by We visited the Museum of the Bible yesterday. It was a great blessing to see the preservation process of God’s Holy Word. It was also disheartening to see the admiration given to versions of the Bible that did not fall into God’s divine preservation. Our church exclusively uses the King James Bible (KJV) without apology. Why we only use the KJV has been determined, not by popularity, not by falling in line with someone’s doctrinal statement, not by following any rambunctious KJV-ONLY position, but by carefully studying how God gave us His Holy Word today.
Two verses that are conclusive to every argument when laid aside textual preservation are Psalm 12:6-7.
“The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. 7 Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (Psalm 12:6-7)
These verses promise that every generation will have God’s preserved Word. When we look at every Bible version except the KJV, every one of them have a period of over a millennia of generations where their underlying texts were hidden either by the Catholics at the Vatican (called Codex Vaticanus), in a burn pile at monastery at the base of Mt Sinai (called Codex Sinaiticus), or the Dead Sea Scrolls that were buried for two millennia. The translators of the KJV had these manuscripts at their disposal and denied their authenticity in the canonization of the Bible. These verses alone are so conclusive that we need not wade into their theological depths but take the simplicity of Psalm 12:6-7 by faith.
The leadership of our church has dung into the depth of the version issue and has determined the KJV has no equal in modern English translations. It has been and will continue to be the English Bible for truly fundamental Independent Baptist Churches. Therefore, with great conviction and determination, our church uses only the KJV in all its ministries and studies!
Your determination may not be so easy, specifically if you struggle with Old English, so we are here to answer your questions and to give guidance. The solution, however, is not to go to the Critical Text, that is, every other popular Bible version then the KJV. The solution is more personal time in God’s Preserved Word. I encourage you to stick with your KJV and study it alongside a good dictionary, like Webster’s 1828.
