If King James Had Only Known.

So I read where this church in North Carolina decided to have an old-fashioned book-burning, taking all kinds of Satan-inspired works to the bonfire.

Including all Bibles that are not the King James Version.

That bunch would include the NIV, the NASB, the Living Bible, etc.

I grew up on the KJV.  Heard it every Sunday from Preacher Bill in the pulpit of Midway Baptist Church.

The first "other" Bible given to me was by my Mama, a green hardback edition of the Living Bible.  I loved it, and still have it today, decades later.

When I attended Mercer University, the Bible of choice in the Christianity Department was the Revised Standard Version, commonly referred to as the Reverse Vision Version.

Mama and Daddy gave me a Thompson Chain-Reference Bible for my birthday while I was in college.  It was a KJV.  Still have that one, too, with my name embossed on the front in what once was gold.

Bob Felts introduced me to the New American Standard Bible, "the most literal of all translations", according to him.  I've been using it pretty much ever since, although I didn't become a Feltsian like my wife was for a while early in our relationship.

I'm pretty sure the Apostle Paul used the NASB.  While he was in the Phillipines.

But I digress.  The pastor of the church, Amazing Grace Baptist Church (I am not making this up), believes all versions besides the KJV are demonic.

He puts the "mental" in "fundamentalist".

Now, he's entitled to do whatever he wants with whatever books he chooses.  Him and the fourteen members of his new church.

I can only imagine being a visitor one Sunday morning.  Would they check my Bible at the door for inerrancy, then try to take it away from me for the next round of fireside reading?

Not so fast, hoss. You can have my NASB.

When you pry it out of my cold, dead hands.