Out of all of Mark Ward’s so-called “false friends” that I’ve studied so far, the word convenient has come the closest to being an actual “false friend,” yet Ward has devoted remarkably little effort to studying and discussing this word. I’ve found Ward’s scholarship to be sloppy in general, but the section of his book devoted to the word convenient is even worse. If Ward actually wanted to prove his case with logic and reason, this term would be one of his prime examples, but I suspect that it lacks the emotional appeal to fit within his normal modus operandi. I’m going to begin by correcting Ward’s shoddy scholarship and presenting the case that he should have made before arguing against that case and demonstrating that convenient is not a “false friend” after all.

Mark Ward claims the word commendeth is a “false friend” he has “rediscovered for the twenty-first century.” Yes. Those are his exact words, and lest we think Ward is being facetious with that claim, he immediately follows it with “I’m not exaggerating.” I’m not entirely sure what Ward thinks he has rediscovered, but his video on this word is one of the worst examples of scholarship I’ve ever seen.

John 14:2 is a passage that is often brought up in discussions of the differences between the KJV and other translations, and it is no surprise to find the word mansions from this passage listed among Mark Ward’s “false friends.” In his video on this word, Ward follows the typical anti-KJV argument by saying that “there’s an obvious contextual conflict. What in the world does it mean for the Father’s house to have many mansions inside it? Mansions are houses.” Regarding the Greek word translated as “mansions,” Ward claims, “The word means ‘room.’” Room is the word that most modern translations use here, and it has become widely accepted as accurate. Ward claims that the KJV translators also understood the Greek word to mean room and that they only used the word mansion because that word used to mean “room.” Ward is mistaken on several counts.

Let me begin this article by explaining why I am going through these “false friends” in this order. I am not just choosing the “false friends” that are the easiest to refute. I was asked to review the “false friends” that Ward mentioned in his debate with Dan Haifley before moving on to the rest of Ward’s claims. This seemed reasonable to me since I expected Ward to have brought out his best examples for the occasion. I thought that this approach would allow me to deal with the most difficult and challenging words first before moving on to Ward’s weaker examples. Unfortunately, it appears that Ward did not use his best examples in the debate. (At least, I hope for the sake of his followers that those were not his best examples, that those are not the examples that have convinced so many young pastors to latch on to Mark Ward’s teachings.)

My previous articles have run a bit long even for me, but this one will be much shorter. This particular “false friend” claim is so simple to refute that it wouldn’t be worth writing about except for the fact that it perfectly demonstrates the poor quality of Mark Ward’s scholarship.

As I’m going through Mark Ward’s list of “false friends” in the KJV, I’ve gotten a few requests for reviewing particular words on his list. One of those requests was for the word study in II Timothy 2:15. Ward claims that modern readers are incapable of reading this word as a reference to anything other than the acquisition of knowledge. The word used in this passage actually means “to earnestly endeavor” or “to pursue diligently.” The Greek word translated here literally means “to put feet to something.” It was a euphemism similar to our English phrase “put your back into it.” Thus, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God” could be written as “Earnestly endeavor to shew thyself approved unto God.”
 
There are many people who misunderstand this verse because they read it with the wrong definition of study in mind, and if Ward had merely pointed this out, I would have no disagreement with him on this verse. Ward’s claim, however, goes far beyond the idea that many people misread this verse. He claims that the correct definition of study in this verse is so obsolete that it has passed out of use entirely, and modern readers are hopelessly bound to read this verse as a command to acquire more knowledge. I’ll focus mostly on the word study in this article, but stick with me to the end for some hilarious observations of other claims Ward made in his videos.

I am in the process of going through Mark Ward’s list of “false friends” in the KJV. These are words that Ward has determined no longer mean today what they meant when the KJV was translated. As I pointed out in the previous article, Ward has practically zero literary training or experience to prepare him for this task. I am going through his list using my extensive knowledge of English literature combined with the tools that I use as a researcher to determine which if any of Ward’s “false friends” actually fit in that category.

Tom Balzamo co-hosts the Reason Together podcast with my friend Dan Fox, and he recently published a critique of my article "Bibles and Plowboys." I've never met Tom, but I have enjoyed listening to him on the podcast. I've found that I agree with him on many issues, but his recent critique demonstrated that we disagree on the issue of Bible translation. You can read Tom's critique at this link, and you can find my response to Tom below.

At the request of several friends, I decided to read Mark Ward’s book Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible. In that book Ward takes the position that using the KJV for anything other than personal study is a sin. Ward wrote: “For public preaching ministry, for evangelism, for discipleship materials, indeed for most situations outside individual study, using the KJV violates Paul’s instructions in I Corinthians 14.”

One of the most frequently heard complaints about the KJV is that people don’t like reading the words thee, thou, and thy. They would much rather read a version that only uses the words you and your instead. No one has any difficulty understanding that thee, thou, and thy are second-person pronouns, but they don’t like these words because they are different from the way we normally communicate in modern society.