Friday 22 March 2013

How can the Bible be God's word when men wrote it?

The Bible was written by men who were inspired by God. 2 Timothy 3:16 states that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"
The Bible is actually 66 books in one binding. It was written in the space of 1500 years by around 40 different authors.
Now here's the amazing thing. The authors came from different walks of life, they possessed different personalities, jobs, lived in different locations in different times of history during times of peace and war and yet their writings we now have in the Bible is absolutely harmonious from beginning to end.  The Bible's continuity points to it's divine origins and it's author - God.
2 Peter 1:20-21 says
"Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit."
 When you write an email to someone the keyboard doesn't write the email, you do. The keyboard is the instrument you are using to convey your thoughts in an email and man was the instrument God used to convey His thoughts in the Bible.

2 comments:

  1. I really like the last metaphor about the keyboard - very clear :)

    Hey a question I have been asked that I feel I didn't answer very well is a variation on the suffering question. Why does God let children suffer terribly before they die (ie. from birth defects etc)?

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  2. Hey Kerryn,

    Your question is a tough one in that the biblical answer may not satisfy the emotional trauma of such a terrible event. Put simply the bible says that sin is what brought suffering into our world so children suffering terribly before they die is a result of the fall.

    I think it's hard for people to understand this because 1. they don't understand what God is like and 2. as a result they don't trust God. But despite the cards we are given in life, God is faithful. God is good and with God, bad situations can turn out for the good.

    God can allow suffering in our lives also to teach us something.

    Here's are some links to some more thoughts on this issue.

    http://carm.org/why-do-bad-things-happen-good-people
    http://creation.com/why-us-the-problem-of-evil
    http://youtu.be/BwGOJ-nFYHI




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