I recently had a discussion with some folks who were defending women serving as pastors and homosexuality. According to them, “The Bible was written by men so we cannot believe everything written in it.” So that got me to thinking, which parts of the Bible should we believe?
I have always been taught that the Bible was the inerrant, infallible, inspired, Word of God. I’ve never once challenged anything it says–especially when it directly speaks to a particular subject. As far as this argument started it was easy.
1 Timothy 2:11-14 CSB
A woman is to learn quietly with full submission. [12] I do not allow a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; instead, she is to remain quiet. [13] For Adam was formed first, then Eve. [14] And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed.
Leviticus 18:22 CSB
You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable.
Romans 1:26-27 CSB
For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. [27] The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 CSB
Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, [10] no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom.
However, it was not so easy to point out where it says it’s inerrant, infallible, and inspired. Inerrancy means that everything written is without error. Infallible means there are contradictions, and inspired means it came directly from God.
The Bible has stood the test of time. The Old Testament has been around in some form for thousands of years and the New Testament much more recently. We know that Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 CSB: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, [17] so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
God used 40 different people to write His story to us. He inspired each person to use their own skills and abilities to write what He inspired them to write. I don’t think that God personally dictated word-for-word, but rather used each person’s personality to create the written Word.
In ancient times there was no printing press so copies had to be handwritten by scribes. This was their job and they did it remarkably well. Of course, through the copying of Scripture, there have been some errors such as misspellings, translating words into different languages and such, but there have been no errors in the meanings of Scripture throughout the ages. How do we know this? The original manuscripts have been found and have been compared to the different translations of the Bible. Nothing has been investigated and challenged as much the Bible. Through all that, we know without a doubt that what we now have is the Holy, Inspired, Inerrant, Infallible, Word of God.
Somebody's Gotta Say It... 