Basic Biblical Principles 1

  We need to be a religious people, founded in the truth. I hope, in the next several months, to present some basic biblical principles in this column. No matter how long we have been Christians, we can still use a refresher course once in a while. So whether you are a newborn Christian or have been a Christian for many years, I hope you will take the time to read these articles. The first thing that we need to understand is that God gave us the bible and it is His inspired word. It sets for us a pattern of living that we need to follow.

   The bible is a collection of books and letters, written by men who were inspired by God. How do we know this?

   First of all the bible says so (2 Tim. 3:16). But that is not enough for some people. How else can we know that it is inspired? The bible was written over a period of more than a thousand years, by many different men. It would be impossible for uninspired men, even in a much shorter time span, to produce a work so consistent. The bible is not a history or science book, yet everything it does say about history, science, and even archeology is absolutely accurate. The bible also contains literally hundreds of prophesies. Many of these are very detailed prophesies, not general prophesies like you might read about in the Enquirer, today. Yet every one of these prophesies came true, exactly as prophesied, except one. How could a book put together by men be that accurate, unless those men where inspired by God. (By the way the only prophesy not to come true, yet, is the prophesy of the second coming of Christ. Anyone care to wager their soul, that the second coming of Christ will never happen?) The lives of the men who wrote the New Testament also give testimony that what they wrote was true. Not one single man ever recanted on what he wrote, despite the fact that they faced brutal, agonizing death for not recanting. Since none of the original manuscripts exist today, how do we know that the version we have today is accurate? After all many uninspired men spent endless hours in copying these manuscripts. How do we know that they did not make mistakes. Well, in fact, they did make mistakes, but there are so many copies from different sources, that it is possible to put together a virtually error free version. The only unresolved discrepancies are extremely minor (e.g. spelling errors or whether to use the or a) and have no impact on any scriptural teaching.

   How do we know that our bible is complete? How do we know that books or letters weren’t added by mistake? By studying early church historical documents and quotations by early church leaders, it is possible to put together a collection of books and letters that were accepted by the early church. Jewish history and New Testament quotes of Old Testament scriptures help to define what books should make up the Old Testament.

   Now that we have it, what do we do with it? Is it a book of philosophy? Is it a general guide for those times, but must be updated for our times? The answer is, of course, no. Why would God go to all the trouble of giving us the bible, if it was something that we could just take or leave at our whim? God intended for us to have this gift, as something that we could base our lives on. It is our duty then to study it and apply what we learn to our everyday lives. We must take it as a whole. We cannot take the parts we like and throw away the rest. We definitely cannot replace any part of it with the wisdom of man. Too many people, today, feel that the bible is only a general guideline or that it is out-of-date. The bible is a gift from God. He would not give us an old, worn out document that constantly needs to be updated as cultures change. No, he gave us a living document, that applies to everyone in every time.

Steve Truman