Originally Posted by allabouttruth.org

All Scripture is Inspired of God and Beneficial

How do we know that all Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial to us?

The Bible tells us that all Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial.

2 Peter 1:20-21 says, "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."

1 Corinthians 2:13 states, "This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words." God impressed man with His message, then the individual author, using his own style of expression based on his personal, educational, and cultural resources put the message into words.

Romans 10:8 phrased it this way: ". . .The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart. . ." God communicated to the author the content that He wanted written, and the author phrased the content with his skill, style, mind, and language. We can be certain that, although the very words came from each author, the message was as God had intended and is authentic, reliable, and infallible.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 reads, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." We are told that the Bible is not only the words of God, but it has great benefit to us.

Colossians 3:16 admonishes us to "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."

The psalmist tells us in Psalms 119:11 that God's Word protects us from sin: "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." From God's very first contact with man in Genesis to the final phrases of Revelation, He gave Scriptures to guide man's conduct.

However, man did not obey God's instruction from the beginning and sin entered the world through Adam. Since that time man has continued to challenge God's Word through disobedience. We have failed to see the tremendous benefits and blessings we could have received and instead suffered the consequences of our actions: sickness, wars, plagues, and curses.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 pleads with us to make the right choice: "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. . ."

The only way to truly understand the concept of blessings that come through obedience and following God's words is to put them to the test. If we want God to bless us and to care for us and keep His wonderful promises to us, then we must submit to the guidance that He has given us for living. I know that in my own life, I sometimes see God's words as a bit odd next to the standards set by this world and therefore find them hard to comprehend and follow. Yet when I challenge those odd words by obeying them, I have found God to do exactly as He said He would do.

For example, Matthew 5:44 tells us, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." That is a very strange concept in this world. Yet when my husband and I started praying for his very difficult boss, the entire work situation and their relationship changed. It was phenomenal! His boss seemed to become more personable and somehow less demanding. "Give and it will be given you. . ." (Luke 6:38).

How can you give and yet get back more? I have found it impossible to out give God. It is when I give up trying to solve situations on my own and seek wisdom from God's words in the Bible, that I find the answers and solutions that I could not find on my own. When I regularly read the Bible and apply it in my life, I begin to clearly see God, and learn to understand His plan for my life. "I applied my heart to know, to search and seek out wisdom and the reason for things" (Ecclesiastes 7:25 NKJV).

Originally Posted by Glenn Miller

The SECOND item is a purely 'theoretical' one, that deals with the issue of biblical inerrancy. I have pondered this subject for some time now (in the spirit of the biblical injunction to 'test all things' and in line with the biblical ethic of honesty and commitment to truth--cf. Jesus words "the truth shall set you free"), and have noticed a strange pattern in my life vis-Ã*-vis this idea.

I have noticed that I have become an 'accidental inerrantist'. What I mean by this is that I do not see the 'need' for it, but find the data 'for it' to be persuasive to me. Let me explain.

From a philosophical point of view (esp. philosophy of language), I don't 'need' inerrancy. Language, in my way of understanding it currently, has SO MUCH redundancy in it that 'errors' are corrected in the process of communication. For example, people routinely make linguistic 'slips' in speech, yet we have no difficulty in getting the meaning of a sentence, for example. Linguists tell us that this success is due to the redundancy that occurs in normal language. There are enough multiple 'clues' scattered throughout a linguistic statement (written or oral) that allow us to 'construct' any missing piece or 're-construct' any erroneous piece. So, from the standpoint of linguistic communication, God could have allowed 'errors' in His bible (if He so chose), and still have built in so much redundancy so as to effect communication of all the truth we need to have a proper relationship to Himself, to other persons, and to the universe at large.

From a theological point of view, I don't 'need' inerrancy, either. The fact that some ambiguity in His communication SEEMS TO BE deliberate (as a device to filter out the true 'seekers' and open-minded--cf. the parables), means that theologically He could have allowed errors (if He so chose) in the bible to function as the minority 'counter-weight' to the OTHER clear, mainstream datapoints. This would simply look like discordant data within a scientific theory. The OTHER, majority data points would be properly weighted by the open-minded and truth-seekers, and the communication would occur.

From a biblical point of view, I cannot actually 'have' inerrancy to the degree needed by the typical proponent. The reason for this is the simple fact that biblical statements ABOUT the bible CANNOT be complete in their scope descriptions, and hence, any doctrine of inerrancy could at best apply to only PARTS of the bible.

This needs a bit of explanation. Some items, such as the extent of the canon, can never be settled by an appeal to scripture (at least as we have it). Although the undergirding teaching that supports and predicts a 'canon-occurrence' is VERY strong in my opinion, such teaching does not specify the contents of that 'beforehand'. Since the last book of the bible does NOT contain a definitive list of what books are in the canon, we are forced to deal with the issue historically--NOT biblically. [The same argument applies to many of the 'recursive' biblical statements. That is, the bible 'itself' cannot tell us which textual variants are the originals--no text can do that.]

So, even with the fact that the Bible DOES confirm its own trustworthiness in matters of fact (e.g. Jesus view of the OT stories), there are no passages that identify exhaustively the NT list of books (for example) that fall into that category. Hence, the biblical teaching on inerrancy is important (and accurate) but is not comprehensive enough.

So, I arrive at the practical point that I sorta don't 'need' the teaching from a systematic standpoint. But at the same time I find that I DO BELIEVE IN INERRANCY.

The reason I do is simple--I have a partial doctrine of it from the NT, and every passage I have examined personally (that were HIGH candidates for being 'errors') somehow eludes that title. The historical errors all seem to get 'resolved', the contradictions all seem to have a 'strange' degree of ambiguity in one statement or the other, with the result that I really can't in good conscience say they 'contradict'--an honesty thing, not a religious thing!

Conservative, evangelical scholars have long ago identified the passages that have known TEXTUAL problems in them (i.e. we don't know what the original actually 'said'), but these constitute 'missing data' not 'erroneous data'.

The result is simply that I cannot find a demonstrable error, and the consequence in terms of my worldview is that I believe the original OT and NT texts (most of which we seem to have, buried in the various textual traditions--a DIFFERENT issue altogether) were/are without errors in matters of fact. Ergo, I am an 'accidental inerrantist'. (I just purchased the Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, or some such title. Although my first glance through it left me a bit disappointed in the 'quality' of the alleged errors, I will need to look at it more closely before I reply to it.)

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following from a Christian web site:

Originally Posted by allabouttruth.org

All Scripture is Inspired of God and Beneficial

How do we know that all Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial to us?

The Bible tells us that all Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial.

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Must all Christians be inerrantists?

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Does that Scriptural evidence indicate that all Christians must be inerrantists or not?

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

Does that Scriptural evidence indicate that all Christians must be inerrantists or not?

Originally Posted by hatsoff

No. It only means is that given inerrancy, the Bible is inerrant--which of course is to say nothing at all.

Originally Posted by hatsoff

Why, what do you think?

Originally Posted by Johnny Skeptic

What do you mean by "which of course is to say nothing at all"?

Originally Posted by JohnnySkeptic

In my opinion, a loving, rational God would not use copies of copies of ancient texts as a primary means of communicating with humans.

Originally Posted by hatsoff

I would agree. However, I'd also be careful not to let that kind of concern take precedent over objective data. There are plenty of reasons to reject Christianity without resorting to simple incredulity.