Our Book's Better Than Your Book

Actually the title for this should be "God's Word Isn't Good Enough For My Cult", but the old jingle for Ken-L-Ration was stuck in my head so I went with this. (And for all you folks that followed the link and are now songstuck - tuff. Welcome to my world.)

As more and more congregations fall into apostasy (such as the Presbyterian Church USA and the Episcopal church) there's going to be a lot of church shopping going on as Christians turn their back on man worshiping apostate churches and look instead for Christ centered true to the Word of God churches. I have a sad feeling that the Christ centered true to the Word of God churches will soon be in the minority while cults and apostate groups grow and abound. I pray that this won't happen, but current events and biblical prophesy say otherwise. So I want to send a bit of advice to disaffected servants of Christ as they walk through the darkness looking for a congregation to call their home church:

Stay away from any group that has made their own bible

2 Timothy 3:16 tells us that All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. Nowhere in the bible does it say "This is just a suggestion..." the bible is the word of God, man was inspired by the Holy Spirit and captured on paper. vellum, parchment, papyrus, what ever. Cults and apostate congregations claim that the Bible isn't the Word of God, it just contains the word of God. To which I say - Jesus believed that the scriptures are the word of God, and he said so numerous times; Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:13, John 10:35. In the Scriptures "Thus says the Lord" occurs over 400 times in the Old Testament, "God said" occurs 42 times in the Old Testament and four times in the New Testament, and "God spoke" occurs 9 times in the Old Testament and 3 times in the New Testament. If you're going to argue with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit do so at your own risk. 

There are many cults and groups that have no problem disagreeing with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and take it upon themselves to change, modify and re-write the Word of God to suit their own desires. These are the groups you may wish to avoid 

Mormons not only have their own bible (the Book of Mormon) but when Joseph Smith (the founder of the LDS church) wrote the Book of Mormon he soon realized that he had a problem. It didn't take long to realize that parts of the Book of Mormon contradicted the Bible. Joseph Smith proclaimed that the problem was that errors had been introduced into the Bible so he went and wrote a whole new bible, which he called the Inspired Version of the Bible.

The Inspired Version of the Bible is chock full of new and inventive verses designed solely to uphold Mormon doctrine. Here's one of my favorites:

Gen. 4:11 “And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying, were it not for our transgression, we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.”

This is so weird it's sad. There's no corresponding verse in any document that even comes close to this. Eve was overjoyed that she now must bear children in pain? And what's this concept that "we should never have had seed..."? Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply before the fall, that occurred in Genesis 1:28 in the real bible (Gen I:30 in the Inspired Version). To see more of Joseph Smith's recreational changes to the bible click here.

The Jehovah's Witnesses are a doomsday cult whose doomsday has come and gone not once but twice. They too have their very own bible called the New World Translation. The New World Translation is unique in one thing – it is the first intentional, systematic effort at producing a complete version of the Bible that is edited and revised for the specific purpose of agreeing with a group's doctrine. GotQuestions.org tells us this about the New World Translation:

The New World Translation renders the Greek term word staurós ("cross") as "torture stake" because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus was crucified on a cross. The New World Translation does not translate the words sheol, hades, gehenna, and tartarus as "hell” because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe in hell. The NWT gives the translation "presence" instead of “coming” for the Greek word parousia because Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ has already returned in the early 1900s. In Colossians 1:16, the NWT inserts the word “other” despite its being completely absent from the original Greek text. It does this to give the view that “all other things” were created by Christ, instead of what the text says, “all things were created by Christ.” This is to go along with their belief that Christ is a created being, which they believe because they deny the Trinity.

The most well-known of all the New World Translation perversions is John 1:1. The original Greek text reads, “the Word was God.” The NWT renders it as “the word was a god.” This is not a matter of correct translation, but of reading one's preconceived theology into the text, rather than allowing the text to speak for itself. There is no indefinite article in Greek (in English, "a" or "an"), so any use of an indefinite article in English must be added by the translator. This is grammatically acceptable, so long as it does not change the meaning of the text. (Source)

The Roman Catholic Church has their own bible, several versions actually, all of them are identical in translation to Protestant bibles except for an additional 12 books; Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Ecclesiasticus, Sirach, and Baruch. The Catholic Bible also includes additions to the books of Esther and Daniel. These 12 books are called The Apocrypha, which means "Hidden"

There are reputed to be 263 quotations and 370 allusions to the Old Testament in the New Testament and not one of them refers to the Apocrypha. The apocryphal books themselves make reference to what we call the Silent 400 years, where there was no prophets of God to write inspired materials, so how could they be considered inspired? Not one of them is in the Hebrew language, which was alone used by the inspired historians and poets of the Old Testament. None of the writers lays any claim to inspiration

In fact the Roman Catholic Church rejected the Apocrypha until they were officially canonized at the Council of Trent. They were included in the Roman Catholic Bible because the Apocrypha contained material which supported certain Catholic doctrines, such as purgatory, praying for the dead, and the treasury of merit. The Apocrypha is the birth place of indulgences:2 Maccabees 12:43-45 - "2.000 pieces of silver were sent to Jerusalem for a sin-offering...Whereupon he made reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin." Ecclesiasticus 3:30 - "Water will quench a flaming fire, and alms maketh atonement for sin." 

The Apocrypha also teaches immoral practices magical incantation which is prohibited by the real bible:

If the Devil, or an evil spirit troubles anyone, they can be driven away by making a smoke of the heart, liver, and gall of a fish...and the Devil will smell it, and flee away, and never come again anymore (Tobit 6:5-8)

The Message of the Bible is not a translation  but a paraphrase of the bible. The primary goal was to inject Eugene Peterson's personal vision of the Emergent Church into what was once the Word of God and is now a sad, sorry parody of the Bible. I've written a few posts on it in the past. 

The New Apostolic Reformation is producing a bible of their very own, the Passion Translation. Like the Message it's not a translation, it's a perversion of a translation written, like the other versions I've listed, to support an unbiblical view of theology, to justify heresy. A self appointed 'apostle', Brian Simmons of Stairway Ministries is releasing his own view of the Bible in installments. Brian injects his own thoughts and ideas into the book. Simmons claims he undertook this work because he saw a need for a more emotionally passionate translation of the Bible that speaks to the heart. 

18 But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 20 These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.” (Matthew 15:18-20)

Holly Pivec at Spirit of Error blog does an outstanding job exposing the Passion transliteration.

Which of course brings us the the Queen James heresy. The Queen James hardly made a ripple when it came on scene in 2012. I remember asking a pastor what he thought of it less that a year ago, and he thought I was making a bad joke. The Queen James bible is the King James version with a very few select verses changed. Of course the changes are to scrub the bible of "homophobic" language and tries to make the sin of homosexuality palatable to the world. My question is "what makes your sin so much better than others?"

Matt Slick at CARM gives us a rundown on the Queen James. I haven't seen any reports of any church using it, but I wouldn't be surprised if a Queen James Message came out for the Presbyterians.