A Time For Trouble:
How Misinterpretations of Scripture
Can Damage Our Faith
by Pastor Matthew E. Walker, 23 August 2010

The day before I became a teenager has been etched into my memory like an artist might carve words into solid wood. After a three-day trip with my classmates to Williamsburg, Virginia, I had a run in with the principal of my junior-high school. I can still feel the coldness that went through my body while he was screaming his threats of violence. He actually threatened to pull me from the bus and pound my face into the ground. He didn’t say it just once; he screamed it at me a couple of times. The traumatic experience was awful enough that I remember even today how terrified I was of him. To his credit, the next day (my birthday, nonetheless), he sincerely apologized to me for what he said.

As an adult now, I can see how spending three days in Williamsburg with one hundred junior highers might just push someone over the edge. I also understand why the conflict occurred. On the day he apologized to me, I learned that the source of the trouble was that my principal believed he had said something to me that was clear; he later learned that I had misinterpreted his words. He thought I was being disobedient to him and endangering some of the lives of my classmates; in reality, I was obeying his instructions to the letter. When he saw me horsing around a little bit later, he just went off. I learned that weekend that misinterpretations can cause serious problems. Whether purposeful or accidental, they can lead to real trouble.

In the same sense, we live in a day when some of God’s people are misinterpreting Scripture. Just recently a young missionary candidate applied to our church for funds to help him get to the field. As part of his application he mentioned that he prefers the Masoretic OT text and the Textus Receptus for the NT. This is typical for those who are labeled King James Only. While there are many various strains of KJV-onlyism, it basically comes down to a doctrine that is relatively new in theological circles. It is the doctrine of Scriptural Preservation. If you study any of the major systematic theologies since the early church you will not find serious references to a well-developed doctrine of Scriptural preservation. I don’t know if this is because God’s people naturally assumed God’s Word would be preserved because of promises in other passages, or that there was little need for such a doctrine in a world where the typical Christian would live without ever seeing a whole Bible. I do know that if there is any reference to preservation in those theology books it refers to God’s preserving His people.

That doesn’t mean that God has not preserved His Word or that this doctrine is wrong. Just because something is new does not make it wrong. What is troubling, however, are the misinterpretations of Scripture that are used to support the KJV-only position and this doctrine of preservation. To support his statement on the subject the young missionary candidate gave as one of his proof-texts Psalm 12:7. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. If you read the previous verse you will find the psalmist declaring the purity of God’s words. He says that God’s words are as pure as silver that has gone through the refiner’s furnace seven times. He is using superlatives to say that God’s word is as pure as anything can be; there is nothing purer. After declaring the purity of God’s words, the psalmist says that God will keep them, that He will preserve them forever. The seemingly obvious inference from a casual reading of Psalm 12:6-7 is that God’s words are pure and that He will preserve them (His words) forever, hence the doctrine of preservation.

The Interpretation Of Psalm 12:6-7

But is Psalm 12:6-7 teaching the doctrine of God’s preserved Word? The Psalm begins with David complaining that God’s people are being oppressed. He pleads for God’s help because those who are truly godly, the merciful and the faithful, are fewer in number and in danger of being overwhelmed by the unrighteous horde. David goes on to give his opinion on the people of his day. He calls them lying and manipulative. Moreover, they were arrogant about their sin. They proudly declared that they would win because of their lying, cheating ways. In the middle of David’s complaint, in verse 3, he declares his assurance that God will cut off these wicked people. Though the merciful and faithful were a distinct minority, they were also on God’s side. In fact, David reveals in this psalm something that God had said: Jehovah had promised to arise and protect His people from those who were scoffing at them. David had an unshakable faith that God would hear the prayers for help from His people. This was something God had promised.

This is where the interpretation of Psalm 12 gets very important. How confident should someone reading Psalm 12, someone who is being oppressed like David was, be in the assurance of God to come to his aid? In verse 5 God has spoken this promise. In almost prophetic voice David gives us a “thus saith the Lord” statement. How confident should we be in God’s words? Now comes verse 6: God’s words are pure. So pure that they can be compared to the purest silver that man is capable of refining. Even though the wicked are often exalted in the earth (vs. 8), the oppressed should have confidence in God’s promise because it was God who gave it. His words are true. Then David turns back to his subject. God will keep His people and preserve them from this generation forever. The promise of God in Psalm 12 is to preserve His people, not His words. The context is clear and the Hebrew grammar is even clearer. In the Hebrew, the pronoun them of verse 8 can refer back only to an antecedent that matches the same gender and number of the pronoun. Since the pronoun is a masculine plural pronoun, the only grammatically matching antecedent are the “poor” and “needy” (both masculine plural nouns) in verse 5. The word for “words” in verse 6 is a feminine plural noun and would require a feminine plural pronoun to point back to it. Indeed, the Septuagint translators, recognizing the strength of David’s assertion, translates the reference as “us” instead of “them” in order to convey the significance of the promise.

When Misunderstanding Scripture Becomes a Problem

If you are reading a doctrinal statement from someone who holds to the KJV-only position and they are promoting that God has promised to preserve His Word and that this must be the King James Version for English-speaking people because that is the translation the English have had for nearly four hundred years, you will often find Psalm 12:6-7 used as a proof text. God’s words are pure (vs. 6) and He will keep them (vs. 7) forever. That sounds nice, but only if you are reading and interpreting those two verses in isolation. Unfortunately, that is not the right interpretation of the Psalm. Furthermore, it robs the believer who is horribly oppressed of an incredibly strong reassurance, namely, that despite the current distressing persecution God, whose words are flawlessly pure, will ultimately preserve them—the believer—forever. Furthermore, the passage points back to the earliest covenants that God made with His people. When it seems that the line of David would die out because of the oppression of Babylon, Persia, and Rome, the promise of God is that it would not. That promise is fulfilled in the advent of a king fit to reign on David’s throne, Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

While God has surely preserved His Word, these two verses in Psalm 12 are not the one to use as proof text of that fact. To interpret them as the rabid KJV-only supporters have is to damage the true meaning of Scripture. Think of it this way: which is worse, to have no preserved Word of God or to badly misinterpret the one you have? For those of us who love the KJV, it is a travesty that we are lumped in with those whose blind support for a cause has led to the flagrant misinterpretation of Scripture and, ultimately, undermined the promised benefits of the coming Messiah.