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.

An article written by Nathan Deatrick sparked a debate between myself and Mark Ward over the question of whether or not the words in the KJV really are archaic.  One of my friends had shared the article.  I commented, and Mark decided to risk opening communications with me once again.  I suspect that he now wishes he hadn’t.

A friend of mine, Pastor Nathan Deatrick, recently published an article calling for major updates to the King James Version of the Bible.[1] Nathan’s arguments are not new, but they have been gaining ground within my own circle of friends over the past few years. Since I’ve had opportunity to study and discuss these arguments on many occasions, I decided to write a response detailing some of the problems I see in Nathan’s position.

One of the tests that I use for determining the validity of a biblical text or translation is the test of inerrancy.  This is one of the primary reasons that I prefer the Textus Receptus over the critical text.  If the Word of God is inerrant, then the critical text cannot be the pure Word of God, for it contains many errors that are overlooked simply because the compilers of that text do not hold to the doctrine of inerrancy.