VIOLENT KINGDOM?
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matthew 11:12)
The ASV and RSV managed to leave this verse alone, but the NIV provides the following wild rendition of this verse:
“From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.”
As Gail Riplinger notes in the preface to In Awe of Thy Word: “In the KJV, Christians are martyred. In the corrupt NIV, Crusaders, witch-burning Calvinists, and ‘holy war’ advocates kill people to advance their false ‘religion.”1
The Christian Church has never used violence to advance the faith as this NIV distortion would have us believe. The enemy has always used conflated Christian history with that of the Catholic abomination to falsely accuse Christians of the murder and torture of the crusades and inquisition.
Christians were, of course, victims of this violence, not partakers in it. This included violence done against Christians by Protestants defending baby sprinkling and other heresies.
In the New World Order envisioned by New Agers and globalists, such as those behind the NIV, the false Antichrist church that is rapidly growing now, murder, torture and imprisonment will again be used to advance false religion, and Bible-believing Christians will again be the main victims of it, as well as unborn babies and other innocents. The New World Order, or just New Order, as Hitler and the NIV called it, is being promoted by the NIV’s reading, not Christ’s kingdom on earth.
The verb in question is biazetai, a passive form from the verb biazw. The base meaning of the passive verb is to suffer violence, or be pressed or oppressed. The second clause complements the first clause, which should have been obvious to even the more dimwitted members of the NIV committee.
If the kingdom of heaven had been acting violently, what possible chance would the enemy have had to resist? Would they have had any power at all to oppress Christians?
After the period of the great tribulation, the kingdom of heaven will indeed use great violence on earth, but that is yet to be, and Bible believers will continue to face much more violence before that times come, and some of it will undoubtedly come from modern NIV-using 501 (c)3 IRS corporate entities.
1Riplinger, Gail. In Awe of Thy Word: Understanding the King James Bible, Its Mystery and History, Letter by Letter, p. 11.
John Hinton, Ph.D.
Bible Restoration Ministry
A ministry seeking the translating and reprinting of KJV equivalent
Bibles in all the languages of the world.