Response to Mr. Don Roberts,’ July 31, 2024, letter in the Sun City West Independent.
Thank you for suggesting looking into the history of the Bible. I’m suggesting that you look into the history of the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches and revisit their religious persecutions of Anabaptists, victims of the Inquisition and the Crusades, burning people alive at the stake, stealing property, burning Bibles and the tragic death tolls associated with these merciless acts.
The 1611 authorized King James Bible is not the Catholic Bible. I’ve read the 1611 King James version cover to cover and I believe it reveals the inspired word of God. Why did King James commission an English version of the Bible? It was to enable the common man and woman to read and comprehend God’s truth. The seldom seen, original “Dedication by the Translators” to King James, for the 1611 version Bible contains the following excerpts: (from 1611KJV Bible published in 1941)
“So that if, on the one side, we shall be traduced by Popish persons at home or abroad, who therefore will malign us, because we are poor instruments to make God’s holy truth to be yet more and more known unto the people, whom they desire still to keep in ignorance and darkness; or if, on the other side, we shall be maligned by self-conceited brethren, who run their own ways, and give liking unto nothing but their own ways, and give liking unto nothing but what was framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil, we may rest secure within by the truth and innocence of a good conscience, having walked the ways of simplicity and integrity, as before the Lord...”
“Popish,” according to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, is defined as: “Pertaining to the Pope or to the Church of Rome; as Popish tenets or ceremonies.”
A Catholic and Protestant tenet is “salvation” through “infant baptism.” Baptists believe salvation comes from God’s grace through faith believing in Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection and that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. In Acts 8:36-38, (KJV1611) Phillip gave the eunuch the gospel of Jesus Christ. Seeing a body of water, the eunuch asked Phillip, “...what doth hinder me to be baptized?” Phillip answered, “If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God...and they went down both into the water both Phillip and the eunuch and he baptized him.” (This example is omitted from NIV and NASB Bibles.) There’s no discussion in the 1611KJV of “infant baptism.” Anabaptists were persecuted by the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches for not following the infant baptism tenet.
In early America, failure to have an infant baptized could lead to “disenfranchisement.” This was a fiscal banishment where one could not buy or sell in the marketplace. (REV. 13:16-17) Called by Christians “the badge of the whore,” was a reference to the Catholic Church. This punishment was very similar to the recent COVID-19 regulations. Don’t get the COVID injection; lose your job, and your money stream. Pope Francis suggested that getting the COVID shot was “an act of love.” He’s wrong about the COVID shots and he’s wrong about infant baptism! (The original COVID shots were distributed with an FDA emergency use authorization not an FDA approval.)
Baptists were never part of the Roman Catholic Church. Baptists began with John the Baptist and the Apostles. Jesus Christ said: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (1611KJV John 8:12)
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
