Dear Joseph,

I read your email and I appreciate you sharing honestly with me your thoughts and feelings. I am just going to state a few things. I've often said to God, "I don't know how to follow you other than through the Scriptures." I know that the Scriptures, if revealed to us correctly, will reveal Jesus. Whether that's Old Testament or New Testament, it will reveal Jesus. In Luke 24 the disciples walking with Jesus on the road after his resurrection didn't know who they were talking to and He gave them a Bible study from the Old Testament that revealed Jesus as the Messiah. Later, they said,
The Scripture should lead us to the God behind those words in the Bible. It is Jesus that we are seeking after.

Theologians tell us that the original autographs, that is the original letters written in the Bible, were the only things that were infallible and that we have no original autographs. We only have copies of copies. And down through the ages, scribes may have added things or deleted things. Then you have the problem of translations. The Queen of England's speech may have been translated into Russian, Chinese, and Japanese. It's still the Queen's speech, but it would not have the exactness of what the Queen said as she spoke in the English language. But the translations in the other languages would have the Queen's speech. We are reading from the English language in our Bible in which the original letter was not written in that language. So down through the ages that which was perfect has been handled through men. Men are full of imperfection. And sometimes that imperfection comes through the translations. I believe strongly in translations because we are trying to understand the Word of God. There was criteria in the letters that were written, but I'm not going to go into that now.

The problem that I see for today is not so much the things that you brought out to me, that I was aware of, but the major problem I see is that each denomination and each group of believers usually follow a man and then they choose which part of the Bible they want to believe and they ignore many verses and act as if these verses are not equal to their favorite verses they have embraced. If you look up the word "heresy" in Vine's Dictionary, it talks of heresy and error as being a self willed opinion, a picking or choosing. This is what I see in most groups, a picking and choosing. What verses they will believe, which verses they won't believe, or what they will ignore. They also set Scriptures against other Scriptures.

So Jesus said man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY word that proceeds from God.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts that were troubling you. I appreciate your honesty. May the Lord bless you in your studies and in your walk with Him.

Sincerely,

Don Krow