The Reliability of Scripture: Exploring the Inerrancy of Scripture

Can the Bible be trusted as the inerrant word of God? Join us in this episode, as we tackle this profound question head-on. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives.

Speaker 1: 0:11

I am Dwan, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Hi everyone, welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast, where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully by offering guidance on how to study the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity and a contemporary society. The scriptures exhibit fully, as clear evidence of their own truth, as white and black things do of their color or sweet and bitter things do of their taste. John Calvin, I have a question for you Can we trust the Bible? If you believe that the Bible is God's word, then the answer should be yes. In today's episode, we will be talking about the inerrancy of scripture. The Bible is the word of God in such a way that when the Bible speaks, god speaks. Bb Warfield, when we think about God, his character, one of his attributes, is that he is truth. God can't err. Therefore, the Bible can't err. So to deny the inerrancy of the Bible, one must either affirm that God can err or that the Bible is not the word of God. We know that God is completely trustworthy, so the Bible is not the word of God. We know that God is completely trustworthy, so the Bible is completely trustworthy. Hebrews 6, 18 tells us that it is impossible for God to lie. In Titus 1, 2, Paul speaks of the God who does not lie. So our belief in the doctrine of Scripture should be grounded in the doctrine of God. If you believe that God is scripture's author, then we shouldn't separate the character of the divine author from the character of his divine speech. So the truthfulness of scripture is reflected in the truthfulness of its divine author. It tells us who God says he is and what will he do and what he has promised. So the word of God is inspired. He breathed out his word and the Holy Spirit guided the writers to write the Bible. The Bible has one author and then it has many, over 40 writers. Now, while God used human authors, the ultimate word of God resonates from the divine author, god.

Speaker 1: 2:51

All right, so let's define inerrancy. So here is a definition of inerrancy from systematic theology and an introduction to biblicalrine by Wayne Grudem. He says the inerrancy of Scripture means that Scripture in the original manuscript does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. This definition focuses on the question of truthfulness and falsehood in the language of Scripture. The definition in simple terms means that the Bible always tells the truth and that it always tells the truth concerning everything it talks about. This definition does not mean that the Bible tells us every fact there is to know about one subject, but it affirms that it does say. That it does say about any subject is true. Then there also is a definition by paul finberg that says when all the facts are known, the scriptures, in their original autographs and properly interpreted, will be shown to be wholly true in everything they affirm, whether it has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical or life sciences.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So when we look at inerrancy, it's a belief in the total truth and reliability of god's word. So when theologians and bible scholars talk about inerrancy, they're referring to the original writings of scripture. We don't have the original autographs, as we call today. We only have copies and included many copies of each of the book, and there are small differences here and there within the copies, but in reality they're amazingly similar. So when you think about inerrancy, it doesn't mean everything in the Bible is true. So if you've read through the Bible, you know that there is record of people lying, such as in Joshua 9. Even you have the words of the devil. You know he tells a lie to Eve when he deceives her, but we can be sure that there are accurate record of the things that took place. So the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is essential because it's a matter of truth. It reflects on the character of God and is foundational for our understanding of everything that the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches If the scripture is not infallible in the supreme rule of faith and practice, they are of no authority.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Charles Hodge, all right, so we know that God used men to write his holy word. We can find this in 2 Peter 1, 20-21,. It says Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet's own understanding or from human initiative. No, these prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit. They spoke from God. So the Holy Spirit moved men to write God's holy word. He allowed them to use their own styles, culture, gifts and character, and he used them as a result of their study and research. And they wrote of their own experiences and expressed what was on their mind. Yet at the same time, the Holy spirit didn't allow error to influence their writings and they accurately recorded all god wanted them to say, exactly how he wanted to. Just to say it. So to be clear that everything in the bible is true. You know, there are records of people lying, like I say, the devil lied to eve in the garden. But we can be sure that the bible accurately recorded what took place. So it's vital for us, as christians, to believe that the bible is true.

Speaker 1: 6:58

Inerrancy governs our belief in the trustworthy character of god. If scripture is unreliable, how you know, how can we offer the world a reliable gospel? How can we, how can we be sure on any issue if we're suspicious of errors anywhere in the Bible? The Holy Scriptures begin God's own word, by men prepared and superintended by his spirit, are infallible, true and divine authority in all matters upon which they they touch a w tozer. The truth of God can be read in the bible and all the things that scripture asserts, the holy truth, and all the things that scripture asserts are wholly true, both in the Old Testament, the scriptures of Jesus and the apostles. They had the Old Testament and then the New Testament, the writings of the apostles. So if the Bible were not true, the gospel message wouldn't be true and that would leave us without a means of salvation.

Speaker 1: 8:10

When you go back and read through the New Testament, jesus treated the Old Testament scriptures which was the part of the scriptures that Jesus had the New Testament hadn't been written yet, you know always with other truth, reverence and never with suspicion towards his reliability. So even Jesus says, as the, as god you know, revered the holy scriptures as reliable, which was the old testament. And many times jesus and the jews had strong disagreements on how the old testament was to be interpreted and then whether jesus was who he says. He is net, but never once did they disagree on whether the text interpreted was trustworthy. So Jesus and the religious rabbis might have disagreed on the interpretation of the scriptures, but they never disagreed on the trustworthiness of the scripture as a whole, on the trustworthiness of the scripture as a whole.

Speaker 1: 9:20

So Jesus referred to the Old Testament as the word of God which cannot be broken. He said that in John 10, 35. He said Until heaven and earth disappear not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, but by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. And that was Matthew 5, 18. Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day unify the word of God by your traditions, and that's in Mark 7, 13. Jesus turned their attention to the written word of God by affirming over and over again as it is written, as it is written, that's a phrase that occurs over 90 times in the New Testament and it's a strong indication of the divine authority of the word of God.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Nay, if there are any mistakes in the Bible, there might as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth. I think you know, as a society, truth is and should be important. You know, the Bible gives us truth because the author of the Bible embodies what truth actually is. So it's important for us, as Christians, to believe that the Bible is true Inerrancy. It governs our belief on the trustworthiness of the character of God. If scripture is unreliable, like I said, how can we offer the world a reliable gospel? How can we be sure of truth on any issue if you know we're suspicious that the Bible isn't true? So think about it and until next time, remember God is always good and he's always faithful. Next time, remember God is always good and he's always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.