Can you provide me with a recommendation for a Bible?

[Chad]

(This is an archived correspondence at The Path of Truth. We have sent notification to the correspondent.)


Hi,

First I'd like to say thank you both for the site and standing up against what is main stream and popular to provide the true Gospel. My question is can you provide me with a recommendation for a Bible that will provide the true Gospel with accuracy. Most of the current Bible's such as the one I have now is so corrupted by man. I have been searching but just haven't been able to find anything accurate from original scripture. I appreciate a recommendation that you may have?

Regards,

Chad

[Paul Cohen]

Hi Chad,

Can you explain to us how you know that all the versions of Scriptures you've seen are corrupted from the original if you haven't ever seen the original Scriptures uncorrupted? Not saying you couldn't know, but if you can tell where there's corruption, why do you need a perfect rendering of the original?

That's how we've gotten along - working with imperfect Bibles. Have you been reading from How We View and Use the Scriptures?

You'll see that we quote from different Bible versions on our site - the KJV, MKJV, ESV, HNV, GNB, GW among others, even including the paraphrased MSG, in places where Peterson got the meaning right in a uniquely effective way.

Are you using E-Sword? It's a free Bible program you can load on your computer. We highly recommend it (www.e-sword.net). There's also an online Bible resource, where you can check out many versions - www.biblegateway.com.

Let us know how you do, and tell us more about yourself and your spiritual journey.

Paul

[Chad]

Hi Paul,

I didn't mean to take so long to get back to you. I meant to write back the other day. I apologize if I came off in such a manner that I have actual facts, which I do not. Only what I have read. I have just read about mistranslated words such as forever or ever wrongly translated in English when they are meant to read age or ages. I have also come across the "hell doctrine" and how many different Bible versions have used hell in the Bible compared to other versions. Things such as that is what prompted my question, but not long after my email to you I came across some information you all provided while reading a link I found on your site's site map.

As you all stated, there is no perfect Bible today, and I was just in search of finding a Bible that was closest to the original scriptures as possible because I didn't want to be misguided by man's errors. But I know God's plan is without error and the Bibles we have today are here because he allowed them to be here in the form that they are. If he didn't want them to be this way then it wouldn't be, right?

The information you provided from the page "Is the KJV the most accurate Bible" answered a lot of my question. Not to get caught up in worshipping the Bible, which I honesty wasn't doing, but worship God and God alone. And you are correct, if a person knows what is incorrect why would they need a prefect rendering of the original? They wouldn't.

As for me and my spiritual journey, I'm a sinner, but not long ago turned my life over to Jesus Christ! Prior to this I believed in God and Jesus but knew nothing of the Bible or even being close to accepting Jesus and repenting of my sins. I'm 33, my wife and I have 2 kids and another little one on the way. We live in Michigan, United States. After asking Jesus to save me, and asking for forgiveness, I have changed my life for the better in so many ways. I have been reading nothing but scripture as where I used to read the news and politics on a daily and regular basis. As I continued to read some things just didn't make sense like the hell doctrine and the denominations created by men to worship as they see fit. I don't want to be lutheran, baptist, methodist, or catholic, ect. I just want to worship God as he instructed me to, not as a denomination says I should. Reading the most accurate scripture available today, I thought it would provide me with more of his proper guidance.

I came upon your's and Victor's site and it has provided me with a lot of answers that just don't make sense in what a lot of people believe in the current mainstream church as I call it.

Again sorry if came off as knowing the original scripture, when in fact I have never seen or touched it. I was just going by what I researched that the Hebrew word "Sheol" being turned into hell, and Greek "Aions" being turned into ever or forever in English, as an example. That is what prompted my email. Thank you so much for your email and I look forward to a reply if or when you have the time.

Thank you again,

Chad

[Paul Cohen]

Hi Chad,

You didn't come off to us in your first letter as it may have appeared to you from my reply. My question was intended to point you to the fact that if you know the Scriptures aren't perfect, perhaps it's because you're hearing from God and He is causing you to understand His Word, discerning between truth and error. That's definitely a good thing!

It certainly sounds like the Lord is doing something for you and your family. If so, you'll want to continue reading on our site, which is like an amplified Bible, God giving understanding and application of His Word to those who believe. This is what He does when He raises up ministers in His Body.

“Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in Word and doctrine” (1 Timothy 5:17 MKJV).

A few writings that come to mind from what you've written in your letter:

The Church
The Case for Coming Out
The Worship of God

For your information, there's a forum on our site (you can access and sign up from any page), you're invited to our weekly online Sabbath meeting with believers from around the world, and we send out replies in answer to general questions and contentions to a mailing list.

If you're interested in either of the latter two items, let us know and we'll do what's needed to get you started. The Lord is here to minister to all who seek His fellowship in truth.

Paul

[Chad]

Hello Paul,

Sorry it has taken me a few to write you back. I wanted to make sure I read thoroughly the papers you sent me in your last email and I read additional writings on your's and Victor's site as well.

After reading what you had sent me, and all the other papers I have read on your site, everything makes sense as I have searched and searched and come up empty over and over countless dead end opinions and sites.

I want to share more about myself from my up bringing to where I am today if I can? I grew up in a small town about an hour north of Detroit, Michigan. I had a normal childhood in the terms of a normal "American" childhood as described by people today. My family has never really had money(which I am glad our family has never been rich)but a happy family with it's issues.

I didn't grow up going to church and was never made to go. Up until the age of 20 I "believed" if you want to call it that but loosely. After about that age and the time I joined the Army, with all of my foolish wisdom of a young man I choose to be a non believer until the age of 26. When I was 26, I was deployed to Iraq and while I was there I didn't have any event happen to me but I one day there realized internally that I had been wrong.

I picked up a NIV Bible from my chapel on base and read the bible as best I could for the rest of my deployment and made it from the book of Genesis to half way through the book of Job.

After returning home in the beginning of 2009 I still "believed" as most people falsely do these days and quit reading my Bible for some reason. I continued on with my life in sin year after year falsely believing but still never praying or going to church. I have never gone to a church on a regular basis. I have been to a couple Sunday services for different reasons but churches never really felt right.

As I wrote above, up until a few months into this year, I just kept on with my sinful life. As for my sins, I don't have a criminal record or anything like that but my sins might as well be my criminal record. While I was in my early twenties I had an affair with a married woman while I was in the Army which disgusts me now but I can only ask for forgiveness. For a long time I had a sinful love and lust for women. Even after my marriage, I have not committed adultery sexually but with my eyes lustfully I have and confessed that to my wife. I used to cuss like a sailor and masturbate like one too. I smoked until 3 and a half years ago. I used to drink far too much Vodka, not an alcoholic but definitely a heavy binge drinker. With my cursing included God's name in vain. I hated people in general for the heinous things I read on the news daily.

Now a lot of these things I wanted to quit doing like the drinking and cursing and others but no matter how much I wanted to quit I couldn't. Time and time again I tried, and failed. I didn't know how I quit smoking because I couldn't stop anything else.
Months back near the beginning of this year something came over me, no voice, nothing like that just a feeling that I was living my life wrong and I needed to stop the way I was living. My wife at the same time felt exactly as I did. When I brought it up to her she expressed she had the same feeling and we both prayed and asked God to help us stop living the life we were leading.

Not long after a lot of those things I wanted to quit for so long, stopped. I stopped cursing, I stopped drinking, I stopped masturbating and looking at porn. No more road rage. I stopped reading the news and amazingly enough I stopped looking at people with hate and I actually want to help people. All of these things just stopped and I felt and still feel a peace in me.

So before I picked up my Bible, I had some things in my head I wanted to clear before I starting reading. For instance, Hell as we are told of today didn't make sense to me. The trinity didn't make sense to me. Denominations didn't make sense to me. Hours and hours of searching and reading and I barely got anywhere with answers.

So my wife sees this clayton jennings character on facebook and I'm watching his videos for a week and the first few days I didn't attempt to look for anything off but after a few more of his posts and a visit to his website it was clear he is what we know he is. One post he was gushing over billy graham so I sent him a message asking why he would promote an apostate such as billy graham and never received a response. So I conducted a Google search "clayton jennings false teacher" and the only link that appeared with his name and false teachings was your's and Victor's site.

After reading the interactions between Victor, you and jennings, the next day I returned to your site to find that all the answers I had been looking for were clearly, intellectually, and articulately written out with not opinion, as I read over and over from many sites, but truth backed scripturally. All the hours I spent scourging the Internet and getting no further than where I started, and I am still reading the papers you all have provided for all of us.

I do understand what it means to pick up your Cross and whole heartedly that's what I want to do. I pray now, and correctly unlike how I selfishly prayed in the past. One of the reasons it took me a little while to write you back was because of how to explain my work situation below and the Sabbath each week. I work for a large corporation on a 4 days on, 4 days off, 5:45pm to 5:45am schedule so ever few weeks for about 3 weeks straight we work the weekends which I violate Saturday's Sabbath, which I would like to be a part of as you mentioned in your last email but on the nights I work for as long as I'm at this job I wouldn't be able to make the gathering. Other things, my wife and I have sinfully been celebrating christmas, easter, birthdays and other such days for years now with our kids and I now know they have to stop.

I know first and foremost I must ask God for guidance as I have done, but is it wrong to ask of your's and Victor's guidance as well?

Thank you both so much for your responses and thank you all so much for providing the truth by God's will in a world so polluted by man's religions.

Chad

[Victor Hafichuk]

Hi Chad,

We appreciate seeing what the Lord is doing in your life and are thankful He's ministering to you by us. That's why we're here by His power and authority, so no, while you seek the Lord as did the saints in Scripture, it's not at all wrong for you to seek the counsel of the Lord's ministers, whom we are, called by Him and appointed to that task. Hasn't God provided ministries to the church for the edification of Christ's Body?

Ephesians 4:11-16 MKJV
(11) And truly He gave some to be apostles, and some to be prophets, and some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,
(12) for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
(13) And this until we all come into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full-grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
(14) so that we no longer may be infants, tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, in the dishonesty of men, in cunning craftiness, to the wiles of deceit.
(15) But that you, speaking the truth in love, may in all things grow up to Him Who is the Head, even Christ;
(16) from Whom the whole body, fitted together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of each part, producing the growth of the body to the edifying of itself in love.

As you can see at our site, we're often criticized for exposing and rebuking the works of darkness, even naming the offenders, as Paul and John did in Scripture, by the way. Yet, in doing so, earnest searchers for the Truth come to our site and receive the Truth they need to hear whereby they're made free. Isn't that good? Many have been thankful to have the Truth spelled out to them, setting their minds and hearts at ease because confused in all the conflicting teachings. We often find that they, as you, have already been receiving a witness from the Lord of what is of Him and what isn't and we serve to confirm what they've been hearing.

The Lord goes before us, with us, and after. He's the Alpha and the Omega, the First and Last. It's all His doing. Praise Him!

Read at our site, Chad; that's what it's there for, of course, and when you have questions or desire to discuss matters, write us and Lord willing, we'll be able to answer. Lord willing, you may also join our online Sabbath chats at 12 MST, where we meet with other believers from around the world. Everyone is free to participate as they choose. You can also read and participate at our Forum (ThePathofTruth.com/forum). There's also our email list correspondence that goes out almost daily. Let us know if you're interested.

Till next time, for Christ's glory,

Victor

[Chad]

Victor,

Thank you both for your responses by email and guidance. It is greatly appreciated. I would absolutely like to join the weekly Sabbath chats and the daily emails that are sent out almost daily.

I am going to continue to read both scripture and the writings on your website. I thank you both for providing God's truth through you by His will and His alone. All glory to God.

Chad

[Chad]

Hi Paul,

If you would please, take this email address out of the daily correspondence mailing list as well as remove my forum account on thepathoftruth.com.

Thank you,

Chad

[Chad]

Hi Chad,

I've removed your address from our mailing list and we deactivated your Forum account as requested. Let us know if you continue to receive notices from the latter - we're still working things out with this new feature on our site.

Why the change in course?

Paul