Forgive me for the extended absence; by God's grace I was able to visit the Holy Land. It was in Israel that so much of our Judeo-Christian heritage originates, and my wife and I were blessed richly to see the land and its peoples, and to learn so much of both the ancient and the modern. When we think of ancient Israel, we are looking back through most of the Old Testament. Much of the Old Testament events, however, occurred outside of Israel. For example, the Law was given to Moses at Mount Sinai, in the Sinai Peninsula.
The Law and the Ten Commandments were God's instructions to His chosen people. These were designed to insure the distinctiveness and separateness of the Jews. Several parts of the law were "novel" ideas to peoples of that time, such as taking an entire day of the week and not working. There were proscriptions against sowing two kinds of seed in the same field, or wearing clothing made of two different kinds of thread, emphasizing that the Jews were to maintain their purity and not blend with surrounding pagan nations.
Some people today would like to use these Biblical rules as examples of the irrelevance of the Bible to our lives today. This is among many ways that the Bible and its Word are attacked. The question is raised as to the truthfulness and accuracy of Scripture. You must realize that these arguments go back as far as the origin of the Bible and the selection of the books in the Canon. There is a litany of complaints against the Bible's veracity: the men who wrote it were imperfect, they wrote imperfectly, the copies of manuscripts are imperfect, and we are capable of imperfect interpretation.
These debates have raged for centuries. There has been great discussion over terms such as "inerrant" (meaning the Bible contains no error) and "infallible" (meaning the Bible couldn't contain any error). The primary arguments used to establish that the Bible is completely true are that the Scripture tells us that all of it comes from God (II Timothy 3:16), and God cannot do or say anything that is untrue. One of the best sources to review these arguments comes from the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy who published the Chicago Guide to Biblical Inerrancy in 1978.
What is the significance of this argument for us today? First of all, the laws, rules, and admonitions in the Bible serve many purposes. The first and foremost is for us to bring glory to God and to ensure that we regard Him as holy. The purpose of all God's creation is to bring glory to Him, and the Good Book tells us how to do that. But there is more. The Rulebook tells us how to stay out of trouble.
In my book, Surviving the Suffering, one of the categories of suffering that is discussed is that of Chastening. When we are out of God's will, when we are disobedient, God uses whatever measures necessary to correct us, and some of these are painful. We can avoid Chastening by obeying the rules God has laid down before us, and we get those rules from the Bible.
Rather than lay out in great detail all the arguments for and against Biblical inerrancy, I think it may be more useful to ask why some would even press the argument for a Bible that was errant, and what would be the outcome of having such a Bible.
There is tension between what God desires and requires of us and what we desire and require for ourselves. In Leviticus, for example, the Law instructs God's people to stone adulterers and homosexuals. Although we do not do that today, throughout the Bible it is clear that God does not desire those behaviors. In no place, Old or New Testaments, are they condoned. Although the way our society deals with these behaviors has changed, God's character has not, and His Book, along with the Holy Spirit, convicts us of this. It is God's desire that the sanctity of marriage and its sexual relationship be kept pure. When we behave to the contrary, we invite His correction.
Yet if we can show the Bible to have error, we can claim that we are not really sinning when we do things contrary to the Word. A Word full of error could not be used to convict us, now could it? If the Bible condemns fornication, and the Bible is the true Word of God, and we have a sexual relationship outside of marriage, we have a problem on our hands. On the other hand, if these Biblical instructions were in error, or only applied to people in the "old Biblical days," then we can go ahead as we please. Think about abortion, for example. Why would people want to avoid condemnation of abortion? So they can have abortion on demand. Why would people want abortion on demand? So they can freely have sexual relations. Eighty-five per cent of abortions are performed on unmarried women. Abortion helps remove the consequences of living against God's Word.
We talked a while back in a previous post (Intolerable Suffering) about the difference between truth and belief. Something cannot be true and untrue at the same time. A Biblical commandment from God cannot be both true and not true at the same time. Belief is what we think to be true. Whether you believe God's Word to be true or not does not change the Truth. Believing that the Bible might just have some mistakes in it will lead you to come up with your own version of God, His will, and what is permissible. If we believe we have a Bible with mistakes we mistake the Bible's instructions. Regardless of what we believe, God's character and moral will for us is unchanged, and we will suffer the consequences.
I am not capable of being sinless. But I would rather sin and be forgiven than deny that I sinned. I also like to have a Book that truthfully spells it out for me. Many other people would like to have their Christianity with a lot less requirements. You can sin, not have to admit that you sinned, and not repent of your sin. When standing before our Creator one day, I will know that I lived a sinful life but because of Jesus Christ, I am forgiven. For others, they will know that He meant what He said. It's not just another book, it is The Book, and don't make the error of assigning it error.
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