Are Modern Bible Translations Corrupted?

Are modern Bible translations corrupted? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adrian Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites. And of course, you can always email us at questions at core christianity.com.

First up today, here's a voicemail we received from one of our listeners last week. So is it a sin to work and get paid on the Sabbath? So would that be considered a sin?

Thank you. Yeah, thanks for that question. I mean, the Sabbath command is a part of God's moral law. And the question is, what does it look like for us to obey it now under the New Covenant? And there are some people who say, yeah, that Sabbath command is still standing. Now, of course, we worship on the Lord's Day. Some people call this the Christian Sabbath. And of course, we see evidence in the New Testament of the disciples gathering together, not on Saturday, but on Sunday.

And the reason that they did that is because that was the day that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. And so when we come together for worship, we're remembering this great reality, the reality of Easter, the fact that Christ is risen every single week. And this was something that the early Christians were committed to. And I think insofar as we're committed to that as well, worshiping the Lord with the gathered assembly, that we're observing this command. Now, of course, we're observing it in a way that was different from how the people observed it under the Old Covenant.

And there were certainly issues. I mean, when Jesus shows up on the scene and he's preaching the message of the kingdom, one of the things that the religious leaders often argued with him about was the Sabbath. Mark 2, in verse 23, we read, At one Sabbath, he was going through the grain fields.

And as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. And the Pharisees were saying to him, Look, why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? By the way, this is one of the things that they are frequently bringing up before Jesus saying, Hey, why are you healing on the Sabbath? Why are you doing these things on the Sabbath?

And Jesus's response to them was, Have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry? He and those who were with him, how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him. And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath, which is, I think, a clear claim of our Lord Jesus Christ to divinity. I am the Lord of the Sabbath.

But you know what else he says there? The Sabbath was made for man. It's supposed to be a help, a day of blessing, a day of rest and worship. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And ultimately, brother, we find that rest in Christ. He's the one who said, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And so we enter into the Sabbath rest through faith in Jesus Christ.

And we observe the Sabbath, I believe, by worshiping together with the people of God. Now, if work gets in the way of that, I think that there is a serious problem. Now, there are some jobs, right?

I mean, medical professions, for example. It's this work of necessity where you can't get out of it. But I think, generally speaking, I think so many people, they put their job before the worship of God. And so we need to have the proper priorities here. Worship with the people of God should be the priority over making money. And so I think you have to examine in your own life, what's my priority? Am I worshiping together with the people of God, gathering together in honor of Christ, or am I doing my own thing, and not trusting that the Lord is going to provide for me if I'm faithful to him? And so this is a complex question. I realize that different people are coming from different places. But I would just encourage each and every one of you to prioritize the worship of God with his people, even over making some extra money.

So, again, if you have maybe a more specific question in terms of your particular situation, maybe I can help out. But appreciate just the way you've posed the question, and pray that the Lord blesses you. Just a follow-up question for you, Adriel. What about NFL games? Yeah, what about NFL games, Bill? I mean, obviously, there's a significant question there, right? I mean, if we're thinking about worship and gathering together with God's people, it's amazing. This is just the reality of the day in which we live, where people prioritize, put before the holy worship of God, our own recreation.

And so I think actually there's a real issue here. Now, that doesn't mean we can't be interested in sports and enjoy things like the NFL, but again, we have to ask ourselves the question, who is getting my worship? Who is getting my time, my adoration? Is it the God of heaven and earth who created all things, who calls me to worship him?

Or is it someone else? Can I tell you just a quick story, Bill, on this? I once had a pastor who told me, and it just shocked me. He and I were having a conversation.

I was an intern at this church years ago, and we're having a conversation about worship. And he was a huge fan of the Chicago Bears. And just like you would always wear his Bears jersey.

It was very obvious that he was a fan of the Chicago Bears. And he said to me one day, and you're going to think this is crazy. Many of you listening right now, you're going to think, well, that guy's wild. You know, that's intense. He said to me, even if I had tickets to see the Bears play in the Super Bowl on a Sunday morning, I wouldn't go. And at the time I just thought, man, what are you talking about?

The Bears in the Super Bowl, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And he said, no, no, no. He said, I wouldn't go.

And he said, let me tell you why. Worship is the gathering of God's people around the throne of God together with all of heaven. Where on earth would I rather be besides there? And when he said that, I thought, OK, maybe I'm the crazy one, because we just don't think of worship like that. And I think that's the vision that the Bible gives us of worship. It's what we need to recover today. But so often, again, we just minimize corporate worship and what God calls us to and the gifts that he gives us when we gather together. So well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Our phone lines are open. We'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life. Maybe you have some doubts about Christianity.

Maybe you consider yourself to be an atheist or an agnostic. Hey, we're open to your questions as well. Here's the phone number. 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Carmen calling in from Germantown, Pennsylvania. Carmen, what's your question for Adriel?

Hi, Adriel. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question about if we know heaven, there's no sin in heaven. God created heaven, you know, and that's why Jesus had to come so that we could go to heaven and have our sins forgiven. But how was Satan ever in heaven then?

How was Lucifer in heaven and plotted to overthrow God and he was thrown out of heaven? So I just want to know, because that had to go on more than a second. I don't know. That's my question. Yeah, great question.

You know, what's going on there? Because we do have those instances where the evil one does come before God in heaven. You think of Job, right? And coming before the Lord, wanting to bring affliction to Job. Well, the fall of Satan, I think the best place to go when we're thinking about that specifically is in Isaiah chapter 14, where you have a discussion about the haughty king of Babylon.

But often this text is applied to the evil one. You even see this in the New Testament in places like Luke chapter 10 verse 18. Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12 says, How you are fallen from heaven, O day star, son of dawn.

How you are cut down to the ground. You who laid the nations low, you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will make myself like the most high. But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit. As Proverbs says, pride comes before a fall.

And pride is the sin that was found in Satan. Now how did that happen? Well, God allowed it to happen. And my children ask this question as well, Carmen, because it's a good question. It's one that just comes to all of our minds. Well, why, you know, can God just snap his fingers and get rid of the evil one and sin and so on and so forth? We don't always know why God allows the things that he allows, but we can say this. God has not permitted anything to happen that he has not purposed to resolve, to bring glory for himself out of. And so somehow God is using the evil one, even in stories like the story of Job and the intense suffering that he experienced.

Somehow God in his sovereignty is using the evil one for his sovereign purpose and for purposes and for the sanctification of his people. And so we see this and we see that there was a definitive judgment that was rendered on Satan at the cross of our Lord Jesus. This is what Jesus says very clearly in places like John chapter 12. He says, now is the judgment of this world. And now the ruler of this world is cast out. And he speaks there specifically about his cross. You think about what Paul said in Colossians, where he talks about the cross having disarmed the principalities and powers. Jesus has definitively defeated Satan, conquered him. But the evil one still goes about like a roaring lion seeking to devour us. And so we have to be vigilant and steadfast in our faith, clinging to Christ and to his gospel and trusting that the Lord is doing all things for our good and his glory. God bless you, Carmen.

Well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We'd love to hear from you if you've got a question about the Bible or the Christian life, maybe a Bible passage that's particularly confusing to you. You don't really understand it. Adriel will be glad to help out with that.

Or maybe you have a question about doctrine, theology. Give us a call. Our phone lines will be open for the next 10 minutes or so. 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673. Also want to tell you about a very special opportunity that we have for you today.

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Well, we do have social media here at the Core, and here's a question that came in on our Instagram page from one of our listeners. How do you trust that the modern Bible, knowing about colonialism and just all the other different ways the Bible could have been tarnished by different people and had different agendas affected? How do you know which Bible is the best option for us, especially with the King James Version, the New International Version, and things like that?

Here's the thing. A lot of times people think of textual criticism or the way we got our Bible today as that game we used to play as kids called telephone, where you whisper into the person next to you, something into their ear, and then they whisper into the next person and goes down the line. By the end, whatever the message was has been totally distorted and somebody inserted something or took something away, and people think, well, this is kind of how we got our Bible. Over time, it was just passed down over the centuries, and so of course it's been distorted. Of course it's been changed.

Here's the thing. We don't just have one sort of copy that's been passed down again and again. We have tens of thousands of manuscripts, New Testament manuscripts, dating back to the early centuries of the Church that contain for us the Scriptures. We're able to look at all of these manuscripts and see discrepancies, see maybe where a scribe did omit something or try to put something in.

There's this whole science or study of textual criticism. The beautiful thing is when we look at all of the information we have, some of the best textual critics will tell you, there is no major doctrine of the Bible that's called into question. Even when we look at the discrepancies that we see in the New Testament, we can be confident that what we have before us in the Bible that we're reading every day, assuming that we're using a good translation, not just a paraphrase, but we can be confident that God's Word is in our hands, that we can receive it with faith, believing that he's communicating to us. It's realizing just the history of understanding textual criticism, but also faith in the fact that the same God who inspired his Word is able to preserve it and has preserved it for us. Timothy said in 2 Timothy 3 verse 16, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Brothers and sisters, when you open the Bible, let's just be encouraged to open up the Bible every day, to read it, and to hear what the Lord says to us through his Word and to receive it, to cherish it in our hearts, receiving it with faith and hope and love, knowing that God wants to communicate to us and to build us up in his Word. Some great counsel. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go back to the phones. Rachel's calling in from Missouri, and Rachel, I understand you have a follow-up to an earlier question?

Yes, hi. Could you please elaborate a little bit more on Satan and how he became Satan? Yeah, well, Rachel, I did mention just that text in Isaiah chapter 14, and I think at the root of the fall of Satan is pride.

In the New Testament, when Paul is giving a warning to the church about not installing leaders in the church too young, he says so that they don't become puffed up, haughty, and fall into the condemnation of the devil. So the pathway, if we're talking about how he became the way that he ended up, the pathway was pride, sinful pride, which is something that all of us, I think, as believers in Jesus Christ, have to be aware of for ourselves, conscious of. But Satan, like the rest of the angels, is a created being, meaning he's not infinite. He's not like the opposite evil power of God.

It's not this sort of dualistic understanding of the universe. You know, you have an all-powerful evil being and an all-powerful good being. No, Satan is a creature created by the Lord, given freedom. With that freedom, he fell, and ultimately he is going to be judged and cast into the lake of fire. This is what the book of Revelation says very clearly, and in the meantime, God has permitted him to exist and do the things that he does under his sovereign, under God's sovereign authority, and God is using all things, even the evil one and his tactics, to bring about his purposes in the world and ultimately the salvation of his people and the restoration of all things. Now, we don't understand how that all works, and I think when we're in the presence of the Lord, we're going to have a lot clearer of a picture, a lot clearer understanding.

This side of heaven, we don't understand how that all works, but we can trust him that he's on the throne, that he's good, that he's sovereign, and that the evil one does not pose any problem for him in the sense that sometimes we think. Rachel, thank you for that follow-up, and may the Lord bless you. This is Core Christianity. Let's go to Don calling in from Kansas. Don, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hello?

Hey, Don. Yeah. Hey, my question is on Melchizedek. Yesterday in church, the minister spoke about Melchizedek and explained that he really didn't quite understand it. It just finally clicked on me, and I don't know why I never picked up on this before, but when he met Abraham after the rescuing lot, he brought out bread and white. Clear back in Genesis, those are the communion elements. Just your thought on that. Who was this Melchizedek?

Hey, Don, great question. I hope you get to share this answer with your minister, because this is an important thing, right? Melchizedek appears in Genesis chapter 14 after this great battle, and Abraham is there, and Melchizedek, he's called the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham and said, Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And Abram gave a tenth of everything to him. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted my hand to the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I should or would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you say, I have made Abraham rich.

And so this Melchizedek, he just sort of comes out of nowhere. And the shocking thing is, one, that he blesses Abraham, and two, that he not only blesses him, but Abraham gives him a tithe of all the spoils of war. And then again, of course, the other thing that's just amazing here is the language of Melchizedek bringing out bread and wine. Now, the interpretation for this passage is given to us in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews in Hebrews 7. And this is a really important point, friends, when we're interpreting the Bible. The only infallible interpreter of scripture is the scripture itself.

And so where scripture interprets scripture, we can be confident as to the understanding, right? This is the apostles' understanding inspired by the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 7, verse 1, this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him and said to him, and to him Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling, that's a really important word right there, resembling the son of God, he continues as priest forever.

So Melchizedek resembled who? Jesus. He brings out bread and wine, he's the king of righteousness, the king of peace. Some people say he's like a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus, the son of God.

I don't know that I would go that far. I think that the way he's depicted for us in God's revelation is as a type, this shadowy figure who comes out of nowhere, who's meant to be a picture for us of the Messiah, this kingly priest who blesses his people with bread and wine, and to whom the people, Abraham there, brings a tenth, a tithe. It's this submission that we see. One of the beautiful things that we find in scripture over and over and over again is how Christ and the pictures of Christ, these shadowy types of our Lord, appear everywhere. Even in the very first book of the Bible, even in a place like Genesis chapter 14. This is what the author of the Hebrews is picking up on there in Hebrews chapter 7.

I think the best answer, this is my view, is that Melchizedek is this picture in the Old Testament of Christ, not necessarily the pre-incarnate Christ, but the way in which he's depicted by revelation, by the word of God, as this figure who resembles Jesus. That's what the author of the Hebrews said in verse 3 of chapter 7, pointing us forward to the great prophet, priest, and king of our redemption, the one who we owe our allegiance to, our submission to, our worship to, the one who blesses us from heaven with bread and wine, his very body and blood for our nourishment, for our sustenance, for the forgiveness of our sins. So well said. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity.

We have time for one more quick question. Anandi says this, should a believer in Christ forgive others, specifically other believers who have wronged them if they are unrepentant? And also, is there an exception where withholding forgiveness from an unrepentant person is acceptable?

Yeah, such a complex question. I know there are many believers who struggle to forgive someone, but let me just say this. Yes, we are always called to forgive from the heart. Now, this is true whether the person repents or not. We have this attitude of forgiveness toward them, but reconciliation and restoration require repentance. So while we're always called to forgive, unless another person recognizes what they've done wrong and repented, we can't really restore the relationship. So it's important to have those categories in your mind and to differentiate between those two things, but by the grace of God, we who have been forgiven should forgive others. I hope you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.