Repenting of disdainful and intemperate attitudes

I think I'll copy here at the top the note I added at the bottom of the post Extreme KJVOs lose the debate for the rest of us, where I lament my acceptance of a pejorative term:

Sat, Aug 23. I would like to confess that I was uneasy with the phrase "fever-swamp" although I indulged it in the above discussion. I shouldn't support insulting terms. I fell into it because I agree with Wilson's basic position, and because, well, it's descriptively apt. Some of the extreme KJVOs tend to be pantingly preoccupied with the devil's doings to the point of losing a humble reasonable and Christian perspective and making war on mere flesh and blood. However, I've never really liked the style of Credenda/Agenda either. There's a flippancy and jocularity to it that puts me off. (And a sort of artsy snobbism too). I'm glad to find them on the side of the KJV (really, the Textus Receptus), however, and hope they will continue to fight this particular fight.

And while I'm confessing and repenting, I'd like to say something about how I understand the KJVO impulse to denounce and revile an opposition that has so much apparent demonic influence as the modern Bible versions defense does, but truly that's an impulse of the flesh and accomplishes nothing. In fact I may personally have been cured forever from that particular fault by seeing how it misleads otherwise good defenders of the KJV like Gail Riplinger into indefensible accusations of other good defenders such as David Cloud, and the inexcusable way Texe Marrs dealt with James White as shown on White's series about Marrs at You Tube. Does this make me "disdainful" of God's people, and enjoying the company of the Critical Text people, as a poster here has suggested?

Well, in sharing Douglas Wilson's term "fever-swamp" as far as I did, to that extent I shared in his disdain for the extreme KJVO people. But I've repented of that. As for favoring the company of the opposition, I can hardly abide listening to James White, if you want to know the truth, it's a struggle to hear or read him. It's just that when someone on the KJV-only side attacks him the way Marrs did, I'm no happier with our side, and worse, it gets harder to see how the important issues can be rescued from such irrational and unChristian behavior.

Humility is always the right path, even when you are dealing with the devil, in fact it's the most powerful position to take against the devil. Confess your sins and he has nothing he can bring against you. We are not always right, and I don't see anything in scripture that tells us we're to revile the devil, let alone any human being. In fact "revilers" are on the list of those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God, along with fornicators and drunkards and extortioners and so on. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Webster's 1828 has: REVI'LE, v.t. re and vile.
To reproach; to treat with opprobrious and contemptuous language.
She revileth him to his face.
Thou shalt not revile the gods. Ex. 22.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you. Matt. 5.
REVI'LE, n. Reproach; contumely; contemptuous
language. Not in use.

Mt 27:39 And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,
Mr 15:32 Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.
Joh 9:28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples.
1Co 4:12 And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
1Pe 2:23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

Yes, this controversy is an arena where we're bound to experience plenty of spiritual warfare, but fair criticism is not spiritual warfare unless you resist it. It's really too bad when the people who are on the right side are attacking others on the same side, using the devil's own weapons.

Update on Bible translators losing their voices

I've been working on collecting some links on the Bible versions controversy and ran across this on David Cloud's site. This is on his page where he criticizes Gail Riplinger's book, New Age Bible Versions. The implication seems to be that it was Mrs. Riplinger who started the whole idea that the translators of the new versions had lost their voices, but whether she did or not, apparently her accusation that Westcott lost his voice is false:
http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/newage.htm

6. On page 448 Mrs. Riplinger says:

“Westcott's biographer cites that in 1858 ‘he was quite inaudible’ and by 1870 ‘his voice reached few and was understood by still fewer.’”

Riplinger uses this quote to support her claim that Westcott lost his voice and sees that as a judgment of God for tampering with the Bible.

The fact is that Westcott did NOT lose his voice. Riplinger cites volume one of The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, but the quotes are misused. The first quote is from a statement about how that Westcott, as a young student, disliked public speaking. “He [Westcott] took his turn of preaching in Chapel, but he dreaded and disliked the duty, and he was quite inaudible to many of the boys” (The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, vol. 1, p. 198).

There is nothing here about Westcott losing his voice. The second of Riplinger’s quotes is taken from a letter from a Dr. Butler, who said that Westcott, when he was 35 years old and teaching at Harrow, still had a weak public speaking voice.

“His voice was not yet a force in the chapel. It reached but few, and it was understood by still fewer” (The Life and Letters of Brooke Foss Westcott, vol. 1, pp. 272-273).

Again, there is not a hint that Westcott lost his voice. It is a figment of Mrs. Riplinger’s fertile imagination.

To my mind this also casts some doubt on the KJVO version of the incident on the 1995 John Ankerberg Show where Texe Marrs and other KJVOs claim the NASB translator Dr. Wilkins temporarily lost his voice. However, from the video exchange at You Tube that I posted earlier,

http://watchpraystand.blogspot.com/2008/08/side-issues-to-be-avoided-in-kjv.html

I still can't see that the segment posted by James White could possibly have been what the KJVO people were remembering. Unfortunately I suppose we'll never know.

The readiness of the extreme KJVO advocates to read God's judgment into such incidents, and also to personally pronounce God's judgment against their opponents, on almost any aspect of this discussion, does not speak in their favor.