Yesterday on the Journey I opened up this topic of whether we would say that the Scriptures are infallible or inerrant. I talk about this a bit in the book, Reading Scripture Like the Early Church, but I didn't want to get too deep into it, even in the book because it eventually will boil down to a person's definitions of these two English words, and of course you know the Bible was not written in English. In any case, we talked about it some yesterday, and no doubt it will come up again as we continue on the Journey.
For the moment I want to point out something I meant to point out yesterday but I think I somehow skipped over it. When we were talking about the Greek word for "surprised" or "amazed" and I said that it has a range of meaning that can encompass the whole gamut from mildly surprised ("hmmm... didn't see that coming" ) to wildly amazed ("holy crap what is going on here?!" ) - so the Greek word itself doesn't really help us solve the question of whether Zechariah was deaf.
Here's what I should have pointed out - for those who hold to a doctrine of inerrancy, they will often miss the forest of meaning by obsessing over the trees of the Greek words. They will often make the mistake that if they can nail down the ONE meaning of that Greek word elsewhere, then it must mean that here in this place, too. They assume that - quite apart from context - the same Greek word has to mean the same single English word every place it comes up. That may be overstating it, but it is a tendency for those who believe in inerrancy.
I would love to hear from you all what your thoughts are on this topic...
To start, I think we should begin with the assumption that we should all think of the Scriptures as infallible - inspired by God, authoritative, and trustworthy. So we should begin with that common ground. Now what do you think?
This was for March 24th, recorded for the Ascension App
Thanks for your patience - here is our next installment of The Journey - it's session # 96, but I'm also calling it PART 1 of a "miniseries" on John chapter 6.
Whoever watches it first, please let me know if it looks good or if there are any problems with it - I get through the first two sections of the text on the feeding of the 5,000.
Enjoy!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
As I'm going through all my belongings as part of our move, I have come across some audio CDs of my old music, from when I had my band, Remember Rome - if any of you still have a CD player, and you would like me to send you some of what I have, send me the address to send them to at this email address: [email protected]
Some of these CDs are in their original cases, and some were demo samples, but either way, it's all original music written by me, and performed by me and my band back in the late 90s and early 2000s.
I'll be happy to find a good home for these CDs in case you might enjoy them, and because you all have been supporting me (and I haven't produced much content in the last month or so) I'll send you one or more CDs for free. Just give me an address.
Thanks!
Here's the link to the new edition of my Rome book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Rome-Second-Pilgrims-Guide-Eternal/dp/B0F8TGTWZX
