Interesting topic SS….
I do hate the misuse. And I warn about Bibliolatry.
I understand why….there are things believed wholeheartedly in Christendom that have no basis in Scripture at all. The word of God has been misused and mistranslated to accommodate these false ideas.
The majority who identify as “Christians”, have been led to believe that the ones who have attended theological colleges and seminaries, with degrees after their names, know it all for them, producing spoon fed, lazy Christians who would not know the truth if it jumped up and bit them….
We are living in an age where there is no longer an excuse for ignorance….we have all the information we need now to do our own evaluation of what we were perhaps taught as children.
God is looking for us as much as we think we are looking for him (John 6:44; 65)…..the only difference is that he can read our hearts…..often we can fool ourselves, but we can never fool him. (Jer 17:10)
I'm concerned about inflated (and false) claims about the book.
The only claim it makes is that God inspired what we accept as Scripture. (2 Tim 3:16-17)
What “the church” originally ‘produced’ (and still accepts) contained more than what God wanted it to contain, adding books that had no place there. The accepted Bible we have today, leaves those apocryphal works out.
And the general ignorance about where the Bible came from.
Caused by a church that has suppressed the truth about it.
Probably because they think we would leave the church if we really knew.
I have to agree here….the Bible is NOT the work of any man in any denomination…..whom God used to compile it is of no consequence, since he can use even his enemies to accomplish his will.
The “church” who claims to have produced the Bible has never in its entire existence, done the will of God in any way. They have presented themselves in the same way as the Pharisees did in Jesus‘ day.…(Matt 15:7-9)…so full of hypocrisy that they had to hide the Bible away for many centuries so that no one one could ever check to see if what they served as doctrine had its origins there. (Acts 17:11)
Any wonder “sola scriptura” was rejected by them.
Discussion questions:
1) What is the best reason to love the Bible?
Its honesty…..its revelations concerning who God is….who Christ was, and is now…..and how his role as Messiah can benefit all mankind in the future…..and how the outworking of God’s purpose in putting human beings on this planet in the first place, is clearly outlined.
Seeing the Bible as one book, with one author, and one story……as a premise, is the best basis to start any meaningful Bible study. Go back to the beginning and start there….
2) What concerns do you have about the misuse of the Bible?
How men can twist the meaning of the original languages to suggest what Scripture does not teach is of greatest concern.
There is one truth….not many versions of it.
Only God can guide a genuine truth seeker to understand the Bible’s overall message…..to see what we lost in the beginning….why we lost it….and how God organized things for us to, not only get it back, but to ensure that this kind of rebellion can never surface again.
3) On a scale of 1 to 10 (low to high) how much do you know about where the Bible came from?
That is a bit of a loaded question, because the Bible only has one source…..it’s Author made sure that it’s message could never be taken away or hidden, even if humans messed with the wording…the
message remained loud and clear. (Isa 55:11)
4) Thoughts on inerrancy and inspiration. ??? Of the original manuscripts, or our English translations?
Humans will do what humans do….but nothing humans do will alter God’s purpose, which he alluded to in the very beginning of human history. After the fall, the human race would descend into old age, sickness and death. Everything in us tells us that this is foreign…..we know in our heart of hearts that death was never meant to happen….the Bible tells us that God provided the means right from the start for humans to live forever in mortal flesh, right here on earth….but disobedience introduced death….(Gen 3:22-24)….after all the thousands of years of human history, death is still an “enemy” that must be fought with everything in us…..it never feels natural to lose a loved one, because it was never supposed to happen. We are programmed to go on living….if Adam had never sinned, death would never have happened to his children. (Rom 5:12)
If the earth was some kind of training ground, and humans were meant to live this awful life, then die and go to heaven, then death would be a blessing, rather than a dreaded curse.
Funerals would not then be places of mourning, but festivals of joy…..but we know the heartache of loss, and it never leaves us.
So, to me, minor things in the Scriptures that people want to use to disprove the Bible or to undermine its value and purpose, fall short, because the message can never be taken away…..because it is “the word of God”…..preserved to this day (despite intense efforts to destroy it) by the most powerful Being in existence.
Anyone who has ever prayed the Lord’s Prayer, has asked for ‘God’s Kingdom to come’, and for ‘God’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven’. How many people utter those words without ever knowing what they mean? That is the Bible’s message, right there…..God’s Kingdom will “come”, so that his will can be “done on earth as it is in heaven”. There will be peace and harmony in both realms when God has accomplished his purpose, but first his enemies had to be dealt with, with precedents created so that no rebel in the future will ever succeed……and God’s Universal Sovereignty is forever vindicated.
This is my hope, and the Bible is the entire reason for my faith as it explains everything I need to know.
