Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not, Luke 17:9.
In the word "trow" we have a word that is no longer commonly used. In fact, its usage in Luke 17:9 is probably the only time most of us will ever encounter the word. That of course is a horror story to the proponents of the new bibles. Imagine the horror of little Poopsie having to actually cipher out what a word means from the context! The proponents of the new bibles who so often decry the modern trends in dumbing down students in public education take front and center stage in dumbing down their students when it comes to the bible.
Before we look at the meaning of the word which almost jumps out in the context, let us consider teaching students to reason. It is a fact of history that most of the colonial ancestors of Canadians and Americans, and I presume other English Speaking nations had only two books in their humble homes. They had a King James Bible and they had Pilgrim's Progress. What education they received was often sporadic and limited. Somehow, men of this ilk were able to understand and to form great republics upon this earth; republics so great that the poor of this earth still strive to enter them.
I have read many books about the era of the founding of the United States, the history of England itself and am somewhat familiar with the histories of other English Speaking nations. What stands out as we look back on these people is how well they learned to reason. The ability to reason is clearly missing in the masses of people today.
For those who would inculcate a love of reason and an ability to think clearly in their students, there is no greater tool on this earth than a King James Bible. It is written in exact and clear English. As we have said so often before, no generation of men ever spoke King James English. It has always been an exact language constructed from English Lexicons, but grammatically formed to perfectly reflect the sense of the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts from which it came.
Though we may find snippets or streams of similar grammatical construction or word usage in other sources such as Shakespeare or Milton, none of those sources have the exact unerring and constant grammar of our King James Bible. To teach a student to read a King James Bible is to teach them to think in exact and complete thoughts. It is to teach them the ability to construct sentences in such a way that thought can be logically and unerringly expressed.
Over the years, I have learned that the most effective teaching tools in life often teach more than what is on the surface. A child joining a sports team learns more than the game itself. He learns teamwork, obedience, the pain of losing and the joy of winning. A good literature course will do more than to teach a student to read. It carries them to foreign lands, other times and to other cultures.
Until the new bibles came along with the the express purpose of seeing to it that our young would never have to reason out any word or phrase, bible reading taught logical thought and ingrained our young in an international expression of the English Language which is common with all of the other English speaking people of earth who retained our King James Bible.
I have commented before about the rapid improvement I hear in the speech patterns of our converts at the Black Creek Baptist Church. People who hitherto fore had resented reading anything not on an electronic device and whose conversation reflected the slang of their limited spheres, now speak in far more coherent sentences. They have expanded their reading to works other than the bible and find joy in learning.
What a strange goal our bible correcting friends have set for their young charges! They seek to teach them bible truth, but only when framed with a linguistic and logic structure with which they are already comfortable. At no other time in our history have bible educators ever sought to limit the educational value of the bible.
To hear these same people grouse about the dumbed down standards of today's public education, and to hear them boast about their own elevated standards in their Christian schools, we would think that they would use the same elevated bible from which their forefathers learned. Alas, we would think so in vain. They have bought into their own propaganda to the detriment of themselves and their students.
"Trow" and "true" come from common root words. It is obvious from the context of Luke 17:9, that to say, "I trow not" is to say that you disagree. I have never run across a person who did not get that from the context. Various words in the English Language have taken strange paths to get where they are today. For example, warden and guardian come from the same root word. Depending on whether the user of the common root word was a native Anglo-Saxon speaker or a speaker of Old Norse, the user framed the word differently in his mouth. Two distinctly different sounds came out and eventually similar but different meanings formed.
Shirt and skirt are another example of two words diverging based on the speech pattern of its speakers. We see that even within Israel, those who were native speakers of Hebrew pronounced some words differently. Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand, Judges 12:6.
In the word "trow" we have a verb that means to acknowledge something as true. I don't know whether any of my fellow English Speaking brethren in the far flung corners of the earth still use such a delightful and useful word, but I am glad that my students learn it.
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