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Bible Is The Word Of God

The Christian Teaching Explained

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With all of the other religious books out there, why do Christians claim their book is the true Word of God? Reading the previous teaching explanations, especially Sin and Repentance, Forgiveness of Sins for All People, and Justified by Grace through Faith, will help the reader understand why believing that the Bible is the Word of God is so important. Its one of the most important teachings for a Christian and it sets the stage for the rest of this website because of the One whom God tells us about: our Savior Jesus. For this reason, every other Christian teaching explained on this website will rely on the understanding that the Bible is the Word of God. And theres a good reason for that, too. Every Christian teaching should come from the Bible.

Ultimately We Must Taste And See For Ourselves

A person can know the Bible is Gods Word by first examining the claims of Scripture, considering the evidence for those claims and then personally accepting the challenge of Scripture to taste and see if these things are true. The psalmist gave the following challenge:

Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good blessed is the man who trusts in Him!

The New Revised Standard Version says:

O taste and see that the LORD is good happy are those who take refuge in him.

Ultimately, a person must individually experience the truth of Gods Word for themselves. This occurs by coming to God in faith and then believing in His promises.

The Bible Is The Word That Makes Sense

The inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who oversaw the process by which the Bible was written, enabled humans to communicate Gods word, just as God sovereignly formed and fashioned the human instruments for this purpose.

The Bibles authority is unmatched by any other literature ever produced. This power can be witnessed in how it has supernaturally changed many lives. The guiding principle is that Scripture is Gods word. Thus, it must be treated with respect and obeyed, even though we acknowledge and benefit from its human nature.

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Is The Bible The Word Of God A Unique Explanation Of The Holy Book

The Bible is referred to in both testaments as the single divine revelation from the one true God and as Gods communication to the world. We should value, study, obey, and believe the Bible if it is, in fact, the word of God.

The Bible is the final authority regarding all questions of belief, conduct, and morality. If the Bible is the inspired word of God, then rejecting it will lead us into trouble and be the cause of our own destruction.

If He hadnt informed us in the Bible through divine revelation, we would not have known these truths. Everything that a person needs to know about God to interact appropriately with them can be found in the Bible.

Contents

The Best Test For The Bible

The Bible is the word of God, completely true...

There are strong evidential reasons to believe the Bible is Gods word. But the best test comes from personal experience.

I once owned a 1965 Ford Mustang and found myself under its hood as often as I was behind its wheel. Chiltons Car Repair Manual became my constant companion. I learned to trust its advice because it worked.

Try living by the Bible. Accept its Savior as yours. Make its principles the guideposts of your life. And youll learn for yourself that its words are the word of God.

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No Other Testimony Is Required Because The Bible Purports To Be Gods Word

We should let the whole Bible speak for itself. By attempting to uphold the Bible, we are designating some other norm as the final arbiter. We are subjecting different Holy Scriptures to that standard, be it of historical or scientific accuracy or human will.

Scriptures teachings should serve as our gold standard. The difficulty in presenting biblical proof is that people are sinful and limited. They must, however, evaluate any evidence presented for the Christian faiths integrity.

Once more, it establishes some human norm as the supreme authority. Although evidence acquired from other sources may be helpful, it does not provide convincing arguments for Christianitys veracity.

What About The Numerous Contradictions In The Bible

It is true that there are difficulties within the Word of God. But these are due to copying errors over the centuries. As more and more historical, archaeological, and manuscript evidence is uncovered, the fewer Bible difficulties there are. Nevertheless, for an examination of answers to the alleged Bible contradictions, please see The Bible Difficulties section in the navigation menu on the left.

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Reason #: The Transmission Of Canon

The third reason you can have confidence in the Bible is the scientific accuracy and reliability of how it has been transmitted through the centuries.

We dont possess any of the 66 original manuscripts of the Bible. All were lost or destroyed long ago, and we have no record of how that happened. On the other hand, we do possess an abundance of handwritten manuscript copiesmore than for any other ancient literature by an exponential factor. Yet some of those manuscripts contain human errors made by the ancient scribes who prepared them.

Thats not to say we dont have an accurate, reliable Bible. We do. But how do we get from no originals but copies with human errors to a flawless record of exactly what God wanted to say exactly the way He wanted to say it?

We now graduate from canon formation to canon transmission. The objective is for you to sense the unparalleled scholarly precision and scientific rigor expended to preserve and, where needed, recover accurate copies of the original Old and New Testaments.

This section explains how those original manuscripts of Gods inspired wordwhat scholars call the autographa or original autographswere preserved and, where copy errors were made, recovered.

The Transmission and Translation of the Bible

First, lets discuss how the Bible has been transmitted from the originals to us today through copies.

The Most Reliable Old Testament Manuscripts

The New Testament

What Kinds of Errors Are We Talking About?

Text Criticism

What Makes The Bible Different From Other Religious Books

I AM AFFIRMATIONS FROM THE BIBLE (IDENTITY IN CHRIST PROPHETIC WORD)

My grandfather was born before the turn of the twentieth century. In his lifetime, he saw the advent of the automobile, commercial airplanes, and the computer. But he never met a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Mormon. Our question never occurred to him.

Today, its a common issue: Why do we believe the Bible is right and other religious books are wrong?

Other religions are just as sincere in their commitment to their sacred writings as Christians are to ours. Is it not the height of bigotry and hypocrisy to claim that our book is right and theirs are not?

In our post-9/11 world, there has been an explosion of interest in Islam and an accompanying cry for tolerance. When we claim that our holy book is true and theirs is not, arent we just as intolerant as those who attacked our nation?

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How Do We Know If The Bible Is The Word Of God

The Bibles divine inspiration is supported by more evidence than its accuracy or historicity . The things youre likely to read in the Bible arent always true they are what modern people believe when it comes to the truth of the Bible.

He revealed and recorded all His letters through all the prophets, and He verifies His messengers through miracles like fulfilled prophecy. For example, He promises in Genesis 12:7 that the country of Israel will belong to Abraham and his offspring.

The Historical Origins Of The Books Of The Bible

The Bible was confirmed through scientific accuracy and historical accuracy. Many centuries before Jesus Christ was born, the Jews regarded the Old Testament scriptures we have today as the inspired word of God. Jesus Christ confirmed these same texts to have a divine origin and historical events, and He even used prophecies from many of them in His lectures.

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God Breathed The Scriptures Written By Humans

The Bible was also written using human will and tools, which gave it a wide range of genres and styles and fully connected Scripture to the human experience. The Bible claims that it was created under Gods complete control to fulfill Gods intention of making Himself known to men and women through Scripture.

Reasons Why Christians Believe The Bible Is Gods Word

Psalm 119:130 The unfolding of your words gives light  it imparts ...

2017-09-04T00:00:00+01:00

If youve spent most of your life as a Christian, and so accept the Bible as Gods revelation, it can be hard to understand some of the questions and objections to this belief from the outside world.

But if you think about it for a moment, those doubts are reasonable, from someone who has not had much contact with Christianity or who knows much about the Bible. After all, there are umpteen documents that are believed by various different groups, from Mormons to Muslims, to be Gods word to us.

We know that the Bible was written by lots of different human beings, and we know that humans often embellish or change stories for all kinds of reasons. So why should we believe that it is the primary communication of God to mankind?

Many Christians just take it as a question of faith, or as a work of the Holy Spirit, who helps us to understand what God is saying. However valid this is, these responses arent very compelling to someone who has no Christian faith or no knowledge of the Holy Spirit. So what should we say to this question?

1. Its powerful

2. Jesus stands out

3. Its reliable

4. Fulfilled prophecy

Theres so much more to be said, from various different angles: the experience of the Bible coming alive, intellectual arguments, historical arguments and so on. Its worth seeking them out.

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The Holy Scripture Since The Beginning Of Time

The religious books teachings are timeless in history. We continue to be in awe as we read about Solomons wisdom in 1 Kings 3:16-28 and Jesus in Mark 12:1317. The Bible is replete with understandings of the special revelation that still holds today. The words of the Lord endure forever. This is the testimony the gospel is brought upon us .

The Bibles message is unmistakable. Humanity has long sought to understand its purpose and meaning. The original design of God, how it was tainted, and how God gave and has provided for mans restoration in heaven through His Son Jesus are all explained in the Bible. The call to have confidence in God has not altered.

The Copies We Possess Are Trustworthy

Now, lets turn to objective evidence that the Bible is right in its self-description as Gods inspired, authoritative word.

We begin with the manuscript evidence. No original manuscript of any ancient book exists today. The materials used in that era could not stand the effects of elements and time.

For instance, we have only nine or ten good copies of Caesars Gallic Wars, none made earlier than nine hundred years after Caesar. Tacitus, the greatest ancient Roman historian, wrote fourteen books of his Histories we possess only 4½, none made earlier than the tenth century AD. We can find only five manuscripts of any work of Aristotle, none copied earlier than fourteen centuries after Aristotle wrote the originals.

Textual critics are scholars who devote their attention to comparing ancient manuscripts and trying to produce a copy as close to the original as possible. Those who work with biblical texts believe that the Old and New Testaments we possess today are virtually identical to the originals. The only questions that remain affect matters of spelling, punctuation, and isolated verses. None relates to essential doctrines or practices of the faith.

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How The Hebrew Scriptures Came To Be

Christians typically call this section the Old Testament, but those who wrote the New Testament didnt.

When Paul, writing from death row in Rome, asked Timothy for his scrolls and parchments , he was asking for his copies of the only Bible he knew. Most scholars appropriately call these thirty-nine books the Hebrew Scriptures, in deference to the Jewish faith they express.

The Hebrew Bible was first divided into Law, Prophets, and Writings, the arrangement current in Jesus day .

The Jews numbered the Scriptures as twenty-four books, combining Ezra/Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and the 12 Minor Prophets as The Twelve. These books were written and compiled over centuries of use.

According to Jewish tradition, a council of rabbis and scholars met at Jamnia on the Mediterranean Sea in AD 90 and again in AD 118. They finalized the list of books as we have them today, recognizing what their people had accepted as Gods word for centuries.

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And Jesus clarifies the authority of the apostles when he says, No servant is greater than his master.If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also . Anyone who does not follow the apostles is not following Jesus.

Peters claim in this text was likely directed at Gnostics, who argued that Jesus was not really human. But the statement eerily presages the work of many theological progressives today, who try to demythologize the Bible. Peter is clear: he is not writing a myth he is writing an historical fact.

Excerpted from David Youngs A Grand Illusion. Used with permission.

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The Power Of The Word Of God

The Bible is not just a book that you read and forget about. There is transforming power in the Word of God.

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

The power of Gods Word lies in the fact that it comes alive. Its active and effective. No other book in the world has this kind of power.

The Bible penetrates the deepest parts of our beings- our souls, spirits, and minds. The Bible teaches us the difference between right and wrong.

When someone like a Pastor reads and preaches Gods Word to you, he is convicted and transformed by the Word and so are you. Thats the two-edged sword the Bible refers to.

There Are Two Basic Approaches To This Question

There are two different approaches that are taken when it comes to arguing for the Bible being the Word of God. First, there are those who believe that the Scripture is self-authenticating. The Bible is true because it says it is true, and the Holy Spirit bears witness to this truth. No other argument is necessary.

A second approach believes that the claims of Scripture have sufficient evidence to back them up. Those who hold this view believe there is overwhelming evidence to convince anyone that the Bible is what it claims to bethe Word of God. People, therefore, need to check out the evidence not merely blindly believe the claims of Scripture.

We can summarize the two approaches as follows:

Approach 1: the Bible Is Self-Authenticating

To many people, the issue of the Bibles authority is something that should not be debated. The authority of the Bible must be believed because the Scripture says so. This is usually argued in the following ways:

1. The Bible Claims to Be Gods Word: No Other Testimony Is Necessary

There is something else. The problem with providing evidence for the Bible is that human beings are both sinful and finite. They must still evaluate any evidence offered for the truthfulness of the Christian faith. Again, it places some sort of human standard as the final authority. Evidence gathered from other sources may be useful, but it has nothing convincing to say about the truth of Christianity.

2. The Bible Should Be Able to Testify on Its Own Behalf

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Archaeology Confirms The Biblical Record

Archaeological finds continue to give us confidence that the biblical writers accurately recorded history.

For instance, the Pool of Bethesda was once dismissed as non-historical. Now, tour guides in Jerusalem point groups to its location in the northeast quarter of the Old City. Ive seen the ruins myself.

We have a stone inscription documenting the life and office of Pontius Pilate the ossuary of Caiaphas, the High Priest of the crucifixion an inscription found at Delphi that describes the work of Gallio, proconsul at Corinth and scores of other artifacts that document the accuracy of biblical history and description.

The Word Of God: Consolation In Our Struggles

The Latter Days: Thy Word IS Truth

St. Ambrose asks: When does God the Word most often knock at your door? He visits in love those in trouble and temptation to save them from being overwhelmed by their trials. Sacred Scripture exists to be a consolation literally, to be called to someones side. Through the Word of God, the Lord consoles us in our sorrows and struggles and solitude by entering it and sharing it with us. The hands of the Word of God are stretched out to us when we are out of our depth .

If we are faithful in giving ourselves to the Word of God, our participation in Scriptures wisdom increases as our life changes. St. Gregory the Great instructs us that the divine words grow with one who reads them. Where the mind of the reader is directed, there, too, the sacred text ascends. For it grows with us, it rises with us. When the reader addresses a question to the text, the answer is in proportion to the readers maturity.

The important thing is just to take up the Bible and read, no matter if all you can manage is a passage or two. St. John Chrysostom gives this encouragement: Even if the scriptural phrase is short, its power is great. Bring to your reading all your frustrations, anxieties, searching, confusion, expectation, and doubt. The Word of God is a faithful friend, resourceful and generous, ready to listen and respond. As Pope Benedict XVI said so beautifully,

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