A Quote by Leland Ryken
With so many contradictory renditions of the biblical text, the public has lost confidence that we can actually know what the Bible says. It is an easy step from this skepticism to an indifference about what the Bible says.
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I know many of you would say "What about the Bible?" The Bible says this, the Bible says that, the Bible is the inspired Word of God. I think the Bible is the inspired word of man - about God, and some of that is now expired.
Logically, taking Scripture seriously means being passionately concerned about interpreting it correctly and thus welcoming any evidence that exposes erroneous understandings of the biblical text. Unfortunately, many zealous Bible students and teachers confuse their favorite interpretations of the Bible with the Bible itself.
The Bible has lost every major battle it has ever fought. The Bible was quoted to defend slavery and the bible lost. The Bible was quoted to keep women silent, and the Bible lost. And the Bible is being quoted to deny homosexuals their equal rights, and the Bible will lose.
When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded word, we tend to ignore or downplay the parts of the Bible that don’t quite fit our preferences and presuppositions. In an attempt to simplify, we force the Bible’s cacophony of voices into a single tone and turn a complicated, beautiful, and diverse holy text into a list of bullet points we can put in a manifesto or creed. More often than not, we end up more committed to what we want the Bible to say than what it actually says.
It's important for people in the Church to realize that the way they talk and think about the Bible isn't the way Bible scholars talk and think about it - and I'm including "Bible-believing" scholars there. There is a wide gap between the work of biblical scholars, whose business it is to read the text of the Bible in its own worldview context, and what you hear in church.
The Bible itself is a book that constantly must be wrestled with and re-interpreted. ... Bible interpretation is colored by historical context, the reader's bias and current realities. The more you study the Bible, the more questions it raises. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says.
We, including many Christians, read the Bible through "eyes" conditioned by, and even accommodated to, modern Western culture plus the influences of messages and ideas from other cultures that are alien to the worldview of the biblical writers. Therefore, in order fully to understand the Bible and allow the Bible to absorb the world (rather than the world - culture - absorb the Bible) we must practice an "archaeology" of the biblical writers' implicit, assumed view of reality.
The ground we have in common with unbelievers is not the Bible, but our common needs, hurts, and interests as human beings. You cannot start with a text expecting the unchurched to be fascinated by it. You must first capture their attention, and then move them to the truth of God's Word. By starting with a topic that interests the unchurched and then showing what the Bible says about it, you can grab their attention, disarm prejudices, and create an interest in the Bible that wasn't there before.
A weak understanding of what the Bible says about sin is tied to a weak understanding of what the Bible says is achieved by the cross.
People cheer the Bible, buy the Bible, give the Bible, own the Bible - they just don't actually read the Bible.
[The Bible] has to be interpreted. And if it isn’t interpreted, then it can’t be put into action. So if we are serious about following God, then we have to interpret the Bible. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says. We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people.
The goal of Bible translation is: be transparent to the original text - to see as clearly as possible what the biblical authors actually wrote.
The goal of Bible translation is be transparent to the original text - to see as clearly as possible what the biblical authors actually wrote.
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 Heidelberg Catechism rightly says, for all Christians who allow the Bible to absorb the world for them - who see reality through the biblical story - that the purpose of life is to glorify God - a personal being who is ultimate over us and everything else - and enjoy him forever. This should be clear to all Christians, but many Christians have been influenced to think otherwise even about the Bible because of dabbling in movements such as the New Age Movement or the Gospel of Health and Wealth or even naturalistic humanism.
We are sometimes told that we are not a biblical church. We are a biblical church. This wonderful testament of the Old World, this great and good Holy Bible is one of our standard works. We teach from it. We bear testimony of it. We read from it. It strengthens our testimony. And we add to that this great second witness, the Book of Mormon, the testament of the New World, for as the Bible says, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall [all things] be established" (2 Cor. 13:1).
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