I was discussing baptism with my brother. He knows he needs to be baptized, but he doesn’t have confidence in the Bible. He says he watches these shows that tell how corrupt men took books out of the Bible that really might be important. One example was that Mary Magdalene was supposedly one of the greatest Apostles, but they removed that book. He also says that only a few will be saved, and he just can’t seem to agree with that. He just wants to see what all is “out there” or has been removed before he can fully commit to the Bible. He is really down on the King James Version of the Bible and believes it was put together by corrupt men. How do I respond?<\/p>\n\t
Your brother isn’t, at the moment, ready to be baptized because he doesn’t have faith. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him<\/em>” (Hebrews 11:6). In particular, he doesn’t believe that God has the ability to preserve His own teachings. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away<\/em>” (Matthew 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33).<\/p>\n “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart,\u00a0having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever<\/strong>, because “All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but\u00a0the word of the LORD endures forever<\/strong>.” Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you<\/em>” (I Peter 2:22-25).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If he is truly interested, it is straight forward to prove which books have the evidence necessary to be counted as part of the Bible. However, he is currently taking the word of people who really do not know their Bibles or their history. He needs to prove to himself that the books we have in the Bible are the complete set delivered by the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n I can give you a set of outlines that should get such a study started:<\/p>\n In regards to the King James Version, he is making accusations again without evidence. Claims of inaccuracy don’t constitute proof. This is not to say that the King James Version is a perfect translation, it isn’t. It has its problems, but they are minor ones compared to the charges your brother is making from his ignorance.<\/p>\n Given the nature of the arguments, I suspect his “source” is the fictional movie or the fictional book “The DaVinci Code.” This makes his arguments particularly funny since he is using a known work of fiction as evidence against a known historical book. See:<\/p>\n Question: I was discussing baptism with my brother. He knows he needs to be baptized, but he doesn’t have confidence in the Bible. He says he watches these shows that tell how corrupt men took books out of the Bible that really might be important. One example was that Mary Magdalene was supposedly one of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[219,130],"class_list":["post-17775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-bible","tag-canon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7075,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-members-of-the-church-of-christ-believe-they-are-the-only-ones-going-to-heaven\/","url_meta":{"origin":17775,"position":0},"title":"Do members of the church of Christ believe they are the only ones going to heaven?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Does the church of Christ believe they're the only ones going to heaven? My brother married someone that goes to a church that's a hard-core church of Christ. He's going nuts. He will hardly look at my family and argues all the time about baptism before salvation. He has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1038,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-authority-is-there-for-re-baptism\/","url_meta":{"origin":17775,"position":1},"title":"What authority is there for re-baptism?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where does the Bible authenticate re-baptizing anyone who believed in Jesus and was baptized in His name? Answer: I know of none. Baptism is an act that is done once. \"For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49931,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/a-fools-approach\/","url_meta":{"origin":17775,"position":2},"title":"A Fool’s Approach","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Gary P. Eubanks Two men are desperate to learn the answer to the same Bible question. Two men take Scripture and resort to the isolation of a park. Two men focus on particular but different texts. Two men begin a process that will take them far from the religious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19148,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-does-the-bible-say-about-salvation\/","url_meta":{"origin":17775,"position":3},"title":"What Does the Bible Say About Salvation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Frank Richey via The Elgin Hills Examiner, Vol. 4, Nos. 4-6, April -- June 2009. Notice we do not ask the question, \"What does a particular church teach about salvation?\" The reason for this is that no church has the divine right to teach anything about salvation other than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/Bible-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":34512,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-want-to-be-baptized-but-my-parents-dont-think-it-is-necessary\/","url_meta":{"origin":17775,"position":4},"title":"I want to be baptized, but my parents don’t think it is necessary","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I lost a lot of my faith recently due to the fact that I realized baby baptism doesn't count and nothing that I did concerning God counted. I can't even be baptized again yet because my parents don't think it's necessary after infant baptism, so I don't know what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46977,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-keep-finding-sins-in-my-life-do-i-need-to-get-baptized-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":17775,"position":5},"title":"I keep finding sins in my life. Do I need to get baptized again?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Brother Hamilton, This has been bothering me for a while, so I am going to explain my situation. I was baptized as an infant and grew up knowing all about Jesus and what is expected of a Christian. However, as a young adult, after studying the Bible, I realized\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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