Why did God give us the Bible?

[CoAspen]

Word for word vs principle......

[joeb]

OK.  Here is my overall reply to several posts and ideas.

I was going to post a long and involved Bible study on this but I am going to give a short and concise reply instead.  I'm going to rely on words directly from the lips of Jesus for my main premise.

I see posted here that the Pharisees didn't reject scripture but that they just "interpreted" it.  Well, what did Jesus say about that?  

I'll start my reply to that with what the Pharisees said about themselves:  John 9:28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples.

This comes from the story where Jesus healed the blind man who had been born blind and the Pharisess called him before them to account for how he had come to receive his sight.

What did Jesus say about their claim to be disciples of Moses?

Quote

John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
  40  And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
  41  I receive not honour from men.
  42  But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.
  43  I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
  44  How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?
  45  Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.
  46  For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
  47  But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?  

 
Jesus called their "interpretation" of scripture flat out unbelief.  He said that even though they claimed to be the disciples of Moses they were not because they didn't believe what Moses wrote.  Furthermore, He said Moses wrote about Him, and because they didn't believe Moses' writings they couldn't believe in Him.  Jesus repeated this lesson in the allegory of Lazarus and Abraham.  He said in that passage of scripture that people wouldn't believe if someone rose from the dead if they wouldn't believe what Moses and the prophets wrote.  Jesus points out that He doesn't need to accuse them before His Father as Moses is already accusing them of hypocrisy because they claim to be his disciples but yet refuse to believe what he wrote.

Jesus points out that it is pride that keeps men from accepting not only Moses' writings but Himself also.  This is expressed in the desire to be praised by our fellow man for our great intelligence in not believing the simple word of God.  It's ego that causes us to seek honor from other men rather than from God.  It's no different today than when Adam and Eve fell in the garden.  Eve's desire to think herself really smart led her to disbelieve God and accept the devil's insinuations about God.  The big I is always at the heart of sin, and unbelief is sin.

Now, to take this a little further as there are several lessons to be learned from this passage of scripture.  Moses wrote the book of Genesis.  In it he gave us the story of creation. So, when we take what Jesus said about not believing Moses and apply it to our day, when we reject Moses' writings about creation how are we going to accept who Jesus really is because the story of creation is the story of the Son of God creating a planet, and then taking it from a planet "without form and void" and speaking into existence it's light source, atmosphere to sustain life, and  all forms of life He chose to place here, including humanity, inside a 6 day time frame.  The words of Moses on this are explicit.  

The creation story is, by any standard, a story about Christ's power, who He is, and the power of the word of God.  When we reject that story from Moses we reject the scriptural Christ because Moses in telling us this story tells us something about who Christ is and what He is capable of doing.  If we reject what Moses tells us about Him we are in essence saying, I don't believe in the scriptural Christ. I believe in a god of my own imagination. It also tells us that we don't believe in the power of the word of God to recreate us back into God's image for we are rejecting the concept that God's word is capable of creation, and thus the reality of the re-creation of each of our hearts back into His image that He has promised to all who believe in Him. There is no getting around it for Jesus made this plain in His response to the Pharisees as He said that if we reject what Moses wrote about Him we are rejecting Him.  Why is that?  Because to refuse to believe something is to reject it.

The Bible has much more to say on this subject but I'll include just four more quotes: two quotes from Jesus, and two from Paul.

Quote

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and  spirit,  and     of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Hebrews 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.
                  13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

Luke 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Matthew 9:28 And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They             said unto him, Yea, Lord.
                 29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.

In closing, I wonder how it makes God feel when He has demonstrated His great love for us by giving us an infinitely powerful tool for understanding not only ourselves but also exactly who God is and we reject it because we think we're just too smart to take God at His word.  

A very interesting Bible study is to research how many times the people who claimed to be God's people chose to "interpret" the messages given to them by God in a way other than what was plainly said.  You will find the Bible is littered with examples of this mistake and the consequences that came with it.  It's like Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.  Human beings have done since the day Eve "interpreted" what God said to the point she believed His words meant He was withholding something from her that would elevate her to a higher state of existence.

 

[joeb]

On 3/11/2016 at 10:00 AM, CoAspen said:

Word for word vs principle......

Like the principle of God having the power to speak fully developed life into existence vs. the principle of life forms evolving by chance?   These are mutually exclusive ideas.  To accept one means to deny the other.  To accept evolution is to deny the Biblical narrative of creation.