Friday Church News Notes
September 12, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 37
The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, though this does not imply an endorsement.
Ray Boltz Florida “wedding”
FORMER CCM STAR RAY BOLTZ “MARRIES” HIS MALE PARTNER (Friday Church News Notes, September 12, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Former CCM star Ray Boltz recently “married” his long time homosexual partner in a beach wedding in Florida officiated by a female pastor. In 2005, Boltz left his wife of 30 years to live with a man. He publicly announced his homosexuality in 2008. Boltz was a major voice in Contemporary Christian Music in the 1980s and 1990s. His song “Thank You” was Song of the Year at the Dove awards in 1990, and “I Pledge Allegiance to the Lamb” was Inspirational Song of the Year in 1994. For a while after his “coming out,” he toured “the country playing at liberal churches and gay-pride events that receive him and his gay Christian message” (Jesus Rocks the World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music, vol. 2). His album True won Album of the Year at the OUTMusic Awards. The feature song was “Don’t Tell Me Who to Love.” He retired from the music industry in 2023 but still sings on social media. Contemporary Christian Music is a major element of the construction of the one-world “church” and is a bridge to every sin and heresy in the broader church today, including Roman Catholicism, theological liberalism, Open Theism, Contemplative Mysticism, “Christian homosexuality,” even goddess worship. We have documented this in the new book and Bible course Evangelicalism and the Great Apostasy, which is accompanied by a free set of PowerPoints providing a pictorial study on CCM/Evangelicalism as a bridge to great danger. See also the free eBook The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians, www.wayoflife.org.
LAW AND ORDER HAS COME TO EL SALVADOR (Friday Church News Notes, September 12, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - God is for law and order. He has ordained government in this fallen world and given it authority to punish criminals. “... he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:1-7). Governments that do not punish evil and reward good will answer to God. The corruption of law and order in many American cities is the product of a godless spirit among legislators, prosecutors, and judges, and in the citizens who elect them. When men rise up to keep law and order, God is with them. We see this in the following report on El Salvador, which is excerpted from “1,000 Days without Homicides,” PJMedia, Sept. 1, 2025: “Over the weekend, [President Nayib] Bukele announced on X that El Salvador has gone ‘1,000 days without homicides’ since he took office. These aren’t consecutive days, mind you, but they’re a major improvement over what was going on in that country before his leadership began. Here is his full statement (translated from Spanish): ‘Those who always say impossible! are unaware of the power of asking God for wisdom and accepting to be instruments of Him. Thank you, God! Without your will, NOTHING is possible. Thanks also to the best Security Cabinet that our country has ever had and to the thousands of men and women of our National Civil Police and our Armed Forces, who risked their lives so that we can finally live in true PEACE’ (@nayibbukele, Aug. 30, 2025). Unfortunately, cities like D.C. and Chicago lack the type of leadership that might allow them to ever make these sorts of declarations. For decades ... 90% of El Salvador was overrun by gang members and other criminals. Law-abiding citizens couldn’t go to work or school, couldn’t play in the parks, and couldn’t walk down the streets without fear for their lives, especially if they didn’t pay el derecho de piso, or a fee in exchange for ‘protection.’ In 2016, CNN reported that the country averaged one homicide per hour. ... Bukele campaigned on ending it. ... The government issued a state of exception and began doing what was necessary to eradicate gang members who were well-hidden among the country’s population. It was the only way to liberate the country and its people. Many on the left have criticized his methods, citing human rights violations, but I find that a lot of that criticism comes from outside El Salvador. The law-abiding citizens of his country mostly like Bukele--he actually has one of the highest organic approval ratings of any world leader.”
THE KING JAMES BIBLE AND ANTIQUATED LANGUAGE (Friday Church News Notes, September 12, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We are convinced that the King James Bible is still the peerless English Bible. I am convinced that nothing can take its place, and it is essential to keep the “one Bible standard” in the churches. The King James Bible is God’s gift to the English-speaking people. It is the product of more than 200 years of godly labor and scholarship (e.g., Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva, KJV). It is the product of an unparalleled committee of some 50 biblical scholars who produced a true masterpiece. It is based on the preserved Hebrew and Greek texts. It was translated in an era of faith. In contrast, any Bible translated today is tainted by the climate of apostasy. Even “evangelical” Bible scholars are highly tainted. The King James Bible has been acclaimed as the apex of the English language. For example, Dr. Leland Ryken, professor emeritus of English at Wheaton College, highly praised the beauty, dignity, and power of the KJV. In his 2002 book The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation, Ryken called the KJV a “peerless literary masterpiece” (p. 270), “unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world” (p. 267), “the noblest monument of English prose” (p. 258), and “matchless in its literary qualities among all English translations” (p. 188). There are only about 200 words in the KJV that are so antiquated as to require a dictionary. While Shakespeare used a vocabulary of roughly 21,000 English words, the vocabulary of the King James Bible is composed of only 6,000. The individual words tend to be short and simple. The words of the KJV average 1.3 syllables and 4 letters (D.A. Waite, Jr., The Comparative Readability of the Authorized Version). In fact, the slight antiquation of the KJV can be seen as an advantage. Edward F. Hills, Ph.D. in textual criticism from Harvard, observed, “The language of the Bible should be venerable as well as intelligible, and the King James Version fulfills these two requirements better than any other Bible in English” (The King James Version Defended, p. 219). As for “thee” and “thou,” this language is necessary to distinguish between the singular and plural second person pronoun (thee, thou, thy, thine - ye, you, yours). The Hebrew and Greek have this distinction, but it is lost in modern English and in the modern English versions, including the NKJV. Pronouns beginning with “t” are singular (thee, thou, thy, thine), and those beginning with “y” are plural (ye, you, yours). The King James translators did not adopt thee, thou, thy, thine because these were common to their day, but because they wanted to faithfully translate the original Scripture into English. Consider, for example John 3:7: “Marvel not that I said unto THEE, YE must be born again.” Because of the KJV’s accurate translation of pronouns, we see immediately that this was spoken to the individual (THEE), Nicodemus, but it encompasses all men (YE). We don’t need a new Bible, but we certainly need to pay much better attention to the Old One. Every member of a New Testament church is to be a serious Bible student, and every church should pursue a path to make this happen. See Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Psalm 1:1-3; 119:9, 15, 16, 24, 31, 36, 45, 54, 72, 81, 92, 97, 99, 103, 105, 111, 113, 117, 127, 131, 140, 143, 147, 148, 163; Matthew 28:20; Acts 2:42; 17:11; Ephesians 4:11-16; 2 Timothy 2:15; 3:15-17; Hebrews 5:11-14.
STUDY THE OLD BIBLE INSTEAD OF PURSUING A NEW BIBLE (Friday Church News Notes, September 12, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Recently I received the following communication: “I am a member of a KJV only church here in the Philippines. I grew up with King James BUT STILL FIND IT DIFFICULT to read in public and understand and my Filipino friends really struggle. I KNOW my Philippina wife would not choose to attend here unless I was attending because the KJV is hard for her. She is constantly looking up words during the service (I too have to check other translations at times). What Bible would be easier to read but still be acceptable to KJV only?” REPLY FROM BRO. CLOUD: I hope you will let me speak plainly to you on this issue. Instead of trying to find an “easier to read” Bible, God’s people need to study the excellent Bible they have, and in my experience most simply are not serious Bible students. If you and your wife have to constantly look up words during the preaching services, though you have been saved a long time, it is because you aren’t diligent students of the Bible in your daily lives. You should have learned the basic meaning of those words long ago. Each year for ten years I conducted a well-attended Bible conference for preachers in the Philippines, preached in many of the churches, and talked with a great many pastors and deacons and teachers. I found that most Filipino church members are not serious Bible students. They do not read and study their Bibles effectually. They don’t have a Bible concordance, a Bible dictionary, a good study Bible, and at least one sound commentary, and if they do have these things they don’t use them in a zealous manner. Most have not taken a course in how to study the Bible, though such courses are available. I have a basic course titled The Effectual Bible Student and a more advanced one titled Understanding the Bible for Yourself. Filipino Christians do all sorts of things online today, including making purchases, and there is no reason why they can’t obtain these materials if they really want to. Over the years, we have given a lot of Bible study materials away in the Philippines and sold many of them at large discount, but we found that the materials weren’t used very much. Too often, they were put on a shelf and forgotten. You can’t cure lack of Bible study with an “easier to read” Bible. I would exhort you in the strongest way to set out to become serious students of the King James Bible and to educate your children to be the same. I love the King James Bible. I am convinced it is absolutely the best Bible in English, and I have a great burden to help God’s people understand it. Toward this end we have labored for more than 50 years to produce Bible study materials, including the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity, the Believer’s Bible Dictionary, the Way of Life Bible Commentary Series, Things Hard to Be Understood: A Handbook of Biblical Difficulties, and about 40 serious Bible study courses. Way of Life Literature is known by many as “a warning ministry,” but largely it is a Bible teaching ministry. I hope you will take advantage of these materials. The time on God’s prophetic calendar is very late, and the dangers are great. Without a strong personal knowledge of God’s Word and a biblical testing mindset, people are in real danger of being led astray.
CONCLUSION: The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mt. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Ro. 13:11-14).
LAW AND ORDER HAS COME TO EL SALVADOR (Friday Church News Notes, September 12, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - God is for law and order. He has ordained government in this fallen world and given it authority to punish criminals. “... he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Romans 13:1-7). Governments that do not punish evil and reward good will answer to God. The corruption of law and order in many American cities is the product of a godless spirit among legislators, prosecutors, and judges, and in the citizens who elect them. When men rise up to keep law and order, God is with them. We see this in the following report on El Salvador, which is excerpted from “1,000 Days without Homicides,” PJMedia, Sept. 1, 2025: “Over the weekend, [President Nayib] Bukele announced on X that El Salvador has gone ‘1,000 days without homicides’ since he took office. These aren’t consecutive days, mind you, but they’re a major improvement over what was going on in that country before his leadership began. Here is his full statement (translated from Spanish): ‘Those who always say impossible! are unaware of the power of asking God for wisdom and accepting to be instruments of Him. Thank you, God! Without your will, NOTHING is possible. Thanks also to the best Security Cabinet that our country has ever had and to the thousands of men and women of our National Civil Police and our Armed Forces, who risked their lives so that we can finally live in true PEACE’ (@nayibbukele, Aug. 30, 2025). Unfortunately, cities like D.C. and Chicago lack the type of leadership that might allow them to ever make these sorts of declarations. For decades ... 90% of El Salvador was overrun by gang members and other criminals. Law-abiding citizens couldn’t go to work or school, couldn’t play in the parks, and couldn’t walk down the streets without fear for their lives, especially if they didn’t pay el derecho de piso, or a fee in exchange for ‘protection.’ In 2016, CNN reported that the country averaged one homicide per hour. ... Bukele campaigned on ending it. ... The government issued a state of exception and began doing what was necessary to eradicate gang members who were well-hidden among the country’s population. It was the only way to liberate the country and its people. Many on the left have criticized his methods, citing human rights violations, but I find that a lot of that criticism comes from outside El Salvador. The law-abiding citizens of his country mostly like Bukele--he actually has one of the highest organic approval ratings of any world leader.”
THE KING JAMES BIBLE AND ANTIQUATED LANGUAGE (Friday Church News Notes, September 12, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We are convinced that the King James Bible is still the peerless English Bible. I am convinced that nothing can take its place, and it is essential to keep the “one Bible standard” in the churches. The King James Bible is God’s gift to the English-speaking people. It is the product of more than 200 years of godly labor and scholarship (e.g., Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva, KJV). It is the product of an unparalleled committee of some 50 biblical scholars who produced a true masterpiece. It is based on the preserved Hebrew and Greek texts. It was translated in an era of faith. In contrast, any Bible translated today is tainted by the climate of apostasy. Even “evangelical” Bible scholars are highly tainted. The King James Bible has been acclaimed as the apex of the English language. For example, Dr. Leland Ryken, professor emeritus of English at Wheaton College, highly praised the beauty, dignity, and power of the KJV. In his 2002 book The Word of God in English: Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation, Ryken called the KJV a “peerless literary masterpiece” (p. 270), “unquestionably the most beautiful book in the world” (p. 267), “the noblest monument of English prose” (p. 258), and “matchless in its literary qualities among all English translations” (p. 188). There are only about 200 words in the KJV that are so antiquated as to require a dictionary. While Shakespeare used a vocabulary of roughly 21,000 English words, the vocabulary of the King James Bible is composed of only 6,000. The individual words tend to be short and simple. The words of the KJV average 1.3 syllables and 4 letters (D.A. Waite, Jr., The Comparative Readability of the Authorized Version). In fact, the slight antiquation of the KJV can be seen as an advantage. Edward F. Hills, Ph.D. in textual criticism from Harvard, observed, “The language of the Bible should be venerable as well as intelligible, and the King James Version fulfills these two requirements better than any other Bible in English” (The King James Version Defended, p. 219). As for “thee” and “thou,” this language is necessary to distinguish between the singular and plural second person pronoun (thee, thou, thy, thine - ye, you, yours). The Hebrew and Greek have this distinction, but it is lost in modern English and in the modern English versions, including the NKJV. Pronouns beginning with “t” are singular (thee, thou, thy, thine), and those beginning with “y” are plural (ye, you, yours). The King James translators did not adopt thee, thou, thy, thine because these were common to their day, but because they wanted to faithfully translate the original Scripture into English. Consider, for example John 3:7: “Marvel not that I said unto THEE, YE must be born again.” Because of the KJV’s accurate translation of pronouns, we see immediately that this was spoken to the individual (THEE), Nicodemus, but it encompasses all men (YE). We don’t need a new Bible, but we certainly need to pay much better attention to the Old One. Every member of a New Testament church is to be a serious Bible student, and every church should pursue a path to make this happen. See Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Psalm 1:1-3; 119:9, 15, 16, 24, 31, 36, 45, 54, 72, 81, 92, 97, 99, 103, 105, 111, 113, 117, 127, 131, 140, 143, 147, 148, 163; Matthew 28:20; Acts 2:42; 17:11; Ephesians 4:11-16; 2 Timothy 2:15; 3:15-17; Hebrews 5:11-14.
STUDY THE OLD BIBLE INSTEAD OF PURSUING A NEW BIBLE (Friday Church News Notes, September 12, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Recently I received the following communication: “I am a member of a KJV only church here in the Philippines. I grew up with King James BUT STILL FIND IT DIFFICULT to read in public and understand and my Filipino friends really struggle. I KNOW my Philippina wife would not choose to attend here unless I was attending because the KJV is hard for her. She is constantly looking up words during the service (I too have to check other translations at times). What Bible would be easier to read but still be acceptable to KJV only?” REPLY FROM BRO. CLOUD: I hope you will let me speak plainly to you on this issue. Instead of trying to find an “easier to read” Bible, God’s people need to study the excellent Bible they have, and in my experience most simply are not serious Bible students. If you and your wife have to constantly look up words during the preaching services, though you have been saved a long time, it is because you aren’t diligent students of the Bible in your daily lives. You should have learned the basic meaning of those words long ago. Each year for ten years I conducted a well-attended Bible conference for preachers in the Philippines, preached in many of the churches, and talked with a great many pastors and deacons and teachers. I found that most Filipino church members are not serious Bible students. They do not read and study their Bibles effectually. They don’t have a Bible concordance, a Bible dictionary, a good study Bible, and at least one sound commentary, and if they do have these things they don’t use them in a zealous manner. Most have not taken a course in how to study the Bible, though such courses are available. I have a basic course titled The Effectual Bible Student and a more advanced one titled Understanding the Bible for Yourself. Filipino Christians do all sorts of things online today, including making purchases, and there is no reason why they can’t obtain these materials if they really want to. Over the years, we have given a lot of Bible study materials away in the Philippines and sold many of them at large discount, but we found that the materials weren’t used very much. Too often, they were put on a shelf and forgotten. You can’t cure lack of Bible study with an “easier to read” Bible. I would exhort you in the strongest way to set out to become serious students of the King James Bible and to educate your children to be the same. I love the King James Bible. I am convinced it is absolutely the best Bible in English, and I have a great burden to help God’s people understand it. Toward this end we have labored for more than 50 years to produce Bible study materials, including the Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity, the Believer’s Bible Dictionary, the Way of Life Bible Commentary Series, Things Hard to Be Understood: A Handbook of Biblical Difficulties, and about 40 serious Bible study courses. Way of Life Literature is known by many as “a warning ministry,” but largely it is a Bible teaching ministry. I hope you will take advantage of these materials. The time on God’s prophetic calendar is very late, and the dangers are great. Without a strong personal knowledge of God’s Word and a biblical testing mindset, people are in real danger of being led astray.
CONCLUSION: The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mt. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Ro. 13:11-14).
_____
Distributed by Way of Life Literature, publisher of Bible Study Materials and reports for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY (REPORTS AND FRIDAY NEWS) IS NOT DEVOTIONAL, BUT TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR.
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The Way of Life Literature preaching and publishing ministry is based at Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. A mail stop is maintained in Port Huron, Michigan.
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