Devotional Thoughts: I believe ...

Today, this morning, a variation on the devotional thoughts.

Some days I write about a particular text I'm looking at. The current series is on 1 Thessalonians.

Most days I also read from the One-Minute Bible 4 Students: With 366 Devotions for Daily Living. I recommend that resource to students and adults alike. It is a simple way to taste the wisdom of the whole Bible as it selects highlights from both the Old and New Testament.

Some days, I contemplate some aspect of the life of faith and devotion to Jesus.

This morning, I find myself thinking about the Bible I have on my desk. How did it get there?

As I see it, there are 4 phases.

I recognize the following are articles of faith. The statements are not devoid of reason but they encompass things beyond what reason can ascertain.

(1) I believe that God desires to communicate to humanity certain things.

If God is truly God then the following must be true: What God knows >>> What God wants us to know! So I just need to focus on what God wants me to know and not get an Excedrin headache trying to figure out what God knows that would explode my pea brain.

(2) I believe God interacted with human authors to produce a body of text.

There are many ways God could do this: visions, dreams, dictation, guided research, etc. The Christian Bible was generated by a wide variety of means through a variety of authors. This is in contrast to the Koran which is claimed to be through visions to one recipient.

(3) I believe that God guided the church to properly identify which body of text to hold as authoritative.

Without question there has been and continues to be controversy as to what books to include in the Bible. Those who are skeptics will highlight those controversies and will want to call into question the whole Bible. The "agenda" of scholars in all fairness works both ways: the skeptic will always want to look for problems and the believer will always look for explanations. We try our best to employ reason but recognize that personal bias exists but try to minimize its impact.

(4) I believe that God has blessed the community of faith with scribes who have copied the text faithfully and translators who bring the text into the many languages of the world accurately.

In the final analysis, this is what I hold in my hands: a translation of copies.

Question: how close is item #4 to item #1?

The skeptic will say, it bares little to no resemblance.

The believer will say, it is a close resemblance.

My guess is that even the most committed inerrantist will not say that #4 is a 100% match to #1.

Is belief that #4 is a close resemblance to #1 warranted?

Do scribes and translators take their work seriously? Would these individuals be highly motivated to do the job well?

If one says, yes, then that would push the needle toward reliability.

If one says, no, then can we trust any text from antiquity? As a matter of daily life, we do trust history books to some extent.

Did the church "get it right" when they identified the books for inclusion in the Bible?

The one who says, yes, cites that they lived closer to the times of the actual events. One can ask, who has a better chance of identifying the authentic works of the original followers of Jesus versus the works of a forger? Somebody living within 100 years of the events or us living 2000 years from the event?

The skeptic trusts that our opinion 2000 years after the fact is more likely to be correct than those who lived within a generation or two of the actual events. It is everyones free choice whom to trust more.

Could God really communicate to human writers?

If God is truly God, why not?

The skeptic believes there is no God so this is really a moot point. They would believe religious writings are just human efforts claiming the mantle of God to exercise authority over people.

Does God really want to communicate to humans?

The deist god is out there and couldn't care a less about the goings ons of this world. Likewise, the person who doesn't believe it god would again say this is a moot point.

But if God is truly God and God cares about what is going on here then God would have the motivation and the ability to communicate in any fashion of God's choosing.

So, is trusting the Bible an article of faith?

Yes.

However, there is also some rational basis too. Like most things in life, it is a combination.

Do I trust my friend? My trust in my friend is a combination of my experiences with them of which some can be quantified rationally but some of it is intuitive and emotional.