A Quote by J. I. Packer
The infallibility and inerrancy of biblical teaching does not, however, guarantee the infallibility and inerrancy of any interpretation or interpreter of that teaching; nor does the recognition of its qualities as the Word of God in any way prejudge the issue as to what Scripture does, in fact, assert. This can be determined only by careful Bible study.
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Papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy are the two ecclesiastical versions of this human idolatry. Both papal infallibility and biblical inerrancy require widespread and unchallenged ignorance to sustain their claims to power. Both are doomed as viable alternatives for the long- range future of anyone.
The inerrancy of Scripture means that scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.
Any denomination or church group that forsakes inerrancy will end up shipwrecked. It is impossible to prevent the surrender of other important doctrinal teachings of the Word of God when inerrancy is gone.
If men act upon the teaching of the Word of God, and as proportionately men live according to the teaching and commands of the Bible, so they have in practice a sufficient psychological base. I will find you a man dealing with psychological problems on the basis of the teaching of the Word of God, even if he never heard the word psychology, or does not know what it means.
I find it expressed in various passages of Scripture that the fact that God knows things while in a state of possibility, when their existence belongs to the future, does not change the nature of the possible in any way; that nature remains unchanged; and the knowledge of the realisation of one of several possibilities does not yet effect that realisation. This is likewise one of the fundamental principles of the Law of Moses concerning which there is no doubt nor any dispute.
The inerrancy debate is based on the belief that the Bible is the word of God, that the Bible is true because God made it and gave it to us as a guide to truth. But that's not what the Bible says.
The dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is no more self-evident than is that of the infallibility of the popes.
For example, the Bible does say this is a proposition, "There is no God." But of course the context of Psalm 14:1 enriches it a bit: "the fool has said in his heart, there is no God." So there are contextual constraints and when you finish putting in all the contextual constraints and sophisticated discussions of what inerrancy is and isn't.
To stay away from Christianity because part of the Bible’s teaching is offensive to you assumes that if there is a God he wouldn’t have any views that upset you. Does that belief make sense? If you don’t trust the Bible enough to let it challenge and correct your thinking, how could you ever have a personal relationship with God? In any truly personal relationship, the other person has to be able to contradict you.
Sacred scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expressed itself in terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. Any other teaching about the origin and makeup of the universe is so alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven.
Some people say What's the use of the term if it has to be so fully documented and constrained and footnoted and all the rest. My response to that is: there is no theological word that does not have to be similarly footnoted and constrained: justification, spirit, sanctification etc. Any term can be distorted or domesticated or fly off the handle because of another alien philosophical structure that's imposed on the text and so on. Inerrancy is no different from what we find in every other theologically loaded word.
The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith. The two are at opposite sides of the same coin.
The Bible in itself is not the Word of God. The Word of God is a person. Neither does the Bible have life, power or light in itself any more than did the Jewish Torach. These attributes may be ascribed to the Bible only by virtue of its relationship to Him who is Word, Life, Power and Light. Life is not in the book, as the Pharisees supposed, but only in the Man of the book .
At the end of the day, in brief summary: inerrancy is interested in the truthfulness of Scripture and it is a powerful way forcing people to think about that reliability that is God-given.
Tolerance does not...do anything, embrace anyone, champion any issue. It wipes the notes off the score of life and replaces them with one long bar of rest. It does not attack error, it does not champion truth, it does not hate evil, it does not love good.
Whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved - for it is God's teaching and not mine.
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