Matthew 5:17-18 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (NASB)
Introduction and review:
As a pastor, I am constantly pouring over the text repeatedly, prayerfully and studiously asking the following questions: What is it saying? What does it mean? Where is Christ in this text? And how do I apply it to my life? The words of the Bible are my life, because they connect me to the life, voice and Person of Jesus Christ. Spiritual and physical life hang upon whether the words before me are words of God or words of men.
For the past couple of days we have laid out the following six reasons as to why you can know that today's Bibles are God's Word:
1. Jesus said so
2. Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls
3. Amazing agreement between the ancient copies and versions of the Old Testament.
4. The Historic Christian position has been that the Bible in its copies and translations has the authority of being God's inerrant and infallible Word
5. The copies and translations of the New Testament are in remarkable agreement with one another, showing no essential loss as to the message, doctrines and remarkable preservation of the words of God.
6. Being that God cannot lie, the original manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments had to be without error.
I invite the reader to preview back through the previous two posts to gain the overall thrust of the above six reasons.1
Final thoughts
As we close out today's post and this series, I leave the reader with a quote from a leading evangelical scholar, Dr. Wayne Grudem, who states the following about the reliability of the manuscripts and translations of the Bible:1
“For most practical purposes, then, the current published scholarly texts of the Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are the same as the original manuscripts. Thus, when we say that the original manuscripts were inerrant, we are also implying that over 99 percent of the words in our present
manuscripts are also inerrant, for they are exact copies of the originals. Furthermore,
we know where the uncertain readings are (for where there are no textual variants we
have no reason to expect faulty copying of the original).”It is the hope of this blogger that the above post has proven encouraging and useful to the reader in understanding that the Bibles we have today can still be deemed the word(s) of God. Furthermore, knowing the status of the long transmission history of the Old and New Testament, this author can say with full confidence that the Bibles we have today carry with them the authority of being the inerrant and infallible word of God. They do not merely contain the words of God, but are so. With whatever variations there are among the manuscripts, such differences bow their proverbial knees to the Christ of whom the words that God has seen fit to preserve down to our generation speaks forth and clearly portrays.
Endnotes:
1.http://pastormahlon.blogspot.com/2014/03/p1-pastor-gives-six-reasons-why-you-can.html
2. Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology. Zondervan. 1994.
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