Why you believe the Bible is the Word of God

Good Afternoon all and hello from a new member.

I would like to hear how each of you have come to believe that the Bible is the Word of God or is the written Word of God. I would like to keep this topic free from denomination influence and strictly based on personal experiance and conclusions drawn from evidence, research, etc.

I will post my own response to this a bit later.

ex-nihilo

The dogma that the canonical Bible is the inspired Word of God is one that is received through faith. It cannot be demonstrated or proven through empirical evidence, and I believe this dogma with "divine and Catholic faith" because it is taught by the Church, which has the authority of Jesus Christ who has the authority of the Father. Ultimately, all faith terminates in the authority of God who reveals and requests our assent to his revelation. I accept the authority of this historical entity because it has a credible historical basis, and this basis is substantiated in part through the historical/theological narratives of the Scriptures themselves, which witness to this authoritative entity.

As already shown on the thread about the Bible being the Word of God --- Christ states it clearly in Mark 7.

Originally posted by BobRyan:
Silver bullet time ---

Mark 7
7
'BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,
TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'
8 "Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men."
9 He was also saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.
10 "For Moses said, 'HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER'; and, 'HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER, IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH';
11 but you say, 'If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),'
12 you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother;
13 thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."


"Commandment of God" and the QUOTE from Exodus 20 "Shows" the reference to "Word of God" applied to scripture. And of course "obviously" Exodus 20 is not ALL of scripture and so it is not ALL of the Word of God.

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In Christ,

Bob

I would like to point out that the Bible is the word of God.

The Word of God is Jesus Christ. John 1:1.

Plenty of discussion goes around about whether the Bible is the completed canon of scripture, I would look at it from a point of view of trying to find actual proof that it is not is fairly difficult to get as consistant.

Originally posted by Ben W:
I would like to point out that the Bible is the word of God.

The Word of God is Jesus Christ. John 1:1.

Plenty of discussion goes around about whether the Bible is the completed canon of scripture, I would look at it from a point of view of trying to find actual proof that it is not is fairly difficult to get as consistant.

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Scripture tells of the situation where "The Word of the Lord came to...". There is no question that when God speaks - that is the Word of the Lord.

And As you say - Christ HIMSELF is shown to BE - the "WORD MADE FLESH" - which is why in chapter 6 of that SAME author's book - He makes the point "the LITERAL flesh is WORTHLESS - My WORD is Spirit and LIFE".

In Christ,

Bob

Originally posted by Ben W:
I would like to point out that the Bible is the word of God.

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How do you know that?

The Word of God is Jesus Christ. John 1:1.

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You believe that because you believe in the gospel of John, but again, how do you know that gospel is the Word of God? Who told you?

Plenty of discussion goes around about whether the Bible is the completed canon of scripture, I would look at it from a point of view of trying to find actual proof that it is not is fairly difficult to get as consistant.

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Carson gave a pretty good account of how he arrived at the conclusion concerning scripture as we have it now.

In my words, I believe that the bible is the divinely inspired Word of God because I believe the only authority who could declare that was the Church whom Christ established.

If I read the bible as purely a historical account, I see amazing faith in men who would lay down their lives to proclaim the gospel! I ses out and out claims of miracles that bolster the faith of a Stephen, who would be stoned to death because he so completely believed in the testimony of those who saw and witnessed the miracles of Christ, expecially His death, resurrection and ascension.

Therefore, I believe in the very "acorn" of an infant church made up by these men, the apostles, which grew to a "Mighty Oak" over the past 2,000 years, the only Church who could trace her history and lineage back to Christ, the founder.

And with the authority of that Church, which I believe, I therefore believe that the Bible is the written Word of God per the proclamation of that very same Church, from several church synods in the latter 3rd century to the Great Council of Trent that formerly declared it so.

I invite all to read this link:

http://www.catholic.com/library/Proving_Inspiration.asp

God bless,

PAX

Bill+†+


Christ has no body now but yours;
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which
he blesses all the world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

- St. Therese of Avila -

As already pointed out Mark 7:7-11 makes it clear that the Word of God - is the Bible. In this case it quotes from the writings of Moses.

In Christ,

Bob

Originally posted by BobRyan:
As already pointed out Mark 7:7-11 makes it clear that the Word of God - is the Bible. In this case it quotes from the writings of Moses.

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Where was the "Word of God" before Mark 7:7-11 was ever written?

In fact, if we do not consider the closed covenant of the Old Testament, which certainly remains as the then "written" part of the Word of God, where was it from Pentecost to about 30 years after Pentecost, Bob?

God bless,

PAX

Bill+†+


Christus Vincit! Christus Regnat! Christus Imperat!

Originally posted by BobRyan:
As already pointed out Mark 7:7-11 makes it clear that the Word of God - is the Bible.

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Why believe Mark? How do you know Mark is the word of God?

Certianly belief or faith comes by way of God.

However, I was thinking more along the lines of why do you "intellectually" believe the Bible is the Word of God without any denominational influence?


Example: Authenticity, historical accuracy, Bible codes, etc. etc.

Originally posted by ex-nihilo:
I would like to hear how each of you have come to believe that the Bible is the Word of God or is the written Word of God.

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Well, as Baptists, we're required to believe it. It's part of the Baptist Distinctives, as covered by the Distinctive of Biblical Authority. We have no choice to accept it that we want to be Baptists.

Now, to what extent, otoh, is a matter of interpretation, which is also allowable under the Baptist Distinctive of local autonomy. (In other words, some churches may require pastors to be married. Others may not. Some will require adherence to the commandment of worship and rest 1 in 7 days. Others may interpret that as no longer being in affect. But in all the cases, each church must believe that the Bible is the authoritative and inspired Word of God.

Originally posted by ex-nihilo:
why do you "intellectually" believe the Bible is the Word of God without any denominational influence?

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My backgrond is probably a little different than most. I first started seriously seeking the Lord around the time of the early tele-evangelist scandals. As a result, I was mistrustful of any organized Church fellowship. So I prayed and said to God that if you're real, you ought to be able to teach me one-on-one out of your Word.

I wouldn't recommend this route to anyone. In hindsight, I find that there are many Bible-believing and Bible-teaching ministries everywhere. It would have saved me YEARS of diligent study.

But this "go at it cold" approach convinced me of one thing. The Bible is absolutely consistent in its logic. Being a techie with an Engineering degree, I'm big on logical consistency. So as one part of my brain was learning, the other part was checking the logic. I've found that as long as one's basic assumptions put God's point of view first, all biblical passages make logical sense.

Another thing that amazed me was the level of detail in the Bible. If you get a good Bible with cross references, you can truly appreciate this. God spoke consistently through 66 books with 40 authors over 1000 years of time. Small, subtle points are confirmed with incredible accuracy.

At some point I began to listen to Christian radio to accelerate the learning process. Then eventually God led me to a Christian fellowship and I was able to pull all of my learning together into a solid foundation.

Even after all of this, some part of my brain still had doubts. It's one thing to know something makes sense and has amazing detail, but another to be completely convinced. It's funny that you mention Bible Codes. That was the one thing that won me over. It was something concrete that my techie nature could appeal to. Having taken statistics, I knew what they were doing couldn't be faked. It was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

Well that's the intellectual journey in a nutshell. The experiencial journey would take far longer to tell...

Ed

I believe the Bible to be the word of God. I believe this based on the following:
1. The harmony of the totality of the text of the scriptures. Psalms 119:160.
2. The historical, archeological, and geographical accuracy of the scriptures. For example, the Lachish letters about the destruction of Jerusalem and the prophet Jeremiah. See Archeology and the book of Jeremiah by Wayne Jackson.
3. The incredible and perfect harmony among the 40 penmen of the Bible. There is no other book like the Bible in this regard.
4. The eyewitness accounts of miraculous events recorded in the Bible. Many of the witnesses being hostile toward the Christ. Yet, they could not deny the evidence. John 11: 46 says, "But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.
47  Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
48  If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation."
5. The accuracy of the 5000 copies of the new testament.

Psalm 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. 7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. I believe the Bible because I believe in God. If it were not for the Bible, we would not know who God is and what he has done for us. The Bible tells me how to live, how to treat my family, how to raise my family, how to punish my family, how to love my family. How do I know it works? I've seen it work in my life and fellow Christian lives. Also, Jesus said in Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. God has given us his word to live by and that is exactly what I strive to do.

I believe the Bible is the Word of God because Jesus Christ said it was. I mean, come on, the guy raised himself from the dead! If that doesn't deserve paying attention to him, nothing does. I also believe it's as close as possible to the original wording as we can get, seeing as most of uf read a translation.

Originally posted by LandonL:
I mean, come on, the guy raised himself from the dead! If that doesn't deserve paying attention to him, nothing does.

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You don't believe the Bible is true because Jesus "raised himself from the dead" [actually Paul says "God the Father, who raised him from the dead"]. Instead, you believe Jesus was raised from the dead because of your a priori assumption that the Bible is true.