Excerpted from If the Foundations be Destroyed, by Chick Salliby
©1994. Used by permission.

"But does it all really matter," one might ask, "if I can support what I believe with the NIV?" Yes, if someone else can refute what you believe with that same translation. While you could prove, for example, the Deity of Jesus by using the NIV, someone else can disprove His Deity by using the NIV. While you could prove the virgin birth with this translation, another could disprove it with this same translation-whichever be their pleasure. The NIV is clearly an "Interdenominational Masterpiece" that can cross any church threshold and make all within happy with whatever they believe. A remarkable illustration of this can be seen in the following:

Perhaps there is no religious movement less respected by Born Again Christians than the religion of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Furthermore, there is no version of the Bible less cared for by Christians than the Jehovah's Witness Bible, the New World Translation. However, if a Jehovah's Witness were to exchange his Bible, the New World Translation, for the NIV, he would find it surprisingly much to his liking. Consider for example these facts: In this book, we looked at 147 places in the KJV where words or whole verses were omitted in the NIV. Of these 147 omissions, 146 of them ARE ALSO OMITTED IN THE JEHOVAH'S WITNESS BIBLE. If you were to add to these omissions all of the word changes found in the NIV that have been noted in this book, you would find the Jehovah's Witness Bible and the NIV in agreement IN BETTER THAN FOURTEEN OUT OF EVERY FIFTEEN CASES.

In fact, some Jehovah's Witnesses have found the NIV so much to their liking that a minister told me that, on one occasion, he observed them using it while witnessing. Why members of an organization so void of the truth and bent on destroying the Deity of Jesus would use the NIV certainly demands an explanation from somebody!

Something to ponder: I do not know of one Christian who uses a New World Translation nor have I ever heard that such a Christian exists. Have you? Yet, the NIV, whose contents so closely resemble those of the New World Translation, is the best selling Bible in the English speaking world today. If that is not a paradox, what is?