Monday, January 26, 2009

Devotional

1 Peter 3:15: "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…"

When we are living our lives or answering questions about our faith, we should always remember to do it “with gentleness and respect,” demonstrating the love of Christ. We must also “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you” about what you believe. This means to study up! Read the Word of God. It is one of His ways of talking to us. And in reading it, we can better understand and learn about the One Who loved us so much that He would die in our place.

Is the Bible Reliable (Part 1)?
Many people think that the Bible is fallible because it has many translations and it was written by men. It is true. There have been many translations of the Bible and the Bible was written by men, Godly men. We don’t have the original manuscripts of the New Testament. However, about 5,600 completed manuscript copies exist, some that were copied less than 100 years after the original. Compared to other historical documents, this is outstanding! People think Plato’s work is reliable, yet we only have 7 copies of his work, the earliest being copied over 1,200 years after the original. Homer’s Iliad has 500 years between its original and its copy; it has 643 copies.

How do you view the Bible? Has your opinion of the Bible changed?

Resources: Gideon’s Three Hundred//Tactical Guide, The Bible, New King James Version

9 comments:

  1. The Bible in and of itself is not reliable. But God is. Which makes His word follow in suit. People do misquote it, people do abuse it, and people do try to change things. In all honesty, the different translations have messed up the meanings of things (don't forget how important a single comma can be). Assuming the Judeo-Christian God of the Universe is the one who commissioned the Bible to be written, you would think His Divine Intervention thing would prevent it from getting totally mistranslated or copied wrong or anything like that. The Bible we have today is nearly identical to the one written up to thousands of years ago, given room for linguistical nuances. Sit on that one.

    And Jackie, I follow your blog if you follow mine :)

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  2. The fact that Bible did change very much doesn't necessarily mean its information is reliable and trustworthy. The people wrote the document had some hidden motives which we don't know. In the past 2000 years, Church and J[ew]s put a lot of effort to maintain the teaching of Bible to be an absolute moral standard because it is a way they can survive as a coward, inferior species. They used the Bible to "brainwash" the [I]nd[o] - [E]urop[ean] [r]ac[e] and took advantage of their life-force and wisdom to serve the purpose of J[ew]s, their community re-organization plan, their banking system and eventually Zionism.

    Z Mccarthy

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  3. to:ZMccarthy
    Thank you for your comment. I hope to cover what you discussed in it in the second part of "Is the Bible Reliable?"

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  4. I have a simple question for The Cynical Christ Follower (out of curiosity). How could you follow Christ or know anything about God if you believe the Bible is unreliable?

    I have a simple question for ZMccarthy (out of curiosity). Out of the couple things that you said that were pretty opionated and quite bias. You say that the Bible was being used to "brainwash" people, and you probably believe that the Bible is still being used to "brainwash" people (am I correct). Explain to me how your views are not "brainwashed" by the public education system, media, professors, and other bias sources?

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  5. to:Tony
    Well, I could be wrong. Any information source is more or less biased. Personally, I don't trust the information from education system because it has been hijacked by liberal minds already. Media and Professors are not possible to inform me this kind of radical message because they are also very liberal and [J]e[w][i]sh mind. So it is not very likely that my theory come from these stuff you mentioned.

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  6. to:ZMccarthy
    I just wrote you a very long and detailed reply to your comment. It some how got erased, so I'm not going to write that again.

    I just wanted to thank you for your reply and help you realize that people always point to Christians or Jews and say they are "brainwashed" because they believe in God and the Bible, but those people never look to themselves as being "brainwashed" all of the influences around themselves. We'll be talking some more....

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  7. Is the bible reliable? Well this can be a hard question depending which angle you are taking it from. I agree with some of what was posted already. Yes, there is many translations of the bible. Yes, the bible we read now is not as accurate as the original. For those who think that the bible is brainwashing people well I beg to differ. What we all need to focus on is that the bible is the very word of God, the all knowing and all powerful God. God knew before we were born that there was going to be different translations, interpretations, view points, and theologies followed from the bible. God prepared for that by leaving us a wonderful counselor(Holy Spirit)to hear his voice talking to us as we read any translation. Many people read the bible just to read it but fail to read it in the spirit. (Not excluding myself) It is when we read it in the spirit we are able to receive from it what God wants us to. I pray that this helps someone. God bless and love always win

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  8. to:Tony
    I think I should apologize the offense I made recently. Personally, I respect the Christianity as a tradition and world view very much. But clearly many social liberal thought already influence the young Christians. (While I am saying conservative church is better). I fear the current trend and really doubt that God is still handling these things. From my life experience, God never blessed the good or righteous, I don't want hear the teaching about good man is good, even the good and right behavior can constantly cause your own trouble. I am very disappointed.

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  9. to:ZMcarthy
    I know sometimes it's hard to believe in something or Someone you cannot see...but I know from personal experience that God is around and that we have a gift in His Son, Jesus. I have seen God answer my prayers and I have seen Him work in my life. Not to say I haven't had hard times because everyone has those, but through it all I have God's strength to get through it. The Bible says that "No one is good..." (Mark 10:18) we often think that the standard for good is other people, but we forget that the standard is God. That is ehy He sent His Son to die for us. In order to be in the presence of God, to be with Him, one would have to be perfect...and since we are not, God sent His Son, Jesus, Who is perfect to die for us, in our place. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. We all fall short (Romans 3:23), but because of Jesus's blood, we have salvation. The Bible tells us to keep doing good, our treasures are not stored here, but in heaven (Matt 6:19-20). God hasn't abandoned us. Many have chosen to abandon Him.

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