What I believe... about the Bible

In addition to dream-stories, I will publish my core beliefs in a series of posts.

Once I was on a long plane flight through the night and I could not sleep. I stood up and walked around the plane, carrying my Bible and praying. In a dark corner of the plane another man was awake, reading a book. As I walked past him, he asked me, "Is that God's Word you are carrying?"
"Yes, it is." I replied.
Why would I say 'Yes'? Is the Bible God's Word? What do you believe?
Here's what I believe:

I believe that the Bible is theopneustos, it is “breathed out by God”. All of the Bible has God’s authority, and it does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact – it is inerrant. It has been authored by men “moved by the Holy Spirit” in everyday terms and language fitting the context of the writer, but it is still God’s Word.

The teachings of the Bible are infallible, they are trustworthy and not misleading when interpreted correctly: according to the original intent of the author, according to literary form, and according to context in view of the rest of the Bible.

While some passages of the Bible may be difficult to interpret, the Bible’s message is clearly understandable; all things necessary for our salvation and Christian growth are clearly set forth.

The central character of the Bible is God, and God’s message to man is made complete in the person of Jesus – he is the “Word” of God. The central message of the Bible is this: We can know God eternally by trusting in Jesus Christ as our Savior.

Is today’s Bible really reliable after thousands of years of translations? Although we do not have the original “God-inspired” documents, we have thousands of ancient new testament manuscripts from the first four centuries, many more than any other writings in history. The Dead Sea Scrolls found in 1947 were Old Testament documents that were dated around 100 B.C.; they confirmed that the Old Testament we have has been very, very well preserved over the last 2000 years. Therefore we can have confidence that the English translations we have today are very true to the original.

How do we know we have the right books in the Bible? The books included in the Old Testament represent the books recognized by Jewish scholars as Scripture since 400 years before Christ. All of these books were recognized as God’s Word by Jesus. All the new testament books are recognized as God’s Word because they represent the teachings of the apostles, those given special authority by Jesus (whether directly or indirectly, as Mark records the gospel taught by Peter). They have been recognized as God's Word since the first century. We can be assured that we have God's complete revelation to us which is sufficient for our relationship with God to be complete.

Books for reference:

Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict

Bruce Milne, Know the Truth

Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

To the weeds...

As I faded to sleep last night, my wife and I were talking about raising children, and an idea popped into my mind. Now, I must be wary anytime I get ideas before going to sleep because I am not sure if I am awake or dreaming when the idea pops in my head. The true test will come when I tell it to Sarah, she is very good at discerning conscious thought from sub-conscious thought, which can be about as difficult as discerning a monkey from a rubber chicken. Here is the thought, "Honey, we shouldn't worry about weeding the back yard because we can let the weeds watch the kids when they are back there."
(Can you guess what movie we were watching?)

"Listen to that thistle, son, else he gonna chap yo' backside 'fore you know what hichya."

The end of an Irish tune

A pub can be such a sad and happy place. On one side of the pub, a group of reunited college friends told loud stories and laughed louder. On the other side, my childhood friend Jim and his family gathered around Jim’s uncle Nick, sick with cancer, and they knew that this was his last night with them. It was Nick’s idea to come to his favorite pub, where he was determined to spend his final hours laughing and telling stories. He was too weak even to lift a pint of ale, he managed a few swallows but nothing more. Nick’s voice was weak, and he couldn’t muster the strength to tell long-winded stories like he used to, but merely mentioning names and places was enough to flood everyone with nostalgia. Towards the end he started to babble meaningless phrases and we were reminded of the melancholic reality before us.

Suddenly, Nick sat up boldly and addressed his brother (Jim’s father) in a clear, business-like voice, “You know how to fix that plumbing in your basement don’t you? You need to get a 2” NPT flanged coupling….” He described in great detail what needed to be done – Nick was a plumber, you see.

He stopped. He dropped his head for a moment as if drifting away to another place. He smiled and looked up. Reverting back to his childhood in Ireland, he hummed a children’s tune. He burst into song with an Irish voice long forgotten. The family joined him, and soon the whole bar was singing or humming along. Nick only recalled the last line of the song, but he sang it over and over again, and finally he stood up and danced with his eyes full of laughter and we sang and wept with joy and sorrow. Then he stopped, hugged his brother, and died.

The snow kayak

When our friend Honza came over from Czech Republic to Colorado for a visit, I had no idea he was such a talented skier, and I had never heard of snow kayaking. We drove high into the mountains where there is always snow, even in mid-summer. It was a steep, rocky mountain face, and I had not intention of skiing. Honza slipped on his skis and slid off before I could even get out of the car. “Don’t you love the snow!” He called back. “Do you ever do this? I call it the ‘blind machete’.” He yelled as he slid off of a cliff ... backwards!

As he landed, he sliced his skis through the snow, spinning himself around to continue down the mountain out of sight. Dumbstruck, I gasped as he appeared again, skiing uphill to the top of the cliff, as if gravity did not apply to him. Was I watching some animated cartoon, was I dreaming? Up and down the mountain, over and around trees he flew like some video in fast forward and rewind. Every new move had some creative name, half of them were in Czech, and most of them I don’t remember.

When he was done, he came back, saying “Let me show you something else, have you ever used a snow kayak?” He pulled out a large board, like a small surfboard, but wider and shorter, and the edges curved up like a shallow boat. There was a small seat in the middle which he sat upon and straps that held his waist and feet. He used a paddle like he was kayaking to turn and weave his way down the snow. It looked like it would be very fun indeed, and much easier and safer than skiing off of cliffs backwards!