But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him, 1st John 2:27.
There is perhaps no greater proof of the authenticity and authority of the King James Bible than its proven ability to work with the Holy Ghost and to fulfill 1st John 2:27. One of the best rebukes that I have received when publishing posts from this blog in the King James Bible Debate Forum came from quoting myself in a post about the Oxford English Dictionary. In Chapter 8 of my book Further Thoughts on the Word of God, I had made the statement that, "Still there are many words in the King James Bible that will take a dictionary to fully understand."
Missionary Peter Heisey rebuked that statement. He has maintained (and convinced me) that there is no word in a King James Bible which cannot be understood from within its context if sufficient time is spent researching the context and word. Brother Heisey's research and writing are head and shoulders above mine and I gladly accepted that rebuke. I have spent three blog posts illustrating how that words such as "alway" and "always", "thoroughly" and "throughly" and "ensample and "example" have clear and distinctly different meanings based solely upon the translators' obvious usage of them as different.
We learned that all "ensamples" are "examples", but not all "examples" are "ensamples". Our Brother Paul Scott illustrated that very well. "Ensamples" has a niche definition within the realm of "examples". We learned that from within the pages of our King James Bible. We learned that even though the word "thoroughly" has a meandering history of variant spellings, when the final orthography of our sacred text was set in stone in the mid-1700s, it was decisively set apart from a similar adverb called "throughly". Looking at each of them in context was sufficient to establish that. Likewise, we saw Paul Scott expertly sever the word "alway" from "always" from within the text itself and demonstrate that the translators had two clearly different things in mind when they used the word.
Lastly in this rueful look at attacks on the King James Bible, we will look at "stablish" and "establish". I would like to make this note. Paul Scott's April 29th 2017 post, "Stablish" or "Establish" remains the single most viewed post on this site. (Click Here to Read that Excellent Post.) In the last 30 days it has been viewed 219 times from all over the world. That is approximately 24% of the views this site has received in these last 30 days. One such viewer from Costa Rica was kind enough to leave this comment:
"Thank you Brother excellent study-thumbs-up. In Spanish we have two words that make a very clear distinction: Establish = establecer. And Stablish = estabilizar. Greetings from Costa Rica". David.
That helped us to understand why the post is so popular. We have received viewers for that post from almost every country on earth over these last two years. Other languages have a clear distinction in them to distinguish between "establish" meaning to set up for the first time, and "stablish" meaning to build up or hold up. We can give author Bryan C. Ross limited kudos in his examination of these two words in that he really did go within the text to try and prove that they are the same.
He uses 6 verses with some skill to demonstrate that the two words are interchangeable.
He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever, 2nd Samuel 7:13.
And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever, 2nd Samuel 7:16.
Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel, 1st King 9:5.
He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever, 1st Chronicles 17:12.
But I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore, 1st Chronicles 17:14.
He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever, 1st Chronicles 22:10.
This is good work by Pastor Ross. If these were the only places where the two words were ever used, he could make a good case. Some years ago, I had a preacher lecture me that the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven were the exact same thing. His proof was that in the Parable of the man who distributed his goods in Matthew 25: 14-29, Kingdom of Heaven was used. When the same parable is told elsewhere, Kingdom of God was used. If that had been the only two places where either Kingdom was mentioned, that would be a valid deduction. Yet when we compare the Kingdom of God which is internal, (Romans 14: 17, Luke 17:21) to the Kingdom of Heaven established on earth with God's laws and ordinances being the ruling law such as David's kingdom and the Kingdom that Jesus Christ will establish on earth, the superficial comparing of the parables falls apart in the sense of trying to make the two kingdoms synonymous.
Likewise, Pastor Ross's work here comes to naught. "Stablish" and "establish are interchanged in the above verses because God is determined to do both. He promised to "establish" David's kingdom and to "stablish David"s kingdom. He promised to set it up the first time and he promised to maintain it. I'll be the first to admit that in the 6 selected verse that he cites, that would be difficult to prove. Let us consider our good Brother Paul Scott's recent post in which he shows us both "stablish" and "establish" in action from October of 2019.
Here is an example of these two words at work:
“ …And sent Timotheus…to establish you, and to comfort you concerning the your faith…” (1 Thess. 3:2)
Paul had only been with the Thessalonians for 3 sabbaths (less than a month) before he and his company got run out of town by envious Jews. Now he was concerned about these new believers and sent Timothy to check on them: to know their faith, to see if they were grounded, if they had a firm foundation. In short, were they established?
Timothy visits the Thessalonians, and then returns to Paul with a very encouraging and positive report of their faith (1 Thess. 3:6-8). Paul expresses his joy for their testimony and then he states his prayer for their perfection, their maturity—that they would increase and abound. What one word does he use to summarize his desire for them, now that they are both grounded and growing?
“…To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable…” (v. 13).
It would be a mistake, a dulling down, to replace the ‘stablish’ of v.13, with ‘establish.’ As it is written, it fits the flow, the running narrative of Paul’s epistle. Each word supports, and is supported by, the synonyms of their own context; revealing Paul’s desire from initial establishing, to a mature edifying: stablishing.
Yes, the two words are interwoven in 2nd Samuel, 1st Kings and 1st Chronicles. They are interwoven in such a respect that if you did not already have proof from within the King James Bible demonstrating their usage by the translators, you could be partially forgiven for confounding them. You would still have to explain why one translator would use two different forms of the same word within a two verse spacing. Knowing that these men were linguistic masters in many languages and were working hard to make the text clear, and knowing that other languages made a clear distinction in the those two English words, why would a translator so lightly interchange them so closely together?
Even if we thought that the two words were the same and that the usage of two forms was only stylistic, why would any publisher of the King James Bible change that?