Last week I was reading through what I thought was my Bible. It looked the same as mine, but it actually was one given to me by a friend who wanted me to look through it and see what I thought of it. It was called the APV, which I had not heard of before. He had given me a letter explaining about the translation. Hmm. What had I done with that? As I was thumbing through it, much to my surprise, I discovered that 2 John 9-11 was missing. What? How odd! Verses 1-8 were there, as were verses 12 and 13—only they were now numbered 9 and 10. “Who would dare to remove three verses from the Bible!” I thought to myself. I stared at it in disbelief, but those three verses remained gone.
I couldn’t help wondering if any other verses were missing. It seemed to be otherwise normal. It took a while, but as I was skimming through it, I notice that 1 Corinthians only contained 15 chapters! When did that change occur? Surely the entire text was not missing in early manuscripts. But, yes, 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 was missing entirely. Ephesians 5:11 was gone, and Titus 3:10-11 was also absent. “This is crazy!” I thought. I decided the only way to make any sense out of all this was to find the accompanying explanation. Where was that piece of paper? After searching for a bit, I found it mixed in with some newspapers. It read:
The publishers of the APV hope that you enjoy the efforts of selected brethren to make the Bible relevant. The most appropriate title we could think of is descriptive of the work. It is the As Practiced Version. Everyone is aware that needless divisions have existed in the church over the past 20 years. Many different views have surfaced over some of these matters, and lines of fellowship have been drawn, which exclude large segments of brethren from loving and appreciating one another. We all agree that these barriers are harmful to the cause of Christ; so passages that might be misconstrued, along with those that have been misused, have been removed. Matthew 7:15-20 is now gone because who among us can identify someone else as a wolf in sheep’s clothing? With this version you will be able to fellowship Rubel Shelly, Max Lucado, Jerry Rushford (who directed the Pepperdine lectures for 32 years), and many others. So what if some brethren, such as F. LaGard Smith and Edward Fudge, deny that hell, as defined in the Bible, exists? Can we afford to withdraw from everyone with whom we have honest disagreements? Why, we would have to banish to the theological scrap heap Mac Deaver and his Holy Spirit teachings, the A.D. 70 folks, and probably those who do not object to instrumental music. Brethren, how far are we willing to go? Eventually no one will be left. The As Practiced Version will unite all of us by removing that which divides us. Harmony ought to result among God’s people.