Why Do We Use The King James Version?

-bulletin note from Sunday, June 23, 2013
There are whole volumes dedicated to this subject, but here I’ll just give a brief summation. 1. We use it because it has obviously been blessed by the hand of God. It is one thing which has remained constant and unchanged in its over 400 year reign. It is the Bible to which all other versions are compared. 2. It has all the marks of God’s providential preservation. 3. It was produced at the point in time where the English language had reached the apex of its development. As a matter of fact, the English language, and the English dictionary itself owes its standardization to the rise of the King James Version, and its popular acceptance. It quickly became the standard, and has remained so ever since. 4. The world has never since been able to duplicate the level of scholarship and experience that was assembled for the production of the King James Version. Contrary to the pride and arrogance often displayed by some modern translators, the 54 men who dedicated 7 years of labor to the KJV displayed a sense of humility, and a recognition that their task could only be accomplished by the hand and help of God. 5. Unlike “modern” versions, the KJV committee worked to simply translate the Word of God, rather than trying to offer their interpretations. With other translations you are often getting what the translator thought the passage meant, and not the actual translation of the words from one language to another. God never intended his eternal truth to be reduced to the “lowest common denominator.” For example, with the ever evolving and changing NIV, over 64,000 words have been removed in the producers attempts to “simplify” the Bible. Hoping for a fresh income stream they later put out a “gender neutral” NIV, in a nod to those who would like to see an androgynous culture, where the distinctions between male and female are erased. That particular version of the NIV was a colossal flop at the time, but other iterations of it have lately been pushed. 6. The KJV is the only version which has earned the title “Authorized Version.” The KJV doesn’t have the “income producing potential” of the modern versions, because they cannot copyright it as they have all other versions. Virtually all the other English translations out there, (there are over 200), are an admixture of the Word of God and the word of men. The only one you can confidently assert as being purely the preserved Word of God is the tried and true King James Version. God has challenged pastors to “study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2Tim. 2:15 If I want to look at what others think a passage is talking about, I can go to one of the many commentaries available, but when I open the Bible I’m looking to see what God said rather than looking at what someone thought God might have been saying. Hang on to “the Old Book!”