Apologetics Biblical Studies Bible Tools of the Devil? or, What’s the Best Bible Translation? by Craig A. Smith, Ph.D. I remember a campus minister friend of mine who once had a family offer to support his ministry entirely, meaning that he could forget the time-consuming task of raising support and keeping in regular touch with…
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So, how do we know when to read the Bible literally vs. reading it figuratively? Well, again, as we’re going to see over and over again: we make that decision the same way that we do it in normal conversation. And basically, the way we do it in normal human conversation is that we assume…
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One of the things that sometimes divides what we might call “conservative” Christianity from “liberal” Christianity has to do with whether or not someone claims to believe in the “literal” meaning of the Bible. This is an incredibly misleading concept and we all need to stop getting hung-up on it. The real question is not…
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In the last installment of Bible Basics, we made the point that a passage means only what its A(a)uthor[1] intended it to mean. A right interpretation is one that matches up with what the A(a)uthor of the passage meant when H(h)e wrote it. However, while there is typically only one meaning of a biblical passage…
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The goal of biblical interpretation is simple: to understand what God meant by each thing He said in the Bible. Here’s one of the most important things to keep in mind when interpreting the Bible: God is the one who decides what a passage means. He’s the ultimate author of the Bible, so God…and the…
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This principle is so basic I’m almost embarrassed to include it in the list, but it’s definitely one of those truths that nearly everyone seems to forget. Listen, communication takes work. This doesn’t apply only to communication between God and human beings…all communication takes work. To really understand someone else, we have to listen well and…
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3. Reading the Bible Doesn’t Require Special Skills Let’s get one thing very clear right up front: I believe in the inspiration of Scripture. What that means is that I believe that God Himself is the ultimate Author of every word in the Bible. No word is in the Bible that God didn’t want there…
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2. The Bible was written for us, but it wasn’t written directly to us. [box_dark]Got less than 5 minutes to get your truth-fix? View the condensed video version of this article at our new Sound Bites channel: [button link=”https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo9VpYZgLXjGMKYqT3mhD3g” variation=”blue”]View Channel[/button][/box_dark] God never changes, but the world that God speaks into changes constantly. The world…
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Obviously the Bible is an incredibly important book. Even non-Christians have to recognize that biblical principles are foundational to Western culture. You can say what you want about certain parts of the Bible that you might not like for whatever reason, but without the Bible, the world would look very different today…and not in a…
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[box_dark]The question of whether or not the Gospels can be trusted to present an accurate view of Jesus’ life, teaching and deeds comes up all the time in our culture. What follows is a presentation of some of the key evidence that needs to be considered by any skeptic really interested in engaging this topic. …
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