Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine, 1st Timothy 4:15.
A little humor to illustrate a point; English is a diverse tongue spoken differently in various sections of the globe, and most of its speakers in their variant idioms have become sloppy in using it. The Christian Commercial Complex is busily cranking out hundreds of bible versions which financially capitalize on the sloppy usage of language among the general population. They bank on the almost universal resistance to exact thought, and the resistance to language and punctuation necessary to convey exact thought.
Two hundred years ago, the public education system was the answer to that problem. The great gift given to students of that time was the gift of reading English and the ability to break down sentences and paragraphs to better understand them. The parts of speech were diligently taught along with the punctuation that gave order and direction to written speech.
Those who completed the 8th grade could drop out, work on farms, work in factories, or run general stores. They could read classic literature along with the English Bible. They could understand political debate, manage their finances, appreciate nature, make a living, send their children to school and sometimes, on to the university. Often, it was men and women from this demographic who invented great machines, led great political movements, preached the gospel, fought in wars, and far exceeded any expectation that we would have today for a person with only 8 years of formal schooling. They did so because that 8 years of education taught them the structure of thought and ability to express it.
It was in such a world that English speaking people became the first major demographic to hate and ban slavery. It was from such a populace that the mechanics of good government, civic freedom, and personal liberty were bequeathed to future generations. If you read any of the literature or writings of these people, you will see that they did not speak or write in King James English.
They spoke in the idioms and dialects of their individual homesteads and families. But, they wrote in the universally accepted language of their day, adhering to the rules of grammar as taught. Just as every scientific measurement needs an absolute standard for the length of a meter and the weight of a gram, the King James Bible should be the absolute standard for English.
It never changes and it is grammatically perfect. It conveys the exactness of Hebrew and Greek in an exact language that unfortunately for today's slack populace, requires the exact same diligence of thought that Hebrew and Greek require.
Mass media, YouTube, TikTok, and Hollywood have become the standard for unifying the English Language around the world. There is absolutely no need to cultivate a fine thinking or reasoning process in order to absorb any of those mediums. Gibberish in thought, carnal sensual reasoning, and a general ignorance of the past are the results.
Men, women, and children are held captive through their lust for quick flashy images, sensual rubbish, and outright pornographic images. When we hear a modern commentator speak of the need to produce a bible that speaks to such a people on their level, we are hearing a commentator who has no idea how to educate an unbelieving populace to the point that the weight of God's thought can be conveyed to them in a distinct, accurate, and holy manner.
It is occurring to me more and more that if just a small fraction of the time it takes to dumb down the bible enough for such a people were spent in teaching those same people a few simple truths about the English of the King James Bible, those same people could be launched into a rich lifetime of exploring the word of God from an infallible source and in so doing elevate their own ability to think and reason.
God designed an institution to educate people. It's called the local church. But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, 1st Timothy 3:15.
With no apologies to you purists who think that the local church is only for the saved, we have regularly filled pews with people who had no saving testimony. We have taken the time to teach each, and every one of them who was willing, learned the splendor and accuracy of the King James Bible. We have patiently waited as they griped about the pronouns. We have patiently shown them the value to an exact language. We have watched as they began to be ashamed of their lifestyle.
We have watched as the word of God convicted them of their sin until they cried out to Jesus Christ for deliverance from sin. Of the 60 or 70 people who will show up at the Black Creek Baptist Church on any given Sunday, at least half of them had no interest in the bible or church prior to coming here. Most of them resented reading anything.
Most young people don't even read comic books anymore. They just endlessly stare at their phones as whirling images dance by their faces. We have seen the miracle of people putting their phones down and reading their bibles. We have heard as poorly educated, drug infested, media influenced people begin to speak coherently. We have seen the evidence of their thought processes becoming rational. We have seen families made whole and wholesome.
People can learn. They can be enriched by the King James Bible. The Christian Commercial Complex preys on the ignorant with all of the zeal of a Mexican drug cartel importing fentanyl to our streets. Who stands in the gap for such a people? And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none, Ezekiel 22:30.
The primary reason that pastors and churches reject what I say, is that they have no idea how to affect the populace in the vicinity of their respective churches. They have hung gospel literature on the doors. They have knocked on every door. They have handed out countless gospel tracts, but if you survey their membership and attendees, you will find almost zero results.
The art of carving out a people for Jesus Christ from among the general populace is effectively a lost art in the English Speaking Culture. Those of you who are pastors, can you affect your local neighborhood? Can you single out families or individuals within a mile of your church and inculcate a desire in them to know what the word of God says?
Do you even desire that? Or, have you surrendered to the lethargy of our age in which your labor to keep your church interested, and hope to attract other likeminded people? Our website is called one soul at a time. (www.onesoulatatime.net) It is called that because we single out one soul at a time. We invest in that life. We have people with whom we have worked for over 15 years and still see no change, but we have others who now lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting after only a few years.
From the property of our rural church in a township of 700 people located in a county of only 41,000 people, I can see 6 houses from which people regularly come to hear preaching at the Black Creek Baptist Church. Each of those houses has people who had no interest in the things of God 17 years ago when I got here. Within a five mile range we have many more.
Our critics would be easier to stomach if they actually had the ability to carve out a people for Jesus Christ. If we could go to their churches and find families or even individuals who now live lives sanctified unto Jesus Christ, if we could go into those people's houses and see the evidence of true christian character, and if we knew that the men or women who criticize our ways could actually produce real fruit, we would gladly hear them.
People can be taught. What is missing is teachers who know how to teach.