What We Believe About The Bible

Our church has been through the ringer in the last year. The truth is we have lost a number of people that were important to us, people that we loved and cared for. This has left us asking a key question, God what are you doing and what do you want us to do? In response to some of our difficulties the board members and I sequestered ourselves for a Friday and Saturday to prayerfully discuss our strengths and weaknesses and to create goals for the foreseeable future. You have seen some of the fruit of those meetings already; for example our desire to have a welcoming committee to greet visitors and hand out welcome bags. But it is more than that, some time ago the some of the leadership team challenged each other to pray for visitors and guess what started happening; visitors started showing up! In spite of all that has happened giving has not gone down it has gone up. God has blessed our efforts and He is working in and through Portersville Bible Church.

So why am I talking about this? Well, for one we are not out of the woods yet. There is still much to do, and I want each of you to be apart of it. God didn’t give you spiritual gifts to horde them for yourselves. A Christian that isn’t serving in his or her local church isn’t walking with Christ as they should be. God is working in and through Portersville Bible Church and He wants you to be a part of it.

Secondly, it is important to realize that there is no such thing as a stagnant church. Churches just like the individual Christians who make them up are always either moving forward or they are moving backwards. Our goals are not to replicate the successes of 20 years ago but to be successful in what God has called to do today even if that is something we have never done before.

So yes, there are some new things that we are implementing in the coming days, weeks, months and years. It is not our desire to leave anyone behind, but rather as a family move forward together in the ministry God has called us to. God is working in and through Portersville Bible Church and He wants you to be a part of it.

One of the ways that we are looking to move forward in ministry is by switching from the King James Version to the New King James Versions in our pulpit ministries. I ask that you hear us out and trust that this decision was not made lightly and that it was done prayerfully. To explain this decision I first want to reaffirm what we believe about the Bible.

We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

Definition

The act of the Holy Spirit upon the biblical authors whereby they composed and recorded God’s self revelation to mankind in their original writings.

Breaking down the definition

“Act of the Holy Spirit ...”

2 Peter 1:21 “for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

This verse tells us two important things concerning prophecy or the Word of God.

It is not sourced in the will of man

It is sourced in the Holy Spirit who moved these men to record the truths God had given them.

“upon the biblical authors whereby they composed and recorded God’s self revelation to mankind...”

God inspired these men to write as a means of revealing Himself to us. That is why we often use the word “revelation” when discussing this doctrine.

God gave us His word so that we can know Him, know what He is like and the things He has done.

“in their original writings.”

It is important to remember that it was only the original writing that were inspired.

The process of translation was not an inspired process if it was we would only need one translation.

If the discussion of translations makes you uncomfortable just remember that Jesus and the apostles used a translation as well, and they didn’t have a problem with it.

What language did Jesus and the apostles speak, Greek. What language was the Old Testament written in, Hebrew.

They considered their translation to be the Word of God and even quoted directly from it when writing the New Testament.

Key Text: 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

All Scripture

Profitable

We believe that the Bible is Inerrant and Infallible.

The belief that the Bible is without error, completely truthful and correct in all that it teaches.

The Importance of Inerrancy

Can someone be a Christian and deny inerrancy? Yes

If it is what they Bible teaches about itself then to deny it is to deny a biblical teaching.

But most importantly without inerrancy we have no assurance or confidence in anything that we believe.

If the Bible contains some errors no matter how few how can we have confidence that our understanding of the gospel is correct?

In recent years it has been needed to add infallibility to our doctrine, because there have been those who claim that the Bible is inerrant but only in the matters it is speaking to directly. For example they say that because the Bible is not designed to speak to matters of science directly then anytime it speaks of science there may be errors. Thus we have added that the Bible is also infallible in all that it says.

If you genuinely believe in inspiration then how can you not believe in inerrancy?

We believe that God has preserved His Word so that we can be confident that the Bibles we read are the Word of God.

How can we be confident that the Bibles we have today are accurate representations of what was originally written?

Jesus and the apostles were confident in their translation of the O.T.

It is important to understand that the councils did not decide what was inspired Scripture. They only recognized publically what was already determined by local churches.

Every time new manuscripts have been discovered the accuracy of what we have is reaffirmed.

There is literally a mountain of evidence that we can be confident in what we have today.

Preservation as a doctrine refers to the acts of God whereby he has preserved through the centuries the written record of his special revelation for his people.

It begins with the specific instructions he gave to his people to preserve it.

It also includes the providential way in which God has kept his Word by the diligent efforts of human agents through the millennia.

It began when it was originally written, and it has continued through time as it has been gathered into the collections of canonical writings extant today.

Key Text: Psalm 119:160 The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

The process of translating God’s Word is not an inspired process.

We believe that the Bible is our final authority for faith and practice.

It is our goal to be dogmatic only about the things in which Scripture is dogmatic.

So which translation of the Bible does the Bible tell us to use?

It doesn’t

This is ultimately why those who hold to a strict KJV onlyism don’t really have a leg to stand upon. They don’t have an authority beyond their own opinion to point to.

Why we are switching from the KJV to the NKJV

What we are not doing:

Telling you what translation you have to use.

Saying that the KJV is a poor translation.

Criticizing those who choose to continue to use the KJV.

Reasons for the change:

Evangelism

There are those in the KJVO crowd who claim that if you are not saved using a KJV Bible then you are not saved. That is nothing short of heretical.

The truth is that KJV is no longer fulfilling the purpose for which it was translated.

There were two types of people that the KJV translators said they were trying to reach.

The plow boy

The most vulgar of society (uneducated)

It was the spoken language of their day. We cannot honestly say that the Elizabethan English of the KJV is the spoken language of our day.

There are those who of course argue that it is still English and so I am just splitting hairs.

When God inspired the authors of the N.T. to write they had two versions of Greek witch which to choose from.

Classical Greek which was spoken in high society and and academia.

Common Greek (also called Koine) which was spoken by the masses.

God inspired the N.T. authors to write in the language and style that everyone spoke in their day.

The simple truth is that we do not speak and write in Elizabethan English anymore and trying to force that language on others puts an unnecessary barrier between them and their understanding of Scripture.

Edification

The truth is that even people who have used the KJV their entire lives would benefit greatly from using a modern version.

You probably don’t even realize how much you are missing if you exclusively use the KJV.

Dead Words

False Friends

Faulty Arguments - straw men arguments

The modern translations were only made for the money.

The modern translations were rushed

The KJV is at 5th grade reading level.

The modern translations are actually harder to read.

The modern translators are untrustworthy.

The modern versions leave out important verses

The conclusion is this, we want to remove any unnecessary barrier between us and our ability to clearly present the gospel and anyone understanding of the gospel. Further, we want to remove any unnecessary barrier between us and our understanding of Scripture. God is working in and through Portersville Bible Church and He wants you to be a part of it.