Who can understand the Bible?

It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.Mark Twain
The Bible can be challenging to understand.  66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,173 verses, ~40 authors over a 1,500 year period, etc.  But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t accessible.  As Twain noted, some [...]

Stars, sand and how to read the Bible

A recent commenter on my other blog viewed Genesis 15:5 as evidence that the Bible has errors.  The context is God promising Abraham that despite his advanced age he would have many offspring.
Genesis 15:5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then [...]

Study Bibles

I’ve encouraged a couple commenters to consider study Bibles, so I thought I’d get a little more specific.
My wife’s favorite (and hey, she’s a librarian!) is the Quest Study Bible.  It has lots of the most common questions addressed in the sidebars.  I like it, too.
The Life Application Study Bible is my mainstay.  It has thousands [...]

Itching ears

Many people - including self-proclaimed Christians, surprisingly enough - claim that the Bible is unreliable because of its age and how it was assembled.  They use terms like “bronze age mythology” or “old words” or some such thing.  The theme is that if the words are old then they have lesser or no value.But consider [...]

Old Testament God / New Testament God?

A common misperception about the Bible is that there are two Gods at work, or that somehow God was trying to improve his reputation in the New Testament (NT).  The typical refrain is that the Old Testament (OT) God was vengeful and the New Testament God is loving and kind. A balanced reading of the whole Bible [...]

Who can understand the Bible?

Beware of churches or denominations the insist that you can’t understand the Bible without them giving their official interpretation of it to you.  Some churches actually discourage people from reading it on their own. 
But remember that the letters in the New Testament, for example, were written to real people.  They didn’t have to get a priest [...]

Why the New Testament is Scripture

Note: This is written more for Christians who deny the validity of New Testament books than it is for skeptics (though all are welcome).   
It is popular to dismiss the following passage as not applying to the New Testament since it had not been officially canonized at that time.  However, many letters were already in [...]

Inerrant, infallible, inspired

Claims of Biblical inerrancy, inspiration and infallibility apply to the original writings.  I have researched countless difficulties and found answers that satisfied me.  Some are tougher than others.  Some things are in the Job category (as in, I’m not capable of understanding them or God doesn’t need me to understand them). 
I learned enough about the book to [...]

Busy busy busy

Hi - I’m going to be rather busy the next couple weeks so I’ll be doing a limited amount of commenting here and at your blogs.  I just didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you.
I have posts set to go every couple days.  Have fun!

The Importance of Sound Doctrine

Cross posted at 4Simpsons Blog.  I had this on my web site and referred to it so often that I thought I would post it here.
Many people downplay the importance of doctrine, saying such things as, “All the theology I need is that God is love” or “I just want to follow Jesus.”  But they have a false idea [...]

“The Lord says . . .”

Is the Bible the Word of God?
The Bible directly quotes God roughly 3,000 times and the New Testament writers quote the Old Testament as the Word of God 320 times.  Keep in mind that some of those references covered whole sections of scripture and not just one verse.
Also, Jesus claimed to be God, so all [...]

Exploring Christianity - Part 9 - Open mindedness

Here’s the latest installment of my friend Nicholas’ interview with me about Christianity.
Nicholas asked, “Christianity, like so many religions, insists that it encompasses the ultimate truth. Therefore, to be Christian is to believe that to disagree with this ‘truth’ is to be wrong. This in mind, is it possible to be Christian and open-minded at the [...]

Exploring Christianity - Part 7 - Prayer

See below to see the latest installment of my friend Nicholas’ interview with me about Christianity or click here for the whole thing.  
Nicholas wrote: In my experience, most prayers fall into one of two general categories - prayers of thanks and prayers of request. I understand the first quite well, and I understand that prayers of [...]

Memorizing Bible verses

I came across a site that helps you memorize Bible verses and thought I would link to it while re-running this post.  Check it out!
Psalm 119:9, 11 How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin [...]

Exploring Christianity - Part 5 - Interpreting the Bible or abusing it?

See below to see the latest installment of my friend Nicholas’ interview with me about Christianity or click here for the whole thing.  
Nicholas wrote: Historically, the Bible has been used to justify some pretty atrocious actions.  I assume you believe there is one correct interpretation of the Bible and that any interpretation which allowed these actions [...]

Exploring Christianity - Part 4 - Hell

(Cross posted at the 4Simpsons blog) 
See below to see the latest installment of my friend Nicholas’ interview with me about Christianity or click here for the whole thing.  
Nicholas wrote: What happens to those who, through no fault of their own, never experience the Gospel of Christ?  Have entire populations been hell-bound from birth having never had a [...]

Exploring Christianity - Part 3 - Credibility of the Author(s) - B

See below to see the latest installment of my friend Nicholas’ interview with me about Christianity or click here for the whole thing.  This part is a follow up on the credibility of Biblical writers.  We agreed to move on to a different topic next, which is good, because I’ve run out of things to say on [...]

Exploring Christianity - Part 2 - Credibility of the Author(s) - A

Click here to see the latest installment of my friend Nicholas’ interview with me about Christianity.  He set up a new easy-to-read page that he can just add to as we go along.  The second part dealt with the case for the credibility of Biblical writers. 
Follow-up: Let’s start with your claim that the Bible is written by [...]

Exploring Christianity - Part 1 - The Bible

Why do I believe the Bible is the true word of God and that other holy books are not?
This was the first question posed to me by my friend Nicholas during our conversation about Christianity.  He posted it at his blog last week.  I’m posting it here for archival purposes.  Here is my response:
First, let me thank [...]

Dalmatian Theology

They don’t refer to it as such, but many Christians teach a message of Dalmatian theology, whereby the Bible is only inspired in spots and they are inspired to spot the spots.   (Hat tip to the Baptist pastor who coined this phrase. )
Saying the Bible isn’t fully inspired by God may seem like a humble premise, but [...]