3-4 responds 1

DB #2

COLLAPSE

What is your position and argument on the inerrancy of the Bible?

I believe that the Bible is inerrant - it is God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself. [1] It was written by men and superintended by His Spirit.

Erickson states that the term “inerrancy” means different things to different people. [2] While the Bible is not issued to give scientific and historical data, nevertheless, the Bible has absolute, full, limited inerrancy. For example, long before it was discovered that Earth was round, Isaiah 40:22 states that God sits above the circle of the Earth. Job 26:7 states that God stretches out the north over empty space. He hangs the Earth on nothing. The Bible mentions these long before scientists discovered them.

Inerrancy is the view that when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social, physical, or life sciences. Inerrancy is not presently demonstrable. [3] If we are not holding the Scripture as truth, then we cannot rely on its truthfulness and reliability, or we are saying that God is capable of speaking falsely to us. In other words, we are higher than Him. This can never and will never happen.

The church should be concerned about inerrancy because of theological, historical, and epistemological importance. [4] God is omniscient, omnipotent, he cannot be ignorant of or in error. Jesus, Paul, and others view Scripture as authoritative.

Do you believe this doctrine to be important for the contemporary church? Why?

It is important for the contemporary church because (1) the doctrine of inerrancy provides evidence that He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living (Matthew 22:32), (2) the doctrine helps Christians in fulfilling the Great Commission mandate; to go out into the world and to make disciples of all nations, and to teach them to observe all things that He has commanded (Matthew 28: 19-20), (3) the doctrine is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim 3:16-17), (4) the doctrine serves as confirmation that we are imitators of God, meaning to believe and obey the Scripture as the standard of truth (John 17:17).

One of my colleagues in the office is a Catholic Jesuit priest. I work in the finance department; all of my colleagues are numbers people. He told me not to rely on the Bible as its absolute truth, and he knows that I have a 100% trust in the reliability and inerrancy of the Bible. He asked me how I can logically explain the population increase after God created Adam and Eve. He said to make sense of it, and there must be incest. I replied, “You are absolutely right! The answer can be found in Leviticus 18: 6-18. Let us take a look at what the Lord said, “No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations.” Using a systematic theology approach, one can assume that it was a common practice at that time. Then, later on in Leviticus 18 God forbids this practice because of the accumulation of genetic mutations in the human gene pool. You see, we can find answers to all life questions in the Bible, and they are inerrant. Next question ….

There is another question posed by one of the cost center managers during our bible study meeting in the office. I lead a bible study meeting in the office, most of them are not Christians, but they come anyway. She said if Jesus is God, why He did not write the Bible Himself, this concludes that the Bible is written by men and contains errors. In the Bible, there is only one place where Jesus wrote when a woman caught in adultery (John 8: 2-6). “Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear (John 8:6).” No-one knows what He wrote, but this does not prove He is not involved in the writing of the Scripture. The Scripture contains both human and divine elements. The Bible is indeed written through sinful men using their language, but God himself never lie, and He is not a man (Numbers 23:19); therefore, the Bible is inerrant.

The divine concept is challenging to grasp because man cannot sense, see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. If man believes there is an invisible virus (COVID-19), then it is not hard to believe that there is an invisible God. To state what Gene Cook mentions in Module/Week 3 – Knowing God, “We need to interpret science through the lens of the Word of God, not through the world.” [5] In other words, find all answers to life questions from the Scripture. Fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Footnotes

[1] The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

[2] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology. 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 195.

[3] Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 157.

[4] Erickson, 193.

[5] Gene Cook, Module/Week 3 – Knowing God.

Bibliography

The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

Cook, Gene. Quote on Knowing God. Liberty University, 2019.

Elwell, Walter A. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013.