"Bible Versions"
The Bible is the Word of God in the Word of Man. That doesn't make it any less the Word of God, but neither does that make it any less the Word of Man.
Download or email this sermon Introduction
I cannot tell you how many times people have come to me with a copy of a book such as Gail Riplinger's New Age Bible Versions, very confused about which Bible version to read, and asking questions like:
- "Is it true that only the King James Version follows the original Greek and Hebrew texts?"
- "Is it true that all the other texts have been mutilated in some way?"
- "Do you know that New Agers say ‘The Christ’?"
- "Do you know there was a lesbian on the translation committee of the N.I.V?"
Now, is there any basis for all this stuff?
Let's begin at the beginning. During December 1996, I went into hospital for tests on my neck. I consulted one of the most highly respected neuro-radiologists in Africa – a British educated Jewish woman who came to faith through our ministry in South Africa. Dr Hilda Podlas is a professor of neuro-radiology. (She writes for medical journals and lectures on the subject.) And in Britain I had a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan on my neck.
All the neuro-surgeons and neurologists, consulting together, came to the same conclusion: We could operate on your neck, but there is not a sufficiently high enough probability that surgery would either reduce the pain or prevent future degeneration. If there was any reasonable chance of either or both of those outcomes we would recommend surgery, but as things are we cannot make that recommendation.
I went to see the best specialists in South Africa and Britain, and all the experts agreed. No problem.
Incidentally, I had those medical tests thanks to my membership of a health insurance fund. How I came to have that health insurance is an interesting story.
When I was in Bible College, my church in London had a new heat pump installed in the basement of the building. But it was not implemented correctly. One dark, rainy night, when I was leaving the building, I noticed boiling water pouring off the main roof onto a lower roof. I did not know what it was, but I was afraid that it might cause an electrical fire. So I decided to investigate — not by going back inside and up the stairs to look out a window with a torch to see what it was, but by climbing up on the spike-topped cast iron railing that surrounded the old building. The railing was wet. My foot slipped. And one of the spikes went through my ribs and into my chest, driving my pectoral muscle into my lung. I was impaled and there was no one around.
That was only the beginning of calamities. Getting off the spike was the second. And the third was that the British National Health Scheme was in such a bad way that the hospital staff asked me to "be a good Christian" and sign myself out of hospital while I was still in need of treatment. They promised that they would send visiting nurses around to repack my chest.
We had no money for private health insurance (I was a seminary student at the time) and I wanted to "be a good Christian", so I signed myself out of hospital. Then my chest became infected and I almost failed my last year of Bible College. So I said, "I can live like this, but God forbid that it should happen to my wife and children". And although it cost us a lot of money by our standards at the time, we have had health insurance ever since.
I went into hospital last December to have the tests on my neck. But somebody goofed up. I was supposed to have a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, but they had me down for something called a “cerebral angiogram”. Some clerk not trained in medical terminology goofed the thing up. Thanks to my medical training, I knew the difference between the two procedures and was able to redirect the hospital staff. I spotted the mistake in time and everything turned out all right. But what would have happened if I did not have that medical knowledge? Anyone who didn’t know what a cerebral angiogram was would have had the wrong test.
This is Page 1 of 14
Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.