52 percent of Americans read the King James or the New King James Version

I remember when I was saved at the age of 16. Although I did spend three years going to Grandview Park Baptist School (elementary school), I did not grow up attending church, and I did not understand much of the “King James” English. My Bible was the Bible that my father had given me, which was a NASB “Open Bible” (a study Bible), and I still have it. After I trusted Christ, I became a member of my local GARB church. The pastor used the KJV. He jokingly referred to my “New American Standard Perversion” but the funny part to me was that every time he preached and read a KJV word, I would look in my Bible for the translation from the KJV. Example: He preached Romans 7:8. He said “concupiscence.” I looked down and saw my Bible said “lust.” About then he would say something like, “concupiscence simply means lust.” I always wondered: why am I reading God’s word as translated twice? Why do I have to have God’s Word translated from the Greek/Hebrew into 1789 English, and then into modern English by my pastor. I saw parallels between that and the blowback from the Church when the Tyndale Bible was first published.

All that being said, If someone asks me what Bible I prefer, I still say I prefer the NASB for my personal devotions. When I teach in my local church, I use the KJV because that is the version the church has decided to use. I think the KJV is the most poetical, but not the most clear in today’s language. If pressed, I would hope that churches could move from the KJV to the NKJV, which I also use.

My favorite KJV phrase: it’s a tie between James 3:10b “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” and Matthew 6:34c “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” These sound so much more authoritative for some reason, than their NASB counterparts “My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.” and “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

But don’t even get me started on “The Message.” Ugh.

Maybe we should start another movement - the ESV Only movement. Then we could browbeat others into using it because we say so!
I that might explain at least a bit of the KJV’s “popularity.”
Having grown up using the KJV (not within a KJVO setting), I still quote verses from it occasionally, and I did read my old King James a couple of weeks ago after my son spilled a drink on my desk and got my NKJV wet.

I teach the high school class at church and we have been going through Acts. I typically use the KJV because that is the official version we use for preaching/teaching, but we reference other versions most every service and class. When we came to Acts 22, I meant to read it out of the ESV but forgot and read it out of the KJV. We got to verse 25 where it says, “And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion….” After that, I lost the class!!!! Talk about using words differently than we use them now!

Can’t wait for my “NIV Only” video to go viral on youtube.

[mmartin]

Can’t wait for my “NIV Only” video to go viral on youtube.

Speaking from a strictly Hebrew and Greek standpoint, the NIV isn’t a very good translation. It changes word order and flirts with dynamic equivalence.