Give five reasons to support your view of the divine inspiration of Scripture.
Question:
Give five reasons to support your view of the divine inspiration of Scripture.
Answer:
I am uncompromising in my stance of the Bible, as originally inspired, being the inerrant Word of God. I can base this statement on many facts (for a much more detailed study on this topic please see my post entitled “Validity of the Bible”) but in summary we can rest assured it is divinely inspired because of the following:
1. Jesus Himself spoke of the Scriptures’: Authority – Matthew 22:43, Reliability – Matthew 26:54, Finality – Matthew 4:4, 7, 10, Sufficiency – Luke 16:31, Indestructibility – Matthew 5:17-18, Unity – Luke 24:27, 44, Clarity – Luke 24:27, Historicity – Matthew 12:40, Facticity (scientifically) – Matthew 19:2-5, Inerrancy – Matthew 22:29; John 3:12, 17:17, Infallibility – John 10:35
2. Third-party verification – a plethora of external sources and facts outside the Bible corroborate what is found in the Bible.
3. Historical reliability – The Bible’s message is a sharp contrast to the pagan fertility religions and philosophies of the ancient world as revealed through history. It isn’t shy about mentioning dates and places that have never been proven false (or if they seemingly had later evidence has uncovered these claims to be false themselves thus proving the Bible true). Additionally, the multitude of manuscripts and breadth of textual criticism has brought us much closer over time to understanding the truly amazing accuracy of the Scriptures.
4. Fulfilled prophecy – Events demonstrate that the Biblical prophets accurately predicted events hundreds of years before they occurred.
5. Archaeological evidence – Physical evidence demonstrates the historical and cultural accuracy of the Bible.
6. Life …
How did the Bible come together and how much trust can we put in it?
Question:
How did the Bible come together and how much trust can we put in it?
Answer:
1. Please click here to view a post on the topic of how we can trust the Bible to be the Word of God (“Validity of the Bible”). It contains slides, a hand out, and a audio/video recording of a workshop I conducted on this topic.
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Why perpetuate the foolish creation vs. evolution debate?
Question:
Why perpetuate the foolish creation vs. evolution debate? There is no debate. Science has proven Evolution true. Though scientifically inaccurate, the Bible’s truths should not be distorted to try and address science, the Hebrews (and Christians after them, I’m afraid) being rather poor scientists, even by Ancient Greek standards. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Listen to Jesus and pay attention to his life. Jesus is constantly revising the Old Testament, the received text of his day, making adjustments heralding his remarkable Kingdom of Heaven.
The Bible (Old and New Testaments, btw) is composed of paper with words written down by fallible men. God is perfect and NOTHING else is in the universe. God is NOT paper. Jesus already made all this very clear. The Pharisees clung to the old paper. What do you cling to?
Answer:
Hi ,
Thank you for visiting my site and contributing your thoughts. Let me address your viewpoints one by one.
“Why perpetuate the foolish “Creation vs. Evolution debate”? There is no debate. Science has proven Evolution true.”
I would submit that this is not a foolish debate because its implications are real and significant. The linkage between our origins and thus the concepts of a Creator and our identity definitely hinge on this evolutionary debate. Your assertion that there is no debate and that evolutionism has been proven true is also unfounded as creationism and evolutionism are both theories held by two camps. As a side note, it is interesting …
An Atheist Walking
Question: I found this on youtube, it is entitled “‘atheist walking’ [see below] and discussing the bible, Jesus and god with believers. The atheist challenges the Christians to provide him with evidence of god. The atheist uses scientific data and science as the basis for his beliefs and “faith”. This is a spontaneous continuous video clip (no edits, cuts or scripts). The atheist’s experiences, research and education seems to have prepared him well for this exchange which happened in may 2004. [Can you please comment on this?]”
Answer: When someone first watches a video like this they can be taken aback. The claims seem to have credibility and seem damaging. It is important, as at anytime claims are made, to pause and dissect each point that is made. Below is a concise (by no means comprehensive) summary of the dialogue and points made in the video. I would encourage you to review each one of these arguments/points and examine them one by one by the weight of the evidence and what it says. Below in brackets are some of my thoughts on each point made by the man in the video and can serve as a starting point to understanding the veracity of his statements.
- What evidence that god wrote laws of universe - (research astronomy and physics and you will see signs that the universe is so finely developed and tuned that there IS a sign of a Designer/Creator)
- The Bible is a book translated many times, king James changed it - (wrong, see “Validity of the
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Dead Sea Scrolls
Today, I had the pleasure of being able to go down, with a group of people from a house fellowship I attend, to the ROM to witness the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Rev. Tony Costa was our guide and was great in providing us context to understand what we saw. I am not a huge fan of museums as I tend to need to engage in what I learn but the effect of the texts and the finds was a truly great experience. Looking at the parchment and papyri and realizing the meaning behind the dating of these documents (however inexact) and the message that they communicate about the accuracy of the Bible as we have it today is astounding. To see texts written from the collection of Dead Sea Scrolls covering 100 BC to 100 AD serves as a reminder of the weight of the evidence we have in favour of biblical writings.
I encourage you all to take the time to go down and visit the ROM between now and when the exhibit closes. The exhibit runs from June 27 2009 to January 3 2010.
In order to really get the most out of the exhibit, I would suggest that you read about the various scrolls beforehand to understand the context of it all. Although this is not a requirement as the ROM has done a nice job of organizing the information and communicating key facts and translations. To share a bit of background to either entice you to go or to hopefully make it more enjoyable when you do go …
