An article appearing the other week in the New York Times reported on the growing number of young American-born imams and how they’re presenting a more appealing, modernized take on Islamic faith.

It read, in part, “The downside for Islam in America, some critics argue, is that those interpreting Islamic law often lack a command of the full scope of the traditions carried in the Koran and the hadith, the sayings of the prophet Muhammad considered sacred.

“ ‘I call it [hadith slinging,] ” said Prof. Khaled Abou el Fadl, a specialist in Islamic law at the University of California, Los Angeles. ‘I throw a couple of hadiths at you, and you throw a couple of hadiths at me, and that is the way we do Islamic law,’ he added. ‘It’s like any moron can do that.’ ”

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In a great question posed by southern California Bible preacher John Verstegen in a recent online Bible study, he asked, “Would you be happy with a God who violated His integrity? What would your God be like if your God constantly changed His mind on a whim?

“The god of Islam—his name is Allah; he’s the ‘moon god,’ by the way—do you realize that god can change his mind at any moment if he wants to? He can do anything he wants.

“You know, the God of the Bible—the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—cannot lie. He cannot break a promise to you. He must keep His word. Now, you decide which God you want to serve. You understand what I’m saying?

“The God of the Bible is a God of integrity; a God of holiness; a God who is true to His word. You can count on what He said.

“We were talking earlier about how there seems to be more of an openness with people today who have questions about what’s going on in the world, and wanting to understand more of the Bible, and how one of the clear reasons for that is—look at the confusion that’s going on out there!

“I mean, the Middle East is nothing but fighting and it’s only going to get worse. Look at California; all the debate over immigration and so forth. Look at the fuel problems; the energy problems.

“I mean, listen, things crazy are happening in the world out there! And people want to know, ‘Is there something I can put into my life that’s sure; that’s solid and I can build my life on? Is there something that’s eternal; that’s meaningful that’s going to last?’

“What’s the answer? The answer, of course, is ‘yes!’ but not if your God can just change his mind on a whim and so forth. How can you have a relationship with that god?!”

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Under her chapter heading of, “How do you answer those who want to ‘update’ some of the words in the King James Bible?” author Gail Riplinger writes in her 1998 book The Language of the King James Bible, “Fill in the blank in the following sentence, using one of the vowels, A, E, I, O, or U: ‘THE LAND OF ____ Z.’

“In the surveys I have conducted, 99% respond with O. Why do we say ‘THE LAND OF OZ’? Why do we know about the home of a WIZARD that will, according to Lev. 19:31, 20:5-6 and Deut. 18:11-12, ‘defile’ our ‘family’? Why don’t we know about ‘the land of Uz,’ the home of Job, who ‘was perfect and upright’? (Job 1:1)

“The problem is not KJV; it is TV. The fall of mankind was initiated because Adam and Eve listened to a voice other that God’s. There are counterfeit voices, like the NIV, NRSV, and CEV. But there are a chorus of other voices competing with the word of God for our time, attention, affection and our mind.

“TV is a powerful medium. Only the word of God is more ‘powerful’ (Heb. 4:12). Preachers and Sunday school teachers cannot compete with the stimulation level of the TV, unless they use the words of God, not their own words or the words of our milquetoast culture.”

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As Jordan once pointed out in a study, literary-types love to discuss the luscious “antiquity” of the King James Bible’s language and how it’s the “remnants of the idea that are supposed to be beautiful,” similar to Shakespeare and his “gripping prose.”

But that just doesn’t cover it at all.

Explains Jordan, “There is a structure to the English language in your Bible—it’s called by literature people ‘Bible English.’ And when you have a literal translation of the Bible, what you have is the Hebrew and Greek language put into your language, with syntax and grammar that is different from the way anybody would have written it.

“You hear people talk about the King James Bible being ‘Elizabethan English,’ and what they mean by that is it comes from the 16^th and 17^th English and they actually think that 17th Century people from England spoke with ‘yes’ and ‘thees’!

“Have you ever read the dedicatory of the King James Bible written by the translators to the readers?! You’d notice immediately how different it sounds from the Bible text. Well, that’s the way people talked then, and they didn’t talk like the way you read (talk) in the Bible.

“English is the only language this side of the Cross that has had the capacity of the Greek for excellence and expressiveness, and there’s literally an education process where people who learn to read English out of the Authorized Version obtain a grasp and command from the English and its grammar and its structure, and that’s because you learn that as you read through your Bible.”

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Here’s a great passage from now-deceased Bible scholar C.R. Stam about how his unsaved father, in the early 1900s, grudgingly read the Bible in order to learn English and unexpectedly became a Believer as an “unwanted” byproduct:

“It was as a young comedian, just arrived from the Netherlands, that the writer’s father first came into contact with the Word of God, and it aroused his enmity. He said, ‘According to that Book, nobody is any good.’

“Seeking to get away from the influence of the Word, he took up lodging in an area in which he did not know one single Believer. However, an old lady wisely and graciously gave him a book to help him ‘learn English faster!’

“The same reading matter was printed in Dutch in the left-hand column and in English in the column at the right. She pointed out to him how he could read the Dutch and then go across the page and learn to decipher the English.

“He began avidly studying when it dawned on him: ‘It’s that Book again!’ It was a Dutch-English New Testament the woman had given him!

“He told himself that he didn’t have to be insulted in order to learn to read English and hast often told us how nearly he threw that book away. But he did want so badly to learn English, and this would be a great help, so he continued studying the Book until he was gloriously saved and his whole life revolutionized by it.

“That book had gotten ‘under his skin,’ as it were. It had been implanted into his mind and heart until, convicted of his lost and sinful condition, he cried to God for help and trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.”