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David's Testimony
David has done extensive research on
bible versions and has used different resources to teach from. I think
you'll find his testimony to be a blessing. He understands the dangers of
using corrupted versions and corrupted manuscripts from which to
translate. Read his testimony below:
My Testimony (Long)
I was born into a Christian family. I "accepted Jesus into my heart" at
age four, but I didn't understand at the time what this meant. We attended
a local charismatic church that was a spin-off on Word of God Community in
Ann Arbor, MI. This group was made up of mostly Catholics at the time, we
Protestants were in the minority. The church eventually broke its ties
with the Word of God Community, and became a "Vineyard" Church.
I grew very little as a believer
in that church. The pastor was very liberal, and was have known to have
said that if it wasn't for abortion, he would have been a Democrat. He
once preached a sermon saying that God had created life by using
evolution. The church had some of the usual "charismatic" happenings, like
people being "slain in the spirit", but this did not happen very often.
When I was in sixth grade, my parents put me in a private school. (Huron
Valley School located in Ypsilanti, MI) This school claimed to be
non-denominational, but most of the staff and students were Catholic and
eventually after I left the school ran out of money and became an
all-Catholic school. This school did as little help as the church. They
used the Living Bible as their primary Bible. I went along with this
because it seemed easier to read, and I didn't know that the Bible
versions were different, I thought that they were all the same. I didn't
see anything wrong with it. In fact, I liked the Living Bible so much that
I started using it at home, too. Although the school claimed to be
nondenominational, most of the students and at least half of the staff
were Roman Catholic.
I kept using the LB (Living
Bible) after leaving the "Christian" school. I didn't really use it, but
if I read a bible, that's the one I would use. My aunt died the Sunday
before I started high school (08/31/97). I missed her funeral because it
was on the first day of school. My high school career was off to a bad
start. On top of this, I started reading a book my mom gave me for
Christmas entitled Is the Turin Shroud Genuine by Rodney Hoare (another
"relic" for the papists to worship). This book had a very incredible
conclusion, one that would shock any true Christian! It concluded that
Jesus had not really died, but had only been comatose, and that His
resurrection was only Him coming out of His supposed coma! This author
apparently isn't saved, because he denies the most basic Christian
doctrine that Jesus died on the cross. Unfortunately, I, not having been
taught with "sound doctrine", was inclined to believe him. These were my
spiritual dark days.
A few months later, I was
reading a set of Bible encyclopedias published by Zondervan.(I've since
learned that Zondervan promotes the TNIV and I won't use their resources).
I read through them consecutively, and when I was reading the New
Testament part, I learned the basics of Christianity, such as that Jesus
died on the cross for our sins (I always thought that this was just
another "Bible story that they taught us in Sunday School! This shows how
lousy that Vineyard "church" was!)
Well, we still kept going to
that spiritually dead church. It wasn't until my parents moved out of
Ypsilanti that we stopped attending there. I personally feel that God
moved us out of Ypsilanti to get us out of that church.
The first Bible I owned was an
AKJV (Authorized King James Version) New Testament given to me when I was
a month old. No problems there, except for the fact that I couldn't read
at the time. My second Bible was a NKJV Precious Moments edition that I
got for Resurrection Sunday one year. I read it some, but not too much. My
third Bible was another NKJV, which I got from my grandparents for my
twelfth birthday. I got little from the NKJVs, and almost nothing from the
Living Bible. I didn't really care at the time, though.
Some time in 1999 I saw a video
(Straight form the Joint Chiefs, host Al Cuppet) which talked about, in
part, the false new Bible versions. It shocked me out of using the LB, and
I went back to the NKJV, but I still didn't really care. I hardly ever
read my Bible back then, anyway. I asked for and got a Scofield KJV (1998
ed.) for Christmas 1999. I didn't really want a Scofield, I just wanted a
KJV, but my mom talked me into getting a Scofield. She didn't know any
better, either. I read the Scofield some, but the footnotes and suggested
word changes distracted me from the Word. I still didn't grow spiritually.
I rarely read the Bible, but if I did, I would use the Scofield KJV. We
finally moved on Nov. 12, 1999, to a much safer place. More of the people
in our area claim to be Christians, but their is a higher percentage of
Catholics here. We started attending a Baptist church (NIV using) on the
sole attribute that it had a good youth group. They were preaching basic,
fundamental doctrines, but since most of this I had never heard before, I
listened more readily. Even then, I was still only a "Sunday Christian." I
thought like the rest of the world outside of Church.
Finally, that winter, I forced
myself to recommit my life to Christ. At this time I was using a Scofield
KJV, but that doesn't matter because I hardly read it anyway.
The next fall, I went on a
retreat with the Church youth group to Honey Rock Camp, which is somewhere
in central Wisconsin. Hitherto I had been possessed with my hobby in
electronics, but now that obsession was being replaced with another one.
It still wasn't Christ, but this obsession eventually led me back to Him.
When I returned from the retreat, I prayed and asked God to help me to
stop putting my electronics hobby first in my life. He helped me, but I
still didn't put Him first in my life. My new obsession was first in my
life, but God still was near last. My Obsession? I held that any bible at
all was good as long as it had “Holy Bible” on it. I believe that anything
at all was better than nothing and that there were no “bad translations”,
after all, who in their right mind would mess with the bible?
In January 2001, I started
putting my trust back in Him, and allowed Him to be Lord over some (but
not all) areas of my life. I took the first step of obedience by being
baptized, which I had put of for a while. In the end, I am glad that I was
not baptized in the Vineyard church.
Even after this, things were
still not going well in my spiritual life. I forced myself to read my
Bible fifteen minutes a night, but nothing sank in. It was like my eyes
were blinded to the truth. My obsession became the lord of my life; I
seldom thought about any thing other than it. This obsession lead me to
believe lies and to try to prove things that were un provable. In fact,
most evidence pointed to the exact opposite of what I was trying to prove,
but just like Darwin and Westcott and Hort, I ignored most of the opposing
evidence. I needed to be free from this, and that would take a miracle.
In late March 2001, I remembered
that my dad would always say "The truth will set you free." I decided to
see if this came from the Bible, so I looked it up in a concordance. I
found John 8:32: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you
free." I wrote this one down, as well as John 14:6 and John 8:36 ("If the
Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.")
On April 8, 2001 (Palm Sunday),
the strongest evidence against my claim was forced in my face. It
was impossible to refute it. I was forced to give up my
obsession, because it was obviously in error. I knew the truth, and the
truth had made me free from this obsession. Later in the day, I Iearned
what I should do: turn back to God. I felt God telling me that He wanted
me to research and expose false Bible versions. First, I had to start
reading my own Bible. My Scofield quickly proved itself a piece of junk
and full of errors from the beginning.
It is a 1998 edition, which
contains the original KJV readings, but the footnotes and "suggested word
changes" confused me and they tended to agree with the corrupted versions.
I bought a cheap $5 KJV from Wal-Mart, intending on using it only for
school, and using the Scofield as my primary Bible at home, but the Holy
Ghost convicted me of using the Scofield, and I now use only the cheap
KJV. I see now that it DOES matter whether the Word of God has changed or
not.
Thank you for Teaching on bibles
and changes. It is something that everyone needs to hear even if they
don’t wish to.
Please don’t publish my last
name, or my email address.
Thanks, David.
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