Study (2 Timothy 2:15): Horrifying KJV False Friend? Mark Ward Refuted, King James Version Correct 5

Mark Ward attacks the King James Version (KJV1611 / KJB1611 / AV1611) in 2 Timothy 2:15, claiming the word "study" is a "false friend":

STUDY to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

Mark Ward calls the word "study" here "most ironic," and even "horrifying"!

Dr. Mark Ward, a popular opponent of King James Onlyism, argues that in many contexts using the KJV at all is actually a sin: "For public preaching ministry, for evangelism, for discipleship materials, indeed for most situations outside individual study, using the KJV violates [Scripture.]" Words like "study" in 2 Timothy 2:15, Ward claims, prove that "modern readers quite literally can’t—not merely don’t—know what they’re missing when they read the KJV.”

Is Mark Ward correct? As Thomas Ross demonstrates in part 5 of his critique of Mark Ward's arguments against the KJV, the answer is "No!" Ward did not exert sufficient diligence with this alleged "false friend" word, "study."

Ward employed this alleged “false friend” as one of only four examples in his debate with Dr. Daniel Haifley. He used it in his survey with the "Textual Confidence Collective" and in videos. Ward asks, "What does “study” mean here?"

a.) To strive towards, direct one’s efforts to, set one’s mind on, devote oneself to
b.) I don’t know
c.) The devotion of time and attention to acquiring knowledge on an academic subject, especially by means of books
d.) To consider or ponder quietly

His answer: letter “a.” He claims the Greek and English words did not mean "study" in the sense of "acquiring knowledge ... by means of books" in 1611, but only “to be especially conscientious in discharging an obligation."

Ward continues:

One of the greatest and saddest ironies of my work on the King James Version, the most ironic false friend … [is] 2 Timothy 2:15 … you won’t notice this one if you don’t check modern translations. …. “‘Study’ to show thyself approved” is a pretty easy and objective false friend, but I’ve never met a King James Only brother who would acknowledge that it is. This isn’t a funny irony to me. It’s a sad and even horrifying one.

It is genuinely sad and ironic that Mark Ward completely ignores the fact that standard Greek lexica define the word spudadzo as "study … lecture, teach," or "to study, to apply one’s self to," or "be studied" in connection with "literary works." (See Liddell-Scott Jones; the Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek; Lampe's Patristic Greek Lexicon, etc.)

Support for the Greek word meaning "study" in 2 Timothy 2:15 comes from sources such as Strabo, Philostratus, and Eusebius. Sirach can refer to “interpret[ing] … a book of no small learning” through “necessary … diligence / study [spoude] and travail” (Sirach 27-34). Josephus describes himself as one who “studied [spoudazo]” or “exercised effort” “to partake of the learning of the Greeks,” can speak of people who “take great pains in studying [spoudazo] the writings of the ancients” and of one who “extraordinarily studied / diligent [spoudazo]” in what concerned “learning and the collection of books,” and of one who “wrote … having studied to learn history” from the “writings” of native peoples.

The Greek word in 2 Timothy 2:15 can clearly mean "study" in the sense of "book learning," something also strongly supported by the context (see, e. g., 2 Timothy 3:15-4:2).

Furthermore, the English word "study" meant "book learning" not only in 1611, but even centuries before the Authorized Version. Note within the English KJV itself:

Ecclesiastes 12:12 reads: “And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much STUDY is a weariness of the flesh.” The KJV marginal note on “study” says: “reading.”

In the 1611 KJV Apocrypha, the prologue to Sirach refers to "study of this book."

The KJV prefatory material states: "The Scriptures we are commanded to search ... They are commended that searched and STUDIED them."

King James himself wrote to his son Henry in 1599: "But when ye read the Scripture ... STUDIE carefullie to understand."

The Oxford English Dictionary states that "study" was used for “[a]pplication of mind to the acquisition of learning; mental labour, reading and reflection directed to learning, literary composition, invention, or the like.” The OED gives examples from the year 1300 onward, including the KJV in Ecclesiastes 12:12!

The definition “[t]o read (a book, a passage, an author) with close attention” lists examples from 1422 onward, including the prefatory material to the King James Version!

Mark Ward shockingly misuses both Greek and English for his claim that "study" is a false friend. His abuse of the Oxford English Dictionary and neglect of standard Greek lexica is deeply troubling.

Ward himself is a false friend to both God's promises of preservation and to scholarship in general.

#markward #falsefriends #kjvonly #study #kjv