At a Youth for Christ fundraiser, in a huge gymnasium packed to capacity, my husband and I "just happened" to sit across from an older gentlemen, by the name of Alfred Thompson. He told us about the deception of the NIV Bible. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. For a while I was almost angry at what he was saying. I thought: "He is talking about the NIV that I myself have used for years. He is talking about my NIV Women's Devotional Bible with the beautiful pink flowers on it." But the Lord didn't seem to care what the front of my Bible looked like. It was the contents He was concerned about.

After a while the feeling got so strong I didn't seem to have any peace, unless I was almost every day comparing the NIV verses with the King James. My husband bought me a parallel Bible for my birthday and that made it even easier. It didn't seem to matter how much I tried to forget what the gentlemen had said, I kept getting this feeling that I needed to research this even further. The Lord led me to 2 Timothy 2:15: "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Rightly dividing —comparing the two Bibles side by side. And sure enough Mr. Thompson was right.

Then I remembered Galatians 1:6-12, where the apostle Paul said that if anyone preach from what he referred to as the other, perverted gospel, let them be accursed. When the Lord showed me what that really meant, my heart went out to so many denominational pastors that I knew who were preaching from the perverted NIV. I didn't want them to be under a curse.

So I decided to just have a little, friendly talk with them about the things in their own NIV that was not right. Now, I thought they would be glad I was sharing this with them. But just the opposite happened. All of them first just gave me "the look" like, "Who do you think you are?" And then I would hear comments like, "I see nothing doctrinally wrong with the NIV." Another pastor said, "There are a few verses that kind of concerned me, but that's as far as I care to go." Another pastor said, "I don't really like the TNIV, but I do like the NIV." Another pastor said, "If I spend all my time worrying about which Bible I preach from I will never get anything done." Another said, "I would never say anything contrary to the NIV."

Another made the excuse that, "The entire verse is in the footnotes." Another said, "You just don't know your Greek." I wanted to say, "You mean the ones from the ungodly Westcott and Hort?" But the icing on the cake was the day a young gentlemen approached me so excited because the youth group in his church had memorized the most NIV verses in the district. I wanted to ask him if they memorized the footnotes, too. But, of course, I didn't.

After all those negative comments, I felt like, "What's the use?" I just wanted to forget it all and not rock the boat, not make waves. But the Lord wouldn't let me think that for very long.

2 Timothy 3:13: "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived."

Bear with me as I explain.

Then the Lord led me to the preface of my NIV Bible where there is a statement about stylistic consultants that states:

A sensitive feeling for the style does not always accompany scholarship. Accordingly, the Committee on Bible Translation submitted the developing version to a number of stylistic consultants. Two of them read every book of both Old and New Testaments twice —once before and once after the last major revision— and made invaluable suggestions. Samples of the translations were tested for clarity and ease of reading by various kinds of people —young and old, highly educated and less-well-educated, ministers and laymen.

So now, according to the NIV preface, think about it. You are getting a mish mash of denominational, man-made ideas, of liberal religious traditions from various kinds of people making "invaluable suggestions" for the most important book in the world, The Holy Bible!

Now, allow me to tell you about these "various kinds of people," one in particular who was, believe it or not, asked to be an NIV "stylistic consultant."

Through these Christian websites[5], I learned that there was a practicing lesbian by the name of Virginia Mollenkott who was invited to be what they called a "stylistic consultant" on the NIV Bible translation committee.

One day I wrote to this lady, Virginia Mollenkott, and asked her some very direct questions. We wrote back and forth many times. The following are my questions to her, and next are her answers to me from many emails I received from her.

[5] www.jesus-is-lord.com, www.purewords.org, www.lovethetruth.com, www.Biblebelievers.com