Monday, June 9, 2014

Baptist Mid Missions Hypocrisy

Bibles International, who is threatening to sue Paul Wittenberger for his film New World Order Bible Versions, is the Bible Society of Baptist Mid Missions.



Here is an email I received from a listener in the Netherlands regarding Baptist Mid Missions:

Regarding Baptist Mid Missions: I saw at their website that they actually had a mission to The Netherlands, the country where I live (http://www.bmm.org/BMM/WhereWeServe/Europe/thenetherlands.htm). I was very surprised because I didn't know that and mailed them immediately for an address. They never answered my mail. So I went and looked them up myself and finally found them (http://www.ebg-hetbaken.nl/gemeente/geschiedenis). At their website was only very vague doctrine, so I called the pastor and asked first of all what Bible versions they used, because if they don't hear his voice, they aren't of his sheep... (John 10:27) And it turned out they used many Dutch new versions AND NOT the one that is somewhat similar (but very inferior) to the KJV, which is called the Statenvertaling (of 1637). Though I knew enough I asked somewhat more to be sure ("if you believe on Jesus, and then commit suicide, are you still going to heaven?" "Well, I can't tell that, that's up to God. (...) I don't really understand the Bible on this.") So this Baptist Mid Missions church had a pastor who wasn't even saved. As I did more research it turned out that BMM had sent a pastor, Herb Boyd, in the fifties (who still lives and still is a part time pastor) who immediately joined the Dutch association of unsaved liberal Baptists (Baptistenunie) when he got here. His sons now get money from BMM to be a missionary here as well (probably about $6000 net a month! see the financial folder at http://we5boyds.wix.com/home#!media/cl69). The Boyd family of BMM missionaries have their own website at http://www.boydsineurope.com/. One of his sons has an extensive statement of faith (http://tinyurl.com/kxyeruwin which he says that only the originals of the Bible are inspired and the ESV is a good translation as well; that he believes in unconditional election (Calvinism, point 7.3) and "I believe that once God has begun His work of salvation in a person He will bring that work to completion. I believe that a person cannot, then, lose his salvation, because the guarantee of salvation is based upon God and not on man." I do not understand how Baptist Mid Missions can condone of such heretics. But the Bible has to say something about this. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." (Matthew 7:18) And you know what the sad thing is? People in America donate to such an organisation because they think people will get saved abroad, while in reality these missionaries are damning people to hell.

As for Bibles International, this organisation has only one project in Europe, a Bible in Luxembourgish, which is kind of strange, seeing that everyone in Luxembourg (with a population of five hundred thousand, I've been there on holidays many times) speaks either French or German natively. I mean Germany - as you probably know - doesn't even have a Bible that is of the same quality as the KJV. If you don't believe it, just look up James 2:18 in Luther or in the Dutch Statenvertaling, they leave out the word "without", changing the meaning altogether! "Aber es möchte jemand sagen / Du hast den glauben / vnd ich habe die werck / Zeige mir deinen glauben mit deinen wercken / So wil ich auch meinen glauben dir zeigen mit meinen wercken." (Luther) "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works." (James 2:18, KJV) So I'm carefully making my own translation of the KJV into Dutch, because the Statenvertaling is just so bad a translation that I don't think people can get saved from it. If a Bible should be translated into Europe, I believe that in this case Bibles International should have taken an important language like German or French first. It seems to me that Bibles International only want to translate into languages which don't have a Bible at all (so they get full glory?), and in a way that's fine, but if they'd taken German, both the people in Germany as well as in Luxembourg would have had a good Bible. In a way the Germans don't have a Bible either. And if you look at the translation team of the Luxembourg Bible of Bibles International, there are three pants wearing women in it! (see the picture at http://biblesint.org/biNew/languages/europe/luxembourgish)
I am not saying that Baptist Mid Missions or Bibles International don't have any good missionaries or Bibles, I don't know, but in The Netherlands they only have heretical churches as I've shown you. And again this does tell me something: "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." (Matthew 7:18) So I fear that when a (unsaved) Dutch man sees New World Order Bible Versions, and he learns about Baptist Mid Missions, he will think that organisation has some good churches here in The Netherlands, while that's just not true. I know that New World Order Bible Versions was made primarily for an American audience, so I understand perfectly well that these things may not be an issue in the US itself, but in the Dutch case it is a problem. The Bible tells us to "Abstain from all appearance of evil." (1 Thessalonians 5:22) and in The Netherlands the BMM stuff could be misunderstood.

1 comment:

Sibylle said...

As far as bibles go, I have found that the German bible Schlachter 2000 is very much the best out there right now. I haven't read it cover to cover, but from what I have seen, the passages that are most often mistranslated are very good in that version. You will be the judge if you try to read it, of course.

There are no satisfying French bible right now, though. French is my native language, and it hurts me to say it but I resort to reading the bible in English. It's a bit harder than it would be in French, because I'm not quite used to the style of the KJV but at least, I know that I'm reading a good translation.