UNNECESSARY, EXCESSIVE, EXTREME, NEEDLESS,
USELESS, SUPERFLUOUS NAUGHTINESS
By Herb Evans
"Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and
receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your
souls." -- James 1:21
"The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them: but transgressors
shall be taken in their own naughtiness."
-- Proverbs 11:6
In matters regarding inspiration, infallibility, inerrancy, the Bible,
scriptures, the scripture, the word of God (or in any matter for that
matter), did you ever read where the prophets, the Old Testament saints,
Christ, the apostles, or the early Christians ever used the type of
language or terminology of Bible Correctors? Did they question or fault the
copyists, translators, manuscripts, or translation of words? Did they exalt
or even mention the Autographs, the Hebrew, the Greek, the oldest and best
manuscripts, scholarship, the original Hebrew or Greek? Did they use
superfluous terminology or arguments? Are they guilty as Bible Correctors
are—of "naughty superfluities?"
No doubt, these transgressing Bible Correctors will be taken in their own
naughtiness and wrong emphasis! Neither antiquity nor the language, which a
Bible is written in, is where the scripture places the importance and the
emphasis. The canon of scripture, both the number of Books and the Text,
has not been fixed by any church, church council, university, or group of
scholars; the Holy Spirit has fixed it in and through true believers
throughout the centuries. This is not to say that some believers did not
make mistakes regarding these matters nor that all believers always came
to the same conclusions or have the same degree of light. It is not to say
that all believers in every language had the same amount of scripture with
the same degree of accuracy or ever even had it in one volume. It is to say
that there has always been a consensus of orthodox believers, mostly
laymen, whom the Spirit of God led, who were able to discern what was
scripture and what was not.
Whether or not the Holy Spirit is "moving" the scriptures that believers
use now is as important as the fact that the Holy Spirit once moved holy
men of old. Believers are not expected to use the Bible that they "feel
like using"; they are expected to use the Bible that God is using - the one
that is QUICK or ALIVE (Heb. 4:12)! Most of the time, this is not a very
hard thing to discern. The RV and ASV, despite their favor among many
important scholars and preachers, were unable to bring about revival and
evangelistic fervor (as did the 1611 Authorized Bible) and were short
lived. The RSV soon became the bible of the liberal and modernist. One
hundred versions later, despite the Madison avenue techniques and
proliferation by popular evangelists, radio preachers, religious
periodicals, and universities, not one version has supplanted the KJB among
fundamental, independent Baptists.
Those spurious versions and their "words" were and are neither "Spirit" nor
"life" (John 6:63)! Who determines whether Tobit, Bishop of Hermes, or
James is scripture or not? The One who authored it, the Holy Spirit, is the
one that determines whether "corrupt" or "peddle" is scripture or not? How
does He do it? In many different ways! Yet all that matters is that He does
it. After the smoke and dust settles in the battle for the KJB, the Holy
Spirit will have established what His word is as He has done down through
the centuries. One thing is for sure; pointy headed Bible Correctors and
self styled Hebrew/Greek scholars, guilty of "superfluity of naughtiness,"
will NOT decide for us what His word is or is not!
Flaming Torch - July-September, p. 24; Bible Believer’s Bulletin - August
1991, p. 8