Originally posted by DHK:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by trying2understand:
I have no idea why you believe that your Bible is inspired.
A quote from John MacArthur:
"Is it easy to convince someone that the Bible is the Word of God on the basis of its unity, its scientific, historical accuracy, its miracles, its archaeological evidence? </font>
Perhaps I should have responded: Can the Mormon or Muslim convnce others that their book is the Word of God on the basis of its unity, its scientific, historical accuracy, its miracles, its archaeological evidence.
John MacArthur, and many other believers can do so (concerning the Bible). But the Muslim and the Mormon is unable to provide any such evidence concerning their books. Their books are lacking in unity, do not have scientific accuracy, nor historical accuracy; there are no miracles attributed to their founders (i.e. Joseph Smith and Muhammed), and the archaelogical evidence is sadly lacking if not contradictory.
There are more than 5,000 copies of the New Testament, some of which date back to just a few years after the death of John, the last of the Apostles. Though there are some copyist errors, there are no real doctrinal errors in those transcripts that have been passed down to us. No other religion can provide such a massive weight of ancient documentation of their sacred text.
"So, God spoke in the Old Testament to the fathers by the prophets in many ways and in many portions. And God has spoken in the New Testament by His Son in the gospels and then about His Son in the rest of the New Testament. The process by which God gave us that revelation is inspiration and inspiration was God putting His revelation in, as it were, the hands of men to be written down first to be spoken and proclaimed and then written down as they were energized, carried along by the Holy Spirit. Men were used and yet no word of God was ever violated. The totality of Scripture, pasa graphe, all Scripture, every Scripture, is theopneustos, God breathed. It is the breath of God, the writing of Scripture. The totality of it, according to Romans 3:2 is called the oracles of God. When Paul is talking about the benefit of Israel, what is it that they had that set them apart from other nations, he has reference to the Old Testament which he calls the oracles of God...the speeches of God...the words of God.
And Jeremiah is a good illustration of this process. Jeremiah, called by God from before he was born, "The word of the Lord came to me," verse 4 of chapter 1, "before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. Then I said, Alas, Lord God, I do not know how to speak because I am a youth." Verse 9, "And the Lord stretched out His hand, touched my mouth, the Lord said to me, Behold, I have put My words in your mouth." What a tremendous statement. I have put My words in your mouth, that was the promise for the writers of Scripture. All Scripture is God breathed. All holy writing comes from God.
We recognize that. We recognize the divine uniqueness of Scripture. The early church recognized it. Even though it wasn't until 393, 397, the Council of Hippo, the Council of Carthage, about that time, that the church sort of officially established the canon of Scripture comprehensively. It didn't take that long for people to recognize it. The church didn't invent the canon of Scripture any more than Newton invented the law of gravity. Newton discovered gravity which God invented and the church from the very earliest discovered inspired documents which God Himself wrote. And though there was some time before some official church laid down some official label on all of it, it was eminently clear to the early church what was the Word of God and what was not the Word of God. And there are all kinds of erroneous books that have been left out. But what was the Word of God was the Word of God. God is the author of Scripture.
In fact, in the scriptures frequently God and the term Scripture are used interchangeably. In Galatians, "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations shall be blessed in you. The Scripture says all the nations shall be blessed in you. If you go back to Genesis 12 you see that God said that. God said, Scripture said, same thing, what Scripture says, God says. What Scripture says, God says." (John MacArthur)
