Prologue
It all started with a conversation, no…an argument, no…a debate, no…a conversation.
The conversation was with a friend over a topic that is a deeply contentious issue in our current culture. We disagreed. I have a fairly diverse friend-group so these types of arguments conversations happen quite often. What made this conversation unique was that our disagreement was not political in nature but biblical. In short, he thought the Bible was clear about this particular thing. I was less than convinced.
Part I
The Bible is Clear
The trouble with speaking about Biblical clarity is that the Bible, so often, isn’t clear. There is a difference between “using” scripture and “loving” scripture. When people begin a sentence with “The
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So how do we read the Bible right?
Part II
Scripture is not the Word of God
Okay, okay…
Don’t dismiss me as a heretic just yet. Take a deep breath.
The Bible is the word of God but not the Word of God. See what I did there?
The Bible is the word of God that bears witness to the Word of God — Jesus Christ.
John’s Gospel tells us that the Word became flesh — not ink.
The Bible did not create the heavens and the earth — the Word (Christ) did.
The Bible is not a member of the Trinity. Christ is.
The Bible is not perfect. (There are parts we now consider obsolete; e.g. Levitical codes.)
Christ is the perfection of God as a human being.
The Bible is penultimate. But Christ is supreme.
The Bible is not the object of our worship. Christ is.
The difference is not trivial. Biblicism is a rival faith to Christianity. Furthermore, Biblicism is often a clever way of avoiding the witness of Christ to maintain the status quo. The highest view of Scripture is not the one that seeks to make an idol of the Bible (biblicism), but the one that allows the biblical text to exalt Christ as the living Word over all creation.
Let Scripture be Scripture.
Let Christ be Christ.
So repeat after me:
1. Jesus reveals God.
2. Scripture witnesses to Jesus.
If we can grasp these two simple truths, we are well on our way to reading the Bible right.
Part III
A Christocentric Reading of Scripture
1. Jesus reveals God.
The
37); the Bible is regarded as being inerrant, because it was created by God and God cannot lie and is incapable of lying. The authenticity of God’s word is stated several times throughout Scripture, and David proclaims that God’s word is error-free; to object the honesty of God’s word as being true is to challenge the claim of Christ (Cartwright & Hulshof, 2016, pp. 35-37).
The important sacred text of Christianity is the Bible. The Bible is primary sacred text of Christianity. The Christian Bible is made of two parts: the Old Testament, which is almost identical to the Jewish Bible; and the New Testament, a collection of Christian writings that includes biographies of Jesus and the apostles, letters to new churches, and an apocalyptic work. The Christian Bible is a collection of writings that Christians believe is of divine and human origin. The Bible is accepted by Christians as trustworthy for belief and practice. As well sometimes referred to as 'Scripture ' and 'Holy Scripture '. Christianity views the Bible as the basic source of belief and practice. The Bible is the central sacred text for
The bible is a piece of literature that has been re-written many times, and in the bible there are tremendous amounts of illusions. There are illusions in the bible, but not all of them can be recognized easily, they are not all straight forwards in other words.
The bible is an old book written a long time ago for an ancient audience. God is the divine author of the bible and he intended for us to be able to read and understand it, even in these current times. However, those ancient years in the time of the roman empire was were Christianity, as we know it, began its first steps. For this to happen, the authors who were inspired, had to make sure that their audience could understand and relate with their words. While we have learned to translate the language of the bible over the years the words and meanings are still the same. Which is why it is important to understand the context in which the Bible was written.
The Bible is a collection of texts sacred to Jews and Christians. Judaism and Christianity may both use the word Bible, however the texts included in their respective collections differ.
Most Christians would assert that the Bible has importance for their faith and understanding in how to live out their beliefs. However, there is great diversity in how exactly this takes shape. At issue is one’s perspective on how to read the Bible and the authority that is granted to Scripture. Differing viewpoints can be placed along a continuum ranging from conservative to liberal perspectives on the role of Scripture. Sparks (n.d.) highlights the hallmarks of different traditions based on a number of factors such as how the Bible is read, views of inerrancy, and the authority of tradition. Both Protestant Fundamentalists and Conservative Evangelicals hold to biblical inerrancy as a hallmark of their faith. However, the two diverge regarding
Bible as the Inspired Word of God The Bible is the work of various authors, who lived in different continents and wrote in different eras. Furthermore, much of the text does not claim to have been 'dictated' by God and is not always God speaking to people. In parts it consists of people speaking to God, as in the Psalms, and people speaking to people, as in the New Testament letters written by Paul. In light of this, some maintain that it is not possible to treat the Bible as a book of divine oracles, delivered once by God and recorded by its authors through divine inspiration, since biblical authors were products of their time and subsequently their understanding of divine truth was culturally
In addition, the book also states that the Bible is God’s word and he’s speaking to all of
In this chapter the Bible is put to the test. The argument that the Bible is not historical is a matter of important and further discussion. The fact is, that the Bible, like it or not was written by more than 40 authors from different historical background, different period of time, different cultures, different social classes, and different economic strata in a span of 1,500 years, but yet the all tell the same historical story. In view of accuracy, the Bible meets all the standards without any reasonable doubt. The entire Bible from Genesis to Revelations has the same theme. In addition, the poetic books and the Prophets are more of a reflection of God relationship with humanity, who has reveals other aspects of life and reality.
The Bible is not a book of religions or rituals. Rather, the Bible is a library of 66 books—39 of which are known as the Old Testament and 27 books referred to as the New Testament—that reveals God’s divine plan of redemption, reconciliation, salvation, restoration and renewal of the whole world. The Bible can be read as a great literature, or as a history of Israel, or as a source of theological information. Though it is all of these things, none of them does full justice to Scripture as being authoritative. God has all authority, and we accept the Bible as the primary authority by which God communicates to us what He wants us to believe and to do. N.T. Wright’s book theorizes that Scripture is authoritative in that “the authority of
The Bible contains sixty-six books, written by approximately forty authors, over the course of two thousand years. God created and loves humans despite their rebellious attitude towards Him, and God wants to reunite humans to Himself (Poythress, 2008). The Bible is a record of the sinful rebellion of humans and it still declares God’s love for humanity through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. This foundation prepares the way for Jesus Christ to fulfill God’s entire promised covenants.
The Bible contains sixty-six books, written by approximately forty authors, over the course of two thousand years. God created and loves humans despite their rebellious attitude towards Him, and God wants to reunite humans to Himself (Poythress, 2008). The Bible is a record of the sinful rebellion of humans and it still declares God’s love for humanity through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. This foundation prepares the way for Jesus Christ to fulfill God’s entire promised covenants.
The first 39 books of the larger work called the Bible, is called the Old Testament. The Bible itself is arguably the best selling and most read book of all time, yet it’s well known to be quite challenging to read through and understand. The Old Testament portion of the Bible, notably the most difficult portion of the Bible for most to study and follow, yields 39 books from multiple authors, and spans over 4000 years of crucial world and church history. If that were not enough to take on, the Old Testament comes our way through multiple styles of authorship and formats, including but not limited to, books of history, law, proverbs, ethics,
The bible was written as an account of what many viewed that God had accomplished so his actions and words could be passed on for generations. Some believe it is a literary account and some believe it is a historical account. The word of God in the bible comes in many forms and is left up to interpretation by the reader. Some believe that the word of God should be the only word and should be strictly followed. Some believe that the words are meant as a guideline to help us through life. Whatever your belief is you can always seem to find the meaning behind your belief through the word of God in the Bible.
Every year, millions of people ask themselves whether or not the bible is the true word of God. The Christian faith has so many variants that it sometimes becomes very difficult to make something so simple easy to select. My challenge is to defend what evidence I have as a Christian that the bible is truly the word of God.