I Timothy 4:13  Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

Reading shapes our thinking. Six times the Bible talks of the importance of reading God’s Word. Our view of God and His Word is shaped by what we read. A person that reads the perversions will not know the true God. He will be deceived by men and women who lack the fear of God and have an agenda to bring their views to bear upon the readers.
To “give attendance” is to be cautious about what you read and it also speaks to “apply to ones self”. We need to be sure we are reading the truth and we need to be sure to apply the truth to our own hearts.
God wants to have people know Him. He gave us His Word for that purpose. Those who are called to preach His Word need to be careful to expound the Word of God in such a way as to keep it pure. The perversions do not do that. They corrupt God’s Word.
We can know which Bible is true if we want to. God has given us a number of verses that promise that He will keep His Word pure for all generations. When you have “bibles” that disagree with one another, you know that is not purity. Something is wrong, and the wrong cannot be found in God.
As we have noted before, the Bibles all come from two main sources. The King James comes from the Masoretic Hebrew and the Textus Receptus Greek. All others follow the Westcott and Hort or the Nestle Alland text. Those two are the major corruptions.
I was sent some material that showed the problem with just one verse and the problem is caused by using a corrupt Greek text.
The verse is found in Luke 2:14 which reads as follows in the KJV. It gives a specific message of hope for all.

Luke 2:14  Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

That same verse reads as follows in the ESV:

Luke 2:14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!

I trust that the reader can see the difference here. In the KJV we are told that Jesus Christ offers peace and good will toward all men. In the ESV Jesus Christ only offers peace and good will among those with whom He is well pleased. We know there are very few people that God is well pleased with. We also know that most people do not know God’s peace and good will. That is not the point of this verse. This verse is telling us of the offer that God is making to all men.
Jesus Christ is the only true source of peace and good will. That peace and good will is offered to all men. God has not pushed some people aside and declared that He will not offer them His peace and good will. The Calvinist believes that God has done that. John Calvin was a heretic. He was heavily influenced by Augustine. Augustine was a mystic.
This is important for us to consider. What we read will affect our thinking. If we are not reading the truth, we cannot know the truth. We cannot think on the truth either. The Bible exhorts people to read God’s Word. We need to be influenced by God’s Word. If we do not know where God’s Word is we have a major problem. We know the problem is not created by God. He wants us to know the truth. Paul wrote that God is not the author of confusion. Since God is not the author of confusion, there can only be one other source of confusion and that is the devil.
The ESV along with many other perversions are designed to create confusion and doubt. ‘If we cannot know the truth, why bother seeking for it?’ That is what the devil wants man to believe. In the first introduction we have to the devil, we find him to be a corrupter of God’s Word. Jesus warned that the devil is a liar and a murderer from the beginning. From the time the devil fell, he has been a liar and a murderer. He cannot be saved. He is doomed to an eternity in the lake of fire.
It is important for the reader to make sure that he or she is reading truth. Don’t corrupt your mind and heart with falsehoods.
It is important to make sure your heart is being directed by truth. God’s Word is truth. It is necessary to have God’s Word in your hand. As we can see, the perversions are obviously not God’s Word. If you are reading a perversion you would be described as:

II Ti mothy 3:7  Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

If you are a saved person you know that is a futile venture. Why waste your time on something that is not able to bring you to the knowledge of the truth? Why not start with the truth and get into a good church that will help you to understand God’s Word properly? Why not stick with the truth?
Pastor Bartel