Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple days. Been real busy around here, but not so much in a bad way, which is nice. Hopefully I’ll have a longer post up later, but for now, Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Author: Dan G.
What I Believe: The Scriptures
Consise statement: The Bible is, in its entirety, the verbally inspired and totally infallible Word of God.
Key ideas:
- Plenary verbal inspiration: The Bible is verbally inspired in its entirety by God, down to the very letter in the original text. (John 16:12-13, Acts 1:16, 1 Corinthians 2:13, 2 Timothy 3:15-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 2 Peter 3:16)
- Infallible and inerrant: The text is totally free of any errors of any kind. (Proverbs 30:5, Matthew 5:18, Matthew 24:35, John 17:17)
- Biblical study through the Holy Spirit: We are commanded to learn and study the Bible, and the work of the Holy Spirit is required for proper understanding. (Luke 4:4, Romans 15:4, 1 Corinthians 2:12-16)
I believe that God the Holy Spirit supernaturally guided the fallible human authors of Scripture in such a way that his message was recorded perfectly and completely, without interfering with the free will, literary style, or personal perspective of the author. It is key to note that this inerrancy applies to the original text only, and not necessarily the further copies and translations; when the most accurate answer is being sought in study, it may be necessary to refer to the original texts for further information or insight.
This is not simple dictation, or any similar process in which the human author’s mind was not actively engaged in the writing. The personality, culture, style, and outlook of the authors comes through without distorting the message in any way, and is not reflective of any lack of control over the text on God’s part, but rather an evidence that God did not coerce the free will of his followers in the writing of these texts.
Some professed Christians propose that the Bible is only partially inspired, usually suggesting that there are historical errors or inconsistencies due to the authors’ mistakes, and it is only the doctrinal principles that are inerrant. This view is inherently flawed and has never been evidenced; archaeology has never contradicted a biblical reference and has only proven time and time again that the Bible is correct in its accounts, even giving discovery where previously there was no corroborating evidence for the events recorded. By suggesting that the Bible contains historical errors, they reject the Scriptures as an entirely trustworthy source and seek to filter what they want to agree with through a fallible lens.
We are therefore to study the Bible with the knowledge that it is the wholly perfect and God-breathed word to us, being mindful of our own limitations and biases as well as our sinful nature, in order to discover the commands and intentions of God, which can only be revealed to us through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.
Sunday Wrapup
Another good football Sunday. Pitt lost again, Cards won again, so I’m happy. Warner’s a little banged up but they’re saying he’s fine, so that’s a relief. Also, if you didn’t catch the Lions – Browns game, do yourself a favor and dig up the highlights – Matt Stafford just proved he’s the genuine article.
And who could have possibly seen this coming?
The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.
Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but “would explain what happened and why they did it.”
Ridiculous. I don’t know how anyone can justify this, but I guess that’s not the point. Also, there’s this lovely senator, who I think needs to have the word “representative” defined to him, preferably with a 2×4:
“If you get to the final point and you are a critical vote for health care reform and every piece of evidence tells you if you support the bill you will lose your job, would you cast the vote and lose your job?” CNN’s John King asked Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado on Sunday’s State of the Union.
“Yes,” Bennet bluntly and simply replied.
“If you knew for a fact your constituents did not want you to vote for this, would you do it anyway?” “Yes.” “Okay, string him up.”
Anyway, going to try to start working through these doctrinal issues over the next few days. I think posting one per week would be a good pace. Have a good night, y’all!
On heretics and core doctrine
A little announcement of intent: my current plan is to work my way through a statement of faith, fleshing out various doctrinal positions so that I have a written and accessible record of my beliefs on both core and secondary doctrines. This post is intended as a sort of preface to that series.
Going through 2 Peter right now in the Trial series means that there is lots of talk about false teachers and other heretics. It’s one of those big, scary issues that a lot of people like to ignore or gloss over because it’s so uncomfortable a topic. Almost nobody likes using the word “heretic,” and the ones that do generally like using it a bit too much. It’s a very harsh, very specific term, however – which means it is easy to define. A heretic needs to meet two criteria, and it’s really quite common to see the term used incorrectly when one does not apply. So before I begin to address the ideas of core beliefs or start work on a statement of belief, I’d like to define some terms.
1) A heretic must claim to be a Christian. An atheist is not a heretic. He is an atheist. If you don’t claim to be a musician, I can scarcely hold it against you when you can’t play “Mary Had a Little
Lamb” on the piano.
2) A heretic must reject a core Christian doctrine. Driscoll calls these “primary doctrines,” defined as doctrines that are critical to the Christian faith. If someone denies any of these doctrines, they would be by definition not a Christian. This is in contrast to secondary doctrines, which would be those doctrines on which Christians can disagree while still being united in Christ.
So, what are the core doctrines?
I mentioned in an earlier post that the Nicene Creed was a good way to summarize the core beliefs of Christianity, but sometimes the language of the Creed is a little unclear and disputed. So, let me clearly restate here what I believe to be the core, fundamental doctrines of Christianity:
- The Bible is, in its entirety, the verbally inspired and totally infallible Word of God.
- Man was created in the image of God, but because of Adam’s original sin is fallen, inherently sinful and rebellious against God, and is unable to remedy this condition.
- God is eternal and triune; one God in three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
- Jesus, who is fully God, became also fully man (without ceasing to be God), was born of the virgin Mary, led a sinless life, died a substitutionary death for mankind, physically rising from the dead three days later, and then ascending into heaven, where he still is, and he will return again one day to judge the living and the dead alike.
- Salvation is obtained only by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and is not effected by nor enhanced by any works which we do.
I believe these are a good summary of the essential doctrines of Christian faith; I will expand more on them later, but know that in future post, when I refer to “core doctrines,” these are the doctrines I speak of.
Hello, Switchfoot
Yeah, I’m late on this one. And I’m thinking of a few people who are going to kick me for this, but I just finally got around to checking out Switchfoot’s latest album, Hello Hurricane. Switchfoot was one of my favorite bands back in the first half of this decade, and after A Beautiful Letdown, I thought they’d remain that way for a long time. That album is still one of my first “go-tos” for a variety of situations and emotions, and the raw emotion on that album is just amazing – nearly every track on it holds a special place in my heart, and can be sung on cue from memory. There’s not a single track on the album that I don’t love.
Their next album, Nothing is Sound, was pretty good, but I thought a noticeable step down from A Beautiful Letdown. When Oh! Gravity came out, they’d drifted further from where I’d hoped, going with a less polished, more experimental feeling to the album that I really didn’t think was that great. As a result, “new Switchfoot album” wasn’t really something I was thinking about when November rolled around, and it wasn’t until I kept hearing about how good it was from everyone that I decided to hit Amazon MP3 and see if it lived up to the hype.
Let me just start by spoiling my conclusion a bit and note that the album is now repeating for the third time and I still have an idiot grin on my face.