Correspondence with a Pastor

The following is the correspondence (on VPP) between a member of a BP church and a pastor of a reformed church of over 23 years. The BP member believes that the academic dean of the FEBC is preaching another gospel (Gal.1:8). He wrote to the pastor to seek his view regarding Jeffrey Khoo’s article (A plea for a perfect bible) and also VPP.

From: Pastor------
To: "Philip Tang" <-----@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: 100%perfectKJV. Quotations of Jeff Khoo teaching.
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2005 18:47:57 +0800

Hi Philip,

Thanks for sending me those articles. I've read them before. I do not agree with Dr Jeffrey Khoo on his view that the Heb. and Gk. text behind the KJV is an exact, perfect copy of the original autograph. Such a view would require a special, prophetic revelation from God that the original autographs would be lost in the midst of the apographs until the time of the 16th Century Reformation when, for the sake of translating the Bible into the KJV, some scholars would finalize an eclectic texts of the Hebrew and Greek languages, which would be the exact copy of the original autograph. Such a prophecy is no where even hinted in the Holy Scripture. Such an idea is extrabiblical, and a demand to believe it in order to be saved would be heretical and another Gospel. I don't believe Jeffrey would dare go so far. To suggest that the perfect, verbally and plenary inspired Word of God was lost among the apographs until the time of the Great Reformation is incorrect as it would suggest that for more than a millennium God's people was without the perfect Word of God. The perfect Word of God was never lost in this world at any time. God always preserves His Word somehow, somewhere in this world. Just because there are people who do not know what It is and where It is does not mean that it is not there. Everyone must search and study to discover it.

A belief in this view of Jeffrey Khoo implies the cessation of lower criticism of the texts of Scripture. All bible seminarians are taught how to weigh the value of different variant readings comparing them and determining what the original autograph could have been. Such a prayerful study of Scriptues can be very enriching and can unearth much treasure which superficial approach to the Word of God would never harvest. No true student of the Word would want this meaningful exercise of lower textual criticism to be taken away from them by the ascension of the Textus Receptus. Do not get me wrong, I do believe that the TR is more superior than the texts used in the modern translations. This conclusion is arrived at in the course of preparing messages where I often compare the apographs which stand behind these different translations. That the TR is superior does not mean that it is the exact copy of the autograph.

From here let me comments on the statements you quoted before.

----- Original Message -----

From: "Philip Tang" <-----@yahoo.com>
To: pastor----
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 9:11 PM
Subject: 100%perfectKJV. Quotations of Jeff Khoo teaching another gospel.

> Dear ----
>
> Thank you for sharing with me what you think of the 100% KJV perfect bible.
>
> The following are taken from two articles by Jeffrey Khoo. They must be read in the context that if someone were to say that the variant reading shows that the KJV has a scribal error, Jeff. Khoo calls him a liberal doubting the bible.

The term "scribal error" is normally not applied to any translation of The Holy Scripture, like KJV, but to the apographs. It should be obvious to all that God never guarantee a perfect translation for all time. The KJV is not the one and only, nor was it the first nor last of English Translation of the Bible. So among all the translations, who is to determine which one is the perfect English translation for all time? It is simply a fact that any language goes through changes. Anyone knows that there is such a thing a classic Greek and modern Greek; classic Chinese and modern Chinese; etc. If the first English Tranlation is the perfect English translation of all times, we will have problem reading it to day. Some uninitiated English readers today have difficulty reading the KJV, not to say the first English version of the Bible. To help the readers to day to understand the Bible whenever they read it is a very important thing. We can do that by Having another translation of the Bible into modern English or to educate the people in how to handle the old English. I doubt the church world today is in a position to do a good job of the former, but the latter is something which local churches should certainly look into to help their own members. Any way, all these are besides the point. As a version of a translation of the Bible, the KJV should never claim unique prominence above all other versions of all different translations of the Bible. There was indeed a time when the Vulgate (Latin translation of the Bible) was held in such esteem among the scholars, but not anymore.

There are much caricatures in the above statements. Whoever says that The Bible is less than perfect among conservative faithful believers? Whoever say that God is incapable of giving us a perfect Bible among us? Among the faithful who disagree with Dr Khoo, I doubt there is any who doubt their Bible nor are doubting their salvation. All these are Dr Khoo's own ideas of things. That there is no perfect bible without the TR (or any text that stands behind the KJV) is an erroneous idea. This should be obvious to all unless we want to consider that there was a period in the history of the Church when the perfect Bible was not around for God's people. There was indeed a period when the TR was not around in the midst of God's people. The substance which form the TR was around, but not the TR itself. And if consider that the substance of TR being around constituted the presence of God's perfect Bible in the midst of His people, why then the difficulty in saying that the perfect Bible is now even preserved pure with us in the midst of all the apographs? We should never deprive God's people of their calling to search God's Word to the level of the lower criticism of the text of Scriptures. Higher criticism of Scripture text is ungodly, but not the exercise of lower criticism.

The assurance of our salvation does not lie in the necessity to believe what Dr Jeffrey advocates. It lies in the knowledge of the whole tenor of Scriptures as God's children compare Scriptures with Scriptures under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thus a child of God with an imperfect translation of the Bible can also come to full assurance of salvation. If this be not true, what would the Chin people of Myanmar do, who only have a Chin Bible so poorly translated from inferior English version of the Bible? We are not here advocating that there is no need for a better translation for them, but that the Chin people need not be in despair, but be taught to compare Scriptures with Scriptures and to be aware of the weaknesses of their translation. For us who have the wonderful KJV, we still need the same approach towards the Holy Word of God, if we want to advance spiritually. Westminster speaks of this approach in that chapter on Holy Scriptures.

>
> "God forbid that we should ever make this anti-biblical statement: "The Bible contains mistakes and errors but they are so small and so minor they should not cause us any worry." If the Bible contains error, no matter how small or minor, I worry! "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (Jas 2:10). If a person says he believes in a perfect Bible, and yet denies just one verse, yea even a jot or tittle, he is guilty of denying all of the Bible."
> (PFPB)
>

To say that the KJV has some translations which are not accurate when compared with the original Greek and Hebrew texts is not to say that the Bible contains mistakes and errors. God's people would not be troubled by such statements from a Minister of God's Word. That the perfect God is pleased to use imperfect instruments for His glorious work cannot be doubted. When the rich man in hell asked for a better instrument in Lazarus to return to earth to speak to his five brothers lest they come to the same place of torment, father Abraham said that they had Moses and the prophets (refering to the teaching of O.T. by the priests and prophets on earth), which are good enough. God used the imperfect Apostle Peter instead of an angel to witness to Cornelius. As a people living in love and truth, God's people can trust each other's godly judgments and have confidence in the teaching and preaching of the Word of God. In reality, how many of us are assured of heaven because we believe we have a perfect translation of the Bible in our hand? If that is really required, I wonder how much more comforted we will be. Christians not only study the Word of God individually, but also corporately to know what that perfect Word is for us. Majority of God's people study God's Word at the translations level and not in the original Greek and Hebrew. This would be true of Jeffrey's own church as well. Can most of their members trust the KJV without having to declare it perfect without any question as to its accuracy? How about Indian Churches, can they trust their Indian Bible without having to declare their Indian version infallable? Jeffrey's view is inherently problematic and he will discover it for himself in the days to come. Rather than fighting for a special, divine status for the TR, scholars like Dr Jeffrey Khoo would do well to demonstrate to us why the TR is more superior (in approximating the autograph) as an eclectic text as compared with the other eclectic texts used in other modern translations. Meanwhile we need not doubt that we have the Word of God in our hands in those translations.

Heidelber Catechism Question 27: What dost thou mean by the providence Of God?

Answer: The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. Our Perfect God does not govern this world in such a way that there is no barren years nor sickness or poverty. Like Himself, God's Word is both transcendent as well as imminent. It is only the splendour of light that hides Him from us and not any imperfection in Him. Our perfect God is both knowable and yet incomprehensible.

>
> Hindus and Muslims all believe that their Scriptures, the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran respectively, are perfect. Yet Christians who claim to believe in the one living and true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and Christ the only Mediator and Saviour of the world, are not so quick to believe they have an existing infallible and inerrant Scripture.(EONFOB)
>

I read somewhere that the Koran has no variant reading to day not because it did not have any in its early history, but that some wise guy decided on the perfect text and consigned all other varient readings to the fire. If Dr. Jeffrey Khoo has his way, all apographs should be consigned to the fire except those that stand behind the KJV tranaslation. Let Dr Khoo know that his fire would not be able to destroy that one jot or tittle of God's perfect word, found in any of the other apographs but not in those that stand behind the KJV. It is obvious that God wants to preserve His perfect word in this world not in the same way that the Koran is being preserved. It is for us to discern the wisdom of God in the mode of preservation He had chosen for His Word. If any Christian try to consign any of the variant readings in the apographs to the fire, he or she better have a very clear mandate from God, lest he or she finds himself or herself fighting against God Who said that not one jot nor one title shall pass away.

>
>
> Indeed, if the Christian Bible is not perfect, infallible and inerrant, "then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; . If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable" (1 Cor 15:14-15, 19). (EONFOB)
>

This is a clear misquotation from the Bible. In 1Cor 15 the Apostle Paul was writing about the resurrection of the body and not about the perfect bible. The Christian Bible is indeed perfect, infallible and inerrant in the midst of the apographs and not in the TR by itself.

KJV 1 Corinthians 15:

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;

2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

There is no other gospel than the above one. If more is required of us in order to be saved, it would have been the false Gospel. By the God-given faith we believe the Gospel, repent of our sins and put our confidence and faith in Christ.

May God give you wisdom in handling your difficult situation.

God bless,

Pastor ----