The Bible?

Question

Lets do this in steps.

1) Do you agree the Bible is God's Word?

2) Do you agree the verses below say God's Word will endure forever?

Isaiah 40:8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

1Peter 1:25 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

3) If you said yes to both of the above then do you also agree that even if the Catholics did not put together the Bible we would still have God's Word? If you disagree then do you think God lied? That His Word could not have endured without man's intervention?

Veritatum17 - as to number 3 let me explain it this way. Many Catholics say we should thank them for the Bible. What I am trying to make clear in 3 is that we would have God's Word regardless of whether or not the Catholics had compiled it. God would have insured that it endured someway.

Let me clear something up. When I say the Catholics put the Bible together all I mean is they took the letters that had been written and bound them together in one book. Not that they wrote them or anything that way.

johnandeileen2000 - I consider myself to be more than moderately educated. I have a bachelors and masters degree in biology and I am working on a PhD in the same. Yet I still see the truth in the Bible. The one's who do not see the truth are the willfully ignorant.

spiritroaming - I have seen many catholics on here say we should thank them for the Bible. In addition to claiming to have written it.

spiritroaming - let me also add you just kind of proved a bit what I am saying. You said if Catholicism is false it should make us think the Bible is dubious as well. This is common on here. Catholics saying if we do not accept Catholicism how can we accept the Bible. We accept the Bible because God promised it would endure. You don't think God could use a corrupt group to put together His Word? Let me add I do not think Catholics are corrupt or non-Christian. I just think they have let man made tradition take them away from the Bible and what God intended.

Answer 1

1. yes
2. yes

3. I find it rather humorous that the Catholics think we should thank them for the Bible, but they don't study it or go by it in their teaching.

I never saw my mom open a Bible. I never saw my aunt's or uncles open and study a Bible. Oh, they talked a lot, and thought they knew God, but they were being led by man-made doctrine.

God does not lie. His word would endure forever, and we would still have it whether the Catholics were around or not. They just happened to be the ones God chose for the job. Why, I don't know, that is something God can only answer. But it is what it is.

Hey, maybe God had them help so that one day they would live by it. LOL

Ok, sorry, had to say it....Forgive me Lord, that was mean.

God bless.

Answer 2

Agree to one and two, but your logic to get to three is a bit off.

We would have God's Word in whatever way He willed it. As such, we Christians have God's Word because of those who collected it, debated it, prayed on it, considered it, and finally compiled it. As such, God included man in His plan as a mechanism, a means to an end and an end in ourselves.

Consider the plan of salvation, in which God used man (actually, woman - Mary) to bring Truth into the world. The assembling of the Bible is just another example.

So it is not so much that man intervened, as that man was made an instrument of God's plan.

Consider this - had God NOT wanted man to put the Bible together, where else do we find the Word? Could it be in the traditions that have been passed down by the Church for millenia? Or is there, as some apocryphal books suggest, a point in time at which God will reveal the 72 books of Scripture (according to the Book of Esdras, anyway) up in the sky for all to see?

Answer 3

I tripped on the first step. The Bible does not say that the Bible (a collection of books written and assembled by original Christians in the first century) is God's Word.

Here's what the Bible says in John 1:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

According to the Bible, Jesus Christ, not the Bible, is the Word of God.

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 4

One thing you are failing to consider is that the Word of God exists in both the Spoken and Written form.

How many times have did Jesus preface His teachings with, "You have heard it said,..." or "It is written..." but He always follows with... "but what I say is..."

Also, Jesus never wrote a single Gospel, word, or letter.

Jesus never told His apostles to go and write the Gospel, but to PREACH the Gospel.

The earliest Gospel probably was not written until at least 20 years after the Crucifixion. So, what did the early Church do? Nothing? Wait for someone to write the Gospel? Of course not!

So, you see, it is very true that God's Word is eternal. No doubt. It is also true that the Bible is God's Word, but the Bible is not the totality of God's Word.

Answer 5

1. I agree
2. I agree
3. God will always protect His Word. Humans can do a lot of good, but they should recognize when they are bad. We should always back things up with the Bible because His Word is as good now as it has been in the past and it will be in the future.

Answer 6

Yes. Because the Word would still have been preached - spoken - regardless of whether it was written down or not, through Apostolic succession.


I don't want you to thank me. And the posts I've seen about the Church compiling the Bible didn't ask for thanks. They simply stated that it was the Church who put together and canonized the Bible, so if Catholicism is false, then the Bible should be dubious at best.


I know you think that. But you are incorrect, brother.

Answer 7

1. No, the Bible itself says that Jesus was the Word. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God...His own people received Him not."

2. Yes

3. Yes, Jesus needs no man's intervention to endure.

Answer 8

You are so right, it wasn't possible for God's word to not survive:

Matt 24:35, Jesus said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, BUT MY WORDS SHALL NOT PASS AWAY". When Jesus said this, that sealed it up, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it's coming to pass, just as he said!!!

Jesus said, in John 17:

8) "For I have given them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have know surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me".

20) "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which SHALL believe on me THROUGH THEIR WORD:" We believe through their word written in both the Old and New testaments; the inspired word of God, kept by His power. You see, the New Testament hadn't been written as yet, but when Jesus said this, He knew that it would be written & kept.

To "keep" the word, means to guard (from loss or injury); Strong's Greek Dictionary. This is what "keep" means in Rev 1:3, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and KEEP those things which are written therein::: FOR THE TIME IS AT HAND". Those who love His word, and pass it down from generation-to-generation. Remember how the children of Israel posted the commandments at the entrances to their homes. That was
"Keeping" the word.

Answer 9

God`s word will endure just like the story of The Three Bears and have about as much non fiction content.

Answer 10

1) No. The Bible is not God's Word. But God's Word may be transmitted through it. They say the Bible was "inspired" so it is God's word. Well a sermon may be "inspired" but that does not make the sermon God's word, it is just God's word being transmitted through the sermon.

2) So when they talked about the "Word of God" there was no Holy Bible yet. The Bible is just pages and writing like any other, but the message itself is the Word of God. Not the words, but the message.