Is the bible authoritive and truly inspired?

Some speculate that they are added lines. I don't think they know for certain. I'll have to back and read that post latter. I don't know who that single verse could have any real impact on the revelation of the Triune God. That the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God is made abundantlty clear elsewhere in undisputed passages.But you can explain how you think absence or presence of 1 John 5:7 alters the teaching of the Three - One God. I think that in the very same epistle of First John the weight of other passages confirms a trinitarian understanding of God. I don't think the matter of the three-oneness of God stands or fails on verse 7 purpledawn. Include or exclude verse 7 and see what we still have in the same letter:1.) In 1:1 we have the divine life that was with the Father. And that divine life was handled, seen, heard and manifested to the apostles in the Son who is a Man:" ... our hands handled the Word of life (And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us." ) [/b]This is an uncreated and divine eternal life who is the Person of Jesus Christ. Being the eternal life with no beginning this must be God Himself in the form of a man.This much shows a utter oneness of the Father and the Son. And ...2.) To have fellowship with this eternal life is to "have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ."That is TWO distinct Persons yet ONE divine life. We are well on our way to trinitarian understanding of God already.3.) The disciples only know that God abides in them by the Holy Spirit in 3:24 and 4:13. "And in this we know that He [God] abides in us, by the Spirit whom He gave to us." "In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given to us of His Spirit"Experiencially, the disciples only know by the Holy Spirit within them, that God abides in them. So you have an organic unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit already.4.) "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God" (4:15)Here the believer in Christ the Son of God abides in this God. Yet John's exhortation is to abide in Christ for His second coming: "And now, little children, abide in Him, so that if He is manifested, we may have boldness and not be put to shame from Him [Jesus] at His coming." ( 2:28)To abide in Jesus the Son is to abide in God the Father. This shows the oneness of the Father and the Son. And the only way the disciples know that God abides in them is by the Holy Spirit.The revelation of the Trinity is already established in the same epistle quite independent upon 5:7.5.) We are told that the divine eternal life is in the Son, and to have the Son is to have the life: "And this is the testimony, that God gave to us eternal life and this life is in His Son.

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He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life." (5:11,12)If you would think about it, the very term FATHER denotes a SOURCE of life. So the FATHER'S own uncreated and eternal life is embodied in the Son of God. This confirms a multi-une revelation of God. The Father's divine life is dispensed into the believers in the Son of the Father.6.) Whoever denies the Son of God cannot possibly have the Father: "Everyone who denies the Son does not have t he Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also." (2:22,23) And to abide in God is to abide in the Father and in the Son simultaneously: " If that which you heard from the beginning abides in you, you will also abide in the Son and in the Father." (2:24)And remember, the only experiencial way the believers know that they abide in the Father and in the Son is by the Holy Spirit whom God has given to them: "And in this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He gave to us." (3:24) "In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given to us of His Spirit." (4:13) 7.) To abide in the FATHER and HIS SON is to to have the true God and eternal life. Look carefully how John worded his final passages: "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.

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This is the true God and eternal life." (5:19,20) The saved ones know Him who is true. And they are organically within Him who is true - yet this is to be in His Son ! "we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ.". "This" is the true God. John did not say "This is the true Son of God". John said "THIS ... is the TRUE GOD" . John is refering to Him that is true and His Son Jesus Christ as the Divine "THIS".Even more than that John is including the experience of abiding in the Father and the Son as subjectively "the true God and eternal life".This experience of an organic union of the the believer's life with the Father and the Son is so uppermost that everything replacing this experience is an idol that the believers should guard themselves from: " ... and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, ruard yourselves from idols." (5:20b,21)I use to not understand the last verse in First John. It seemed that the apostle wanted to start a new subject about idols and perhaps ran out of scroll.Then I realized the connection between verse 21 and what has gone before. Anything replacing in our lives Him that is true and His Son Jesus Christ, can become an idol. Nothing should compete with the experience of abiding in the Triune God. Nothing should be more important to man then abiding in the Triune God.And the saved should guard against anything which usurps the preeminence of abiding in the Triune God. Anything more important to man then living in an organic union with the Father and the Son become idolatry. Preeminence must be given to this organic oneness of the Trinity with His saved people.Apart from a contraversial single passage, beceause of copy descrepences, does not effect the revelation of the Triune God abundantly testified to elsewhere in the same book, let alone eslewhere in the New Testament and even entire Bible.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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Apart from a contraversial single passage, beceause of copy descrepences, does not effect the revelation of the Triune God abundantly testified to elsewhere in the same book, let alone eslewhere in the New Testament and even entire Bible.

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I'm sure you don't, but the fact is that there are significant discrepancies between the older manuscripts and the new ones, which means there are discrepancies between some versions of the Bible that Christians use for their religion as you can see in the parallel link.So which version has the authority or is the authority really with the clergy? That's who people listen to. Most Christians haven't really read the Bible. They listen to sermons or Bible studies that pull verses from various authors to make a main point. The layperson isn't necessarily learning what point the author was actually making in the writing.The Christian Bible by itself has no authority. It's just a book. It doesn't give our clergy their authority. People do that.

More like an Alan Sherman single.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I won't in a single post try to deal completely with the issue you raise.However will say something. In that natural world we have three things which are dependent upon one another in a kind of logically "unfair" circular way. Take Time, Motion, and Space. We can only measure Time by Motion through Space.
Yet we can only measure Motion by Time and Space.
And we measure Space through Motion with respect to Time.This kind of circular verification is not unlike the matter - The Word of God, The Spirit of God, and the People of God.The three are dependent upon one another in a triangular manner. It is the Spirit of God which produces the People of God. And the People of God dicern what is the Word of God.The Spirit o God in the People of God is needed to recognize the Word of God. The people of God recognized the Canon of the Word of God. They did not bestow authority upon books. They recognized authority in books.They could not recognize authority in books without the Spirit of God. And they did not get the Spirit of God apart from the Word of God.This may be quite frustrating to the modern scientific mind. You might even state what I say is circular reasoning. It may be a divine circular reasoning that we just have to live with.The Word of God does have authority in itself. But the People of God with the Spirit of God must recognize rather than bestow that authority.Now concerning disputes over passages. It is too much that we expect all believers to agree on every single point of doctrine.The problem arises not with mere disagreements. The problem arises in forming different CHURCHES according to those doctrines.Paul and Barnabus had a sharp contention between them. They were both apostles. What they were saved from was formulating a Paul Church as opposed to a Barnabus Church.I can have differences in opinion with another believer of the interpretation of a text or the importance of a disputed text - as to it being original or a latter amendation. What we should not do is DIVIDE the organic Body of Christ into different churches based on those disputes.Now I don't pretend this one brief word can deal completely with the problem of disputes among Christian teachers. But the greater error is to denominate the one Body of Christ because brothers in Christ have different opinions about a matter.Paul exhorted the believers to hold fast the Head. The Head is a living Person. The Head is a living Presence - Jesus Himself as the Head of the church.A saved brother may have a different view of First John 5:7 then another saved brother. It is not encouraged. But it is somewhat unavoidable. The danger comes not so much in the different opinions but in the founding of DIFFERENT CHURCHES according to those respective opinions.You can see from the First Corinthian letter a local church with many problems. But the FIRST problem Paul deals with, which he seems to regard as the ROOT of all the problems, is to fail to see that Christ Himself, the living Savior is not divided.All the workers of God are theirs - Paul, Peter, Apollos. God gives the organic GROWTH of the divine life.The believers must not let a dispute over variant copies of First John cause us to be distracted from holding FAST to the living Person of Christ Who is alive and available. And we must not allow the dispute to halt the growth of divine life within us. And we should not attempt to lay other foundations for another CHURCH according to those opinions. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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The Spirit o God in the People of God is needed to recognize the Word of God. The people of God recognized the Canon of the Word of God. They did not bestow authority upon books. They recognized authority in books.

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Nope the people bestowed the authority on the books they chose to be in the canon and destroyed some of the ones that didn't agree with their point of view. The debates lasted centuries before the canon was closed and changed many times. Some books didn't make it into the canon because they could be used by a variant Christian group.

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The believers must not let a dispute over variant copies of First John cause us to be distracted from holding FAST to the living Person of Christ Who is alive and available. And we must not allow the dispute to halt the growth of divine life within us. And we should not attempt to lay other foundations for another CHURCH according to those opinions.

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That shows me that the Bible isn't the authority. You've made the authority the divine spirit. That's one way to get away from the discrepancies in the writings. Religion evolves and changes. The same thing happened in the first few centuries of Christianity and even since the canon was closed and it will continue to evolve and change to suit the culture.The Bible has some good lessons that can be brought forward and used, but there is no authority within its pages to which we can be held accountable unwillingly.

The fact that their were arguments does not mean the saints did not recognize Inspiration.The fact that it took some time for certain books to be included in the canon does not mean that saints did not recognize Inspiration of those books.And the fact that some teacher did not like some book also does not mean that the saints did not recognize Inspiration of books.But that the canon in either case was not instanteously and unanimously determined in 10 minutes does not mean the people of God were not led by God to recognize the Inspired books.You fail to distinguish between the determination of canonicity and the recognition of canonicity.Canonicity is not determined by men but by God. A canonical book is true and valuable because God inspired it. Canonicity is determined is fixed by authority. And it is the inspiration of God which gives the book that authority. This authority of a canonical book can only come from God. The people of God recognize that authority. And the people of God are led by the Spirit of God to discern that authority.This authority is recognized by men of God. The book is authoritative because God "breathed" it and made it so.So, there are 66 books in the canon because God inspired only that many. That is, only 66 books were foound to have the stamp of divine authority. God only put the inspired stamp on that many, or invested that number with authority for faith and practice.A given book is valuable because it is canonical. Any book was not canonical because it was valuable. Many interesting religious, sacred writings exsted. They were not canonical merely because they were found valuable.What determined canonicity is that the book was inspired by God and was authoritative. Men of God, led by the Spirit of God recognized authoritative books. Quite the opposite is true for the church. Behind the word of God is the living God. So Jesus said the Pharisees should search the Scripture by simulataneously coming to God. And to search the Scripture with a heart turned to the living God of Scripture does not lead to spiritual life: "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you will not come to Me that you may have life." (John 5:39,40) Coming to Scripture should always be done in conjuction with coming to the living God behind Scripture Who Himself has breathed spiritual into Scripture.Men of God, led of God, seeking the living God, recognized the authority of the canonical books and received spiritual life.They recognized when interesting books may be valuable for other reason, but did not impart spiritual life and did not have the ring of authority. Sometimes a test of time did take place. And some books were slow to receive this recogniztion by the substancial majority. But this process does not negate recognition of inspired books eventually. I have already admitted that we have no autographs but thousands upon thousands of copies in whole or in fragment. Among these copies God has allowed some descripencies to creep in in the transmission of canonical books.In my opinion, these little disputed portions are not a test to divine authority of the canon. They are a test to human beings. It is as if God is giving you a way out if you really want a way out.You see, God wants His lovers to come to Him. He does not coerce anyone. There is no "cage door". The assumed cage door that some skeptics have is wide open.I am serious. It is as if God says 'You want a way out ? You don't really love Me? Here. Here's a little loophole so you can reason your way out if you really want that. I'll just let a few typos, questionable copy descrepencies enter into the transmission of Scripture. Just a little unclarity here, a little question mark there. A little dispute here and there. All minor things which do not really effect what is amply testified to over and over again elsewhere.Here's a little escape hatch. You can rationalize your way out if you want to."All these little thousands of minor differences among the thousands of copies all under God's sovereign and providential control.He who numbers all the stars, who has the hairs on your head all numbered, who knows every atom in His universe intimately, knows about all these little copyist matters.God offers the one who really doesn't want Him a way out so you can never say He FORCED you to love Him with total indesputable scientific proof. He leaves room for man's free will.So Purpledawn, if you want to withdraw from the living God, the "cage door" is opened and you can escape out if you really want to.Those of us with faith know that there is often with that faith a little room for doubt. God leaves us with a little escape hatch that says "But ... but WHAT IF it is really not God after all ?"Jesus in resurrection, presenting Himself with imperical proof of His being raised from the dead, told skeptical Thomas " and do not be unbelieving, but believing" (John 20:27) It came down to a decision of Thomas's will. If after seeing the wounds in His hands, feet, and side, after seeing such solid scientifc evidence there was STILL the possibility that Thomas could CHOOSE not to believe. If this was not so then Jesus would not have said - "Bring your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing." God wants to dispense His Spirit and His divine life into man's being. And the means by which He has chosen to do that is faith. "That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith" (Eph. 3:17) I have to stop writing here. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

But other people found that the number of books with divine authority was 73 or 77 or 81.If it took until the Protestant Reformation for the Spirit of God to communicate to anyone at all how many books were in his Holy Word, you've got to wonder what the Holy Spirit was doing all that time? Just watching the sparrows fall?

Even in the Prostestant Reformation Luther didn't think the book of James belonged in the canon of inspired books.I don't think the process recognizing authority of inspiration was an easy one. For instance we know Luther was a major figure in the Reformation. However, the books of Jude and James were not excluded from the canon just because Luther was suspicious of them.The matter takes a collective wisdom and discernment. I don't think any one big shot or even a few big shots can impose their opinion. There may have been some of this temporarily.But Jesus said the Holy Spirit would guide the church into all of the truth. Guidance takes times sometimes.

In that case, maybe we're not there yet. If some books were still uncertain in Luther's time, maybe only 500 years later there are still some that we need to take out and some we need to put in.So maybe the verdict should be: not authoritative yet.

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

So maybe it'll take a little longer.Maybe the Holy Spirit has yet to guide the Church into the revelation that (for example) the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is so much bullshit, but will do so eventually.The hypothesis that eventually the Holy Spirit will guide the Church, or rather the Churches, into truth gives them no solid ground on which they can now stand --- or will ever be able to stand, since it is always possible to hypothesize that this thing that the Holy Spirit will get around to eventually hasn't happened yet.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Given that the church has been "guided" by magical forces for 2,000 years, why is it not a constant progression?After all, we're talking about the one and only, all powerful, all knowing deity. You'd think that after 2,000 years of having a monopoly on the ONE and ONLY deity, all the other religion would have been stomped out.I mean, it's not like they get their prayers answered. They are praying to a make believe deity.In the meantime, Christians can pray to grow back a lost limb and BOOM! the next morning it's back. Right?

I drifted from the topic.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

You entertain a vain hope. The Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ in another form. "Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom." (2 Cor. 3:17)It is as the Holy Spirit that Christ can indwell the believers. And it is as the Holy Spirit that God in Christ can be dispensed into them to be thier life. "The last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45) When I say the church universal I mean also the plural local churches. We have solid ground to stand on - the resurrected available and living Lord Jesus is our foundation.No man can lay another foundation. You have to speak for yourself. You open wide your potty mouth and blaspheme the deity of Christ. It is you who have resisted to be led to receive Christ as Lord.That's your failure. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Okay, so let me get this straight.The "church" wants to stomp out other religions. It does this by co-opting their beliefs and relabelling them. And to you that's the work of Satan.So, Easter = Satan
Christmas = Satan
Holy Star over Bethlehem = Satan
Jesus brings Lazarus back from the Dead = Satan
Noah's Flood = SatanThat's just a super quick taste of things the church stole from other religions.Seems to me like virtually all the trappings of Christianity are in fact the work of Satan. Which sounds kind of reasonable. After all, would "God" really kick people out of Eden if he were merciful? no. Would he murder innocent children? No.Frankly, this argument that the Bible was inspired by Satan and all acts within it are really his work but written to pretend that they are God makes a lot more sense than the mainline story which is 100% contradictory to the claims the book is making.Edited by Nuggin, : No reason given.

I feel this topic has lost its focus and it's time for summaries to be posted.I will leave this thread open for a few days to allow the posting of summaries only by participants.Thanks
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