I was thrilled recently to find that one of my books, Speak My Language, has been reviewed publicly via video. Thrilled because my book will receive even more of a hearing now. But I was sobered a bit that the “review” did not exactly come to the level of that term (review) in several ways:

1. The entire book was not commented on. Only the portions that seemed fair game for criticism.
2. Several obvious points of agreement by any fair-minded person were not mentioned.
3. “Straw men” were set up and destroyed.
4. There was a serious misunderstanding of many of my points.
5. The examples I gave of linguistic problems in the English text of the KJV were used in such a way as to belittle me and miss the point I was making with those examples.

In fact, the review turned out to be a position paper for the ongoing advocacy of the King James Version. I do not add the word “only” here, but it seems likely that this was the further meaning of the words spoken against my book.

Of course, anyone who read my book thoroughly knows:

I was not desecrating God’s Word found in the KJV, but was calling for the “O” to be removed by certain advocates of that version. The “O” meaning “Only”. There is a large assembly of nearly rabid followers of the “King” who will not allow you to be called a Christian if you read any other version. There are those who will burn your Bible if given a chance. They are convinced that the Holy Spirit inspired the English translators of the 17^th century to such a point that the Bible they came up with is the only one you are allowed to read. Period.

And that’s wrong. And that’s what my book went after.

Anyone who thoroughly examined my text knows that I did not condemn KJV readers. I did not tell them to “get off the road”, as this review suggests, but rather to “yield” to those who wish to pass them on their own personal road to holiness.

In all fairness, this review was polite. Well-meaning. Confident. It was suggested, and I agree, that my work was not scholarly or serious.

No, I was classified as a “populist.” I speak simple words to my fellow man about the Scriptures I have loved and studied for over sixty years. I write as I speak. I try to be clear and can be passionate about what I am saying. There was generous praise of my method. Or was it praise?

My booklet was referred to as an “extended article”, being careful to point out that the book has only 90 pages, and that they are in large print with a lot of spaces. Not sure what that had to do with the review, but for some reason you needed to know.

Several times the review gave the impression that I wanted all people everywhere to stop reading the KJV. That I wanted the KJV to be replaced.

My point was that the KJV has already been replaced by versions that are easier to understand. And since the days of the martyr translators of England and elsewhere, having a version easy to be understood has always been the goal. Hasn’t it?

But as the review kindly added, “It’s a free country,” if you want to read another version, do so. I say the same thing to KJV people. If you grew up on it, love it, are used to it, if it is the only one in your church available, go for it. Multitudes have gone to heaven listening to and obeying the Word of God via the KJV.

Oh, and that was another point the reviewer made. It was an aside, but clearly meant to jab. Because I dared to use the word “obey” in connection with “heaven” I was accused of believing in works salvation. But will not Jesus say to some attempting to enter heaven, “I never knew you… you work lawlessness.” Works are a part of salvation because the faith that saves has a life of works attached to it. We are called to obey the Scriptures, and obedience can take place fully in any of the modern versions.

We have a serious disagreement about the nature of the Book we read, whatever version. I suggested that as language evolves, translations attempt to keep up with those changes, and thus get closer in each generation to what God said. I did not imply that the Scriptures are not perfect.

In fact, as I pointed out, they were perfect in the first century when the apostles read from the Septuagint, a version which has proved to be very inadequate today. The Scriptures have always had enough truth in them to make a man complete before God. If your Bible spells a word differently than mine or makes some other strange difference, that does not mean that one or both of our translations are imperfect replicas of the word of God. The message never changes. The Scriptures in the NIV will save and complete your salvation as well as those in the KJV.

The review noticed that I used Erasmus as an example of a flawed contributor to the entire translation process. Every contributor was flawed, was my point. But honestly, would KJV only people want to call in a Catholic priest to their pulpit next Sunday? Yet whenever they preach to their people out of the KJV, Erasmus the priest is indeed at the pulpit!

I was delighted that the review freely admitted that to understand fully the King James Bible, one would have to carry to church along with the Bible a lexicon, or at least a smart phone, to look up words. Or the people would have to be seriously educated. Well, wonderful news! The new translators save one the extra load of education, lexicons or phones. They have looked up all those words for you and placed their 21^st century meanings in the Bible!

And that was my whole point! The review made it quite well.

At one point the review made a comparison of people of my ilk to those who had what was called “Trump Derangement Syndrome” during that President’s reign in America. It was suggested that I have such a medical problem myself, regarding the KJV.

Fact is, I have not thought about this issue since I published the book months ago. There are constantly new items for which I have taken responsibility. All who follow me on sermonaudio know this is true.

Oh, and the review faulted me earlier in the one-hour video for not giving a reference for a statement I had made at the onset, typifying some KJVO folks: “God wrote One Bible, the KJV.” This was an unfair caricature of the KJVO people, it was implied, and no one had ever said anything like that.

I apologize for that missing reference. Here it is:

“God Wrote Only One Bible,” Jasper James Ray, 1980. Available at Amazon. Ray discusses and derails all the “polluted manuscripts”, a tactic used, by the way, by Muslims who come against our Old and New Testaments.

And then the final blow. I gave at the end of my book a series of passages that contain archaic words. I had prefaced this section with the fact that there are actually “errors” in the KJV if we look at modern words that have changed their meaning as mistakes. There was a long string of examples. The review used none of the ones that I used to prove my point, but rather some less-than-serious citations. That’s a shame. There really are some words that have changed meaning and therefore change the flow of the text, sometimes seriously. For example: