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.
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
2 comments:
Ryan,
I encourage you to seek out the subject of hermeneutics if you wish to truly appreciate the Bible. It is the philosophy of interpretation and key when discussing textx much less the text that we call sacred. It is also key to think through the problem of language and interpretation in order to have a humble understanding of our interpretations and the "original intent" of the authors as it would be very dangerous to ascribe our interpretations as the "Word of God" since that would then make our understanding of the Bible what is holy and therefore set us (as in our reasoned analysis) up as the idol we serve.
The study of literary criticism is not at all necessary to profiting from reading the bible but I think it is absolutely essential if one wishes to explain what is going on in the bible simply because it sets the limits of what can and cannot be explained in texts through language.
Very well said, Seth! I agree entirely.
I have written a Bible study on hermeneutics based on the text of "How to Read the Bible for all its Worth"
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