William McPherson--the man who read the Bible with his tongue

   I. How much do you value a Bible?

      A. This man made an effort.

William McPherson was severely injured when a charge of dynamite exploded in front of his face. Although he survived the blast, he lost both hands, both eyes, and the feeling in parts of his face. He was a new Christian and he realized how much the Bible meant to him. He needed its strength now more than ever, but he couldn't read it. William heard that a woman in Britain had learned to read Braille with her lips, so he ordered portions of the Bible in Braille. When it arrived, he was dismayed to discover that the explosion had deadened the nerves in his lips so that no sense of touch remained. But then he found his tongue was able to feel the raised dots. Although the metal left his lips and tongue bleeding and very sore, he prayed to God to help him continue to learn just one letter of the alphabet.  A teacher was able to help him learn the Moon Type system of Braille, which uses simplified figures instead of dots. In the 65 years that followed, this Kansas City man read the Bible through four times with his tongue. How much effort do you put into reading God's Word?

from Holwick's 1500+ Sermon Archive

‘Melted Ice Cream’ Grace

OBSERVATION FROM A SEMINARY STUDENT

(By Dr. Bill Bouknight - 2012, Confessing Movement Newsletter)

Recently I had the privilege of speaking at a United Methodist seminary. My subject was: “Five Truths about Evangelism that I wish I had learned in Seminary.” Those five truths are the following:

• All people can be divided into two categories: lost and found, and some of the lost are in every congregation.

• The Word of God is the only real authority we have.

• Until a person faces his sin, he/she cannot really comprehend or receive the grace of God.

• The Gospel always has a cross at its center.

• A Bible-based, Spirit-filled sermon has enormous, mysterious power.

A few days later I received a letter from a seminary student who was in that audience. Here are a few of his comments:

“I regret to say that today was the first time in my seminary experience that words like ‘sin,’ ‘Hell,’ and ‘the lost’ have been employed. As a consequence, I think we have celebrated grace that a favorite pastor of mine termed ‘melted ice cream.’

In short, today was the first time since I have been at seminary that the Gospel of Christ was acknowledged unapologetically, and for that I am most grateful.”

I am curious if other seminary students at United Methodist seminaries are having similar experiences. Are you being taught the cross-centered Gospel or some other version? John Wesley listed the following as essential doctrines of the Christian faith: original sin, the atonement of Christ, justification by faith, the Holy Spirit, the new birth, Christian assurance, and holiness. Are you being taught those doctrines? Please email your reaction to me at bgbouknight@aol.com I promise to keep your names confidential.

Don’t Make Light of Reading the Old Testament

Don't make light of reading the Old Testament.  St. Paul did not! John Wesley did not!

Excerpt from John Wesley's sermon on "The Means of Grace" Sermon 12:

8. And that this is a means whereby God not only gives, but also confirms and increases, true wisdom, we learn from the words of St. Paul to Timothy: “From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim. 3:15.) The same truth (namely, that this is the great means God has ordained for conveying his manifold grace to man) is delivered, in the fullest manner that can be conceived, in the words which immediately follow: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God;” consequently, all Scripture is infallibly true; “and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness;” to the end “that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Tim. 3:16, 17.) 

9. It should be observed, that this is spoken primarily and directly of the Scriptures which Timothy had known from a child; which must have been those of the Old Testament, for the New was not then wrote. how far then was St. Paul (though he was “not a whit behind the very chief of the Apostles,” nor, therefore, I presume, behind any man now upon earth) from making light of the old Testament! Behold this, lest ye one day “wonder and perish,” ye who make so small account of one half of the oracles of God! Yea, and that half of which the Holy Ghost expressly declares, that it is “profitable,” as a means ordained of God, for this very thing, “for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness;” to the end, “the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”

Criticism of King James Version of Bible

When the King James Version of the Bible first appeared in 1611, a London cleric claimed that it “sounds like yesterday’s newspaper and denies the divinity and messiahship of Christ.”  Another chaplain accused the translators of pandering to King James’s interest in witchcraft, and when they sailed for the New World in 1620, the Pilgrims refused to carry the King James Version with them.

            

    –Leonard Sweet, A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Café, p. 8

The finished product did not lack for critics. Perhaps none was more forthright in his condemnation than Dr. Hugh Broughton, a skilled linguist himself who had been preparing his own revision for 30 years. When the new version appeared he replied with this colorful critique:

The late Bible was sent to me to censure which bred in me a sadness that will grieve me while I breathe, it is so ill done. Tell His Majesty that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged upon poor churches . . . . The new edition crosseth me. I require it to be burnt (Nicolson, p. 228).

Since the translation process is not as exact a science as some would prefer; and because literally thousands of interpretive decisions go into the making of any translation or revision of the Bible; it is inevitable there are going to be sincere disagreements where human judgment plays a part. Still, Broughton's criticism seems incredibly harsh in light of the fact that he goes on to imply that the KJV "translators might be damned on the day of judgment for their work" (Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired, p. 257).

  – Stephen Wiggins, “The Making of the King James Version”   http://grandoldbook.com/KJVinthemaking.pdf

The Bible Has the Habit of Telling It Like It Is

3D. Personalities

Lewis S. Chafer, founder and former president of Dallas Theological Seminary, puts it this way: “The Bible is not such a book a man would write if he could, or could write if he would.”

The Bible deals very frankly with the sins of its characters. Read the biographies today, and see how they try to cover up, overlook or ignore the shady side of people. Take the great literary geniuses; most are painted as saints. The Bible does not do it that way. It simply tells it like it is:

The sins of the people denounced – Deuteronomy 9:24
Sins of the patriarchs – Genesis 12:11-13, 49:5-7
Evangelists paint their own faults and the faults of the apostles – Matthew 8:10-26; 26:31-56; Mark 6:52; 8:18; Luke 8:24, 25; 9:40-45; John 10:6; 16:32
Disorder of the churches – I Corinthians 1:11; 15:12; II Corinthians 2:4; etc.
Many will say, “Why did they have to put in that chapter about David and Bathsheba?” Well, the Bible has the habit of telling it like it is.

(p. 23)

from Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell.

Manuscript Accuracy: Shakespeare vs. the Bible

“It seems strange that the text of Shakespeare, which has been in existence less than two hundred and eight years, should be far more uncertain and corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only in manuscript . . . With perhaps a dozen or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New Testament may be said to be so far settled by general consent of scholars, that any dispute as to its reading must relate rather to the interpretation of the words than to any doubts respecting the words themselves. But every one of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays there are probably a hundred readings still in dispute, a large portion of which materially affects the meaning of the passages in which they occur.” (p. 20)

from Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell. McDowell is quoting an unnamed writer of an article found in the North American Review.