Sean Gooding Archives

Psalm 119:160 “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”

We live in a WOKE society, and the attacks on the Bible will get more and more aggressive as we get deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. In Canada, we have had some laws either be proposed or passed that will make reading and using certain parts of the Bible illegal. We do not have the death penalty here, so I don’t think we will have to face death for reading the Bible, but there are consequences. The following is a quote from Mark Kellner of the Washington Post:

Legislation introduced in Canada’s Parliament would eliminate the use of “belief in a religious text” as a defense against hate crime charges.

Repealing the exemption in Canada’s criminal code could criminalize sermons and messages using the Bible or other religious texts as the basis for critiquing other religions or addressing issues such as transgender rights, critics warn.

There are a lot of writings that state that this does not make reading certain parts of the Bible illegal, but if someone were to be ‘offended’ or ‘triggered’ while attending your church service, they could feel that the vast majority of Romans 1 is ‘hate speech.’ Even if they could not win in court, and they might, they can make it very difficult and expensive for a lot of churches to fight a criminal charge or financial lawsuit.

The Bible is always under attack; it has been from the time it was written. There are counterfeit gospels all around the same time as when the true scriptures were being written. There were false apostles offering ‘another’ gospel, as Paul points out to us, and on and on for centuries, there have been and will always be attacks on the Bible. People hate the scriptures because if they are true, then Hell is real and there is the true God to answer to.

One of the most fascinating studies is the journey of how we got the English translation of the Bible. I would encourage you to research for yourself and learn. I do not know about you, but I probably have 15 or more Bibles in various translations in my library. But the cost of getting us an English Bible was paid with many lives about 400 years ago. Many churches, and the one I pastor, do not talk about this very much, and of course, secular schools will not teach this kind of history. But the battle to stop us from getting an English Bible was real, hard-fought, and a path filled with dead bodies.

Most are familiar with Wycliffe; he translated the Bible in 1380 from the Vulgate (Latin). In 1391, the British parliament tried to make the English Bible illegal. The attempt failed, but later, in 1408, an assembly of churches at Oxford prohibited the translation of the Holy Scriptures into English by any ‘unauthorized persons.’ William Tyndale, 1492-1536, is another famous Bible translator. He, with the help of certain wealthy benefactors, moved to Europe and translated the Bible into English there. He desired that even the poor ‘boy that driveth the plough’ would know more scripture than the Pope.

Tyndale’s translation is the basis for ones like the 1611 Authorized Version and the 1881 Revised Version. The Roman church denounced Tyndale, but he kept on working. Soon, Tyndale’s chief teacher, the bishop of St. Paul’s Cathedral, was denounced for teaching the Lord’s Prayer in English. In 1539, five Scotchmen were burned at the stake in Edinburgh for ‘studying, memorizing and preaching from the Bible.’ Others like Taverner, who published an English Bible in 1539, was imprisoned. Marbeck, in 1550, was threatened but not executed. Thomas Matthew was also executed in 1555; his mentor was Tyndale, who was burned at the stake in 1536. Publishing the Bible in English was their horrible crime.

Who, pray tell, was trying to stop us from getting the Bible in English? It was none other than the Roman church. At the Council of Trent in 1546, the Roman church condemned all versions of the Bible except the Vulgate Latin. They believed that any other translation of the Bible would be, ‘food of death, the fuel of sin, the veil of malice, the pretext of false liberty, the protection of disobedience, the corruption of discipline, the depravity of morals, the termination of concord, the death of honesty, the well spring of vices, the instigation of rebellion, the milk of pride, the nourishment of contempt, the death of peace, the destruction of charity, the enemy of unity, the murderer of truth.’

This became the justification for extreme persecution. This opposition to the English Bible lasted for 150 years.

As he was dying, Tyndale asked the Lord to ‘open the King of England’s eye.’ He would never see the results of what he and Wycliffe started, but by 1537, King Henry VIII allowed his name to be used in the title page of an English Bible. The vice-regent of England, Thomas Cromwell, got permission from Henry to allow this authorized version to be sold. In 1539, the Great Bible was published with royal consent, and soon, each church was ordered to get an English Bible and use it to teach the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and The Creed.

Sadly, even in this victory, there was a great cost. In 1540, Thomas Cromwell was beheaded; in 1555, Latimer, one of his helpers, was burned at the stake, as was Cramer in 1556. These were all in the title page of the Great Bible. But by 1558, with the installation of Queen Elizabeth 1, there was a change, and soon the English Bible became accepted for the state and the common people.

Most of this was based on the research of Clyde Weber Votaw Ph.D., Professor of Literature at the University of Chicago. I take for granted the precious privilege of having the truth of the Word of God in my hands. Many men died making sure that we have that privilege and right to read the Bible and have communion with God through His word and the Holy Spirit.

The forces of evil fought to keep the truth from us, but God prevailed, and one day, we will meet these men who laid down their lives for the truth. How will I/we respond when our turn comes to be counted for the truth? I pray that the Lord will give me the strength to stand and be counted like these men. Lord, help me/us!!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

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2 Timothy 3:16-17

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

2 Peter 1:20-21

“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Psalm 119: 160

“The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”

Last week, we took a look at God’s Love at work and expressed as He pursues the lost people of the world. In these last days, God has turned up the expansion of the Gospel using the very tools of the devil. The platforms that seemed to defy God and hate God tried to talk about how unreliable the Bible is and how Christians are ‘kooks’ have become the very platforms for God. The Gospel is exported to millions around the world using these platforms. We have seen some of the most outspoken haters of God become saved and begin to preach the Gospel.

One of the things as a pastor that I want to do is to equip the people I serve with confidence in the Bible. If one were to hear and listen to many, some think that the Bible is made of unprovable myths and stories that teach nice ideas but are not from God. There are reliable ways to show that the Bible is a very accurate book in all that it talks about.

As we see in the verses above, we are told that the Bible is reliable and that it is the truth. So, my hope in this writing is to provide my church folks and other readers with some reliable information to bolster confidence in the Bible. We are not called to have blind faith in the Bible or God, for that matter. We have strong reasons to have confidence in the Bible and its teachings and promises.

There are many copies of the Bible, in part or its entirety, in a variety of languages, and this information is readily available on Google. One does not need to be a spy-level investigator to find this information out.

Here are a few things to bolster your confidence. I apologize if this is common knowledge to you, but I find a lot of Christians are handicapped by a lack of knowledge, are afraid to engage in debates, and don’t want to appear simple or be cornered for the lack of ammunition in a discussion. So, here is some stuff:

There are approximately 5,800 copies of the Greek New Testament, 10,000 copies in Latin, and another 9,300 in various languages. There are 2,000 copies of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Old Testament. In 1947 in Cairo, Egypt, there was a discovery of about 10,000 Hebrew manuscripts.

In contrast, there are about 1,000 copies of the works of Homer, like The Iliad and the Odyssey. These works of Homer date from the 9th-15th Century. The Quran began to be compiled about 20 years after Mohamed’s death, but it was not completed until about the 8th Century. That was a long time after he lived. The first writing that we have of Alexander the Great was written in the 1st Century AD. Alexander died in about 336 BC, some 300+ years before the first writing about him. The person writing about him never saw him or spoke to him. The first writing about Julius Caesar was written 9 centuries after he lived; once again, there were no eyewitness accounts.

The vast majority of the New Testament was written within 20-50 years of Jesus’ life here on earth. The vast majority of the writers were eyewitnesses; some spent day after day with Him, and two writers, James and Jude, were Jesus’ actual physical brothers. The entire New Testament was completed within about 70 years of Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection. No one in their right mind questions the existence or the events of the lives of Alexander or Julius Caesar, yet the people writing about them never met them or anyone even close to them.

In the topic of archaeology, we can find that there are significant findings that demonstrate the truth and reliability of the Bible.

In 1986, a foot was discovered with a nail through it, actually driven into the back of it. This foot dates back to around 400 AD and was proof of Roman crucifixion.

A Turkish archeologist found religious artifacts in a home in Laodicea, showing that there was a Christian church there, as stated in Revelation 3 and Colossians.

In 1993, there was a Tel Dan Inscription that mentioned the ‘house of David.’ Up until this finding, many had thought that King David was just a mythical figure.

In 1868, a missionary in Jerusalem discovered a Moabite Scroll that talked about a battle between Moab and King Jehoram after the death of King Ahab. This battle is recorded in 2 Kings 3.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, found in 1872, is an epic story of a global flood that even has a hero whom a god tells to build a boat. It is very close to the Genesis account in chapters 6-9.

In 1867, the Hezekiah tunnel, written about in 2 Samuel 5:6-8, was discovered. This was a tunnel built by workers for Hezekiah where they began at two different ends and met in the middle, diverting water to save the city of Jerusalem.

Archeologists also found a fortified building in the Golan Heights dated back to the time of David, and it was the outpost of Geshur, an ally of David. Absolom’s mother, Maacah, was from Geshur.

From an article in Modern Scientific Discoveries, we see this about science and the Bible: first, let us consider the science of thermodynamics: In Psalm 102:25-26, we read, “Of old hast, Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed.”

In verse 25, we find, restated, the fact that God is the Creator of all that exists. Verse 26 then tells us something highly significant, not about the initial created state of the universe but about the present state of the universe. According to this Scripture, written three thousand years before the dawn of modern science, we learn that the universe is like a suit of clothes that is wearing out. In other words, the universe is running down, deteriorating, and constantly becoming less and less orderly. This is not what most people believed at the time. But the rotation of the earth is slowing, and the magnetic field is decaying.

Everything left to itself decays: you, me, your house, your car, and we break down. This was stated in the Bible 3,000 years ago.

Matthew Maury was head of the Depot of Charts and Instruments in the Hydrographic Office of the United States Navy from 1841 to 1861. He read Psalm 8:3-8 and Ecclesiastes 1:6 and immediately began to come to some conclusions. Maury, based on the Bible, concluded that there are well-established wind circuits and that there are literally “paths in the sea” – that is, definite currents in the ocean. He discovered that there is a 40-mile-wide, 2000-foot-deep ocean current called the Gulf Current, a path in the sea flowing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic. His story was published in 1929 by the Naval Academy. He had other discoveries that revolutionized the shipping industry.

Do some research on your own and become proficient in the truth not just of the Bible but in the Bible. I hope that these few insights inspire you to do research on your own and learn more and more, growing your faith and confidence in the Lord and His Holy Word.