Today the I read an post from Joe Carter from the Gospel Coalition about a new version of the Bible called the Queen James Bible. The editors of the new Bible are, presumably, homosexual. I say this because this new version takes out all reference to homosexuality being a sin.
The claim is that before 1946 there were no reference to homosexuality in the Bible. They say that later interpreters put in references to homosexuality in the text in order to discriminate against those that were homosexual. I haven’t been able to find any evidence either way (if you find some hit me up on twitter @MrMikeMoore).
However I don’t really think that’s the point. Why even come out with a new version of the Bible if your only going to change a few verses around to go along with your agenda. As Mr. Carter points out in his short article anyone could take the verse out that they don’t like and make a number of different “versions” of the Bible to fit greed, lust, anger and more.
I think the point here is that we, as humans, really don’t like to feel as if we are wrong. We don’t like to feel as if we are sinners. We want to be right about everything. This makes it much easier for us to be happy and do whatever we please. If we are always right we rarely have to repent of anything. In fact the only things we would ever need to repent for are the things that we ourselves deem as wrong.
The Bible, however, deals with us in a different manner. We, as the scripture puts it, are enemies of God and this requires repentance (Romans 5:10). We could, with some fancy word play, change the words around to make it sound better. We might even feel better about our sin and not feel the need to repent. We could even call it the God’s Friends Bible.
In the end it would make no difference. Without Jesus’ death and resurrection no word play saves our souls. We might feel better about our sin in the here and now but when we die we still have to face a Holy God.
I pray that we, as Christians, are first humbled and know that we often do the same things the editors of this new version do. We try to talk our way out of our sin and if that doesn’t work we use word play. We need to repent first and run to the cross. Secondly, we should pray for our brothers and sisters that struggle with homosexuality. They need true fellowship not condemnation just like each of us. Lastly, lets pray for the church. Pray that she grows in love for sinners and strength to preach right doctrine.
Pastor Mike Moore 