I have a blogpost on evangelical errors and another on academic errors.

However, I witnessed two errors within an hour today that I thought I would highlight.

The first error was at a midday prayer meeting where we read in the New Living Translation at John 7:8 Jesus saying: “I’m not going to this festival, because my time has not yet come.”

However, a few verses later it says: “But after his brothers left for the festival, Jesus also went, though secretly, staying out of public view.” In other words, according to the New Living Translation, Jesus told a lie. He said that He was not going and then He went.

The more observant readers will notice a footnote – “Some manuscripts read not yet going.”  In other words, Jesus told His brothers that He was not yet going to the festival. This is very different. However, multitudes of readers never read the footnotes, and certainly not the preacher or whoever is reading the chapter publicly.  So the average person hears Jesus apparently telling lies.

This does not trouble many Christians, just as the Jesuitism that I heard earlier in the day does not trouble them either.

The facts are:

1. not “some” but most manuscripts read “not yet”.
2. the New Living Translation uses the critical text of the New Testament, about which many Christians know nothing or do not care.
3. current versions of the English Bible are slowly changing the thinking of Christians by changing the translations of the Bible, but many Christians do not know this, nor do they care.

This example should show thinking Christians the error of the critical text and the folly of those who follow it.

However, apathetic Christianity is the order of the day.

Jesuitism

As for the Jesuitism I witnessed earlier in the day, who cares? Who wants to hear it?

Many Christians do not know what Jesuitism is, nor do they care, nor do they want to know.  The result is that many are led by the nose back into the errors of Roman Catholicism.

The second error I witnessed within an hour is the declaration that “Jesus died for everybody”.

Thinking Christians might ask several questions in response to this:

1. so what did Jesus die for? What did He accomplish by His death?

2. if Jesus died for everybody, why is anyone in hell, or is there nobody in hell?

3. how many Christians care about this false doctrine?

Apathetic Christians do not trouble themselves with such questions and simply respond: Doctrine divides. As if Jesus had never said that this is exactly what His doctrine does Mat 10:34.