The Scripture teaches that we are to come to unity of the faith, to be with one mind and one mouth. (see, Psalm 133, Ephesian 4, Romans 15) Unity in truth is more important than what one's personal opinions are on various textual hypotheses or the perceived perfection of translation, and that unity must be consistent with the Regula Fidei of the historic Reformed Confessions. There is only one english version that maintains that continuity, that is the Authorized Version.

Biblical criticism has created a multitude of schism's in the Church and made it a battleground where a radical individualism is asserted that is contradictory to all Reformed Confessions. It is simply impossible that Sola Scriptura be maintained consistent with the Regula Fidei when multiple translations are in use that are also based upon multiple texts. How can people come to unity of the faith when they disagree with what God even said? How can they know that differences are translational or textual, outside of readily apparent deletions? Critical proponents argue that the Regula Fidei is maintained because some other text maintains a doctrinal teaching, when a particular text that the Confession utilizes has been mutilated. It's simply not true, if there is textual and confessional discontinuity then there cannot be unity of the Faith, because Sola Scriptura has never meant that the individuals preference superseded the Regula Fidei. Nor has the Regula Fidei been some fuzzy principle that a teaching can be derived from some other Scripture that is no longer present. The Church is double minded today and because of that it is unstable in all of its ways. (James 1:8)

What you are preaching and what the congregation may be reading are not of one mind and one mouth. And there is also a radical discontinuity proposed in the government of the body and the soul when the critical texts are taken up. Even if I believed the critical texts were right and were "closer to the original," I wouldn't depart from the Authorized Version. It's just lawlessness. Since all of these versions are in fact all different hypothetical texts, it is a tremendous problem.

We are also commanded to serve Christ in both our bodies and our spirits (1 Cor 6:20) but one of the major issues that seems to be completely ignored is that no Bible based upon the critical text has any standing at law. Only the Authorized Version has standing at law and when it is taught it provides a word that has real continuity over both body and spirit whereby the Christian man brought under submission to the Holy Ghost can assert his duty.

The Christian profession of faith will and must necessarily move toward a public confession consistent with the Great Commission teaching the nations to obey whatsoever God has commanded. It is a double edged sword, law and gospel, that the saints have the honour of binding Kings and nobles unto the law of God (Psalms 149:6-9). When Christians, though, no longer recognize the Providential working of God in history and the great gift He has given the Church in an established Bible that has an apostolic witness that the heathen is required to receive for the protection, peace and purity of Christ's Church, then he has abandoned the faith. I know that is a harsh saying, but governments are part of the Church as well, and we are commanded to obey every ordinance of man as well. In America the Bible doesn't just pop up in 1901 with the proposition that the Vatican is the proper repository of the text of Scripture - it is part of the organic foundation just as much as the Constitutions are and the proper repository is the English Common Law.

Illinois is a Northwest Ordinance State, if God has called you to service in Illinois then in my belief one needs to consider Providence's work in history, and the covenantal foundations of that. Where you can preach and teach the gospel and do it from the Scripture's in a fully covenantal sense with continuity between law and gospel, then you should do that. It may be old and archaic to you and many other people, it's not to God though, He works through His covenant and works through human covenants that are consistent with that.

I believe our calling is to work toward unity of the faith, to develop the Church into having one mind and one mouth to the Glory of God, not to engage the public life of the Church into an academic debate over textual perfection.

I would encourage you to pray about it and seek the unction of the Holy Spirit and if you feel so led, try preaching and teaching from the Authorized Version. There is power there and covenantal continuity there that the majority of the Reformed Church has abandoned. See for yourself what the fruit is "for by there fruits ye shall know them."

Cordially in Christ,

Thomas

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Thomas Weddle
Member, Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church
Evansville, Indiana