Houston’s First Baptist Church pastor Gregg Matte announced at the start of this year that he will no longer be preaching from the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. The NIV has been the most familiar, best-selling Bible for decades; however, some Baptist pastors like Matte now say the NIV is no longer accurate after updates were made to the translation last year, including the adoption of gender-neutral language.

The Southern Baptist Convention denounced the updated NIV last summer and asked its popular bookstore affiliate, LifeWay, to stop selling the 2011 version. Individual Southern Baptist congregations operate autonomously and may use whatever Bible translation they would like. ...

The pastor believes the updated translation has gotten further away from the original biblical texts in other examples, including using “servants” instead of “slaves” in the New Testament. Starting in 2012, Houston’s First will use the lesser-known and fairly new Holman Christian Standard Bible instead of the NIV during lessons from the pulpit and Bible studies. Members and guests are still welcome to use whatever Bible version they’d like.

The HCSB reads differently than the NIV—it’s one of the only Bible translations to use contractions, and as a way to be truer to original language, refers to the name of God as Yahweh (instead of Lord) in the Old Testament and Jesus as “Messiah” in the New Testament, said Jedidiah Coppenger, at Lifeway.

SOURCE: Chron.com - Houston's 'First Baptist Church' Drops NIV Bible

Isn't that very sad? Shame on this apostate pastor for using a corrupted Bible. They're going from one lie to another. New things aren't always better my friend. I'll take the old books, the old music, the old electronics, the old ways, and the old Bible thank you! Neo-evangelicalism is about changing things to the new way, new methods, new music and new Bibles. In a word, APOSTASY! The neo way is the dead way. Today's churches either resemble morgues or Rock concerts. Most of today's churches aren't anything like the New Testament Church in the book of Acts—where the early believers had no church building, weren't 501c3 incorporated as a state-licensed business and they went publicly from house-to-house and door-to-door sharing the Gospel (Acts 20:20, often called the Christian's 20/20 vision—GO soul-winning!).

In a way the HCSB is worse than the NIV 2011 because it's not as obvious to the untrained eye that Satan is behind the Bible-changing movement. What most older Christians fail to realize is that the new upcoming generation won't know any Bible except the one being handed to them. Since I grew up on the King James Bible, I have something to use as a measuring stick, a benchmark. When I read John 3:16 in the HCSB I say, “Wait a minute buster! Where's the word begotten?” It's tragic that the HCSB is being accepted because it's not as bad as the NIV 2011. That's like being glad that your child is addicted to alcohol instead of crack cocaine. They're both evil.

It's tragic that religious denominations are publishing their own proprietary copyrighted versions of the Bible to compete for market share amongst each other for profits. Is that all that God's Word means to professed Christians anymore? Only the trustworthy inspired King James Bible is NOT copyrighted, because you cannot copyright God's Word!!!

New converts and young people today are being handed an NIV or HCSB and their brain doesn't detect anything amuck, because they've never been taught any other Bible. So they'll never read the words “Godhead or Calvary.” Luke 23:33 is the only mention of the wonderful word “Calvary” in the King James Bible. The NIV and HCSB remove it completely. Just think of all the beautiful and inspiring hymns (Burdens Are Lifted At Calvary, At Calvary, Calvary Covered It All) and writings over the centuries which have mentioned Calvary (the place where Jesus bore our burden of sins upon the cross).