The Scriptures are important because it is the basis of all a Christian believes and thus all his actions. It is the Word of God, and teaches us all we need to know for Salvation. The Scriptures are commonly referred to as The Bible, The Holy Bible, or The Word of God. Christians believe the Scriptures are contained in the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.
The Bible...
...is a collection of books: One of the questions that people tend to ask about the Bible is about how it was compiled. Here is an article that explains how the Bible was received and compiled.
...is a collection of books: One of the questions that people tend to ask about the Bible is about how it was compiled. Here is an article that explains how the Bible was received and compiled.
...is inerrant: Tim Challies has an
excellent short series of posts that explains the basics of the
doctrine of inerrancy. He repeats Wayne Grudem’s definition from
his Systematic Theology. “The inerrancy of Scripture
means that Scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm
anything that is contrary to fact.” He lists four things that
inerrancy does not mean,
First, inerrancy does not preclude the use of ordinary language...
Second, inerrancy does not preclude the use of loose and free quotations...
Third, the Bible can be inerrant even if it contains unusual grammatical constructions...
Fourth, Scripture is inerrant only in its original autographs...
In his last post he covers some common
objections to the doctrine of inerrancy.
We Do Not Have The Original ManuscriptsInerrancy is a Poor TermProving Inerrancy is a Circular ArgumentThe Bible is Full of Errors and Contradictions
Part 1: Are
there errors in the Bible?
Part 2: What
does inerrant mean?
Along those lines, Glenn T. Stanton has
an excellent post about why Christians do not take the Bible
literally. Rather we believe that everything in the Bible is true.
The Bible contains many genres of literature, from biography and
history, to poetry and pastoral. Through out the Bible there are
metaphors that should not be taken literally but as poetic
description. There are also some actual facts which should be taken
literally, though they seem imposible.
...has infinite value: Tim
Challies talks about the infinite value of Scripture.
...ought to be studied: Should Christians
read and study the Scripture? Tim Challies gives three reasons why we
ought to, then he talks about how to study Scripture.
...deserves to be remembered: In Psalm 119 the
Psalmist says that young men may keep their ways pure by hiding God's
Word in their heart. Memorizing Scripture is good not only to know
the Word better, but to be able to fight temptation.
...ought to be read in a good translation:
...ought to be cited well: Many times
Scripture is used to prove something by citing just a verse that
seems to say what the author wants it to say. In some cases such as
proverbs this is just fine, as in “A joyful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” But most of the time we
need to be careful that we use the verse with the meaning it has in
context. For example there are many promises in the Bible, but they
are all given to specific people or groups of people. We cannot just
assume that a promise is given to us without looking at the context
and seeing if it applies to us in context. More on using the Bible
well in these two posts.
Audio:
If you would like to listen to a couple of messages about Scripture, here are two:
If you would like to listen to a couple of messages about Scripture, here are two:
Is
the Bible just Another Book?
[This is the first in a series of posts that will compile the best articles on the web about what a Christian believes. If you know of other articles that ought to be in this list feel free to link to them in your comment.]
[This is the first in a series of posts that will compile the best articles on the web about what a Christian believes. If you know of other articles that ought to be in this list feel free to link to them in your comment.]
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