Another commonly-drawn consequence of belief in inspiration is the claim that the Bible is ‘inerrant’ or ‘infallible’. If we believe that God overruled and inspired the record of those events upon which faith depends, then it is right to suppose that such an account should be reliable. Clearly an inspired Bible is a reliable Bible. But does this reliability necessarily extend to every single detail? Read more
The Bible is one big book made up of many smaller books. As such, it shows both unity (’one’) and diversity (’many’). The unity of the Bible flows from its source in God. If God is ultimately responsible for it all, you would expect it to hold together. But the Bible’s unity can be seen on other levels too. One story—of creation, fall and redemption— runs throughout. Read more
The Bible is often called the ‘word of God‘. It is the way, above all others, that he uses to communicate with us — to get his thoughts and purposes into our minds. But how did books written by many different writers come to be God’s ‘word’? And can we be sure that we are properly understanding what God has revealed? Read more
There is also much in the Bible other than history and its interpretation. For example:
The mainstream Christian view of God, which has been so muddied and pulled out of shape in our time, came from the Bible. How then does the Bible present God?
The God of the Bible is the self-revealing Creator acting as Redeemer. The sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments find their unity in this common theme. The Bible’s history books tell how God is carrying through a great plan for the salvation of a vast international community which the New Testament calls the church. Read more
Books spell the word ‘God‘ with a capital ‘G’. Why? Because ‘God‘ is to all intents and purposes a name: the proper name of the personal Three-inone — Holy Father, Holy Son and Holy Spirit — whom Christians worship, love and serve. ‘God‘ was the English name for the Trinity long before books existed in English.
In our day, indeed for more than a century, the word ‘God‘ has been bent to suit particular Christian view-points. Books of essays have appeared with titles like My idea of God, The God I want — titles that tell their own story. It has even been claimed that God is dead—which has made some recall Mark Twain’s famous cable, ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’ Read more
What Is Judaism?
If you’re Jewish, or even if you are not, and your child asks about what it means to be a Jew, what would you say? Would you stress history or contemporary changes? Would you emphasize culture or religion? In asking these questions of parents, I’ve heard a great variety of responses. The following two illustrations provide an indication of how everyone’s interpretation of a religion can be quite different. Read more
We have no idea what Jesus looked like. There are no physical descriptions of him at all in the Gospels. Yet the person of Jesus and events of his life have been one of the greatest subjects of art throughout the centuries. He has inspired artists of many different cultures, even of many different faiths. We often learn more about the artist and his cultural setting than we do about Jesus. Read more
