The following is one of series of posts that are taken from email responses I have given to one of our members who is wrestling with various questions about Jesus, the Bible and faith. One of the questions I often get is about what we believe about the Bible and it's relationship to other "sacred" texts.
Let me start by saying that before you defend the Bible you should be clear about what the Bible claims for itself. The text below is from a document of core beliefs that we are working on that articulates what Eastview Believes about the Bible.
How we know God...
The primary way we can know God is through the words of the Bible. God used human authors, writing in their language and in a way that was particularly relevant to their culture, to create a seamless work that reveals God to people. God inspired the authors of the Bible so that these words, though written by people, are actually the words of God. These words, therefore, communicate reliable truth consistent with the genre in which they are written (2 Pet. 1:21, 2 Tim 3:16). God has worked through history to ensure that this scripture has been preserved and recognized as His words. Therefore, the Bible we have, the 39 books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the 27 books of the first century church (New Testament), are, in fact, the words that God intended us to recognize as His ( John 14:26, 1 Cor. 14:37). These are the only scriptures that are the authoritative words of God to communicate His truth to the world.
The Bible speaks with God's authority, therefore, it is completely without error and provides the ultimate standard by which to know what is true. Because the Bible is our final standard for morality, relationships, justice, mercy, conduct and all truth, anything that clearly contradicts with the words of the Bible is not true (Prov 30:5, Matt 24:35, John 17:17). The Bible clearly articulates this truth in a way that everyone can understand. The Bible is not so complex so that only scholars or pastors can understand it. In fact, anyone who honestly seeks after God's truth will be able to find it in the words of the Bible (Deut. 6:6-7, Ps. 19:7). The Bible provides all we need in order to live the life God intends for us (Deut. 29:29).
Regarding other sacred texts, you have to ask which texts they are referring. If they mean the wisdom texts of Buddhists, Hindu’s, Spiritualists, etc. These texts make no claim about their infallibility or divine origin, therefore we accept them as we would the writings of any other man: valuable, but ultimately flawed. There are two other major “sacred” texts that claim both divine origin and infallibility: the Koran and the Book of Mormon. But consider this. The Koran was written by Mohamed over the course of 23 years. The Book of Mormon was, most likely, written by Joseph Smith over the course of 3 years. Now consider that the Bible has no less than 39 authors, written over 1500 years, across three continents and in 3 different languages. However, the bible present a clear and compelling narrative and a consistent theology throughout. It is difficult to imagine such a thing happening by accident.
The big question we have to ask is this. Is the Bible right about Jesus? Is the Bible right about your life? Is the Bible right about who you are and who God wants you to be? Have you found the Bible to be an accurate mirror into your life and needs? Then you must agree that the Bible is right about itself. The Bible claims authority, sufficiency, inerrancy, uniqueness and divinity for itself.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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8 comments:
Since you are posting information about The Book of Mormon, I would like to give you accurate information. The Book of Mormon was translated by Joseph Smith in 3 months, start to finsh.
Saying that Joseph Smith wrote The Book Of Mormon, is kind of like saying that Martin Luther wrote the entire Bible. They both translated records.
The LDS (Mormon) church also uses The Holy Bible (King James Version) as scripture.
That is one issue where I believe the Bible disagrees with the teaching of the Mormon church. Some others...
-Jesus and Satan were brothers.
-The afterlife of "good people" includes becoming the God of your own planet and populating it with the your multiple wives.
-The American indians were actually ancient Jews.
-Black skin is the result of the curse of Ham.
I find it difficult to undesrstand how one can affirm both the Book of Mormon and the Bible simlutaneously when what they teach are so different.
You seem to have a great misconceptipn of what The LDS Church really is. The Spirit of contention is not of The Lord so I do not wish to debate the differences in our religions.
Mike Baker recently gave a Sermon about bearing False witness. I think that that serman applies also when discusing others faiths.
These are all the historical doctrines of the LDS church as proclaimed by their "prophets" and elders throughout the years. For example...
LDS Apostle Orson Hyde wrote: "Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, a mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome, until He has arrived at the point were He is."
This is not what the Bible teaches about God. (Job 41:11, Ps. 50:10-12, Rev. 4:11, Ps. 90:2, Isa. 46:9-10)
This is just one example of many others. Norman Geisler, dean of Southern Evangelical Seminary has said, "On every major doctrine, the fundamental teachings of evangelical Christianity and Mormon doctrine are diametrically opposed."
I understand that the spirit of the age is for tolerance and inter-faith cooperation, but we are compelled to stand for the truth of what is written in the Bible. I appreciate you reading the blog, but please understand I am compelled to CONTEND for the true faith (Phil 1:27, 4:3). And I believe that is of the Lord.
I am not wanting to debate...that is not the purpose of my 1st comment. You posted information that was not accurate about Joseph Smith. I simply was letting you know of that error.
Doug,
good post & I appreciate your contention for the truth of the bible. Truth is confrontational, especially when people choose not to hear, see & believe it. Truth stands alone.
Jeff
The books of the new testament were written over a 100 year period, and they were not even collected into a single 27-book "bible" until around 400 AD. (The old and new testament together took even longer) If any particular book of the bible makes a claim of divine inspiration or infallibility, that claim could stand only for that particular book, not for the collection of documents as a whole. In fact, different denominations of Christianity accept different collections of books as "the Bible". How could they ALL have the complete, infallible, divinely inspired collection?
Thanks for your comment. I wanted to correct and respond to a couple of your comments.
The New Testament books were written over a 50-year period.
The claim that I Timothy makes regarding inspiration, authority, and usefulness has applied to “all scripture.” This Greek word “graphe” is a term applied to all the texts recognized as God’s inspired revelation.
To say that a New Testament collection didn’t occur until 400AD is a bit misleading. The gospels received universal recognition within the 1st generation of Xians. We see in I Peter 3:16 that the writings of Paul were already recognized as “scripture” even within his lifetime. Before 100AD Clement of Rome refers to a “collection of Paul’s letters” that was recognized as scripture. Ignatius and Polycarp (2nd century) also reference this Pauline collection. By the end of the 2nd century there was widespread agreement on 21 of the 27 books of the New Testament.
By 240 we have church leaders listing all 27 books of our New Testament. This is echoed again by 300. We have further confirmation of this in 367, 393, 397 and 419.
I hope you will find that the more questions you ask and the deeper you research the Bible, the more you find its claims are confirmed.
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