What Does God Think of the Bible?

[doubtingthomas]

So Msnobody, are you saying that if you write a book about somebody, that somebody must want us to believe that book?

Are you completely sure that god exists? Why?

[drumdude]

Drumdude, how do you know that Christ taught anything about the Bible at all?

Are you asking historically or biblically?

[KevinSim]

Are you completely sure that god exists?

Yes. I've got a hunch that satisfies me intellectually.

Why?

We humans have free will, which means we are non-deterministic. Non-determinism cannot arise from a completely deterministic universe. Therefore I conclude that some thinking, non-deterministic being has to have existed in this universe since the moment of the Big Bang. I find it very hard to believe that anybody but a good God could have stayed sane after those thirteen billion years. So I believe in a good God.

[msnobody]

It is what God has given, the Word ( written, spoken, or the person of Jesus) that reveals to us the person eof Jesus Christ, informs us of who we are, and how to have peace with God.

Msnobody, how do you know that God gave the Bible?

I think I would have to say because of what His word does in the lives of people. Like I said previously, it does what is says it will do. It reveals to us who we are and who God is. Really, it is something each person has to discover for him or herself. I would recommend reading it, not assuming that you already know what it says. Pray before you read and ask God to speak to you as you read.

I will give you an example. I've shared this on the discussion board before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D569x5TqtVk. This is a video of Micah Wilder describing how God changed his life through reading the Bible. As he says in the video, read it like a child.

[KevinSim]

Drumdude, how do you know that Christ taught anything about the Bible at all?

Are you asking historically or biblically?

We're trying to find out if God wants us to believe the Bible. Does it make any sense to appeal to the Bible to conclude that Jesus taught about the Bible? Historically would be good, if it could establish with certainty that Jesus taught things about the Bible.

[KevinSim]

I've shared this on the discussion board before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D569x5TqtVk. This is a video of Micah Wilder describing how God changed his life through reading the Bible.

Msnobody, I started watching that clip, but I'm at a noisy swimming pool in our community's Rec Center, and I couldn't understand what Micah was saying, so ultimately I gave up on it. I'll try to watch it the next time I get a good opportunity. But it's interesting that twice in your post you seemed to be asserting that a transformed life while reading a book is evidence that God produced that book. Does that mean that if somebody's life is transformed while reading Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto that therefore God must have produced that book?

[msnobody]

(Deleted duplicate.)

No

I just got back from a trip out of town. May post more tomorrow.

[drumdude]

Are you asking historically or biblically?

We're trying to find out if God wants us to believe the Bible. Does it make any sense to appeal to the Bible to conclude that Jesus taught about the Bible? Historically would be good, if it could establish with certainty that Jesus taught things about the Bible.

Well the problem is that we really only know Jesus through the New Testament. If you throw that away then you just have a person named Jesus that was executed for stirring up trouble in Judea. If you eliminate the Bible then you eliminate 99.9% of what we know about the character Jesus.

[msnobody]

We're trying to find out if God wants us to believe the Bible. Does it make any sense to appeal to the Bible to conclude that Jesus taught about the Bible? Historically would be good, if it could establish with certainty that Jesus taught things about the Bible.

Well the problem is that we really only know Jesus through the New Testament. If you throw that away then you just have a person named Jesus that was executed for stirring up trouble in Judea. If you eliminate the Bible then you eliminate 99.9% of what we know about the character Jesus.

The entire Old Testament points to Jesus.

[drumdude]

Well the problem is that we really only know Jesus through the New Testament. If you throw that away then you just have a person named Jesus that was executed for stirring up trouble in Judea. If you eliminate the Bible then you eliminate 99.9% of what we know about the character Jesus.

The entire Old Testament points to Jesus.

The writers of the Old Testament, the Jews, tend to disagree. I see it as the followers of Christ "retconning" those stories when they created the sequel, like writers often do when they create sequels for television and film.

One of my favorite lines in the New Testament is, "Jesus rode in on a donkey, so as to fulfil prophesy." You can imagine him standing around, asking, "Where's my donkey? We have to check it off the list."

The writers may not have been thinking of that interpretation at all in season 1, but they have the freedom to write season 2 as if they planned it all along.