About JP Manson
Meet JP
JP’s Background
JP lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with his wife and their four children. In addition to working full-time as a Certified Nuclear Medicine Technologist, he is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in theology from Clarksville Theological College & Seminary. An active member of a Bible-believing church, JP teaches two Bible studies each week and is passionate about personal evangelism.
JP’s Testimony
I grew up on a farm in South Dakota. Growing up I had a godly influence on my life. My parents were both saved, and Christ was an important part of our lives growing up. My mom was raised Mennonite, and my dad grew up in the Lutheran church where his dad pastored. Our family attended a Church of God in the small community I grew up in.
Like many youths in Christian homes, I made a profession of faith as a child “accepting Jesus Christ into my heart”, but also like many of our youths once I reached my teenage years, I wandered away from Christ to follow after the world and youthful lusts.
This continued on until my twenty-second year when the effect of sin upon my life caused me to stop and think over what my life had become and where it was taking me. I can still remember the apartment in Kearney, Nebraska. And on the night of December 24, 2002, as I was sitting in my chair, alone with my thoughts, the Lord spoke to me. It wasn’t an audible voice and is something that is hard to explain but it was as though the Lord said to me, “It is time to come back to me”. It was there, at that call, that I decided to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and I simply said, “Yes, Lord.”
Now I am not going to argue whether I was saved before as a child or whether true conversion happened at that moment, but what I can say is that as I look back at that day I can say, “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” Immediately, my desires changed from worldly to spiritual. I began reading the Bible, started attending an Assembly of God church in Kearney, and got involved with a college and career age ministry. Within six months I was asked to join the leadership team and became involved with leading Bible studies and personal evangelism.
It was during this time that I met my now wife. She is from the island of Trinidad and Tobago. She grew up in the Pentecostal church, which wasn’t too different from what I was attending at the Assembly of God church. We were married in 2006.
It was then that I began to look into the different Bible versions. My interest in this subject led me to read everything I could get my hands on, and I soon had accumulated a dozen books on the subject. It was during this time of research and in the spring of 2007 that we moved to Lincoln, NE where we currently live.
My convictions became strong surrounding the underlying texts of the KJV and I desired to be part of a church that only used the Authorized Version. It wasn’t long before I found an independent, fundamental Baptist church that only used the AV. We began attending this church in 2008 and on September 7, 2008, we were accepted into membership by baptism.
It was probably around 2013 that our youth leader at church moved, and Pastor asked me to teach the teens. Since then, I have taught two bible studies each week to our teens, on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings.
Studying the Bible became something most precious to me since that night when the Lord called me. It is because of my love for the Word of God that I desire to see other Christians built up in this most holy faith and to see souls saved by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that I began the “Walking the Old Paths” podcast.
What a person believes about THE BIBLE will either lead you closer to God or draw you away from God.
Beliefs and the Bible
What I Beleive About the Bible
It is important to know what someone believes about the Bible and how they interpret it, whether it be a pastor, Sunday school teacher, or some guy that has a Bible study podcast. What they believe about the Bible and how they interpret it will either lead you closer to God or farther away from God.
It is serious business teaching the Bible which is why we are warned in James 3:1, “My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.”
This is not intended to be a complete doctrinal statement like you would find on your church website, but rather a statement of what I believe about the Bible and the method of interpretation that I use.
The Bible
I believe the Bible is the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God, and the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. Additionally, there are two statements that I want to make in regard to what I believe about the Bible: inspiration and preservation.
Inspiration
I believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible. By that I mean that the Holy Spirit of God inspired every single word in the Bible and the sum total thereof.
In 2 Peter 1:21, the Apostle Peter wrote, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The thought here is that God used men to write the Bible like we would use a pen to write on paper.
For example, in the Old Testament alone, the human writers refer to their own writings as the words of God over 3,800 times.
2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:” The statement “given by inspiration of God” literally means “God-breathed.”
All of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, was breathed out by God.
Preservation
I believe that God has guided His words down through the centuries for us today that we too can have the very Word of God. It is logical to think that if God would inspire His original autographs that He would also preserve them for future generations.
The Lord Jesus said in Luke 21:33, “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” It is my opinion that God has preserved His words for us today in the English language in the King James (or Authorized) Version based on the underlying texts that it was translated from, the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Old Testament and the traditional, historic, Received Text of the Greek New Testament.
I understand that not everyone will agree with this statement. The subject is full of controversy and there are a great many saved people who disagree with me. But for the purpose of this podcast, I am sure you will at least appreciate utilizing the same text. After all, even in a classroom everyone uses the same edition of a textbook for the purpose of order.
I encourage you to do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Two good resources I recommend are: Touch Not the Unclean Thing, The Text Issue and Separation by David H. Sorenson, and Gipp’s Understandable History of the Bible by Samuel C. Gipp.
Method of Interpretation
First, it needs to be said that the Bible is like no other book. It is a spiritually discerned book and unless one has the Spirit of God in him, he will not understand it, but it will be foolishness to him. “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Co 2:13-14)
With that said, I hold to a literal, historical-cultural, grammatical interpretation of the Scriptures. Let me further define that statement:
Literal:
That is, to look for the normal, plain sense of what is being said. I reject an allegorical approach to the Scripture.
Historical-Cultural:
The Bible was written over a period of 1,500 years with the most recent book written around A.D. 94-96. That is over 1,900 years ago! There are many parts of the Bible where we need to know about the geography, climate, customs, and history of the times to have an accurate understanding of what is being said.
Grammatical:
The Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. God was very precise in His communication to us and every single word was carefully chosen to convey His mind to us. Because of that some knowledge of the original languages is helpful. Utilizing the work of others, we have resources available that allow us to dig in deep and study those words in the original languages.