Scripture is the authoritve source of what to know about God and what He has done. It is revelation which God has spoken through His various servants over the span of Earth's history. With Scripture ends the question of "who is god?" and begins the question "who is God?" When man comes into contact with Scripture (or more specifically the word of God), he comes to understand that this god who he has been curious about is the God of all things. Scripture provides the information needed to understand who God is. In fact, what is so unique about Scripture, unlike other sources one derives truth from, is it IS the "words of God".
Its time to break this down in a more formulaic process:
God created everything (minus evil) - God intervened in His creation - God, through His Spirit, spoke through specific people (His most cherished of all creation) to accurately record and witness to what God had done and will do - this spoken word came into writing which is known as revelation - this revelation, known as Scripture is wrapped up into a book - the "book" is called the Bible. Thus what the Bible says is true because it is the very words of God!Now considering God is perfect and can contain no fault [Heb 6:18; Titus 1:2; Rom. 3:4] then what God speaks or "theopneustos" (breathes out) must be flawless. Take note of 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
"All Scripture is breathed out (theopneustos) by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work."
When 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is examined, Scripture is solidified in its function: what God has spoken (that which is now contained in a book we call the Bible) must be true. This brings up a few issues. For one, this proves that Scripture is what the Christian must base his whole world view upon and from which he is to derive anything decisive and "absolutely true" regarding the things of God and the proper way of Christian living. The more a Christian stems away from deriving truth absolutely from Scripture, the more "unorthodox" or possibly "heretical" the Christian can become [I will expand upon this issue in a later blog]. Another issue is what does a Christian do with those parts of the Bible that "apparently" contradict or parallel accounts containing "tensions"? There are two things a Christian must know in response to this question:
Presupposition: God is perfect, thus His word must be perfect with no errors of any kind.
-Pillar #1: If a part of God's word "apparently" contradicts, then it is due to the readers personal lack of knowledge that impairs the reader from seeing the flawless connection.
-Pillar #2: If a part of God's word "apparently" contradicts, then it is due to the lack of knowledge/evidence of modern man's current research. The proper context is yet to be entirely known to remedy the tension.
These two pillars are a logical and coherent derivative from 2 Timothy 3:16-17. I believe it is important to note that what is "apparently" contradictory is simply that, "apparent". A "pure" contradiction is what is actually wrong. For example: Imagine there were two pieces of paper that were describing the same event. The first draft, A, said how when Joe was walking in the park at 10:30 AM August 5, 2007, the sky was blue. Then in draft, B, it said that when Joe was walking in the same park at the same time on the same day, the sky was green NOT blue, then that is an "ABSOLUTE" contradiction. Without a doubt the stories conflict. However, if draft B said "the sky was green" WITHOUT the last two words, then it would be an apparent contradiction. It is a tension but not ENTIRELY wrong. For one, it could be speculated that the green sky in draft B had a different purpose by saying green whilst the other draft did not. Or the sky in draft B did accurately describe the sky but from a different angle that A did not. Or even a third alternative could be that that the author's personal qualities have attributed to him/her perceiving green over blue.
Let's use one more example, but this time from Scripture. In Matthew 28:5, it said there was one angel at the tomb when Jesus was resurrected. In John 20:12, it said there were two. There have been several speculations on this tension, with many brilliant ideas and great solutions (although none can be proven 100%). Nevertheless, it is not a false account! What would make this account ACTUALLY false is if Matthew's account said there was ONLY one angel. This may appear like a thin thread, but the logic behind it is flawless: wherever there is two there is ALWAYS one.
It is essential at this portion of the blog to clarify what writings are the inerrant words of God. The ONLY inerrant words are the original texts written in the original languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. No other additional translation, ancient or modern, can claim to be the inerrant copy. Period.
I have briefly discussed the nature of God's word and its authoritative (and final) resource status for formulating a proper theology. But before I begin with discussing its first words about God's creative acts as recorded in Genesis 1:1, I must explain Scriptures function for the Christian life.
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