"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 Quoting People Out of Context
In page after page, Riplinger attacks people. She does not attack people's views or teaching, but rather she slanders them, usually by taking things they said out of the context in which they said it. And on that false or distorted basis, she tries to say they are this or that or the other. In a court of law, the rules of jurisprudence prevent this method of argument; Riplingers' attacks would simply be thrown out. Neither would it stand up in academic theology. In a scholarly debate her methods would be torn to bits.
For example, she attacks Edwin Palmer, the executive secretary of the NIV committee. Riplinger accuses Palmer of denying that the Holy Spirit played a role in the conception, the "begetting", of Jesus and tries to link his views to Mormon theology. (3)
She probably doesn't know it, but the Greek word is monogenes, which includes far more than the English word "beget". Palmer made the statement (5) – "The Holy Spirit did not beget the Son" – in relation to the eternal begetting of the Son from the Father within the Trinity. It had nothing to do with Mary's begetting of Jesus. Riplinger quotes Palmer – out of all context – then follows with another quote from the Mormon, Brigham Young, regarding the physical conception of Jesus through Mary. Palmer (6) says directly, in another place in his book, that the "Holy Spirit was needed at the very start of Jesus' human life, at his incarnation. By the word incarnation we mean the act by which the second Person of the Trinity, remaining God, 'became flesh and lived for a while among us' (John 1:14)."
Riplinger has taken one statement by Palmer, out of context, in order to falsely accuse him of denying the Holy Spirit's involvement in Jesus' physical conception, when Palmer – in the same book – has explicitly stated that the Holy Spirit was involved.
Wayne House (6) comments that, "This is careless scholarship or confused theology at best, but it may be outright deception on her part to prove her ill-founded theory about the supposed heresies of the NIV."
Riplinger's method of suggesting that Edwin Palmer is a heretic is identical to that used against Jesus. "We heard Him say, 'I will destroy this temple made with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands.'" (Mark 14:58).
They took the things He said out of context, and out of the overall context of His teaching, and falsely accused Him. This is the method of Satan – the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10). I do not like the NIV, but I am not going to go around telling people that Edwin Palmer is like the Mormons just because I disagree with him from a scholarly perspective. Our disagreement does not make the man a heretic.
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.