A Testimony: Why I Decided Not to Resign as the President of the RVG Bible Society

by Emanuel Rodriguez

This article is affectionately dedicated to the esteemed members of the RVG Bible Society. All men who are much better than me, of whom it is my honor to serve with.

I heard about the RVG when it first came out in 2004. I didn't use it, however, because someone that I trusted back then (but not anymore) told me it was no good. So I made the immature mistake of not looking into it for myself. Back then I was running a small Spanish ministry at the church I now Pastor. I was using the 1909 Antigua edition of the Reina Valera at the time.

A couple years later I accidently ran across a Pdf. of the RVG online. I was searching for something else when I just so happened to come across the RVG. Out of curiosity I decided to check it out, not expecting much. Every other project I knew of up until that point of time had been a disappointment to me. As I went through the first edition of the RVG online, I was surprised with how good it was.

That began the journey of looking more into the RVG. To make a long story short, I enthusiastically embraced it as my Bible in Spanish.

One thing led to another. I wrote a small article on a little website I threw together to promote our ministry as missionaries to Puerto Rico. Little did I realize the attention that small article would bring. A missionary in Mexico asked me to develop that article into a series of lessons for him and others to teach on the Bible issue in their Bible colleges. So many people reached out to me to tell me how much of a blessing that article was. It exceeded my anticipations. My only motive for writing it was to inform people of my position and simply answer questions on this subject that would come up from time to time.

Before I knew it, I was getting phone calls and emails from preachers and missionaries around the world. Dr. D. A. Waite and Dr. H. D. Williams contacted me and encouraged me to write more on the issue. There was even talk about publishing my writings in a book through the Dean Burgon Society. Then Jack Chick and David Daniels heard about what I was writing and asked if they could publish it through Chick Publications. Later the Dean Burgon Society invited me to speak on it multiple times in their conferences. I was flattered to say the least.

Years later we started the RVG Bible Society with a lot of enthusiasm and optimism for the future. We had some amazing Bible conferences!

Every great opportunity I've ever experienced in the work of the Lord came from circumstances and situations I never tried to create. They just happened.

Of course, with these opportunities also came the opposition. One well respected Hispanic pastor in Texas, who uses the RV1960, warned me that this position was going to bring lots of grief. One missionary named Calvin George wrote me just as I was arriving to Puerto Rico just to tell me that we couldn't have fellowship because of how divisive he believed my position was. (I still have the email.) I hadn't even stepped foot on the island and I was already being accused of causing division!

I took a struggling church, which had no pastor, up in the mountains of Puerto Rico, the most unreached part of the island. For years, the handful of members begged missionaries, and the 2 Bible colleges on the island, to send them help to get their struggling church going again. No one was interested. As soon as word got out, however, that I was now pastoring this little mountain church, people in my church started being contacted by local pastors on the island to tell them I was bad news and that they were willing to help provide them with someone better.

The problem for these backbiting preachers, however, is that the people fell in love with us. I mean why wouldn't they after they had struggled for years and now they finally found someone that was willing to live among them, up in the middle of nowhere, and minister to them. My people would show me the text messages they were getting from local pastors badmouthing me. I didn't even know these preachers but somehow they knew a lot about me! They knew stuff about me that I didn't even know about myself!

Then there were rumors about a committee of RV1960 pastors on the island and other folks that had banded together for the purpose of convincing 3 RVG churches to vote out their RVG-preaching pastors. I didn't believe this rumor until the eldest missionary on the island, who had switched from the 1960 to the RVG, called me to warn me that one of the leaders of this group had just left his office after sharing with him their intentions. I still didn't believe him until I heard that the following Sunday the group actually went to one of the churches to instigate the congregation into voting out the RVG-using missionary. The confrontation got so ugly that multiple police officers in multiple police cars showed up to the church to deescalate the situation. That's when I realized just how much of a hornet's nest had been stirred. All because we used the RVG intead of the RV1960!

Fortunately when these troublemakers reached out to our people they were told in no uncertain terms that their presence was not desired at our church. Our people were kind of offended by all of this because for years they begged for help. No one was interested. Yet now they were being contacted by all kinds of people wanting to help them get rid of the pastor they finally got who made sacrifices to be there. Yeah, our folks were not thrilled with the attempts to sow discord in our church.

That following Sunday I had a meeting with our people and asked them if they wanted me to resign. The way I looked at it, they didn't pay my salary anyways. As a missionary I was supported by stateside churches. So if I left it wouldn't hurt me financially. It would emotionally since we loved these people, but economically we would be just fine. Besides, if the congregation didn't want me to pastor them due to the controversy the last thing I want to do is pastor a bunch of people that don't want me to. So I was content to go somewhere else and start a church from scratch if I needed to. One by one people stood up in that meeting and expressed their support and desire for me to stay. Some of them were people we had won to the Lord. They loved us. We loved them. So we stayed.

Years later I handed that little church over to a national Puerto Rican, a very godly man, and to this day the work is going forward. The preacher is doing a good job. Glory to God!

My intention after that was to go to another part of the island and plant a new church. But through a Macedonian-like call, God showed us that he wanted us to go to Paraguay instead. A missionary over there had fallen into sin and the national pastor he trained had 2 churches dumped in his lap, plus a Bible institute. We answered the call to go help these precious people. We saw God do a work there.

Yet, the opposition we faced in Paraguay was even more fierce than what we dealt with in Puerto Rico. I won't take the time to go into it.

We worked SOOO hard in Paraguay. I was preaching and teaching anywhere from 7 to 11 times a week between 4 churches and a Bible Institute with over 50 men in it.

We faced unbelievable opposition in Paraguay, from different angles. But we also saw souls saved on a weekly basis. So I figured the trials we went through was the price to pay for seeing so much good fruit.

Then the crazy year 2020 came. Covid hit.

My good friend Lacy Wheeler asked me to come to Mexico and preach a missions conference for him. My daughter and I left the rest of the family in Paraguay to do the meeting. In the middle of the conference is when everything shut down. All the airports and borders closed down due to the Covid pandemic.

That was a stressful time for me as we were separated from my wife and 3 other kids for about 2 months, while stuck in Mexico. I'm thankful for my preacher friends throughout Mexico that kept me busy during that time with preaching and teaching in their pulpits. I believe that's the only thing that helped me keep it together mentally.

Finally it became evident that there was no way I was going to return to Paraguay anytime soon. So after about 2 months of waiting my daughter and I decided to go to the U.S. which we did. There we were finally able to reunite with my family. My wife and kids were able to fly out of Paraguay on an emergency flight with the Peace Corps.

But then we were stuck in south Texas, trying to wait this whole pandemic out. I wanted to get back to the mission field so badly it was making my heart sick.

Then one day I got a phone call. It was one of the members of the pulpit committee at my home church in Beaufort, SC. They wanted me to candidate for the pastorate. My pastor had retired after 45 years of pastoring our home church. I said no. Then they called again. I said no again. I was determined to return to the field as soon as the borders opened back up. Then my former pastor called. He got me thinking. Then my wife's former pastor had a talk with me and he convinced me to at least pray about it. Long story short, God showed us it was his will.

After praying and fasting, I accepted the call to pastor my home church, something I never dreamed of nor desired. The ONLY reason why I accepted it was I believe it was God's will. However, my heart was broken in a million pieces. We loved the mission field. Despite the trials and opposition, we loved what we were involved in for the Lord. We had goals, plans, and a vision. Yet all of that was shattered now that I was going to pastor in the U.S.

I fought back depression the first couple years of pastoring. Please don't misunderstand me, I was not depressed because I refused to be. The joy of the Lord is our strength. But depression tried so hard to creep into my heart. Hardly a day went by for 2 years straight that I didn't weep every morning during devotion time because of how badly I missed the mission field.

This was an extremely tough time for me emotionally. My emotions were all over the place. I was pretty battle-worn but I wanted to do justice to my new work as a pastor in the U.S. So I thought maybe it was time to cut all ties to the mission field. Thoughts began to enter my mind that maybe it was time to step away from the Spanish Bible controversy. We had invested so much into that subject. But maybe we had done enough and it was time to move on. So I thought anyways. Maybe God's will was for me to step down as President of the RVG Bible Society and hand it off to one of the dozen or so other men in the Society at the time who are much better men than me anyways in my opinion.

After thinking it through, I had pretty much made up my mind to step down. But knowing how much this would let a lot of folks down, I procrastinated.

Then Dr. Phil Stringer called me one day and in a friendly way sort of got on my case for not holding an RVG Bible conference in a while. It had been a few years actually. Of course, mainly it was because of the transition I was going through.

Then Dr. Stringer invited me to come speak that year on the Spanish Bible in the annual national conference of the King James Bible Research Council down in Florida. I didn't want to go. I was trying to phase out of being a public spokesperson on that type of subject. As an American pastor I was ready to be content with just preaching to my congregation. I went, however. But I didn't have a message or lesson prepared. My motivation to deal with this issue was at an all time low. Even during the meeting I thought about canceling. But at the last minute I decided to throw something together which I did in the middle of the meeting just a couple hours before it was my turn to speak.

The next year, Dr. Stringer called me again, and again politely got on my case for not doing a Spanish Bible conference like we used to. I told him I would plan one even though in my mind I had no interest in doing so since I was planning to step down from the RVG Bible Society. In that same conversation, Dr. Stringer invited me to the KJBRC conference again. Again I didn't want to go. But again I went, reluctantly.

This time I was better prepared. I had an actual lesson ready.

To my surprise, the KJBRC voted me on to be a member of their board. I had mixed feelings about this. Part of me wanted to do it. (I do love the subject.) Another part of me wanted to just fade away into my own little world, pastor my church quietly, and stay away from the "spotlight" so to speak. I was wore out from the battle and craving a more quiet, and hopefully more peaceful ministry (yeah right, like that even exists). Joining the KJBRC was not conducive to these illusions, however.

Then my friend Lacy Wheeler invited me to preach for him down in Mexico. I was tempted to tell him about my plan to step away from the RVG Bible Society. But as we fellowshipped and conversed, along with other RVG missionaries, I was urged by them to do more for the Spanish Bible cause. Brother Wheeler expressed to me how much was needed to be done still. Little did he realize that I had hardly any motivation to go forward with this though.

As I listened to the burden of the hearts of missionaries in Mexico concerning the needs of the Spanish Bible, I decided to do something crazy. I figured if I did this one thing I could earn the right to finally step down from both the RVG Bible Society and the KJBRC. I decided to head up one more proofreading project of the latest edition of the RVG Bible.

I planned to get 100 proofreaders and assign to each one a book or multiple books of the Bible. I only got 70 to commit and participate. Preachers are busy. But I was still surprised that there were 70 preachers representing many different Spanish-speaking countries willing to help out.

I didn't realize what I was getting into. What I thought we'd finish in 1 year turned into a 2 year project. This project became hands down the #1 most exhausting project I have EVER been involved with in my over 25 years of ministry and 30 years of preaching. Of course, I was running on fumes to begin with. I collected over 200 pages of documentation of notes and observations by all 70-something proofreaders.

Then in October of 2023 we finally had an RVG Bible Conference. It was down in Brownsville, TX at my good friend Pastor Sammy Gomez's church. I didn't plan it to be too big on purpose. This was going to be my swan song. My plan was to moderate the meeting, do a closed door meeting with the Society members to discuss observations and recommendations for possible last edition changes in the RVG, and then at some point during the meeting announce my resignation.

We did the first two things. But I just couldn't bring myself to resign. A lot of it was because I knew I would let my friends and family down. I came close to doing it when within just an hour before the last night of the meeting, I got a text and a phone call from 2 different families in my church who contacted me to inform me that they were moving and therefore leaving our church. That broke my heart and discouraged me greatly. An hour later it was my turn to preach with Dr. Humberto Gomez in the last night in the conference. I felt like calling the brethren and bowing out and just letting Dr. Gomez finish the meeting without me. I didn't resign that night, however. I just couldn't do it. I was glad when the meeting was over. I just wanted to go back home, recuperate emotionally, let more time go by, and plan (procrastinate) my resignation some more.

Then Don Rich wanted to host the 20th year anniversary of the RVG in Peru. But I really didn't want to go. I'm supposed to be preparing to resign. My plan to stay out of the spotlight and phase myself away from involvement with the Spanish Bible cause was going terribly.

I told Don Rich that I didn't think I would be able to come. He responded with how strange he thought it would be to do a 20 year anniversary celebration of the RVG, hosted by him and the RVG Bible Society, without the President.

So then I reluctantly decided to go. Then I figured that would probably be the best time to resign. 20 years of the RVG. Now time for new leadership.

While there in Peru, however, as I saw different soldiers of the Lord from around Latin America, who were doing what they could to remain stedfast for the Lord, God started doing something in my heart. I was impressed with how much the RVG was growing and being more embraced. I noticed that a movement was beginning to take shape. A flame of renewed zeal began to spark in my soul.

Then I met a new missionary in Ecuador. A very sharp young man. He glowed with zeal. He expressed to me in a conversation that he was more than willing to stand strongly for the RVG but he wanted the confidence of knowing that we were serious about going forward and that the RVG was indeed the future. I told him it was. And the Holy Spirit in that moment showed me that now was not the time to step away from all of this.

So I got on my face before God in my AirBNB room and rededicated myself to the RVG cause. From that moment on, God has renewed an obsession in me that I cannot explain. Revival took place in my heart.

I am now resolved to fight this battle to the day the Lord takes me home. I'm all in! 100%! I'm throwing the kitchen sink at this going forward. At least until the RVG Bible Society wisens up and kicks me out to replace me with someone who knows what he's doing!

Since the decision not to resign, it has been amazing to see what God is doing with the RVG Bible. This thing is growing in leaps and bounds. Indeed, a grassroots movement has begun. I am humbled and honored to be a part of it.

To all my fellow-labourers in the Gospel who love the RVG, especially the esteemed and beloved members of the RVG Bible Society, I salute you in the Lord. I am honored to serve with you. Aquí estoy, a la orden siempre. I am honored to fight beside you.

We are on the winning side because the truth will always prevail.

So I have bad news for my enemies. I'm not going anywhere. So long as God gives me air in my lungs, I plan to be here for a looooong time by the grace of God.

 Acts 5:39 "But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God."