The Inerrancy of Scripture
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” - Hebrews 10:16
Communication is a multistep process. It requires that the thoughts of one individual be transmitted through a medium and into the mind of another individual. The desired end result is that the receiver of a message has the exact same thoughts as the giver of that message. The receiver of that message can then act in a way that corresponds to the information that was given them.
The mark of a good writer is someone who can effectively communicate those ideas to a diverse audience. A good writer is one who can also communicate an emotion, not just give propositions but also influence the emotions and desires of the other individual.
I believe that it is God’s intention to communicate clearly information that doesn’t just reach our heads but also hearts. This information has been revealed to us inerrantly in the pages of the Bible.
Inerrancy Today
A few years ago Pew Research published
on the current religious beliefs of America. Only 33% of Americans agreed that the Word of God is literally true Word for Word. I see some serious consequences with this. If we do not take the Word of God as being literally true then how can we accept it as being authoritative? Even if we did believe it was true, we still struggle enough as it is to obey it.
But I think that this is the heart of why the idea of inerrancy has been so strongly attacked. We all want to live our lives on our terms and don’t want scripture telling us how we should or shouldn’t live our lives. If the Bible can be proved to be errant, then the "rules" no longer apply. We are constantly looking for loopholes in the rules.
Furthermore, all other doctrines in the Bible are irrelevant and nonsensical if the foundation of what we believe about scripture is lacking. Why even study soteriology or eschatology if we believe that there could be errors in the Bible? Can you see the importance of why you might want to deny or prove the inerrancy of scripture?
I do believe that the Bible is inerrant and here are 3 reasons why:
1.
My understanding of my ignorance.
2.
My understanding of the effects of sin.
3.
Evidence.
Ignorance
It has been said by many learned people in history that the more you know, the more you realize how little you know. As I have studied scripture and surveyed what there is to know in this world, I realize that I have only scratched the surface. I can try to understand the history of the life and times of Jesus, but in the end, there are so many variables unaccounted for. I have to admit that at the end of the day when I read scripture, I may not understand how it can be so and I am OK with that because I find other areas in my learning that perceived paradoxes can be explained as knowledge is gained. I often just don’t have all the data in to come to a conclusion.
The Effects of Sin
There have been times where I have been driving and when I try to tune in a particular radio station, all I get is static. It would be absurd for me to call up the radio station and complain that they are broadcasting static. That would imply that the problem is with the station or the information being transmitted rather than perhaps a problem with my radio or how I am receiving it.
In the same way it seems that we are so quick to look at a seemingly difficult to understand passage of scripture and conclude that the Bible has errors. We seem to think that we are the smartest people who have ever lived and that the writings of the “ancients” were “primitive” and we are now so refined to believe any of that nonsense. It is evident that the default of mankind is to assume that “I am right and everyone else is wrong because I am smarter than everyone else, including the Word of God”. This arrogance blinds us from knowing the truth. We are quick to conclude what we want to believe by looking only for evidence that supports our desired conclusions rather than looking into evidence that goes against it.
Evidence
There are many seemingly problematic areas of scripture that make it seem as if there are errors. But usually the objectors to these claims in scripture are operating under certain presumptions of what is true about the world we live in. If there is no supernatural, it would be logical to conclude that Jesus cannot walk on water. But to believe that there is no supernatural is absurd because we all understand at the very least that everything came from something. So then why is it difficult to believe that our Creator would not interact with His creation in supernatural ways? There are numerous ways we can explain these seemingly problematic passages of scripture and I think that the arguments for them are good and I can admit when I think they are poor.
God Has Spoken Clearly
In the end, I find that God’s word is inerrant because it is the ultimate standard for truth and it claims to be inerrant. As a favorite author of mine has explained, all claims to truth are circular in their reasoning. For me, I believe that the Bible is inerrant because it claims to be inerrant. What other standard should I use to draw this conclusion? If I say that reason should be used to determine whether scripture is true, this implies that my mind and my confidence in my ability to reason and research accurately is the ultimate standard of truth. But as mentioned above, I find reason to be fundamentally flawed and I rely on something outside of my fallable reason to tell me what truth really is: The Word of God.