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Adult Sunday School: Our Church · Pastor Adam Wood · August 3, 2025
Bible preaching from the pulpit of Choice Hills Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina
So let's just, first of all, let's pray, and then we'll get into our lesson.
Let's pray together.
Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you are good to us.
Lord, we run to you, Lord, for refuge and for strength.
Lord, we seek the covert and the shadow of your wings as we try and serve you and live for you.
Lord, even as our church meets today, Lord,
we certainly need your grace, your protection, your help, your wisdom. Lord, bless our meeting today and our fellowship with one another. And I pray you bless our Sunday school as well, not only here,
but also downstairs where the kids are studying your word. And please give grace. Lord, there's some among us who are unwell. There's also some who are traveling. Please give them protection and healing.
And Lord, we just, we ask you to meet with us and manifest your presence among us. Stir us up,
we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So the page that the first thing I want to look at before we get into our lesson here is the page I just gave out, the last page I gave out to you.
copy of a leaf of the 1611 edition of the King James version of the scripture. Okay. So what we have in our, I'm getting ready to shock you. Okay. I'm getting ready to shock you right now.
What you hold in your lap is the 1769 edition of the King James Bible. All right, that's what you have. You have the 1769 edition.
And sometimes, and the reason I want to give that to you is because, listen, all we're in pursuit of
is not a defense of a position. We're in pursuit of facts and truth. Okay, that's all we want.
pursuit of facts and truth. Okay, that's all we want. And one of, in this particular issue,
and we're not going to spend too terribly long on this, this is maybe this week, maybe next week,
and we're going to move on to something else. But there is a lot of, as they say, misinformation. There's a lot of statements made on this particular issue of which Bible you're supposed to use and that kind of thing.
And so sometimes it's hard to discern what's true and what's not.
The reason I gave this to you is because one of the things that's sometimes stated whenever someone says,
well, I use a 1611 King James.
Well, no, you don't. Technically,
you use a Bible that's translated in 1611, originally published in 1611,
but it's the edition of 1769. Now,
the changes are very, I mean, we talk minuscule between the two, but
sometimes people say that, and you say, 1611, and they scoff.
You use 1611. You don't use 16.
You couldn't even read the 1611 King James Bible.
Well, that's what you're looking at.
So you can read it, okay?
The hardest part about the 1611 edition of the King James Bible
is the fact that it is in a Gothic font and not in a Roman font,
like is what you have in your Bible. Almost all Bibles have
Roman font. And that by itself makes it a little bit more difficult to read. But if you put that
thing into Roman font, it's a little bit different than our Bible as far as like extra ease on the
ends of spellings of words and things like that. But it's perfectly legible. So anybody says, well,
you can't even read the 1611. Well,
yeah, you can. And so now you have a copy of it. The one other difference between the one that you
have is the original was big. In fact, at Bob Jones University, they have, or at least they used to have
at the library, a 1611 edition of the King James, a printed edition, which are pretty rare.
printed edition, which are pretty rare. And actually at the Ark, it was at the Ark, I think, or this, yeah, it was at the Ark, there was a 1549 edition of the Matthew's Bible,
a full printed original edition of the Matthew's Bible at the Ark. Again, large, but not as big
as the King James. The King James was big, and we're talking like this tall, kind of
big. So that's just shrunk down. But as you can see, you can read it. It's a little difficult with the
font, but you can read it, and if it was in Roman font, you would have no trouble at all, even though
some of the words are a little bit different. So again, we're just, I'm just trying to deal with
these things as we go, because there's so much, so many
ideas that get tossed around about this and that that I just want to cover them as we go. So last
week, what we talked about was the, in our study of the reasons that our church holds to the exclusive
use of the King James Version is, first of all, the text. And we talked about that to some degree, which dealt with the
handouts I gave you. What I want to go into now is you have three things. Remember, you have
the three primary reasons are the text, the translation, and then practical questions.
Okay, and we'll cover those later. So, what we want to look at today is the translation.
So what do I mean by translation?
When I say the text, okay, what I'm referring to is the scriptures,
the original language scriptures that were used,
what edition, what version were used to translate into English, okay?
Now, some of you in here are bilingual,
and you know that if you're translating, as an example, Brother Jim, from Spanish into English,
you're interpreting in that way. If the Spanish is different, the English is different. I know
that's profound, is it not? So that deals with the text. That deals with the text. But whenever you translate from one language to another,
even if the text is exactly the same,
yet the target language, in this case English,
can be different because languages,
no two languages upon the earth.
I don't care what anybody tells you.
No two languages on the earth have a one-to-one correspondence.
It doesn't exist. It just doesn't exist.
So let me give you an example.
For instance, in Korean, there is a King James in Korean.
But even though it's called the King James in Korean,
I think that that particular Bible is translated from the King James Bible.
But it's not the same as the King James.
There are definitely going to be, it's not like thou, thou, shout, shout, not, not.
It's not like that.
Translating between two languages is just not like that.
So when you deal with translations, you have to answer difficult questions.
So when you deal with translations, you have to answer difficult questions.
Like, do you put charity or love?
And if so, why?
For instance, 1 Corinthians 13, very often misquoted, but in the King James it says charity.
And in other places, that same word that's put as charity says love.
Why?
That's a translation question, not a text question. Everybody follow me? Anybody have any questions up to this point? I haven't gotten very far, but so what we're looking
at now is, and this is an important question to ask and to answer, which is, okay, so say we agree
on the text, what's underneath.
Does it matter about the translation?
Are some translations better than others?
Or are they all the same?
And this question is important because as we mentioned last,
I don't know, about last week, a week before maybe,
about the New King James.
Because the New King James Bible was translated mostly from the same source as the King James, because the New King James Bible was translated mostly from the same source as the
King James, which is why they say very similar things. Now, there are differences. There are a
few departures and things like that throughout the Bible, the New King James. But so why don't we use
it? Right. Why don't we use it? After all, it's easier to understand, right?
You see what, so this is the question, you know, when you're dealing from a church's,
when you're looking at the church, the church's policy and the church's direction,
and, you know, what is going to be the standard that we use and that kind of thing,
these are questions we have to answer. So these are questions, again, of translation. So I thought it'd be good. I actually printed this out.
What this is is the translators to the reader.
I don't know if you have, if you would, open your Bible,
if you have your Bible with you in printed form.
It's probably not going to be on your phone if you're looking at that.
Go to the very beginning.
You might or might not have this page.
In fact, I don't think my Bible has it.
Sorry, dogs.
How many of you have on the title page?
The title page. the title page?
Let me look one other place just to see.
No.
The title page, some Bibles on the title page will say, in the King James, it'll say, it'll say King James Version.
It'll say, translated from the original tongues
with the former translations.
I think it says, diligently compared and revised.
Thank you, I was going to mess that up.
Diligently compared and revised.
And that tells you how they did it.
That tells you how they did it.
So, some Bibles, like my Bible has this, although it doesn't have the title page,
it has what is called the translators to the reader.
Like this, your Bible may or may not have it.
Most do not because it's pretty heavy reading.
But what I did is I printed it out, and this is the original version of the translators to the reader.
What is this?
Well, it's simple.
translators to the reader. What is this? Well, it's simple. It's the message from the translators to the reader to give us information about what they did and why they did it. Now, it doesn't
cover every verse, obviously. This is 14 pages, okay? If you want a copy of this, I can provide
you with a copy of it so that you can read it yourself. If that's in your lane and you like that
kind of thing, again, it is language from the early 1600s. It has not been revised or updated at all.
And so it's, I mean, it's heavy reading. You'll have fun reading it, but it is very insightful.
It has helped me a lot, actually. If you would like a copy of this, if you can just let me know,
and next week I'll try to have a copy ready to, if you can just let me know, and next week
I'll try to have a copy ready to give to you, and you can read it at your leisure. We're going to
look at a few things from it today. So in the translation to the reader, when we look at the
translation of the Bible, it is therefore helpful for us to look at something like this that was written by the 50 plus translators
because they explained themselves and why they translated the Bible
and made the choices that they chose in general terms.
So I thought it would be important for us to look at what they said firsthand
as to how they understood their work. Not how we understand it,
but how they understood it. Now, why is this important? Because in our day, we are 400 plus
years past that. And everybody has an opinion, right? Everybody that wants to have an opinion
has an opinion on this version or that version and why it's this way or that way.
And some of those are true and some of those are false.
And it's important for us to see how they understood their own work.
Because if we think something of their work that they didn't think something of their own work,
that would be a little unusual, would it not?
I'll give you a comparison.
That would be a little unusual, would it not?
I'll give you a comparison.
Let me pose a question to you, all right?
Did the writers of the Bible, David, Paul, Peter, etc., did the actual men who wrote the Scripture down,
God led to write them down,
did they know that they were writing the scripture
when they did it?
Did they know that they were writing God's word?
Was that their belief of their own work?
Have you ever thought about that?
Because we believe it is,
but did they believe as we believe?
What do you think?
Some of?
That could be.
Yes, sir.
Okay, that's a good counter. That's a good counterpoint.
Well, I mean, I guess it adds to what Andrew said, because both are true, depending on where you look. And I don't know that you can say, like, with broad brush, every single person.
But what you do see is in various verses.
For instance, the prophets say, thus saith the Lord over and over.
So they knew when they were writing it down, it was God's word without question.
They believed it was God's word.
We believe it was God's word.
John is an example of that.
Some places like the Psalms, like Andrew mentioned, are less plain.
But then you do find Psalms written by the
same writer where he does seem to clearly understand, right? Like the spirit of the Lord,
let me see, was upon me, spoke by me, things like that. And so, and then you go to, for instance,
you go to, I think, 2 Peter, and 2 Peter refers to Paul and how that some men would take the
writings of Paul and would rest them as they did the other scriptures. So even Peter recognized
Paul's writings. So here's the thing. We are safe because we believe that the writing of
scripture was the word of God, is the word of God, but they also, speaking generally now, they also
believed it. Okay, now we go to the King James Bible. Do we believe of the King James Bible what
the translators themselves believe? Now, I know the translators are not the same as the Bible
writers. It's not the same. And that, if we have the idea that the translators and their work were equal to what the original writers were doing, that's not right.
That's not right. They translated the Bible.
And they believed that they were providentially guided by God.
They said so in this. That's how we know.
But that's different than inspiration.
Right? It is.
Because inspiration happens one time when the Scripture is given.
All Scripture is given by inspiration.
And then God preserves it.
That's what we've been talking about with the text.
And then people faithfully translate the Bible.
And they have throughout the years, and this is not new.
What's interesting is these translators understood that and recognized that was their role. And they also recognized people
who had translated the Bible prior to them, going back throughout the years, because many of them
were scholars that knew languages that are not really in existence anymore. And so, what did they say?
I'm going to read a couple of passages for you from this.
I'm not going to belabor it too much,
but under this section called A Satisfaction to Our Brethren, here's what they say.
Yet for all that, as nothing is begun and perfected at the same time,
and the later thoughts are thought to be the wiser,
so if we, building upon their foundation that went before us,
and being holpen, helped, some of you have heard that holpen, holpen,
that's the old southern word,
and being holpen by their labors do endeavor to make that better which they left so good,
no man, we are sure, hath cause to mislike us.
They, we persuade ourselves, if they were alive, would thank us.
Who are they talking about?
They're talking about the people who had translated the Bible previous.
He says, they say plainly, if they were alive,
they would say, thank you for helping this work get better.
That's what they would have said.
That's what they would have said. That's what they would have said.
And then in another page, it says this.
But it is high time to leave them and to show in brief what we propose to ourselves
and what course we held in this our perusal and survey of the Bible.
Truly, good Christian reader, we never
thought from the beginning that we should need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad
one a good one, but to make a good one better. Or out of many good ones, one principal good one,
not justly to be accepted against, that hath been our endeavor,
that our mark. To that purpose, there were many chosen that were greater in other men's eyes than
in their own, and that sought the truth rather than their own praise. Here's what they're saying in brief. They said, we did not start out to start something
brand new. That's why I wanted you to read the title page. With the former translations diligently
compared and revised. So they translated from the original text, but they were using the work of
men of God, faithful men,
and comparing it to make their own. So this idea that they were making and translating the Bible
because they disdained all that went before them is not true.
That was not their cause at all.
So this was how they understood their own work. In fact, if you note in this,
it says that they're, but to make a good one better or out of many good ones, one principle
good one. So they were essentially saying, we're trying to make one principle good Bible
that nobody can have cause to find problems with in their translation. Do you
see? So did they understand that they were trying to do something that was a standard? Yes, they did.
So that, and as much as we understand that, we understand it exactly as they did. All right,
so let me put that aside.
And I want to give you a brief history of English Bible versions, starting with the first one that was printed by the printing press. Okay. If you want to write these down, you can. I'm going
to give you the name and I'm going to give you the year if you're writing this down. Okay. The
first one is the Wycliffe Bible of 1382.
Now, this one does not really count,
although it was the first Bible printed in English,
printed on the press.
It doesn't count because it was not translated,
as our Bible was, from the original biblical languages.
It was translated from the Latin Vulgate.
So that's why it's not usually counted, okay? Because its source was different. Okay, number two is the Tyndale Bible of 1525.
This Bible only contained, it was done by William Tyndale, who ended up being a martyr. Why?
Because of the Bible, right? He gave his life because he wanted the Bible in English.
1525, he translated the New Testament
and certain portions of the Old Testament.
Then you have, after that was number three, Coverdale,
the Coverdale Bible, 1535.
The Coverdale Bible was the first complete printed Bible from the original languages.
All right? The Coverdale Bible. So in the order here, if you count from
Bibles from the same source, you have Tyndale, Coverdale. Next, number four in our list,
but number three in this set is the Matthew's Bible
of 1537. This Bible was compiled by John Rogers, but it was mostly William Tyndale's Bible.
Okay. You notice how the Matthew's Bible is using Tyndale before him? Coverdale using
Tyndale before him? Tydale using Tindale before him?
Tindale was, William Tindale, you would do well to study that man's life.
That's, we cannot look lightly on Tindale.
Did you know that 84% is calculated? I didn't do this personally. This is research.
84% of the language of our Bible comes directly from William
Tyndale. Why? Because it's right. It works. Why change it? Right? 84% of it. In other words,
these scholars who are much more knowledgeable than William Tyndale, were looking at Tyndale's Bible
when they were translating the King James
and they said, it's good.
Why change it?
Right?
This is something you have to get on,
and this goes deeper than just scholarship
and things like that.
On a factual level,
there is something to and things like that, on a factual level,
there is something to giving due deference to people like William Tyndale
and the price they paid and what they did as a pioneer
to get the Bible into English.
We can't just lightly dismiss it on some little pretext like,
well, it's too hard to read.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Or it's not modern enough, and you just chunk it.
You can't do that and also show due deference to Tyndale.
Now, there's a lot of lip service, but modern Bibles,
now I know the text is different in modern Bibles like the ESV and
several, but modern Bibles don't use the wording of Tyndale. It's completely redone,
completely redone. So there's something to be said about that spiritual heritage that has come down
to us and it should not be lightly dispensed with. Because people paid a high price for that.
And you say, well, you know, that's all fine and good, but the scholars.
Well, hold on. God isn't working only through scholars, remember.
God is working through His people.
That's why we have the text of Scripture that we have,
is because God's people recognized it and copied it over and over and over and over
and that became what is the basis of our Bible.
Okay, next is the number five in our list
is the Great Bible of 1540.
It's called the Great Bible because of its size.
So this was an enormous Bible.
This was printed by the Church of England
in order to be placed in every parish church.
So it was supposed to be a Bible that you display here like this.
So it was very large, called the Great Bible.
Next was the Geneva Bible of 1560.
This Bible was produced by English Protestants who were exiles in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Geneva Bible was the Protestant Bible. The Geneva Bible was the Bible that was brought over on the Mayflower because those were non-conformist.
The pilgrims were non-conformist. They brought the Geneva Bible with them. Okay. Then you have the
Bishop's Bible of 1568. This was a Church of England revision of the Great Bible previously mentioned.
And then lastly, you have the King James Bible.
The primary kind of tension at the time of the King James translation was
the people who held to the Geneva, the nonconformists, they liked the Geneva.
And there were reasons for that. I won't go into all that, but they liked the Geneva, the non-conformists, they liked the Geneva. And there were reasons for that. I won't
go into all that, but they liked the Geneva. And the Church of England liked the Bishop's Bible.
And so there was tension. So the King James was kind of an answer to that where, because on the
translating committee, there were non-conformists and then they were Church of England people.
there were nonconformists, and then they were Church of England people. And so, and when you look at the text, there are definitely words where it could go either way. For instance,
in the Geneva Bible, they preferred the word congregation rather than the word church.
The bishops preferred the word church rather than congregation. And you know what you find in the
King James? You find both. And we've already looked at that. And so you can see marks of that. So the King James Bible was
translated and completed in 1611. Now, why did I read all that to you? It's because I want you to
see that the Bible that we use, you notice, after the King James, basically it stopped.
You know why? Because it was God's people came to the conclusion that we're good. We're good.
We have a faithful Bible that has been the culminating work of years of faithful translators and just like the translators themselves understood,
and they saw no more need to continue.
And so, yes, there were other translations,
but they never gained any serious popularity,
and so the King James Bible became the standard Bible for English
for the next 250 years.
Okay?
And that's significant. 250 years. Okay?
And that's significant.
Again, we cannot simply dismiss all of this in favor of the next new translation.
That's just not wise generally, right?
In life.
Because, and this is what I want to show you next,
is this. There is a mark of divine providence
in this history that I've tried to describe to you. There is good cause to believe that God
provided in His providence, provided His word in this way at this time.
I'm referring to the King James translation.
Because, remember, the King James translation,
it was translated at a time in which the Bible's text,
that is the original languages, which is the basis, was settled.
The Protestant Reformation, they were coming out of, basically
coming out of the Protestant Reformation. It was still kind of in there, but the 1500s
in particular, 1600s, freedom of religion started to pop up in England and things like
that in the 1600s. But the Bible of the Protestant Reformation was the Textus Receptus, which was then translated into English in all these versions I've described.
And there was no question about that.
There was no argument about that.
It was a settled issue at that time.
Now, were there little issues about this or that?
Yeah, there were.
But broadly speaking, there was no two competing texts of Scripture. There was one,
and that was it. And remember, during the Protestant Reformation, one of the battle
cries was sola scriptura, which is only the Scripture. So the question of the Bible and what
it is and what it's supposed to be is a very important question they spend a lot of time on.
Now, here's the problem. In many ways, modern or you might,
they're technically called critical theories of textual criticism that have led to and produced
modern text and English versions are a regression or going backward. What do I mean by that?
Now, you understand modern versions, every one of them
is the next and new, has the latest scholarship, right? You know how it's promoted, especially in
our marketing culture. It's the latest, you know, we got the latest information. We got the Dead Sea
Scrolls. We've got the lost books. We've got this and we've got that, you know, and it's promoting
it because really now, especially nowadays, it's all profit. That's all it's about, really.
I mean, that's really all it's about.
But it's the next new thing, the next new thing.
And they consider that to be progression, moving forward, getting closer.
And the narrative is this.
People would say something to this effect.
people would say something to this effect.
Because we have new discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls,
like Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus,
because we have all these new discoveries,
we're coming ever closer to the original text of Scripture.
That's the narrative.
So every time there's something new, we're getting closer and we're getting closer.
Well, it begs the question, what do we have now?
What will we have in the future?
I mean, that is an open question that really matters.
And they say, well, we're moving forward.
Well, that sounds nice, but that is actually, if you think about it, that is a regression from where we were in the 15 and 1600s,
because at that time,
the text of Scripture was settled.
It was settled.
It wasn't an open question,
and now it has become an open question,
basically since 1881.
And we already saw this before,
but the manuscripts that are the basis
of the King James Bible
and the other versions that I just mentioned
were the texts that were actually used
by the church over the centuries,
which is why they're younger, right?
Whereas the three were much older,
and we've already discussed that. We've already discussed that. So I want to
as we get close, we're going to have to pause here in a minute.
So I want to pose this question.
Is newer always better?
Yeah. That's right.
So,
there,
it's,
so we go to the question of this.
Is new or always better?
Now, I want you to understand, a lot of this is a cultural question.
Think about it.
Just think with me.
In our culture, the next new thing the next iOS, the next car, the next, you know, rocket, the next
Tesla, everything's moving forward, forward, forward. And that is presented as the best. Who
says that's a true principle? Who is the one that established that, that everything that is new is
better? Because that's a guiding principle. It's almost like hardwired into our thinking and our marketing-driven world. Because you know why?
It's newer, it's better, because you're supposed to buy it. And if your old phone works, and to be
honest, I like the new phone, okay? I like the new phone. But if you think, I like my phone, it's good,
but if you think, I like my phone, it's good, that's okay.
That's okay.
Because when the motive is you got to buy it, you got to buy it, you got to buy it, you got to buy it,
there has to be something different than before.
Otherwise, you say what?
It's the same one, which is basically what's happened to the iPhone. But anyway, I digress.
Some of you that are in that joke know about that joke.
All right.
So this is a basic assumption.
Newer is better because modern versions are newer
and technology has increased.
The newest ideas, the newest methods,
and translation choices in Bible translations
are necessarily better.
Newer is better.
I want to tell you something.
This has gone crazy. How many of
you have heard of this technology where computer software has been invented to input, it takes
as an input the original languages of Scripture, and it translates the Bible for you. And I've heard, anecdotally, I've heard people tell me
that they have heard those people that push that say this.
This translation will be more accurate than any other translation.
Because a computer did it.
Because a computer did it.
Brothers and sisters, when are we going to come back to real life?
And when are we going to give due deference to the labors of those who paid the price who went before us?
Not blindly, but to show deference to our spiritual elders, right?
And to start with a place that maybe they weren't as stupid as everybody assumes they were.
I mean, to put it bluntly.
The King James translation was undertaken at the high point of both faith and scholarship in English history.
In many cases, the translator, I want to say something.
I can't speak of all of them, but it is not uncommon to find people who translate the Bible
who do not believe the Bible they're translating is without error.
That is not uncommon.
The translators of the King James
believe the Bible was inerrant. Okay. That matters. That matters. Okay. Were they faultless men? Were
they apostles? Certainly not. But that's not where we're hanging our hat anyway. They were men. They
were failed men just like you and just like me. In many cases, remember, you're talking about the next thing, the next thing,
the next newest piece of information, the next newest technology,
the newest way to translate, the newest reading of a particular passage.
In many cases, these translators were aware of alternative readings in translations,
but decided against them.
It's not that they didn't know, it's that they chose the other.
One of the greatest strengths of the King James Version's translator's method
was that they did not change a translation
if the previous one was good and right.
They defaulted to leaving it as it was.
You see that deference to those who went before?
I want to read a couple of passages on this and we'll close.
This says this, but what about piety, but now what piety without truth and what truth,
what saving truth without the word of God?
What word of God whereof we may be sure without the scripture?
The scriptures, we are commanded to search.
They are commended that searched and studied them.
The scripture is the word of God.
That's what they're stating.
This passage says this.
Let me see if I can find the beginning.
But what mentioned we three or four uses of the scripture,
whereas whatsoever is to be believed or practiced or hoped for is contained in them,
or three or four sentences of the fathers,
you know, the quotations of the fathers.
Since whosoever isations of the fathers.
The scriptures then being acknowledged to be so full and so perfect, how can we excuse ourselves of neglig faith in the perfection of Scripture, of what they're translating.
I think that matters. I'm just saying. I think that matters.
Whether you believe what you're translating or not.
And then on the subject of their scholarship, let me read you this passage.
None of these things.
The work hath not been huddled up in 72 days.
He's referring to those of you that know the LXX 72, the Septuagint, Greek translation of the Old Testament.
consequence are to be speeded with maturity. For in a business of moment, a man feareth not the blame of convenient slackness. Neither do we think much to consult the translators or commentators,
Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek, or Latin. No, nor the Spanish, French, Italian, or Dutch. Neither do
we disdain to revise that which we had done and to bring back to the anvil that which we had hammered.
You know what they're saying?
If we see something that's deficient, you know what we're going to do?
We're going to take it back to the anvil and we're going to hammer it again.
All these languages are mentioned.
These are languages they had familiarity with.
He says this,
But having and using as great helps as we're needful He says this, There can be no question about the scholarship or the faith of the translators. Does that matter?
Absolutely. Absolutely. We'll break up there. Let's pray.