The first entry is not merely an interesting blog post but an absolutely vital one. Few issues are more important to the church than understanding the trustworthiness of the Scriptures because without that we are left to our own devices and that never ends well. Dr. Mohler’s latest essay, The Inerrancy of Scripture: The Fifty Years’ War . . . and Counting, is a compelling look at the current landscape in the fight for inerrancy and ultimately what is at stake:
As Dr. Packer said years ago, “when you encounter a present-day view of Holy Scripture, you encounter more than a view of Scripture. What you meet is a total view of God and the world, that is, a total theology, which is both an ontology, declaring what there is, and an epistemology, stating how we know what there is. This is necessarily so, for a theology is a seamless robe, a circle within which everything links up with everything else through its common grounding in God. Every view of Scripture, in particular, proves on analysis to be bound up with an overall view of God and man.”
The rejection of biblical inerrancy is bound up with a view of God that is, in the end, fatal for Christian orthodoxy. We are entering a new phase in the battle over the Bible’s truthfulness and authority. We should at least be thankful for undisguised arguments coming from the opponents of biblical inerrancy, even as we are ready, once again, to make clear where their arguments lead.
If God is a God who cannot preserve something like a written record of His revelation to man, how can He be a God who created everything from nothing, who came as the Christ to live a perfect life, die and rise again? How can we know anything about God and how can we assume that He IS God? The finite, fallible and powerless God who is unable (or worse unwilling) to preserve His single source of authoritative revelation to man is little better than a Greek god of mythology, not the God the Bible presents.
The battle over the Bible is simply an issue of authority. Which is the authority for the church, the wisdom of man that tells us that the Bible simply cannot be true or the wisdom of God that shows mankind to be the foolish ones? When you demand that the Bible prove itself to the same scholars that have been wrong again and again for centuries, it is not God you seek. You seek instead to supplant God and replace Him with yourself and that empty promise has been causing trouble since the very beginning when the serpent whispered: “Did God really say?” The enemy is still whispering that same question and it is every bit as effective now as it was in the Garden.
5 comments:
So, question: if the Bible is our only source of authority and truth, what does that mean for the early church, who had no Bible? This has been bothering me for some time. Not trying to be sarcastic or snarky. Just honestly wondering--if they didn't need the written New Testament to be Christians, then why do we? Not saying it is or isn't helpful. I would just think that if God was the same then as He is now, then the same "rules" would apply to Christians past, present, and future. Thoughts?
valid question, I was working on a similar post asking about the "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God" and how that worked without Bibles to quote from. I think the big difference is that the apostles were around to lead the church and record revelation, so while we don't have the apostles we do have Scripture and the Holy Spirit.
Actually, until recently, very few people had New Testaments. But, in the time that April referred to, there were neither apostles nor New Testaments... and yet the church thrived.
-Alan
Weren't the apostles around during the days of the early church? At least if we are referring to the first century up to the point when John died. Not that they directly ruled over them but at least they were able to help direct them, this the epistles we see from Paul.
There was a long time period between the death of the last apostle and the availability of the New Testament to the churches. Some churches may have had one or two letters, but most had nothing.
-Alan
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