God is in control. You can trust him to teach you right from wrong and grant you wisdom. It may take time, since we sometimes don’t listen and some lessons can only be taught through experience, but God loves you and will see you through. It would be a mistake to unquestioningly rely instead on a book written by mere humans, thinking there was nothing more to learn. That would be idolatry. I believe God speaks through the bible, but I also believe he speaks through nature, our experiences, prayer, logic, and the conscience, all of which I have less chance of misunderstanding. Should I violate my God-given conscience and logic itself just to adhere to what other humans think? Even if their writings did later become canonized (by other humans) into the bible?
How is one to know the bible is inerrant? We certainly aren’t born knowing. Babies don’t even know that writing exists. To determine the bible’s accuracy, we can only compare it to other things we know to be accurate. How do we know these other things are accurate? It all comes down to our innate reason and common sense arising from experience. So what happens when the bible tells us something that conflicts with our reason? The bible tells us not to lean on our own understanding and that no scripture is of private interpretation, but what exactly do those verses mean? Doesn’t it require understanding and interpretation to know the meaning? I am not going to get bogged down in an argument over correct interpretations or translations of any particular verse. I’m not a mind reader, nor am I an expert on ancient Palestine. I just find it sad that some people let their minds be imprisoned by one book when I know that God invites us to be free. There is much truth that can never be learned from a book. Is the bible inerrant? It really doesn’t matter if it is or not. There is so much meaning that could have been lost in translation, and so much more meaning that could be lost in our personal interpretation of it, that the bible we know is not the same as the bible known by its authors. Those that rely on professional clergy to interpret for them only shift the responsibility onto themselves to interpret what those professionals are actually saying. It adds yet another step for things to go wrong. It would be far more pragmatic to pray for God to directly guide us or to interpret scripture for us. God is always inerrant. Points to ponder: “And I suppose that if all the other things Jesus did were written down, the whole world could not contain the books.” – John 21:25 “Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.” – First Corinthians 13:12
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AuthorMy name is Dan. I am an author, artist, explorer, and contemplator of subjects large and small. Archives
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