U2 Authority and Inerrancy of Scripture

Authority of Scripture

• All words in scripture is God’s words

• Word is self attesting

• Apostles affirmed it

• Theopneustos

• Convinced of Biblical claims

• Circular arguments

• Dictation

To Disobey/Disbelieve the Word, is to Disobey/Disbelieve God

• God is the Word itself

• Word is not from experiences or creativity of Apostles, but God’s powerful words

• EXAMPLE: Disbelieving Paul’s writings in church was the same as disbelieving OT/other texts

Truthfulness of Scripture

• God can’t lie

• All words in scripture are true and without error

• God’s words are the ultimate standard of truth

• MORALITY = OBJECTIVE

• New facts contradicting Bible? Nah

Inerrancy of Scripture

• Inerrancy, scripture in OG manuscripts doesn’t affirm contrary facts

• Absolute truthfulness is consistent

• Technical errors

  • EXAMPLE: loose wording, grammatical error, bad spacing

Challenges to Inerrancy

• Its only authoritative for faith and practice

  • Ethical conduct, sure, yes, but not main purpose

• Poor term (inerrancy)

  • Its been used lots.

• Inerrant manuscripts, is a misleading word cause there is none

  • Textual variants

• Bible writers accommodated messages and put in falsehoods in the bible

  • That is just fundamentally wrong

• There are clear errors in the Bible

  • It has been proofread for centuries. Occasional divergence (textual variants)

Problems with DENYING Inerrancy

1. Serious moral issues, If God lies, we could also lie

2. Trust issues with God

3. Humans put themselves higher than God

4. Basically saying minor AND MAJOR doctrines are wrong

Written Scripture = Final Authority

• Asking questions is good and strengthens our understanding and trust in the word

• Reconstruction is harmful

• Interpretations can go south

5 Tests: 1

Apostolic - does it come from an Apostle

5 Tests: 2

Authenticity - does it have a ring of truth? Contradictions?

5 Tests: 3

Ancient - has it been used in earlier times?

5 Tests: 4

Accepted - are most churches using it? Did many fact check/proofread?

5 Tests: 5

Accurate - does it conform to orthodox teachings? Heresy perhaps?