WHY WE SHOULD ACCEPT THE BIBLE'S INSPIRATION (Part 2)

By Bob Myhan

One reason we should accept the Bible’s claim to be the inspired word of God is man’s unbridled religious nature—the depths to which men will descend in the expression of the reli­gious nature. Some readers may believe this is not a strong reason but it is a good reason and it is a sufficient reason. Those who ac­cept the reality of a Creator but do not ac­cept the reality of a supernatural revela­tion of the Creator’s will have no ex­plana­tion as to why the Creator should give man a religious nature, yet not provide the proper means of reli­gious ex­pression. Nor can they condemn even the most atrocious reli­gious acts while they re­ject an ob­jective, divinely revealed religious stan­dard. If the Creator has not told man how to worship, then how man worships is purely a matter of personal preference. While it is true that men who claim to be Christians have com­mit­ted atrocities un­der the banner of relig­ion, the Bible does not endorse such.

There are other good and sufficient rea­sons for accepting the Bible’s claim to in­spiration.

#2 THE BIBLE’S REMARKABLE UNITY

The Bible is a library of 66 books written over a period of 1500-1600 years by ap­proximately forty men, who were im­mersed in differ­ent cultures, spoke dif­ferent lan­guages and represented differ­ent walks of life. These in­cluded an Egyptian ex­patriate, a military leader, at least two kings (one of whom had previously been a shepherd) a herds­man, a prime min­ister, a tax collec­tor, a medical doctor, a rabbi and two or more fisher­men. The books comprising the Bible were also written under a variety of cir­cumstances on three conti­nents—Europe, Asia, and Africa. Yet, there is unity in the Bible from Genesis to Reve­lation!

The great themes of Scrip­ture are main­tained in all the writings. The Old Testa­ment message is "Messiah is com­ing!" The New Testa­ment mes­sage is "Mes­siah has come and gone and He is coming again!” Access to the tree of life is lost in Genesis and re­gained in Revelation. This writer does not be­lieve there is any way—apart from God su­pervising the writ­ing of the Bible—that this could have been accom­plished.

The 39 books of the Old Testament can be divided into three categories: seventeen books of history, five books of poetry and seventeen books of prophecy. The first five books of history are also known as the Pentateuch. They contain the origin of the universe, the origin of man, the origin of sin and the origin of the nations—Israel in particular. They also contain the special law that God gave to Israel and that nation’s trek from Egypt to the Promised Land. The next twelve books detail the history of this nation, with special attention being given to the lineage of the Messiah. The five poetic books reveal God’s wisdom to man. Finally, the seventeen prophetic books were writ­ten both to encourage a sinful nation—Israel—to repent and to reveal hints con­cerning God’s eternal purpose in bringing the Messiah into the world to save mankind from sin. Though only seventeen books are designated as prophecy, there are predic­tions of the Messiah in nearly every book of the Old Testament. Many of these will be dealt with in a later article.

The 27 books of the New Testament can be divided into three categories: five books of history, twenty-one epistles and one book of prophecy. The first four books of history are called “Gospels” because they contain the good news of the birth, life, death, bur­ial and resurrection of the Mes­siah. The fifth book of history de­tails the beginning and early growth of the Lord’s church via the preaching of the gospel. The twenty-one epistles were writ­ten to congregations and Christians dealing with the problems of understanding and apply­ing God’s revealed will. The book of proph­ecy—Revela­tion—was written to reas­sure those who were suffering [and those who would suf­fer] for righteousness’ sake that there is “Victory in Jesus.” The books of the New Testament con­tain hun­dreds of quotations from the Old Tes­tament, as the inspired writers re­vealed that Jesus fulfilled the law and the proph­ets.

The Bible does not contra­dict itself. It is true there are difficulties but difficul­ties are not contradic­tions. A dif­ficulty exists if two state­ments seem to contradict one another but a con­tradiction exists only if it is not possible for both state­ments to be true. To say that one statement con­tradicts another is to say that the two cannot be harmo­nized. It is not a mark of integrity to claim the Bible contradicts itself before and with­out trying to harmo­nize dif­ficult pas­sages.

Many books* have been written to deal with alleged contradictions in the Bible. It is interesting that, despite this, the same diffi­culties keep coming up again and again as “evidence” that the Bible contradicts it­self. 

The message of the Bible is such that any rational person will want to believe it. And, wanting to believe it, he will look for rea­sons to be­lieve rather than reasons to dis­believe. &

*Bibliography on Alleged Contradictions

Alleged Bible Contradictions Explainedby Dehoff
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bibleby John W. Haley
Answers to Tough Questions from Every Book of the Bible : A Survey of Problem Passages and Issuesby J. Carl Laney
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker Reference Library)by Norman Geisler
Boyd's Handbook of Practical Apologetics : Sci­entific Facts, Fulfilled Prophecies and Archaeologi­cal Discoveries That Confirm the Bibleby Robert T. Boyd
The Complete Book of Bible Answersby Ron Rhodes
Hard Sayings Of The Bibleby Walter C., Jr Kaiser, Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce, and Manfred Brauch
Interpreting Puzzling Texts In The Bibleby Robert H. Stein
New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficul­tiesby Gleason L. Archer. Updated version of his Encyclopedia Of Bible Difficulties
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained(Second Edition). A response by Jason Gastrich to the (online) Skeptic's Annotated Bible website
When Critics Ask : A Popular Handbook of Bible Difficultiesby Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe.
When Cultists Ask : A Popular Handbook on Cul­tic Misinterpretationsby Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes
When Skeptics Ask : A Handbook of Christian Evidenceby Norman Geisler and Ron Brooks

"All Have Sinned & Fall Short of the Glory of God"

By Kenneth E. Thomas

Unfortunately we are all familiar with sin since all are guilty (Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8, 10). I believe how­ever that some are much too familiar with sin (1 John 3:4; James 1:13-15). The same book in the New Testament that admits to the fact that we all will and do sin, pleads with us "not to sin" (1 John 2:1). There is no contradiction between the verses which say we all sin and the one admonishing us not to sin when properly understood. Sin in the life of one who is "walking in the light" (1 John 1:6-7), is the infrequent acci­dent when we take a "step in darkness", it may be through some enticement or through ignorance or even at times willful sin. In either case a "step into darkness" is much different from "walking in dark­ness" and herein lies the reason fellow­ship with God and with those who are in His fellowship are not immediately "cut off." God "gives us space or time to re­pent" before this occurs (Revelation 2:21). In the same chapter where John writes to those who are in fellowship with God and with others who are, including the apostles, he admonished them as to how their sins may be forgiven, v-9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful to for­give us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." So, we must of ne­ces­sity admit to the fact that "walking in the light" is still an imperfect walk admit­ting to the fact that we still sin occasion­ally at least. If we could live a sinlessly perfect life we would not need grace to continu­ally cleanse us as we repent, con­fess and pray to the Lord for said for­give­ness. (Acts 8:22-23). &