Avoid This At Any Cost!

August 2, 2025 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

There are many English translations of the Bible available, for which I am very thankful. They cover a range of reading styles, translation philosophies and so on. Usually they are written by teams of scholars who have devoted their lives to studying the Bible in the original languages.

The Mirror Bible is not one of these. It is written to push a particular theological viewpoint, imposing that idea on the text rather than letting the Scriptures lead us into correct understanding.

The author, Francois du Toit is from South Africa and has a three year theology degree (same as me, but I don’t laim to be a biblical scholar). He believes a number of twisted doctrines including

Universalism- the belief that every body will be saved
Sin is not real but is rather our inability to see the divine in us
Inclusivism- the belief that the gospel is meant to include everyone, regardless of their interest in God
The Bible is meant to help us to hold a mirror to ourselves so that we can see God in us, as opposed to the traditional view that the Bible is a mirror that revels our sin nature.

These beliefs are at the core of so-called Progressive Christianity (a mixture of christianity and left-wing political beliefs) and the Global Grace Ministries. What is strange, though, is that it is also popping up in hypercharismatic circles such as Kenneth Copeland’s Word of Faith movement and Bethel Church, Redding. Preachers such as Creflo Dollar, Jerry Savelle and others have been promoting it.

In her video on this subject, Melissa Dougherty compares some passages from the ESV Bible with The Missor Bible. The first one is John 14:6

Can you see how, instead of pointing the reader to Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life, The Mirror Bible points us back to ourselves?

John 14:12 tells us we must receive Jesus, but The Mirror Bible tells us that we already have Him.

Finally we have Romans 1:28.

Romans 1:20 says that people can see God in nature , but they choose not to acknowledge God, and so He gives them over to their sinful desires. The Mirror says they didn’t care about their own divine nature and so they could not see God.

This is such a terrible perversion of the teaching of Scripture that nobody who wants to draw close to God should look at this book.

The most trustworthy Bibles are the ones that have been translated by a team of scholars, where a thoughtful consensus of opinions prevents individuals from running off with their own pet ideologies.

I recommend that Bibles and paraphrases that have been written by a single person, such as The Passion Translation (Brian Simmons) and The Message (Eugene Peterson) should not be read as your main Bible. Use them as an addition to the NIV or the NLT, but not as your main source of godly inspiration.

And never, ever read The Mirror Bible.

If you want more information about this, I strongly recommend Melissa Dougherty’s video on this. It is long but it is thorough.

That’s Perseverance!

November 26, 2015 / newlifenarrabri / Leave a comment

From the Bible Society:

Bringing the love of Jesus to children in the outback for 61 years

The first time Lance Jackson taught Scripture at a one-teacher school west of Ivanhoe in outback NSW he asked the class to tell him what they knew about Jesus.

“They all looked a bit dumb … Anyway, I pressed the issue, thinking they were shy, but at the finish a 13-year-old girl up the back put up her hand and said ‘Look, I don’t think he lives anywhere around here but I’ve heard Dad talking about him,’” Lance recalls.

“It was an isolated area but what struck me was I’m less than 500km from Sydney and there’s a whole room of kids who don’t know who Jesus is.”

It is experiences such as this that have kept the 82-year-old Presbyterian pastor teaching Scripture for the past 61 years. The record shows that in that time he has brought the gospel of the Lord Jesus to children in 48 schools in NSW, three in South Australia, 12 in Queensland and two in Victoria, all in bush areas.

Faithful Scripture teacher Lance Jackson

“That motivated me to just keep pressing on – because you had to really discipline yourself,” he says.

“I grew up in a climate and a church where you made a commitment for life and you didn’t rust out, you burnt out.”

Now based in Glen Innes, in the northern tablelands of NSW, Lance still coordinates Scripture for 18 classes in three local schools and the annual training courses. He also still works on a voluntary basis as a pastor at the Presbyterian Church in Glen Innes.

Read the rest of the story here