The gun is loaded and pointed. Right at the Bible.
That’s what you get when you combine rampant moral relativism and widespread hostility toward objective truth. So those of us who believe the Bible better know why we believe what we believe. Otherwise, we’ll “go with the flow” downstream in the river of hostility toward the most beautiful Word that was ever written.
It’s not only a cultural problem, but entire denominations have jettisoned the authority of Scripture. Sadly, in those contexts, anyone still committed to the Bible is considered a fool.
If believing the Bible is foolish, count me among the fools.
I’m here to encourage you today, friends. Not only is the Bible true, but the Bible is inerrant. “Inerrant” is a word that we don’t use very much anymore, but it’s a word worth dusting off and rediscovering. So I’m devoting today’s blog posting to the subject of Biblical inerrancy. And I want to start by telling you what it’s not.
Inerrancy does not mean that every statement in the Bible is true. For example, in the book of Job, the statements of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar – though accurately reported and recorded – cannot be taken as words of absolute truth. To the contrary, the truth that we learn from the bad advice of Job’s friends – because they misrepresent God – is often the precise opposite of what they actually say. One of the strongest arguments for the veracity of Scripture is that it reports the good, the bad, and the ugly. It tells not only the truth about human nature, but the truth about what real people have thought, said, and done – and what real people continue to think, say, and do.
Inerrancy does not mean that every copy of the Bible is perfect. In 1530, William Tyndale finished his English translation of the Bible, the de facto English Bible until King James I commissioned one in 1604. First printed in 1611, the King James Version became the preeminent English Bible for the next 300 years. From the 19th century until today, many translations have been completed. English is a relatively young language, and a very fluid one. Because the way we use words changes, we need new translations, but translators – who don’t always agree with each other – make important judgment calls about the text’s original meaning. Obviously, some calls are better than others, and so some Bible versions are better than others. And a commitment to Biblical inerrancy does not deny the existence of variants among the copies of the text that are available to translators.
Inerrancy does not mean that every interpretation of the Bible is legitimate or correct. This observation may go without saying, but I think it’s good to be reminded that you and I are responsible to be diligent in our study of the Scriptures, and to rightly and consistently apply sound principles of Bible hermeneutics – as some seem prone not to do. We can’t be negligent or careless, and then blame our misguided or heretical teaching on the Bible.
Inerrancy does not mean that the Bible is flawless in grammar or literary style. Though God is its ultimate Author, the Bible conveys human communication which is wrapped in historical and cultural context. Real people, with real human perspectives, and with real human limitations and failings, were involved in writing the books of the Bible. Though the language of the Bible is anthropomorphic – written from a human perspective so that we can understand it – the Bible is divine in origin. This is where it really gets exciting!
So what do we mean when we say that the Bible is inerrant?
Inerrancy means that the original manuscripts of the Bible contain no errors whatsoever. When we affirm that God has preserved the Biblical text, we mean that nothing that we believe to be doctrinally true, and therefore nothing that we’re commanded by the Bible to do, is in any way jeopardized by a variant. 99% of the variants are trivial, like spelling errors – impacting absolutely nothing. Of the small number of meaningful variants which are considered viable, no cardinal doctrine hangs in the balance. Thus, we can be confident in the reliability of the Scriptures.
Inerrancy means that the Bible is entirely truthful, in the sense that it is free from error in everything that it affirms. When we start diving into the inspiration of Holy Scripture – how the Bible came to us – we discover a unique and beautiful harmony. In the good providence of God, the active minds of the human writers and the sovereign direction of the Holy Spirit came together to produce God’s inerrant and infallible Word for the human race.
Inerrancy means that the Bible is without error in all that it teaches. It is “true and reliable in all the matters it addresses” (“Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy,” 1978). Though this is a surprise to many, the Old and New Testaments stand up to rigorous academic scrutiny. There’s a widespread belief that much of the Bible was written centuries after the events it records, and that it’s been tampered with ad nauseum. But the breadth and age of the existing ancient manuscripts tell a remarkably different story. Scholars have far less evidence for Homer’s mythology, for example, but no one questions it.
We should be concerned about errors in the Bible. But the reality is: they’re not there. By their very nature, errors damage the accessibility, beauty, durability, trustworthiness, and usefulness of anything which claims to be a source of authority. Think of the damage done by a false witness. Thankfully, we can know with certainty that all 66 books of the Bible – with their unified goal to reveal to us the good news of salvation in Christ – are unmarred by such inaccuracies. The Bible is reliable, trustworthy, and authoritative for all matters of faith and practice. As we trust God, we can trust the Bible. It is inerrant.
The Scriptures are inspired – “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16) – and so the Word of God is unlike any other word that we will ever receive. In regard to its own divine authority, the Bible self-attests: “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
So the reason inerrancy matters is because the Bible is the very word of God. It’s God’s glorious self-revelation to us. Quite wondrously, at the center of God’s revelation is Jesus! And Christ is called the Word of God (John 1:1; Revelation 19:13).
Come be a fool with me!
Pastor Charles
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