After hearing my message entitled “Your Bible and You,” some have come to me and asked me some questions regarding my position the Bible. While the message, I hope, makes part of my position clear, there are some that wonder if there is any material between the lines. Some who have wondered this have come to me and asked me right to my face, rather than leave with false assumptions. Their coming has made me mindful that others may have the same questions and thus it may be helpful to answer them all here in this forum. I will first give the questions as they have been given to me and then give my answers to them below.

Are you a Ruckmanite?

This is often the first question that comes to mind when people hear my message on the Bible. The answer is emphatically, no. Because this question is an important one, I will give my reasons for disagreeing with him below. Please note that I have never met Peter Ruckman, nor have I ever heard him preach. Some of the information I will give below comes from those whom I have come across in my travels who tenaciously hold to his teachings (hereafter known in this article as Ruckmanites). Some of the information comes from those who have heard Peter Ruckman preach first hand.

• Peter Ruckman teaches that God breathed again in 1611 when the King James Version was first translated. In this, he and his followers are in error. Another inspiration of Scripture is totally unnecessary because God, having inspired His Word once, has been and is now preserving His Word since He inspired it. Translation is necessary, but inspiration is a once-for-all event that need never be repeated.
• Peter Ruckman believes that the King James Version in English can correct the original manuscripts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. If this were the case, then God did not inspire a perfect Bible to begin with and needed the translators of the English speaking world to correct his errors either of inspiration or of preservation. My view of both inspiration and preservation makes Ruckman’s view impossible.
• Peter Ruckman is not Scripturally qualified for the pastoral ministry, not being the husband of one wife. This does not necessarily mean that what he says about the Bible is wrong, but it does mean that I am not going to call myself by his name (Ruckmanite). In fact, there is no one whose name I would like to take to describe my doctrinal position: Calvinist, Wesleyan, Arminian, etc. The notable exception is Christian, being named for Christ Himself, whose character I need never doubt.
• Peter Ruckman and all the Ruckmanites that I have ever met seem to me to be very arrogant in their defense of the King James Version of the Bible. No matter who disagrees with me, I must always be kind and humble in defense of my position. I have never met anyone who agreed with Peter Ruckman who fits this description.
• Peter Ruckman and his followers advocate divisive ways of getting their point across, even to the point of splitting good churches over the issue. While I use nothing but the King James Version and use only the Textus Receptus in my Greek study, I do not believe in splitting a church over this issue. The Bible that I try to defend says, “In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.” Many who do not take the same position I do on the Bible end up opposing themselves, in my opinion. That is all the more reason to treat them correctly, that is, meekly.
• Peter Ruckman has created a kind of cultic following so that many of his followers blindly follow him almost to the point of worship. A lady for whose husband I preached told me that she had been to hear Ruckman in a service. As he walked onto the platform, the crowd stood to salute him with a straight-arm salute, the kind made so famous by Nazi Germany. As part of their way of honoring Ruckman, they crowned him with a spiked German Nazi-style helmet in the meeting. The pastor’s wife who related the story was all the more horrified because she had brought an unbelieving Jewish friend with her to the meeting.

In summary, I am not a Ruckmanite because I disagree with Peter Ruckman’s position and his disposition.

Are you King James Only?

It depends on what you mean by this term. In the strictest sense of the word, I am. However, that term has come to carry with it an implied philosophy that is often not far from Ruckman’s if not directly tied to it. I do not believe in the divisiveness that is so often associated with that term. . If I were asked to preach using another version (assuming that my audience is English speaking), I would not, nor would I return to the church if I were asked to do so. At the same time, I may have preached for many who do not take my textual position and it has never once come up as an issue. I would never go into a situation trying to persuade people to my textual position when they had been taught another position. As an evangelist, it is not my place to divide churches on the basis of this issue. If any pastor wants to have an open-minded discussion, I will not back down from it; but I do not want to do anything that might raise a doubt in the mind of a church member about his pastor.

Are you against seminary training?

No. Although in my message I relate a very negative encounter with a seminary professor, I am not against seminary in general. Any man in any educational institution that teaches his students to cast doubt on the Word of God is merely echoing Satan himself when he asked in the Garden of Eden, “Hath God said?” I fail to see the value of this kind of “education,” despite the efforts of some to convince me of it. Any Baptist seminary that teaches a man to stand on God’s Word and preach it faithfully without compromise and apology is doing a good work. As with any education, there is always the danger of pride, for “knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” That said, I am not against seminary training in general.

These three questions are the most often that are asked of me after people hear my message (“Your Bible and You”). If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me about it. I always appreciate a person who will come to me directly and make sure of what I believe, instead of assuming that I take an extreme position.