I am breaking the "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And 'Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible'?)" post up into shorter segments so that each verse (or two) gets it own post.
#11: Since we are on Romans 6, let's look at Romans 6:17. Several versions say something like the King James does: "But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you."
But the ESV, among others, says "... have become obedient from the heart ..."
Why does this matter or make a difference?
Because in the King James, "obeyed" is a verb, and it's clear that the people are doing the obeying. They are responsible for obeying. But in the ESV, "obedient" is an adjective that simply describes the people (as in "they have become obedient people"), but it doesn't say how or what caused them to be obedient. So it's not necessarily that the people chose to obey, but that they somehow became obedient but are not necessarily responsible for it. This opens the door to the Calvinist idea that the Holy Spirit causes the elect to become obedient, that our actions of obedience are God's choices and God's doing, and we have no control or influence over it. It's like the difference between saying "I curled my hair" and "My hair became curly." In the first, I curled it. But in the second, it became curly but not necessarily by me or because of me. Big difference!
The thing is, the concordance says that this Greek word is a verb. And so therefore the King James is the correct translation. The people did the obeying. They were responsible for their choice to obey the Gospel. It doesn't just happen to us, as Calvinism says.
Notice even in the list of cross-reference verses on the right side of this page that it's always used in a way to show that the people themselves obeyed. That they were responsible for their choice to obey. Except in the ESV (and other similar translations) for two of the verses that talk about being obedient to the Gospel (Romans 6:17, as we already saw) and to the faith (Acts 6:7). Similar to what happened with Romans 6:17, in Acts 6:7 the King James says "the priests were obedient to the faith". But the ESV says "the priests became obedient to the faith."
Why would the ESV change the usage of this word to "became obedient" only in passages that talk about our obedience to the faith (I looked up, in the ESV, the other verses that contain this Greek word), but it didn't make this change in the other uses of this word? That's suspicious.
And you know why they did this? Because Calvinists don't think we are ultimately responsible for our choice to obey. In Calvinism, obedience happens to the elect when God regenerates their hearts to make them believe. Whether we are obedient or not is not under our control. So it's no wonder they would change "they obeyed" (which shows more personal responsibility) to "they became obedient" (which shows less responsibility, making it more about obedience happening to them instead of by them).
A note about the ESV vs King James:
If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty, read these articles about the men who wrote the Greek texts that the ESV is based on: "Westcott and Hort: Translator's Beliefs" and "Westcott and Hort and the Greek Text." The ESV is based on the RSV, which is based on the Greek Texts of these two men (who, it sounds like, rejected the infallibility of Scripture, despised evangelicals, questioned Jesus's divinity and an eternal hell, did not believe Genesis and the creation story was literal, affirmed Darwin and evolution, etc.), which is based on two corrupted manuscripts which differ from the majority of the more reliable manuscripts that the KJV is based on.
So when something says that the ESV has only made 6% changes, it means "from the RSV," meaning that it's 94% the same as the RSV it was based on, a translation which was based on two corrupted manuscripts that disagree with the majority of the manuscripts available. It would be like if a journalist interviewed 100 people about an event ... and 95 of them said the exact same thing, but 5 told a different story ... and the journalist decided to side with the 5 and print their story as fact. Raises some red flags, doesn't it?
In the course of researching this issue, and after not knowing for decades what to think of the whole "which translation is most accurate" debate, I now side with the King James. I mean, I have several other translations, and I think different ones are good for different reasons, such as readability, compare and contrast, to hear God's Word in a fresh way, etc. But when having to decide which one is more reliable and accurate, especially considering the significant differences like those above, I have to side with the KJV (not the New King James, just the King James). And I've never been more sure of it than now, after all this research.
