The apostates over at the Boar’s Head Tavern are going on and on about how the Bible isn’t inerrant. They’ve done this before, and someone has to show how super apostate it really is. Paul had to deal with “super-apostles”? I have to deal with Super Apostates. And I shall do so right now.
Let’s think about this for a minute. The Bible is inerrant, right? Why does the Bible have to be inerrant? Because the Bible is inerrant. It seems pretty obvious to me. I mean, if we already know that it’s inerrant, why question its inerrancy?
But let’s press even deeper. The Bible must be inerrant in every single detail. If one teeny tiny detail is errant, then any of the details can be errant. And then we have error, and we can’t have that because, as we’ve already seen, the Bible is inerrant. I mean, if the Bible is in error about census numbers or a scientific detail, then we can just as well assume that Jesus never existed, that he didn’t live a perfect life, that he didn’t rise again, or that there isn’t even a God in the first place.
So what about those supposed contradictions? Different census numbers? Different resurrection accounts? Different chronologies? When did Jesus cleanse the temple, for example? Well, it must have been at the beginning AND at the end of his ministry, because John wouldn’t change time around, because then it would be errant. There’s a perfectly rational explanation for every apparent contradiction, mostly because there has to be one. Otherwise, the Bible is errant, and as I’ve already proven with piercing, irrefutable logic above, the Bible is inerrant.
But let’s make one more important point. The Bible is inerrant and gives us inerrant truth only if we take it literally in every point. I mean, think about it. If you can allegorize one part, you can allegorize all parts. The Bible doesn’t mess around with figurative language, folks. It tells nonfiction truth, not fictional lies. And we need plain, literal language. Why?
Because of the wiles of the devil, that’s why. The devil wants to breed uncertainty, and uncertainty comes from things that are figurative and subject to interpretation. Let’s think about the term “Rock and Roll” for a minute. It applies to music, right? Not really! If you take it literally, it refers to a rock (a stone) and a roll (bread). So there’s deception already! What do “Rocks” and “Rolls” have to do with music?!
But then, if you know about the factual history of the term, you’d learn that it’s actually a phrase that means “to have sex,” in other words, to fornicate. Now, think about how much that term “rocks” has made it into our common day vocabulary. People say “that rocks” or “Rock on” all the time! In a positive way! See what the devil has done? If we take those phrases literally, we realized the devil has deceived us. What we’re really saying when we use those phrases is, “that fornicates!” or “Fornicate on!” So that’s what happens when you take things figuratively. You get deceived by the wiles of the devil. If you take them literally, you uncover the deception and speak truth.
It’s no wonder the Super Apostates at the Boar’s Head Tavern don’t think the world was created in six 24-hour periods. Clearly, they’re not literally reading the Bible, and they don’t believe it’s inerrant. They think they have an errant Bible that they can interpret however they want. But you cannot subject the principles of God to literary evaluation.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I dunno whether this is “inerrancy” or not, but it seems to me that, since Scripture points to Christ and derives its authority from him, that means that we should treat every passage of Scripture as if it had come from Jesus. That means I’d want to know pretty clearly what it was Jesus was—and wasn’t—saying, but knowing that, I would (or perhaps, should) trust it implicitly.
I do believe that Scripture is inerrant, although I find the debates sterile. It’s far more interesting to work out what Scripture is saying than to cut it up into pieces that’ll fit in a test-tube.
Thanks Fred for opening my eyes to reality!
You have cleared up the inerrancy issue for me, but even more importantly you’ve steered me away from sausage rolls for good. And I’ll never eat Pop Rocks again (especially with Grandpa in the room. I need a spiritual scrubbing brush for the brain to get rid of that image!)
This is an inerrant comment as well, and I even made my rabbits promise to wear rubbers while in the chicken coop, this weekend!!