All men are given a measure of faith in God by the creation.
So when they hear God's Word by faith and are born again spiritually, this confirms the knowledge that they had of God by the creation.
The Word of God is unlike any other human book in history.
To deny that is divine in origin and unlike any other holy book is to not know the power of God's Word and all of the evidences that backs it up.
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the Word of God.
So..... if you have faith and you believe the Word of God and that it has merit, then.... when it says that it is perfect and that it will be preserved for all generations, then you have a choice to either believe God's Word (which brings faith) or you have a choice to not believe in it (which is unbelief).
Receiving God's Word will change you.
So if you mock God's Word by saying that one cannot trust it alone as one's authority (circular reasoning), then where does that place your faith?
On evidences?
Hebrews 11 says without faith, it is impossible to please Him.
Did not Christ change your life?
Has not the Spirit shown you things within His Word and opened your eyes to what was once a dead book to you before?
For faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
There can only be one Word of God; And not many Words of God as your final word of authority. Otherwise you can be easily tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine.
The Bible is inerrant or perfect (i.e. the KJV).
See, after I shortly got saved back in 1992, I was already quickly aware of the differences between the Modern Translations and the King James. I had seen that the changes were not for the better, but for the worse. I looked at a lot of the passages in the book titled, "
New Age Bible Versions" and I did not need to be convinced any further.
So I had come to believe from the very start that God's Word was perfect and without error and that has never changed. Yet, that does not mean God did not test me to see if I would trust His Word and continue to have faith in Him or not. For one day I read a book that pointed out a supposed contradiction in God's Word. At first, I appeared shocked and it felt like my faith was on the line here. But I had the awakening by the power of the Spirit and knew I was saved. So there was no turning back. I knew the truth. Yet I could not explain what I had seen in the King James.
Now, do you know what I did way back then in the 90's when I discovered this? I basically said to the Lord that I did not have an answer for what I was seeing within His Word, but I was just going to trust Him and His Word was true regardless.
And you know what happened after that? Well, I am glad I did trust the Lord's Word back then. For after I renewed my faith in 2010 after God brought a loving Christian woman into my life from half way around the world, I had began to study God's Word again and made a very interesting discovery about this supposed contradiction.
So here it is:
Did Solomon have 40,000 stalls for his horses (
1 Kings 4:26), or 4,000 stalls (
2 Chronicles 9:25)?
Firstly, it should be noted that this “supposed contradiction” does not appear in the New International Version, which states that Solomon had “four thousand stalls” in both verses. However, the NIV translation mistakenly states that Solomon had twelve thousand horses, when in fact the original Hebrew text (and all other English translations of it) state that Solomon had twelve thousand horsemen. This error results in three horses per chariot (an unusually odd number) and three horses per stall (which seems a little crowded). Opening a lexicon, we see that the King James Version gives an accurate rendering of the Hebrew text (correctly translating the Hebrew parash as “horsemen”), and for this reason we know that this translation can be trusted in accurately explaining this “contradiction”.
With that said, let’s examine these two verses.
1 Kings 4:26 states, “Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen” while
2 Chronicles 9:25 states “Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen”.
1 Kings 4:26 counts only the horses that were intended to be used “for his chariots”. On the other hand,
2 Chronicles 9:25 counts both the horses “and chariots” together.
1 Kings 4:26 states that Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses, meaning that he had forty-thousand stalls with horses in them.
2 Chronicles 9:25 counts both horses and chariots together. If each chariot stall contains within it ten horse stalls (perhaps one stall for each horse that pulls the chariot) then there is no contradiction.
Solomon had 40,000 stalls for his horses. Solomon had 4,000 chariots (three riders per chariot, since we know from both
1 Kings 4:26 and
2 Chronicles 9:25 that he had twelve thousand horsemen) and every chariot had its own stall. Chariots are pulled by multiple horses – in this case, ten horses. Each chariot stall had within it ten individual horse stalls – one for each horse that pulled that specific chariot.
In fact, here is a similar one.
Did David capture 1,700 of King Zobah's horsemen (
2 Samuel 8:4), or was it 7,000 (
1 Chronicles 18:4)?
2 Samuel 8:4 says that David took 700 horsemen, while
1 Chronicles 18:4 says that David took 7000 horsemen. These verses are not in contradiction. The King James version correctly describes 1000 chariots in both
2 Samuel 8:4 and
1 Chronicles 18:4. Both verses also state that David reserved 100 chariots. Combining the information from these two verses we see that David took 700 horsemen for the chariots he kept, but he took a total of 7000 horsemen away from the enemy king. The two different numbers for the number of chariots provide us with a consistent 7:1 horseman-to-chariot ratio. This is reasonable, as seven horsemen could easily share the same chariot.
So we can conclude that if one believes the Bible is not written entirely by God and reads something at face value like the above passages without the help of the Spirit teaching them, then one is only going to see errors in God's Word where none really exist.
1 Thessalonians 2:13
"For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."
Source:
http://biblocality.com/forums/attach...tachmentid=121