Quite a few people these days question the validity of the Bible, and the idea that imperfect humans could accurately record the words of a supreme being. The Bible is in fact written of God. The problem lies in our sometimes innacurate translations of the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. This is a fairly vast subject but let me try to explain, as shortly as possible, how God uses imperfect man to record His Divinely Inspired Word. I will focus on two key words: REVELATION and INSPIRATION. This is some of what I have been learning through correspondance.
REVELATION
The Bible is God revealing Himself to man. Check this out: God's omnipotent nature makes the revelation possible. The need for communication between the Creator and the creature makes it probable. God's character of love and mercy makes the revelation credible. The sin nature of man makes it necessary.
Matthew 11:25-27
Matthew 16:16-18
Ephesians 3:2-6
INSPIRATION
While revelation has to do with God's truth coming to man, inspiration has to do with how that truth was recorded. The Bible in it's original language is infallible because of inspiration. The inspiration of God is what gave imperfect humans the ability to write and copy the divine revelations without error.
A good example of this is Moses, who recieved the 10 Commandments by revelation and then was able to record them under inspiration.
2 Samuel 23:2
Jeremiah 30:2
2 Timothy 3:15-17
2 Peter 1:19-21
Revelation 1:11
Another amazing fact about the Bible is that a lot of times men, moved by God's Spirit, wrote what He told them, not even comprehending what they were writing! For instance, Zechariah had no idea what he was seeing in his prophecy of the end-time war cause in that day, warfare was not carried out in this way. He had to trust in his level of intimacy with God and believe by faith that what he was seeing was acurate. That's faith!! Today we have no problem imagining the type of warfare he described.
Also, Peter's pentecost sermon was under revelation cause it was about 2 years before his vision of the "sheet with the unclean animals." Only after that vision did he go to Cornelius.
The hundreds of fulfilled prophecies in the Bible are further proof that God can use men to record His words.
So there you go. God can use imperfect human beings to accurately record His words. He rocks!!
A WANNABE FRANCISCAN MISSIONARY, AND A DISCIPLE OF ST. ARBUCKS
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
The Divinely Inspired Word
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