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Quarterly Record The Magazine of the Trinitarian Bible Society • Issue Number 634 January–March 2021 T HE WORD OF GOD AMONG ALL NAT IONS Trinitarian Bible Society Founded in 1831 for the circulation of Protestant or uncorrupted versions of the Word of God Offi cers and Executive Staff of the Society President: Resources Director: Mr. D. P. Rowland Mr. D. J. Broome, C.P.F.A. Vice-Presidents: Editorial Director: Mr. G. Bidston Mr. J. D. Arnold, LLB. (Hons.) Mr. G. den Boer Operations Director: Mr. G. R. Burrows The Rev. Dr. T. Gilmer Mr. P. A. Blows, B.A. (Hons.) Pastor M. J. Harley Senior Editorial Consultants: Mr. D. Oldham Mr. L. Brigden, B.Sc.(Hons.), M.Sc., The Rev. M. Stuart B.A.(Hons.) – Linguistics The Rev. M. H. Watts Mr. P. J. D. Hopkins, M.A. Oxf. – Projects Chairman: Editorial Consultants: Mr. G. D. Buss, B.Ed.* Mr. A. Hembd, M.A.C.S. Vice-Chairman: J. Cammenga, B.A., M.A., Ph.D. The Rev. J. P. Thackway* G. Fox, B.A. (Hons.), D.D., Ph.D. The Rev. W. M. Patterson Jnr., B.A., D.D. Treasurer: Mr. A. C. Thomson, M.A. Cantab. Pastor R. A. Clarke, B.Sc., F.C.A.* Members: * These are the serving members of the General Committee. The Rev. R. G. Ferguson, B.A.* Mr. A. K. Jones, LLB. (Hons.) Solicitor* M. Keogh-Brown, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.* The Rev. E. T. Kirkland, B.A. (Hons.), Dipl.Th.* The Rev. A. J. Lewis, Dipl.Th.* Mr. J. P. Sayers* Mr. M. A. Vogan, B.A. (Hons.), M.A., M.Litt.* Cover Picture: © Thomas Hagenau / Shutterstock Issue Number: 634 © Trinitarian Bible Society 2021 All rights reserved. The Trinitarian Bible Society permits January to reprinting of articles found in our printed and online Quarterly Record provided that prior permission is March 2021 obtained and proper acknowledgement is made. AGM advance notice 2 Introduction from the Editorial Director 3 Whatsoever Things 6 The Biblical Warrant for Distributing Bibles in Schools 9 Chichewa 14 Bibles Outside Churches and Homes 16 Editorial Report 19 Richly be Filled: 189th AGM Sermon 23 The Word of God among all Nations 33 Quarterly Record Production Team Editorial Director: Mr J. D. Arnold Senior Editorial Consultant (Projects): Mr P. J. D. Hopkins Senior Editor: Dr. D. E. Anderson Editor: Miss N. Christie Assistant Editor: Miss E. Tichelaar Graphic Designers: Mr P. Hughes, Mr S. Talas Circulation: Mr J. M. Wilson THE 190TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ADVANCE NOTICE GOD WILLING ON Saturday, 18 September 2021 times and location to be confi rmed The Business Meeting will include reports and updates on the Society’s work, including the Amharic translation project. After the Business Meeting, The Rev. Dafydd Morris Deputation Speaker of the Society is expected to preach. All are invited to attend. Please see our website for the most up-to-date details. THE WORD OF GOD AMONG ALL NATIONS Introduction from the Editorial Director s 2021 commences it is our earnest able to operate as a Society and it is a joy to desire and prayer that the Lord will meet with many of you at AGMs and Open Acontinue to uphold and sustain Days; these meetings with our supporters the work of the Society. The previous year and friends were sorely missed last year. has brought various diffi culties for the Society from a practical perspective and Although several of our current staff have in terms of support. Nonetheless the Lord been taken ill with Covid-19, broadly was pleased to enable us once again to speaking through the Lord's mercy we distribute millions of Scriptures, Scripture have been largely preserved from severe portions and Scripture items through illness through this virus, although some grants, sales and licensing, and through the dear former staff members and friends have use of our Scriptures online. For 2021 we passed on to glory. May the Lord be pleased once again look to the Lord, recognising to continue to spare us in the coming days. that ‘except the LORD build the house, Much is still uncertain to us, but all is known they labour in vain that build it: except the by our great God. LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain’ (Psalm 127.1), and knowing Surprisingly, despite there already being that His mercies are new every morning a surfeit of Bible versions in English new (Lamentations 3.22–23). editions continue to be announced yearly, if not monthly. We have for some Thank you for your prayers for the work of time been in an era of Bible translations, the Society and the stand that we seek to especially in English, that are adapted to the make. Our members are core to our being idiosyncrasies of particular Christian groups 3 Trinitarian Bible Society – Quarterly Record or (most likely) a perceived market. Such an that. There are those (some unwittingly) who approach, which aff ects faithful translation corrupt Scripture3 by promoting Codices or embellishes the truth, is lamentable. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus (among others) as The desire for a popular rather than faithful the most ancient and therefore most reliable edition of the Word of God seems to be manuscripts. Our former president, Terence the zenith of Bible publication for some. Brown, is quoted as saying: The Society is not so arrogant as to say we are above these temptations and we seek These few ancient MSS. hostile to your prayers once again as we strive in each the true text abound in omissions, of our translations to faithfully render the alterations and transpositions of Word of God under formal equivalence words and phrases, and have no principles based on the Hebrew Masoretic valid title to be regarded as the sole and Greek Received Texts (as set out in the trustworthy guides to the text of Society’s Statement of Doctrine of Holy Holy Scripture. Mere antiquity is no Scripture, which can be found online at guarantee of authority. These are old tbsbibles.org/DoctrineofScripture). copies, but they are bad copies and the Greek Church as a whole in the Translations that seek to delete the 4th century rejected their unreliable ‘Jewishness’ of Scripture or to change the testimony and permitted them to patriarchal emphasis to something gender sink into undignifi ed oblivion. They neutral have been available for several have been recently disinterred and years. Recently there were reports of a permitted to foist their ancient errors government that amended, in a textbook, upon undiscerning readers of our the account of the woman caught in own times.4 adultery by indicating that Christ killed the woman caught in adultery.1 This report is It is most regrettable when churches deeply troubling, but such high-handed jettison a historic and faithful edition of treatment of Scripture is by no means the Scriptures. It appears we are reaching restricted to that nation. It has been a sad the stage where the average Christian reality that such ‘errors’ are utilised to bring in many countries is presented with— the Gospel into disrepute. It is somewhat and may be even overwhelmed by—a plethora of Bibles each presenting itself ironic that there has been a broad outcry as the latest edition which promises to regarding the amended account of the supplement a particular interest. But the woman caught in adultery as for years we result of hunting through this confusing have been told by some that this passage overfl ow of voices for valid answers should not even be regarded as Scripture. will be that the once fi rm footing in a In many versions this portion of John 7 and commonly recognised translation is now 8 is relegated to a bracketed section or to a gone. The minister (and to an extent the footnote that questions its authenticity. Of Christian Bible reader) is therefore left to course modern day governments can be attempt to be enough of a Greek expert guilty of mutilating the Word of God but we and gifted textual critic to decide if John 8 must be cognisant of those in history who and the woman caught in adultery is also did it for their own purposes.2 Those really Scripture. The dangers of this are who support the ancient manuscripts used self-evident. ‘For God is not the author of to reject the pericope adulterae (the women confusion, but of peace, as in all churches caught in adultery) are not exempt from of the saints’ (1 Corinthians 14.33). 4 Issue Number: 634 – January to March 2021 One of these dangers is that what is Rev. Gordon Ferguson at the 189th AGM has presented as the latest edition of God’s been transcribed and lightly edited for your Word has not been well debated, edifi cation. Along with these is an article historically examined and well thought by Craig Dennison, Deputation Speaker, through. Instead, the renderings in the on why we distribute Bibles to schools—in ever-increasing versions are watered down keeping with the numerous admonitions until the doctrine is lukewarm and the truth to Abraham to train his descendants to indistinguishable from error. keep the way of the LORD (Genesis 18.19), providing Scriptures to children has been The concern in our day and age is that an increasing part of the Society’s work, institutions and others are pushing us to in recent years, particularly through our reinterpret the Bible to fi t with the cultural auxiliaries. We have a report on a widely norms of our age. This will only result in implemented form of Bible distribution a dilution of God’s Truth, and where that in recent months: providing a box of free happens it is to the detriment of the church Scriptures outside homes and churches and the individual Christian.