Why does First Baptist Church use the NIV?
Several years ago, after prayerful consideration, First Baptist Church of Gibraltar, decided to use the New International Version as our standard text instead of the King James Version. First Baptist Church’s commitment to the authority of the Bible continues to remain firm and unchanged. Our church doctrinal statement states, “We believe that the Bible, exclusively comprised of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments is the Word of God, verbally and plenarily inspired, in the original manuscripts. It is therefore infallible and inerrant in all matters to which is speaks.” Why was this change necessary? God wants His Word understood. When the apostles wrote in Greek, they wrote in the common language of their day rather than in the literary Greek of the day. The driving passion of the KJV translators was to get the Bible into the hands of the common man in his common language. The English language has changed dramatically in 400 years. English modifies with culture; hence, the reaso
