Tuesday, June 02, 2009

god's truth

All of the words in the Bible are God’s words, and therefore to disbelieve or disobey any word in Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God. The Bible clearly teaches that God cannot lie or speak falsely (2 Sam. 7:28; Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). Therefore, all the words in Scripture are claimed to be completely true and without error in any part (Num. 23:19; Pss. 12:6; 119:89, 96; Prov. 30:5; Matt. 24:35). God’s words are, in fact, the ultimate standard of truth (John 17:17).

Technorati Tags:

2 comments:

Tony Scialdone said...

Rick:

I have two problems with your post...but first, let me state my position on Scripture: I believe it to be a fully reliable expression of both God's character and God's message, as well as a trustworthy source of information. I like the Bible, and I read it and teach it as truth.

That said, here are the two problems:

1. You seem to suggest that all of the words in the Bible have equal value. They obviously don't. Take, for example, the advice given to Job to "curse God and die". Hardly good, godly advice...but your post makes no contextual distinction between that and "Jesus wept".

2. You seem unaware of any questions of textual criticism...that is, your words leave out the possibility that certain passages might be in question. The end of Mark comes to mind. Part of our responsibility as teachers includes the possibility that we have to correct someone else's errors, and there are plenty of examples. When an ancient scribe's marginal notes make their way into a new Bible, those who come after should take pains to remove them and keep future generations from unnecessary error.

I get your point: the Bible isn't something to be taken lightly. I agree...and so I take issue with your post. I don't take issue in order to disagree about Scripture, but to suggest that we take it seriously enough to become students rather than just readers. A reader sees all of Scripture as one thing, while a student sees that context and transmission are important factors in understand (and applying) God's Word.

Make sense?

ricki said...

Tony - thanks for the feedback ... and yes, it makes sense.

On the first point, equal value wasn't my intent in the sense you assessed "value". I was only noting that since these are God's words as opposed to mine or yours, they all have tremendous value and our role is to unlock why He deemed them worth recording and preserving for us.

On the second point, yes I'm aware but I'm not articulate enough to include that in the point I was trying to make and especially in the space I wanted to take. But that doesn't negate your point, this needs to be considered.

My main goal here is to address those who claim to value Scripture but allow for it to contain error.

reftagger