cornerstone is person, not book
A gracEmail subscriber wonders whether we should use the Protestant Bible or the Catholic Bible, since they are not exactly the same. He is concerned that he have the "real" Bible.
A brother whom God has gifted for special ministry to the divorced and remarried has lately taken on the task of exposing what he considers to be false doctrines creeping into his particular Christian fellowship. However well-intentioned, his misguided efforts ... reveal an unscriptural perspective when reading the Bible -- a focus on a man-made doctrinal system rather than on Jesus Christ our Savior.
A gracEmail subscriber asks: "Is the Bible a living, breathing, document like the U.S. Constitution that can be variously interpreted in different times and circumstances, or is it final, authoritative and absolute, not subject to different interpretation anytime or anywhere?"
A gracEmail subscriber writes, "Can you recommend a good book that gives an explanation of the authenticity of the Bible, how the canon of scriptures developed and survived into its current form?
A gracEmail subscriber writes: "You said that 'the question of which books belong in the Bible is ultimately one of faith in God's providence as manifested through the church fathers of the first five centuries.' Do you apply this statement to all that was established by the early church fathers? If not, why pick and choose? There was also the role of Pope, Bishops and so forth."
A gracEmail subscriber writes: "We consider the Bible to be the infallible word of God, based largely on the idea that the authors were directly inspired by God. How do we know that they are inspired writings? Why were these books chosen?"
Someone asks: "I hear a lot about the 'inerrancy' of Scripture, and some people get very emotional about the word. Do all faithful Bible scholars believe that the Bible is 'inerrant'? If I say I believe that it is, just what am I actually saying?"
Bible inspired (two gracEmails)
A gracEmail subscriber in Arkansas writes, "I've always been taught that the Bible was divinely given word by word (I think this is called verbal inspiration). But some passages just sound like a believer pouring out his heart to others. Could you offer some thoughts on inspiration and the Bible?"
making too little of the Bible
Some time ago a Christian brother told me of undergoing a spiritual struggle, during which he said God told him not to open his Bible for an entire year. I expressed my concern, as respectfully as I knew how, that he had misidentified the spirit that gave him such an instruction. It is possible to make too much of the Bible, ... but is also possible ... to make too little of it.
After reading about my book, The Sound of His Voice (originally titled Beyond the Sacred Page), a dear lady in Arkansas responded: "Please remove my name from gracEmail .... There is nothing 'Beyond the Sacred Page' -- only man's ideas and opinions!"
A gracEmail reader asks, "How do we know that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit? Those who wrote the Bible say so, but how do we know? How can I convince someone who is not a Christian to believe that?"
"All my life, I have seen preachers hold up the Bible and say, 'This is the Word of God,'" writes a counselor in the Midwest. "When New Testament writers use the expression, 'the word of God,' do they not have something in mind other than the Scriptures themselves?"
A university religions professor chides my quoting the Gospels with an assumption that they correctly record what Jesus actually said. "If you exclude the Bible from historical-critical scrutiny," he warns, "you will remain impervious to any historical argument and a discussion is indeed useless."
A gracEmail reader asks, "How do we know that the words ascribed to Jesus were actually his words? I have read that they were written down a century or more after his death? Was Mark even one of the original 12 disciples?"
A Canadian preacher requests my response to an inquirer who asks how we "know with certainty and without doubt that the Bible is God's revealed and trustworthy Word."