Corrected, Then Repeated: An Ordained Minister’s Duty to Repent Publicly

Part III: The Readings and the Public Accusation · Article 3 of 3

Stephen Steele was entitled to criticize the Trinitarian Bible Society. Its popular material contains statements that should be corrected. Its Mark 16 graphics speak too loosely about modern editions. Its claim that Erasmus did not question θεός at 1 Timothy 3:16 is false as written. Its language about some Revelation readings confuses textual disagreement with doctrinal corruption.

This series has conceded each point.

Steele was not entitled to replace TBS’s stated doctrine with an accusation the evidence does not establish. He wrote that “the Greek manuscripts do not matter to the TBS,” that one cannot produce the Received Text with Greek manuscripts, and that the Society’s “only consistency” is agreement with the KJV.¹

Those are not merely provocative descriptions of disputed readings. They are public claims about the governing authority and integrity of a Christian society. TBS expressly says that no translation possesses absolute or definitive status and that “the final appeal must always be to the original languages.”² Steele’s articles neither fairly state nor answer that rule.

The problem is aggravated by chronology. More than a year before his 2026 series, Steele was told in public that the people he was describing did not believe the KJV inerrant. He did not withdraw the attribution. He later sharpened it.

The question is therefore moral as well as textual: what does the Ninth Commandment require after a public accusation has been corrected, investigated, and shown false or unproved?

The 2025 Warning

The relevant exchange occurred publicly in April 2025 and was later reproduced on the Puritan Board.

Charles Johnson said that he did not think anyone opposed comparing manuscripts and investigating variants; Erasmus, Stephanus, and Beza had done exactly that. Steele replied:

“No-one is against comparing manuscripts, as long as the end result matches the KJV.”

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩

He added that footnotes alerting readers to differences were also unacceptable. Johnson answered:

“No one here thinks the KJV is inerrant. We just think it’s better than the alternatives.”³

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩
3. “Free Church Fathers v. Textus Receptus,” Puritan Board, April 2025, posts 9 and 13, https://puritanboard.com/threads/free-church-fathers-v-textus-receptus.115848/. ↩

That reply did not settle the textual debate. It did settle what at least one named opponent professed to believe. Steele was no longer free to repeat the attribution as an uncontested description of their position.

He could have answered in one of three responsible ways.

He could have accepted the correction and withdrawn the claim. He could have distinguished formal belief from alleged practical inconsistency and supplied evidence for the latter. Or he could have asked which proposition Johnson affirmed concerning the original languages, printed editions, and the AV.

Instead, Steele gave a fuller reply defending his inference. He asked whether TR advocates were permitted to reach conclusions different from earlier editors and argued that use of a Greek text without a critical apparatus revealed a foreclosed result. Those are fair questions. They do not prove that his respondents believed the English translation inerrant or treated it as their final authority.

The public denial therefore matters. It did not inform Steele of a hidden fact. It told him directly that his description was rejected by the people to whom he applied it.

The 2026 Repetition

In June 2026 Steele published three articles centered upon TBS’s defense of Mark 16 and the Received Text. The final article escalated the attribution:

“The Greek manuscripts do not matter to the TBS.”

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩
3. “Free Church Fathers v. Textus Receptus,” Puritan Board, April 2025, posts 9 and 13, https://puritanboard.com/threads/free-church-fathers-v-textus-receptus.115848/. ↩

“If all you have are Greek manuscripts, you cannot produce the Textus Receptus.”

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩
3. “Free Church Fathers v. Textus Receptus,” Puritan Board, April 2025, posts 9 and 13, https://puritanboard.com/threads/free-church-fathers-v-textus-receptus.115848/. ↩

“The only consistency is to the KJV.”⁴

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩
3. “Free Church Fathers v. Textus Receptus,” Puritan Board, April 2025, posts 9 and 13, https://puritanboard.com/threads/free-church-fathers-v-textus-receptus.115848/. ↩
4. Steele, “Conclusions.” ↩

These assertions appeared after the 2025 correction. They also appeared without engagement with TBS’s 2005 doctrinal statement, which had been public for more than twenty years and directly addresses the accusation.

The omission is not peripheral. A critic alleging that an institution’s true authority differs from its professed authority must quote the profession, explain it fairly, and demonstrate the contradiction. Steele quoted local TBS materials. He did not place beside them the controlling propositions that no translation is absolute and that final appeal belongs to Hebrew and Greek.

That failure leaves a missing premise:

Some TBS readings agree with the KJV despite weak or minority manuscript support; therefore agreement with the KJV is the cause of those readings and the Society’s real final authority.

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩
3. “Free Church Fathers v. Textus Receptus,” Puritan Board, April 2025, posts 9 and 13, https://puritanboard.com/threads/free-church-fathers-v-textus-receptus.115848/. ↩
4. Steele, “Conclusions.” ↩

The conclusion is possible only after alternative explanations are excluded. Yet the evidence shows several:

• the reading existed in Greek print before the AV;
• the reading has minority Greek manuscript support;
• the Society treats the mature Received Text as an ecclesiastically received edition;
• the Society rejects mechanical manuscript counting;
• the reading was inherited through a fallible printed tradition;
• or a TBS writer simply made a bad local argument.

One may reject every alternative as insufficient. Steele still must address them. Correlation cannot substitute for causation.

The Claims and Their Verdicts

The nine articles of this series permit a concise final ledger:

• TBS makes the KJV its real final authority: contradicted by its formal doctrine and not proved by its local practice.
• “The Greek manuscripts do not matter to the TBS”: false as a description of TBS’s stated authority and refuted by the Society’s continual appeal to Greek evidence.
• TBS applies a universal majority rule at Mark 16: misstates a cumulative and partly internal argument as a mechanical method.
• Scrivener reverse-engineered Greek from English: accurate only for the direction of historical collation; misleading if it means English generated Greek readings.
• Agreement with the AV is TBS’s “only consistency”: a causal assertion for which Steele supplies correlation but no adequate proof.
• Modern editions do not omit Mark 16:9–20 because they print it: equivocal; double brackets physically retain the passage while classifying it as secondary.
• Erasmus did not question “God” at 1 Timothy 3:16: TBS is wrong; Erasmus questioned the reading while printing and translating it.
• “O Lord” at Revelation 16:5 exists in no other manuscript: false; the eleventh-century GA 2344 directly contains κύριε.
• ὁ ἐσόμενος at Revelation 16:5 is a manuscript-free conjecture: unproved; no extant Greek witness is known, but Beza expressly claimed an old manuscript.
• “God” at Revelation 20:12 lacks Greek support: false if made absolute; it is a transmitted minority reading.
• Revelation 21:2 and 21:14 expose received-print defects: substantially correct.
• Revelation 21:24 has a commentary origin and no Greek history before Erasmus: probable commentary origin, but the clause stands in pre-Erasmian Greek biblical text.

This is not a blanket vindication of TBS. It is a differentiated judgment. Steele identified genuine errors and overstatements. His central allegation does not follow from them, and several statements used to support it are themselves false or materially incomplete.

False Statement, False Witness, Lie, and Disqualification

Moral language must be as exact as textual language.

A false statement is a proposition contradicted by the facts. Steele’s assertion that “O Lord” appears in no other manuscript is false because GA 2344 contains it. His description of TBS’s formal authority is false because the Society says the opposite.

False witness is broader than a deliberate lie. The Ninth Commandment governs how we represent our neighbor, especially in public controversy. The Westminster Larger Catechism forbids not only lying but “rash, harsh, and partial censuring,” “misconstructing intentions, words, and actions,” and “stopping our ears against just defense.”⁵ A person can bear false witness by publicly assigning a position to his neighbor without adequate evidence, even if he has persuaded himself that the assignment is true.

A lie includes a claim about knowledge and intention. To call Steele a liar would assert that he knew his words were false and intended to deceive. The published record does not establish his private state of mind. This Journal should not pretend that it does.

Disqualification is an ecclesiastical judgment. Steele’s presbytery, not this Journal, possesses authority to judge his fitness for office. Nothing in this series attempts to depose him, instruct a church court, or pronounce a canonical sentence.

These distinctions do not weaken the conclusion. They keep the answer from committing the same sin it identifies.

The documented judgment is:

Steele publicly bore false witness by representing TBS and Received Text advocates as governed by KJV supremacy after that position had been directly denied, while failing to state or answer TBS’s published original-language standard. Several factual assertions supporting the representation are false; the principal causal assertion remains unproved.

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩
3. “Free Church Fathers v. Textus Receptus,” Puritan Board, April 2025, posts 9 and 13, https://puritanboard.com/threads/free-church-fathers-v-textus-receptus.115848/. ↩
4. Steele, “Conclusions.” ↩
5. Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 145, https://opc.org/lc.html. ↩

This conclusion concerns his public words. It does not claim access to his heart.

Why His Office Matters

Steele is not only an online commenter. On September 12, 2015, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland ordained and inducted him “to the ministry of preaching and teaching God’s Word and prayer in Stranraer.” He took ordination vows before the presbytery and congregation.⁶

Office does not make a minister infallible. It does increase his duty of care.

The Larger Catechism says that sins are aggravated when committed by those of greater experience, public profession, place, or office; by those who guide others and whose example is likely to be followed. It also identifies aggravation when an offense occurs after admonition or in public before others who may be affected.⁷

This is not a warrant for theatrical condemnation. It is a sober reason that an ordained teacher should be especially careful before attributing a corrupt authority structure to other Christians.

The requirements were ordinary:

1. Read the institution’s doctrinal statement.
2. Quote its position in its own words.
3. distinguish what it professes from what he alleges it practices.
4. test each textual example independently.
5. correct absolute claims when contrary evidence appears.
6. refrain from assigning motive where the record establishes only result.

Steele did not meet that standard in these articles. His office makes the failure more serious because readers reasonably receive an ordained minister’s moral and theological judgments with trust.

The Ninth Commandment Requires More Than Technical Accuracy

The Larger Catechism requires “sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully” speaking the truth. It commands the preservation of a neighbor’s good name, a charitable esteem, a readiness to receive a good report, and the defense of innocence.⁸

This does not prohibit controversy. Truth sometimes requires exposing error, especially public error. The same catechism forbids concealing truth and undue silence in a just cause.

It does prohibit a style of controversy in which:

• the opponent’s governing statement is omitted;
• a local inconsistency becomes a universal motive;
• a disputed inference is stated as an established fact;
• contrary manuscript evidence is not corrected;
• and a direct denial is treated as further proof of hypocrisy.

TBS must answer for its own words. Steele must answer for his.

The Society’s errors cannot excuse his accusation. His errors cannot make every TBS defense sound. The Ninth Commandment binds both parties at the same time.

Why the Correction Must Be Public

The Westminster Confession says that men should repent of particular sins particularly. It adds that one who scandalizes a brother or the church should be willing, “by a private or public confession, and sorrow for his sin, to declare his repentance to those that are offended.”⁹

The scope of repair should ordinarily correspond to the scope of injury.

Steele’s accusations were public, searchable, quotable, and published under his ministerial name. They continue to shape readers who may never see a private email or a remark buried in a later discussion. A private clarification cannot correct that record.

Public repentance need not be humiliating theater. It is the honorable act of setting the record straight before the same audience that received the error. It should be clear enough that no reader must compare paragraphs to discover whether the original assertion still stands.

A sufficient correction should do six things:

1. Retract the sentence “The Greek manuscripts do not matter to the TBS.”
2. Quote and acknowledge TBS’s formal position that no translation is definitive and that final appeal belongs to the original languages.
3. Withdraw the claim that agreement with the KJV is TBS’s only consistency unless he can prove the missing causal premise.
4. Correct the Revelation record, especially the Greek attestation of κύριε in GA 2344 and the distinction between that word and Beza’s ὁ ἐσόμενος.
5. Amend the original articles prominently, rather than leaving the correction in an unrelated venue.
6. Apologize to TBS and to the readers who were given a materially false account of its doctrine and evidence.

The correction should also preserve Steele’s legitimate criticisms. He need not pretend that TBS spoke accurately at 1 Timothy 3:16, Revelation 20:12, or every point in its Mark 16 material. Repentance is not recanting truth. It is separating truth from overreach.

The Duty Belongs to This Journal Too

An article calling another minister to repentance can itself become an occasion for pride, cruelty, or false witness.

This Journal is not a church court. It cannot know Steele’s motives, pronounce him impenitent, or demand ecclesiastical penalties. It should not publish personal details irrelevant to the dispute. It should not turn his family, congregation, or denomination into collateral targets.

Its authority is the ordinary authority of documented public argument. It may quote the record, classify the claims, apply the moral standards both parties confess, and ask for the repair those standards require.

If new evidence alters any verdict in this series, the Journal incurs the same duty it places upon Steele: correct the record promptly, visibly, and without equivocation.

That reciprocity is essential. A call to repentance is credible only when the caller stands under the same commandment.

A Public Appeal

Stephen Steele has shown that defenders of the Received Text can repeat imprecise history, defend inherited errors, and use doctrinal rhetoric where textual argument is required. Those criticisms should be heard.

He has also misrepresented the Trinitarian Bible Society’s doctrine, converted a local appeal to 99 percent of manuscripts into a universal method the Society expressly rejects, confused the direction of Scrivener’s collation with the direction of textual authority, and treated agreement with the AV as proof of an unestablished motive. In Revelation he made absolute claims that direct manuscript evidence contradicts.

The 2025 exchange removed any excuse for treating KJV inerrancy as the uncontested confession of his opponents. The 2026 articles repeated and intensified the attribution without answering their denial or the Society’s formal statement.

He should now correct it publicly.

The final verdict of this series is:

Stephen Steele identified several statements and readings that deserve closer qualification. He did not prove that the Trinitarian Bible Society makes the King James Version its final authority. His argument depends upon converting a local Mark 16 critique into a textual method TBS expressly rejects, confusing historical collation with textual authority, and treating correlation with the Authorized Version as proof of an unestablished cause. Because he repeated the public accusation after the position had already been expressly denied, while omitting the Society’s published original-language standard, he owes TBS and his readers a public correction and apology.

---

1. Stephen Steele, “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch,” Gentle Reformation, June 29, 2026, https://gentlereformation.com/2026/06/29/conclusions-the-tbs-the-textus-receptus-and-franz-delitzsch/. ↩
2. Trinitarian Bible Society, “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 11, https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.tbsbibles.org/resource/collection/01C074CC-748F-4C67-86AC-A9926A25241A/Issue%20571%20-%20April%202005%20from%20web.pdf. ↩
3. “Free Church Fathers v. Textus Receptus,” Puritan Board, April 2025, posts 9 and 13, https://puritanboard.com/threads/free-church-fathers-v-textus-receptus.115848/. ↩
4. Steele, “Conclusions.” ↩
5. Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 145, https://opc.org/lc.html. ↩
6. Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, “Stranraer Ordination,” September 29, 2015, https://www.rpcscotland.org/2015/09/29/stranraer-ordination/. ↩
7. Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 151. ↩
8. Ibid., Q. 144. ↩
9. Westminster Confession of Faith, 15.5–6, https://opc.org/wcf.html. ↩

That appeal is not an invitation to silence. It is an invitation to resume the controversy in truth.

Notes

Bibliography

Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland. “Stranraer Ordination.” September 29, 2015.

Steele, Stephen. “Conclusions: The TBS, the Textus Receptus, and Franz Delitzsch.” Gentle Reformation. June 29, 2026.

———. “Unpicking a Misleading Meme on Mark 16 (Part 1).” Gentle Reformation. June 23, 2026.

———. “Unpicking a Misleading Meme on Mark 16 (Part 2).” Gentle Reformation. June 24, 2026.

Trinitarian Bible Society. “Statement of Doctrine of Holy Scripture.” Quarterly Record 571 (April–June 2005): 6–13.

Westminster Assembly. The Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. 1647–48.