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B.--Do you ever use a Concordance?
A.--Why, man, am I not continually urging the "Concordant method"? And is not this
new translation vouched for by those who advocate the Concordant method?
The Concordant Method.
B.--I am afraid I am not greatly moved for all the "urging" and "advocating" of the
Concordant method. What I ask you is, Have you tested this matter out for yourself?
A.--Well, I must confess that I have not.
B.--Let us do so, and we will start with John 1: Here is a Greek Concordance; find the
word Theos, and tell me whether it occurs in John 1: without the article.
A.--
"The Word was A God" (verse 1).
"There was a man sent from A God" (verse 6).
"Power to become children of A God" (verse 12).
"Which were born of A God" (verse 13).
"No one hath seen A God at any time" (verse 18).
B.--Thank you, that will suffice. Is it necessary to emphasize how utterly false and
untenable your interpretation becomes when tested? Did God in a subordinate sense send
John the Baptist? Is the Father God in a subordinate sense? Then look at verse 18. The
invisible God must be THE God.
A.--Yes, I agree.
B.--Yet, with the first verse hardly dry, the inspired penman (according to your teaching)
makes the most atrocious blunder. Do you not agree that he forgot to write the article
here in verse 18?
A.--I can hardly do that, for I believe that all Scriptures is inspired.
B.--Then I see no alternative for you but to agree that the Concordance disproves the
theory of your teachers?
A.--I am afraid it is so, yet how is it that men who evidently have a knowledge of the
original can have missed so obvious a refutation?
B.--My dear friend, believe me, it is not the office of the writer to sit in judgment upon
the motives of others. We are simply dealing with facts. Their teaching when weighed in
the balances is found wanting. We therefore, as simple followers of Christ,
unhesitatingly reject it; we do no more, but we can do no less.