Approved unto God
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, 2nd Timothy 2:15.
If the average pastor today were to be compared to an automobile mechanic, he would be like the mechanic who thought that his manual contradicted itself. In one place it told him that the crankcase should hold 4.5 quarts of oil and in another place it instructed him to drain the crankcase. Not knowing how to handle such a blatant contradiction, he reads various commentaries and checks the original languages of his German or Japanese made car and tries to puzzle out how to make his car run again.
Eventually such a man will weary himself that any manual could ever get his car running so he fills it with swaying people who groove to the latest Christian hit songs and substitutes that for a moving car. Meanwhile, some country bumpkin mechanic down the road trusts the manual he has, he rightly divides his manual and knows that the crankcase should have 4.5 quarts of oil while running, but that on a periodic basis the oil needs to be drained and changed.
Our first enlightened mechanic has contempt for this man. He now measures his effectiveness as a mechanic by how many swaying hand waving zombies he can cram into his car. He prides himself that he has researched his manual by looking up what three or four men who can read the original languages think about the manual and prides himself that he is not like the oil stained mechanic whose car actually takes people places.
For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth, 2nd Corinthians 10:18.
It is quite impossible to be approved by God using the new versions. They are virtually worthless for study. A common trait among those who don't trust their King James Bibles is to trust commentaries instead. The idea that some bumpkin who has no more educational credentials than having learned to read the English languages May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, Ephesians 3:18, is simply incomprehensible to him.
When a proponent of the new versions is doctrinally correct, it is not because his bible taught him that. It is because his inward prejudices commend that doctrine for reasons that rarely have anything to do with pleasing God. Doctrine to such a person is purely an intellectual exercise and will have far more to do with the crowd he runs with than the bible he holds.
The first step in learning to rightly divide the word of truth is to trust your King James Bible. Believe every word. Know that God desires that bible to say exactly what it says. If you think that it is contradicting itself, it is because you have put something in the wrong place.