guest a week from today, Wednesday. Well, he's my boss.

52:04

So there you go. He may be my boss, but he'll probably tell you. We're sort of glad we brought

52:11

James on because he he's he's sort of used to doing the battling thing.

52:17

He's been doing it for a long, long time. And so he's he's he's doing that and helping us out in the process.

52:23

But anyway, if you if you know the history of my love of church history, this is this is really, really important stuff, because I'm sure you've seen it 20 different times when

52:39

I presented it out on Long Island years and years ago. But I have a presentation I do on the transmission of the text, the

52:46

New Testament. In fact, we're going to pick up right on that when we return from our midway break. If anybody has a question for Dr.

52:53

White, send it in to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com, as always, give us your first name, at least your city and state and country of residence.

53:01

This is our longer than normal break, folks, so please be patient with us and use this time wisely and send in questions to Dr.

53:09

James R. White to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.

53:14

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries right after these messages.

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Attention, all men in ministry leadership. You're all invited to my friend Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, Thursday, September 22nd, 11 a .m.

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Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound church, no matter where you live on the planet Earth, I may be able to help you find a church, as I have done with many people in our audience.

01:09:21

I have extensive lists of faithful churches spanning the globe. So if you are in that predicament, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:09:29

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

01:09:36

James R. White on King James -onlyism or on confessional bibliology.

01:09:41

And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:09:47

So, Dr. White, you were talking about conferences that you have done and where I have been present on the transmission of the text.

01:09:55

And if you could pick up where you left off. Well, I'm very thankful that you still have short term memory because I was trying to remember what it was we were talking about.

01:10:06

That's that's a sad aspect of getting older anyway. And in those presentations that I've made in regards to how we can trust the text in the

01:10:17

New Testament, it's central to that presentation to explain to people the fact that the

01:10:23

New Testament books were written by multiple authors at multiple times to multiple audiences. And what that means is they were never under the control of any one person or group of persons.

01:10:38

Now, this is vitally important because this is the difference between what's called a free transmission of the text and a controlled transmission of the text.

01:10:48

With the New Testament, we have a free transmission. You have Paul, he writes an epistle to a church.

01:10:55

They make copies of that for their people and people who come and visit their church. And those copies circulate.

01:11:02

And this is the free transmission. There's no central organizing group that's controlling these things over against what's called a controlled transmission, which is what you have, for example, with the

01:11:15

Quran, where in the historical documents, and specifically in Sahih al -Bukhari, volume six, pages one to five and following, you have the story of the collation of the manuscripts of the

01:11:29

Quran, the creation of the original manuscripts of the Quran, because it wasn't written initially. It was an oral text.

01:11:35

And then the destruction of anything other than the official version. So there's an editing going on.

01:11:42

There's an editing process, a redaction process going on. And you have a basically governmental version of this sacred scripture.

01:11:52

Nothing like that ever happens with the New Testament. And what's important to recognize about that is the reality that when you have control of the transmission of the text, you can never get past the last time that the official people made changes and put out the new quote -unquote inspired version.

01:12:18

You have to trust that the people who are doing these things are not tampering with the text.

01:12:26

When you have free transmission, you can go back to the originals. You can go back not to the original manuscripts, but you can go back to the original readings, because you don't have that kind of interference from a state or from a church or whatever else it might be.

01:12:40

And so when you hear this King James only argumentation, or TR only argumentation, though it sounds more

01:12:48

King James only to me, the original writings of the apostles moved from Jerusalem to Syria just prior to the destruction of AD 70.

01:12:57

And then later, right after it says, then the persecution of Rome arose, but after it was stopped in 313

01:13:04

AD, the original writings were brought to Constantinople to be copied.

01:13:10

Now, again, this is pure historical fantasy. It's fiction. There is zero evidence of any of this.

01:13:18

You could never defend any of this kind of claim in a meaningful debate against an atheist or a

01:13:26

Muslim or anyone else like that. It doesn't have any meaningful connection to history at all.

01:13:33

It's pure fantasy. But how is anyone supposed to know that?

01:13:38

I mean, if people are claiming to have this kind of information, you have to respond to these things.

01:13:45

But notice what it's doing. It's creating this historical fiction of a collected set of original manuscripts that survived the persecution.

01:14:01

Evidently, I moved from Jerusalem somehow in Syria somewhere.

01:14:08

No one knows where, but in Syria during the entire persecution of the

01:14:13

Roman Empire, and then is moved as a body somehow to Constantinople to be copied.

01:14:21

And that means it is a controlled text.

01:14:27

It's under the control of some organization, some group, something that knows they're in possession of the original manuscripts.

01:14:39

Now, again, how they got collected, we're not told. What's the historical source?

01:14:45

We're not told. It's pure fantasy. It's fiction. This is an abuse of church history.

01:14:52

But church history is abused by everybody. I remember so, so clearly one of the first pieces

01:15:01

I ever wrote on church history was a rebuttal of the Watchtower Society.

01:15:07

They put out an article, early 1990s as I recall, where they made the claim that the early church father

01:15:19

Ignatius, Ignatius of Antioch, who was martyred 107 -108 A .D., somewhere around there, so very, very early on.

01:15:25

He has seven genuine epistles that are just, again, I'll be teaching early church history.

01:15:30

We'll be spending a lot of time with Ignatius, well, as much time as we can anyways. And the

01:15:38

Watchtower put out an article telling its people that Ignatius denied the deity of Christ.

01:15:45

But when you looked at their citations, they were citing only the pseudo -Ignatian epistles, not the actual genuine epistles of Ignatius.

01:15:54

And they never once made reference to the, I think, at least 10 different times where Ignatius refers to Jesus Christ as God.

01:16:09

In fact, when people tell me, well, no one believed in things like the hypostatic union or the two natures of Christ and things like that until well after the

01:16:17

Council of Nicaea. I can take them directly to Ignatius' Epistle to the Ephesians. And he has an incredibly developed doctrine of Christ as generate and ingenerate,

01:16:28

God and man, life and death, of Mary and of God. I mean, it's just amazing. And this is before 107 -108

01:16:36

A .D. They mentioned none of that. So it was one of the most obvious, purposeful, deceptive abuses of church history ever.

01:16:48

And you'd expect that from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Obviously, it's a cult. They're making things up as they go along, and they still do.

01:16:57

But here it's King James -only -ism, and it's on the same level of misrepresentation of the historical record.

01:17:06

And yet what people don't realize is the impact that that then has on how we even defend the text of the

01:17:17

New Testament. I mean, these guys obviously aren't doing debates with mussels. That's a disaster when it happens.

01:17:26

That's when stuff starts getting thrown around the room, and you call the cops and things like that.

01:17:31

But because they're not, then they don't realize, and I'm not sure they actually care to be honest with you, they don't realize that they are fundamentally undercutting our ability to give a meaningful defense of the

01:17:47

New Testament by this kind of fictitious silliness that they are putting out.

01:17:53

But since they put it out as facts, it leaves a lot of people wondering, well, is that true?

01:18:01

I've never heard my preacher talking about this, and that ends up causing some real serious issues,

01:18:09

I think. And so it has been my experience. I did a debate.

01:18:15

I haven't done a lot of debates with King James -only -ists because you just can't find many of them who either will debate or are rational enough to make it through a debate.

01:18:25

I actually sent to you before the program a link to a program from 11 years ago where I had a fairly well -known

01:18:36

King James -only -ist on by the name of Will Kinney. And he and I had crossed swords many, many years earlier, back in the

01:18:46

Fidonet days, the open Bible echo and stuff literally before the Internet, where geeks like me and others were already doing the electronic thing just in slow motion, basically.

01:18:58

And he came on the program, and it was just so painfully obvious that he is not a rational man.

01:19:07

He is not able to utilize standard logical forms of reasoning that we would expect anyone to be able to do, to be able to drive a car down the road, to be able to operate in business or anything else.

01:19:23

And it's serious. I mean, anybody, just go to Sermon Audio. Go to the dividing line thing.

01:19:30

Put in Will Kinney's name. Listen for yourself. And somebody who you viewed as far more credible and scholarly,

01:19:38

D .A. Waite, if you may remember back in the 90s, I think it was, I was trying to get him to debate you.

01:19:44

He finally, after many interactions, agreed. But he said, but here is one thing that I assist upon that will make or break this deal.

01:19:53

There cannot be any cross -examinations. So I said, sorry,

01:19:59

Dr. Waite, we're not going to do that. Yep, yep. Oh, yeah. And D .A.

01:20:04

Waite was a nice guy. But that's exactly what you get.

01:20:11

I did a radio debate with one King James only guy.

01:20:17

And when I brought up key texts in regards to the deity of Christ, Titus 2 .13,

01:20:23

2 Peter 1 .1, Romans 9 .5, in which you have clearer testimony to the deity of Christ in the modern translations than you do in the

01:20:36

King James Version of the Bible. Now, in regards to Titus 2 .13, 2 Peter 1 .1, this is primarily due to the fact that the rule of Greek grammar, known as the

01:20:48

Granville -Sharpe construction, that is found in those two places where you have our great

01:20:53

God and Savior, Jesus Christ. It tells us that both God and Savior are descriptive of one person, that being

01:21:00

Jesus Christ. That rule was not promulgated or understood in Greek grammar until the late 1700s.

01:21:11

And so, you know, the King James translators were brilliant men, but things have been discovered since their day, as they themselves said that's exactly what would happen.

01:21:24

And so we have clearer testimonies to the deity of Christ in those texts today than we did in the

01:21:33

King James Version of the Bible. And, of course, the new King James will have those testimonies to the deity of Christ.

01:21:39

They recognize those constructions. And so I was stunned in the debate that the

01:21:49

King James -only -ist attacked those texts so as to maintain the supremacy of the

01:21:58

King James, even at the expense of clear testimonies to the deity of Christ. And part of me,

01:22:06

I guess I had hoped that someone would recognize, well, you know, one of the most repeated arguments of King James -only -ist is the modern translations deny the deity of Christ and they undercut the deity of Christ, etc.,

01:22:22

etc., etc. They say it all the time. And yet when I point out, well, let's look at the key texts, not texts that you've come up with that really aren't about the deity of Christ, but the key texts that actually come up in debates with Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses and others, a translation like the

01:22:41

ESV or the NIV or something like that, the new

01:22:47

Legacy Standard Bible, which I highly recommend as well, they have a much clearer testimony to the deity of Christ than the

01:22:58

King James does. And to maintain the supremacy of the

01:23:03

King James, they will attack those texts and they will deny that they actually teach the deity of Christ. So this is where you get into what

01:23:10

I've called cultic King James -only -ism, because it is just so inconsistent and so incoherent that, you know, these are the people who will say, well, if you weren't born again from a

01:23:23

King James version of the Bible, then you've never been born again because that's the only true word of God and this kind of stuff.

01:23:30

And these people are out there. It's astonishing, but they really, really are out there.

01:23:36

We cannot get them to debate. And that's not only D .A. Waite, but these guys.

01:23:42

I've had some former fundamentalists who still have connections in those areas trying for a while to find some of these big names that especially travel around in Virginia, North, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, some of the

01:23:58

Deep South areas, because I would like to debate someone who is a traveling pastor and has written things and is willing to do these things.

01:24:13

And on the dividing line, I've taken their videos and I've provided responses and said, hey,

01:24:21

OK, I've responded to your claim, so let's discuss it. Let's do it. But they will not do it.

01:24:29

They know somehow deep down inside that the claims that they're making are simply indefensible.

01:24:36

They cannot survive any kind of meaningful cross -examination, any kind of meaningful examination at all.

01:24:45

And that's just, I think, a clear evidence of what's going on with these kinds of, you know, the letter that was sent to you, because you look through this type of thing and it's it's it is a mixture of just incoherent conspiracy theories propped up by historical mythology.

01:25:09

And they get away with it because most people don't know what sources to even go to, to be able to check some of these things out.

01:25:17

Well, we have quite a number of listeners who have submitted questions. And let me start with Paul in Mesa, Arizona.

01:25:29

James, since the time of your roundtable debate on the John Ankerberg show dealing with the

01:25:35

KJV only issue, have you heard of many that were helped by your presentation or whose minds were changed by that series?

01:25:48

Yeah, let me mention it. I think it's on YouTube. I'm not sure it's sort of been there and then not there.

01:25:56

And, you know, Ankerberg's ministries, not what it once was and stuff like that.

01:26:02

I think it's there. I hope it's there because it was absolutely fascinating for no other reason than it was recorded in 1995.

01:26:11

So if you want to see what I look like while still trying to have hair and a sense of humor, and before I had a sense of humor and I had round glasses and yeah, all that stuff.

01:26:26

Dan Wallace, myself, a number of those people are gone. They're they're no longer here on Earth.

01:26:34

Was it Art Farstad? No, it wasn't. Maybe. I don't know. Anyways, the representative of the

01:26:40

New King James, I know he's gone. The representative of the NIV, he's gone. Anyway, it was a fascinating exchange.

01:26:47

And basically, Dan Wallace and I tag teamed the other side and and they they didn't all believe the same things.

01:26:54

So you had sort of a Rippling or Ruckman group and then you had more of a

01:27:00

TR only D .A. Waite type group and they weren't getting along real well.

01:27:06

So it was it was a fascinating exchange. And yes, over the years, many, many people have contacted us and and said, man, that was so useful and so helpful.

01:27:18

And my files were filled back during the days of regular mail with all sorts of letters from people where the

01:27:27

King James only controversy book. Things that we did along those lines just really opened their eyes to come to understand the history of the

01:27:37

Bible. And and to recognize, you know, a lot of them felt there was something wrong about all this.

01:27:43

They just couldn't put their finger on it and they hadn't heard anything from the other side. And so between the book or the

01:27:49

Ankenberg series or things like that, it was like, oh, there it is. That's that's what that was all about.

01:27:56

Okay. All right. Now I now I understand what's going on and been very, very helpful to them.

01:28:02

Of course, a number of them also say that once they read the King James only controversy, then they started looking at my other books.

01:28:09

And that's when they read the Potter's Freedom or God's Sovereign Grace or something like that and ended up becoming reformed.

01:28:17

So you've got that as well. So. But, yeah, it has had a real lot of a very wide, positive influence.

01:28:25

And by the way, Paul, not only have you won a free copy of the King James only controversy compliments of our friends at Bethany House Publishers, but you also won,

01:28:35

I believe you're a first time questioner. You've also won a free New American Standard Bible compliments of the publishers, and both will be shipped out to you by CVBBS .com.

01:28:45

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service. Please make sure we have your full mailing address. We have Cindy in Findlay, Ohio.

01:28:52

Dr. White. Years ago, when I was in an IFB church, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, for our listeners who don't know what that means, and a

01:29:01

KJV onlyist, I read Gail Ripplinger's book, New Age Bible Versions.

01:29:07

One thing I vaguely recall is that she criticized the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Do you recall what her complaint was about this doctrine?

01:29:18

Ah, well, I guess I am the person to ask that question of because I am the only living person who has ever debated

01:29:26

Gail Ripplinger. If you enjoyed the

01:29:33

Ankerberg one, oh my goodness, the two half -hour programs, because they were just half -hour radio programs on KRDS Radio in Phoenix, recorded in 1994,

01:29:46

I believe, with Gail Ripplinger. If you find the

01:29:52

Ankerberg stuff entertaining, trust me. The Ripplinger debate, like I said, she never, ever allowed herself to be exposed to that kind of direct cross -examination, interaction, refutation, ever, ever, ever again.

01:30:11

So, yeah, I'm the only one who ever got to debate her. And I do recall very strong anti -Reformed, anti -Calvinistic comments being made through the book, but there certainly wasn't any developed synergistic theology or something.

01:30:32

Her weird, unique brand of theology, which she gets directly from God anyways, just really, really didn't like it.

01:30:45

And isn't it true that that phrase in the English language is not in the

01:30:50

King James Bible? I don't believe that it is. But I don't recall that was necessarily what her issues were.

01:31:03

She just recognized that, I don't know, she just had a deep anti -Calvinistic streak, and she gave in to it at various places.

01:31:12

It has been, in God's mercy, it has now been, what, coming up on 30 years.

01:31:23

30 years next year before I actually had to assault my brain and my mind by reading that very strange, weird book.

01:31:34

And it is. I mean, I got done reading that thing because she said she would not debate anyone who didn't read her book.

01:31:43

Which, on one level, okay, fine. But then once you read it, you realize you're really not dealing with someone who's functioning on all cylinders.

01:31:54

In fact, I would probably not do that debate today, not because it wasn't useful, but because we've already so plainly demonstrated what the issues are with the

01:32:05

King James that wasting your time with something like that. The problem was her book was being promoted in Calvary Chapel.

01:32:14

Chuck Smith. Wow. Chuck Smith was selling it in his

01:32:20

Calvary Chapel bookstores. Wow. And so there was no way around it. In fact, that's how,

01:32:27

I think you know this, that's how the King James only controversy came into existence was

01:32:32

I did that debate with Ripplinger. And people started hearing about it.

01:32:38

And especially Christian bookstores started contacting me going, have you written anything on this?

01:32:44

Because we're getting hit with this. People are walking into our bookstores and yelling at our clerks. And they're carrying this crazy black book called

01:32:52

New Age Bible Versions. And we need something. And so what I did is

01:32:57

I took the notes that I brought with me to the radio station. And I filled them out and provided quotations and citations and stuff like that.

01:33:04

And my dad ran the print shop at North Phoenix Baptist Church. And he got permission to run,

01:33:12

I don't know, about 200, 250 copies of this booklet, New Age Bible Versions Refuted.

01:33:19

It was just a booklet. It wasn't anything big or major or anything like that. And then what happened was,

01:33:26

I mean, we ran out of them. We were sending them to bookstores in all 50 states, just all over the place and overseas.

01:33:33

And so one day I was on the phone with Steve Lobby, the acquisitions editor at Bethany House Publishers.

01:33:39

And I'm telling him about this. And then it sort of gets quiet. And he says, that sounds like there's a book there.

01:33:46

And I said, you know what? I think you're right.

01:33:52

And I wrote that book in less than four months. That was all

01:33:58

I did during that time period, basically. But I wrote it in about four months.

01:34:04

And it would have come out a lot faster. But when I wrote the chapter on the radical

01:34:12

King James Only Us, which included Ruckman and Ripplinger, I sent the chapter to both of them.

01:34:19

And I said, I want to make sure that I'm being perfectly accurate in my description of your position.

01:34:25

If you have any comments to make, let me know now before the book goes to the publisher.

01:34:33

And she didn't contact me, but she wrote to Bethany House Publishers and threatened to sue them if they published the book.

01:34:44

And so there was a delay as Bethany House's attorneys looked at the material to make sure we were on solid ground before the book came out.

01:34:58

You would have thought that she would have just viewed it as great advertising for her own book. Well, Gail Ripplinger is not a sane individual.

01:35:08

And that is plainly evident. In fact, I'm surprised.

01:35:17

Did you ever see the YouTube video that someone did where I read through on the dividing line?

01:35:29

James White, Gail Ripplinger. Let me see. Oh, there.

01:35:35

OK, yes. So on YouTube, this is two years ago,

01:35:42

Kuiper Belt Productions. You know Kuiper Belt Productions, Chris? No, I do not. Oh, they're the ones who do the funny

01:35:49

Calvinist videos where they collect all the funny stuff from anybody who's reformed.

01:35:56

Put it all together. You'd love it. Then again, I think you're slowly morphing into me when

01:36:02

I was a young person. So maybe not. I don't know. But anyway,

01:36:09

Kuiper Belt Productions put out and you can go to YouTube. It's seven minutes long and it's called

01:36:14

The Sinking of the Titanic and the NIV Bible. So just put in The Sinking of the

01:36:20

Titanic and the and you'll need to put in and the NIV Bible. You'll get 70 ,000 videos about the sinking of the

01:36:26

Titanic. But it's where I go through and read Gail Ripplinger's comments.

01:36:35

Actually, I played. I played from a radio program. Gail Ripplinger's response to a discussion about the

01:36:45

NIV and the Titanic. And they put in all the graphics and sound effects.

01:36:50

It is absolutely classic. You will fall off your chair laughing.

01:36:57

And it's appropriate to laugh because at the same time, her book destroyed ministries.

01:37:04

It split churches. I got letters from missionaries who had to come home from missions work in places like Uganda because they're sending churches, got infected with this stuff.

01:37:16

And she's got a lot to answer for in the future. So it's only humorous on a certain level.

01:37:23

But the insanity of this woman's ability to connect things together that have zero rational connection at all is absolutely astonishing.

01:37:38

It truly, truly is. Well, we have the individual who actually sparked your interest primarily to do this program today.

01:37:52

We have Mike in Pittsburgh, California, who says, Do you believe the testimony of Eusebius that the original writings of the apostles were brought to Constantinople to be copied after the

01:38:04

Edict of Milan? If so, what do you think might have been copied?

01:38:11

No, Eusebius is an extremely important source in early church history.

01:38:18

But it is very, very well known that Eusebius obviously,

01:38:24

A, did not use our modern standards of historiography. And B, there are just so many things that he claimed that we just know without question were not the case.

01:38:40

There is no evidence provided that would tell us who, when, how, how did...

01:38:51

Here's the question for this gentleman. How did the writings of the apostles that were written at different times to different audiences all end up in Jerusalem pre -70

01:39:05

AD? How did that happen? Eusebius doesn't tell us. He doesn't even comment about anything like that.

01:39:14

How would that even happen? So, I mean, Paul's writing prison epistles.

01:39:21

So he writes to Timothy from prison, and the original is somehow transported to Jerusalem before AD 70?

01:39:34

And then hidden out in a cave someplace? What is this? Is this the search for the

01:39:41

Holy Grail type of an idea? You got a 700 -year -old monk taking care of stuff out in the desert in Syria?

01:39:48

This is mythology. It is not anything that is defensible in any kind of any meaningful situation.

01:40:00

If this were the case, then, not only would you have the allegedly

01:40:06

TR Byzantine text type, and the TR is a later form of Byzantine.

01:40:12

There are so many errors in this letter that we wouldn't even have time to get into it. But the

01:40:18

TR represents a late form of the Byzantine text type, not an early form. So the earliest forms of Byzantine text type, which is not the earliest text type that we have, but the earliest forms are different than the

01:40:31

TR. And I would ask him, for example, all, all,

01:40:36

A -L -L with a capital A and two L's afterwards, all manuscripts of the

01:40:42

Great New Testament that contain the book of Ephesians have a different word at Ephesians 3 -9 than the

01:40:48

TR has. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do in that situation? Do you accept the, do you change the

01:40:58

TR when the majority reading of manuscripts is against the TR? There's just so many problems with this, because if the idea is, well, then there was all this copying that went on in this particular period.

01:41:12

Then why is it that the earliest manuscripts we have from that time period don't match the

01:41:20

TR? When I say don't match the TR, I need to explain that, obviously. The TR and any one of our earliest manuscripts are going to present the same gospel, same

01:41:30

God, et cetera, et cetera. We're talking about variant readings that will define a particular text type.

01:41:39

So, you know, John 1 -18, whether it's monogenes theos versus monogenes quios, or Romans 5 -1, whether it's subjunctive or indicative, things like this.

01:41:52

The papyri, which come from that very time period, are the most unlike the

01:41:59

TR. So how does that work? See, when you do serious textual criticism, when you actually do the work, you recognize that, for example, there's a massive change that takes place between the 7th and 8th centuries.

01:42:17

And you know why that is historically. It's called the rise of Islam and the total change of the religion of North Africa from Christian to now

01:42:30

Muslim and the impact that that has. You also recognize the centrality of Constantinople as the last

01:42:38

Greek -speaking area to be able to hold off the Muslim invasion until it falls in the middle of the 15th century.

01:42:49

And that's real history. That's not the fake history where you go, oh, yeah, we're not going to worry about how these manuscripts actually got to Jerusalem or how they got to Constantinople or who was doing all this stuff.

01:43:05

We don't worry about actually providing any foundation for this. We'll just sort of speculate and fill in the gaps and then try to make this fit some theory that we've come up with.

01:43:16

In fact, we have to get our final break, and it's going to be brief, but you can pick up where you left off if you want when we come back.

01:43:24

Don't go away, folks. We're going to be right back after these messages. And I'll be speaking along with Stephen Lawson, Josh Weiss, founder of G3 Ministries, and Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, co -hosts of the

01:44:12

Just Thinking podcast. To register, visit g3min .org, that's g3min .org,

01:44:18

and click on events. Your registration will include a ticket to the Museum of the Bible nearby the conference venue in Washington, D .C.

01:44:26

So join me and Chris Arnzen, September 15th through the 17th in Washington, D .C.,

01:44:32

for the G3 Ministries regional conference. Register now before they run out of seats at g3min .org,

01:44:39

that's g3min .org. Stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

01:44:56

I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

01:45:06

Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

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It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

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Dr. Morecraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

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For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

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Call 717 -258 -4688 today. Why can't we see

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01:48:18

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corum, New York and also the host of the reformrookie .com

01:48:28

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And finally, if you're looking to worship in a reformed church that holds to the 1689

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01:49:47

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. Welcome back, Dr. White, our listener in Pittsburgh, California.

01:49:55

Lastly, Eusebius says that the early church moved to Pella in Syria prior to AD 70, which is how the church avoided the destruction.

01:50:04

And he also says what documents they brought with them. Any comment on that? Well, of course,

01:50:11

Matthew 24 had warned them what was going to be happening. Why would they have anything Paul wrote to the

01:50:16

Romans or the Colossians or the books that hadn't been written yet? It's just so obvious.

01:50:23

I just I don't understand what it is about King James only ism that makes people do this kind of stuff.

01:50:30

But it's how many letters were written to Jerusalem? The Christians went out from Jerusalem.

01:50:36

There wouldn't be any reason for them to be sending stuff back to Jerusalem. I mean, yes.

01:50:42

Yeah. Matthew 20. That actually would get us into a good discussion on what the actual fulfillment of Matthew chapter 24 was rather than what's very common in a lot of places today.

01:50:54

But that doesn't in any way, shape or form change the reality that the idea that there was some type of archival copy of the original writings from the apostles when they've left the area.

01:51:08

They're not there anymore. There are no fax machines. There's no there's no aircraft, anything else like that.

01:51:16

This is why, again, it's hard to take this kind of stuff seriously. It really, really is, because there's just so such obvious holes in it that it's like, anyway, we have

01:51:28

Anthony in Hoshton, Georgia, KJV only seem to be so obsessed with their ideas that they couple their belief with a legalism found in several fundamentalist churches.

01:51:39

Is the problem a lack of knowledge of Greek, a lack of knowledge of the history of how we have the manuscripts?

01:51:45

Or is it a combination of all of this? What is the best way to promote a healthy dialogue with them?

01:51:56

Well, it can be a combination of all those things. It's it's normally much more a commitment to a tradition.

01:52:03

And I know they all don't think they have traditions, but very plainly, King James only ism is a tradition.

01:52:10

And it is a way of virtue signaling to those around you that you're part of the group.

01:52:17

And so I have not there. There isn't any one way of getting people to listen.

01:52:24

There are clearly people who will not listen. And it seems cannot listen.

01:52:30

They are they have made a commitment in their minds to one particular perspective, and they will twist and warp everything to fit with their their one particular perspective.

01:52:44

Those that have been helped were those who actually believed that what they believed about the

01:52:52

King James Version of Bible was defensible. So, in other words, people who actually want to take their message out to other people, and they actually want it to be understood as being truthful.

01:53:05

They actually want to see people come to embrace the gospel or embrace

01:53:10

Christianity in some form, et cetera, et cetera. Those are the ones that I can reason with, because they are having to, for example, if they're already witnessing to Mormons, for example, then they already recognize that.

01:53:29

Well, if I'm going to critique the Book of Mormon, I have to use the same standards in defending the

01:53:37

Bible. I can't use one standard to attack the Book of Mormon and another standard to defend the

01:53:42

Bible. At least a rational person thinks that way. A truth loving person thinks that way. Those are the people who

01:53:49

I think then realize, oh, wow, I've really been given some bad information here.

01:53:55

They're the ones that end up recognizing what's what's going on. If you have someone who literally believes it's okay to use completely contradictory standards to attack the

01:54:13

Book of Mormon and a different set of standards to defend the King James Version of the Bible, I don't know if there's anything to be done for such a person.

01:54:21

The Spirit of God can get through to anybody, but the Spirit of God is the

01:54:27

Spirit of truth. A person who cannot even seemingly rationally understand what truth is or how to express truth or how to recognize truth, that's where there's a real problem.

01:54:43

We have Pedro in Reno, Nevada, and I was in Reno. Pedro for president.

01:54:52

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die at once. But anyway, Pedro says when an

01:55:01

Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic asks us, how are we supposed to abide by sola scriptura when we cannot identify what the scripture is, is a good response to ask, well, how is the church supposed to identify the books, writings of the canon, if they don't know the characteristics, properties, qualities, the nature of said books, writings, which sola scriptura actually is addressing, keeping them the wrath of heaven via God's word,

01:55:32

Pedro in Reno. Well, when the groups that claim to have canonical authority make that particular type of argument, when dealing with Roman Catholics especially, it's real easy to point out that, in fact, in Romans chapter 3, we are told that God gave the oracles, his oracles, to the

01:55:58

Jewish people, and the Jewish people never accepted the apocryphal books as being canon scripture.

01:56:05

So why should we accept their authority when they are going against what the word says, that he had entrusted his oracles to the

01:56:16

Jewish people? The idea of confusing sola scriptura with canon, though, while they are related, they need to be distinguished, because what we're talking about is the nature of scripture, as Theodosius is what makes sola scriptura a valid and meaningful doctrine.

01:56:35

That is, there is only, the reason a scripture has ultimate authority is because of its nature as being

01:56:42

God -breathed. As I asked Mitch Pacwa, not on Long Island, but on the other side of the country, when we debated sola scriptura in 1999 in Southern California, I asked him, has the

01:56:57

Roman Catholic Church defined a single word that Jesus ever said that is not found in scripture, defined it infallible?

01:57:04

He said, well, no. Anything that any of the apostles said that's not found in scripture? Well, no.

01:57:10

So there's nothing there that is not found in scripture that is actually

01:57:16

God's word, and Rome's not claiming that there is. So what Rome is doing is trying to join that which is theanustos, which is not, with tradition, which they can't trace back to Jesus or to the apostles.

01:57:32

So you have two different natures, inspired scripture, which is theanustos, tradition, which we don't know where it comes from.

01:57:40

They can say it comes from the Holy Church or anything else, but they have to admit it's not theanustos. And so they are trying to create a cord of two very, very different types of thread, and that's not going to work.

01:57:54

That's where the contradictions end up coming up. So yeah, that is a common argument that they're using, but it involves confusing canonical issues with textual critical issues.

01:58:09

They are related, but they are in different aspects, shall we say, of the issue.

01:58:17

Well, we are out of time, and everybody who sent in a question today is going to receive a free copy of the

01:58:24

King James Only Controversy if you send in your mailing address to me at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:58:30

And we want to thank Bethany House once again for providing those copies and also cbbbs .com

01:58:37

for shipping them out. Remember, folks, the Alpha and Omega Ministries website is aomin .org.

01:58:44

Thank you so much, Dr. White, for being such a superb guest as always, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater