This message wasn't really a message. They had people come down to two mics and ask their questions about the Bible. Below is the list and some notes on the answers given. It was great to see the interest. There were at least 50 lined up to ask questions, and he only got to about 10 of them. He is a very smart guy and answered the questions like he had prepared answers ready to go. He speaks from a wealth of knowledge and I think you'll find the responses helpful.
"Q & A about the Bible"
What separates the Bible from other books?
-When we say that the Bible is inspired, we aren't paying it a compliment by saying it is so good that it qualifies as holy text. It is inspired for many other reasons
How did we get our 66 books and why were some ommitted?
-Apocryphal writings- the early church considered them important spiritual books, but never on the same level as the cannon (Maccabees, etc.)
-Pseudo-pigraphal- not actually true writings (gospel of Mary not actually written by Mary)
-Gnostic groups- a few who believed they had the key to scriptures that wrote books they believed were true, but weren't scripture
Apostalicity- had to be linked to an Apostle
Catholicity- all churches recognize that these are the correct books
-By the 2nd century, the church had already settled on the 66 books we have now, and they believed it was complete, nothing needing to be added and nothing needed to be taken away
What about passages that are in some Bible's and not others (end of Mark 16:9-20 , etc.)?
-There a significant textual questions about those texts, although he believes they should still be in the scriptures
-The original manuscripts are gone so we don't know exactly what they should look like
What parts of the law are applicable today? Why some things and not others?
- the law shows us our need for Christ and it teaches us how to live
-Different kinds of law
-Moral law (repeated in the NT and inhanced- murder to anger, adultery to lust)
-Ceremonial law (what happens in worship- sacrifices, festivals, holiness code) which is done away with completely in the NT because it is fulfilled in Christ
-We need to discuss homosexuality one of many sexual sins that all of us can fall in left to ourselves
Is the Bible inerrant, infallible, consequentially inerrant, etc.?
-Infallible- it will never fail... this is true, but not a complete statement
-Inerrant- no errors
-If we say that the inconsequential parts may have errors, then what do we say is inconsequential? Every part of scripture is essential. Either it is without error or it is. There is no in between.
Postmodernism
-Takes into account that worldview establishes the way we construct reality
-some truth applies where other truths don't, that there are different people groups with different stories that historicize their background
-this produces the wrong type of humility by saying that no one can really know truth.. truth is only meaningful to the individual
-it states that the reader is the authority, not the writer
-postmodernism denies that there is a great universal truth that we can know and are held accountable to and that there is a metanarrative that ties everything together
What about the Doctrines of Grace and people who don't believe in them?
-people want to have some part in salvation
-semi-palagian: our environment makes us sinful and we only need a certain amount of grace to boost us across the finish line
-it is hard to show people grace when we are strangling them with the doctrines of grace
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