I think you are being disingenuous,
Yes. God did not kill anyone and does not need to kill anyone. He also does not ask human being to kill other human beings. He did not command Joshua to kill all the women and children of Jericho. You say that we cannot defend God as good if we do not have a inerrant Bible. For the first four hundred years following the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, Christians had no New Testament at all, and certainly they did not have an inerrant one. Were they able to defend God as good? For fifteen hundred years or more the vast majority of Christians did not have access to a Bible and could not have read it if they had. Were they able to defend the goodness of God? I think so. The Bible itself does not claim inerrantcy and does not claim to be the Word of God. In fact in John 1 the Bible says the Word of God is Jesus. One people who wrote the New Testament said he and all the others made many mistakes in their theology.. James 3:2. What does that say about what they wrote being inerrant?
No. I've dealt with some who disregard sections of scripture because it doesn't fit their image of God.
No. I've dealt with some who disregard sections of scripture because it doesn't fit their image of God.
Elman, in all respect, it concerns me that you assert that the bible is not the literal, God-breathed word of God Himself. There are no errors in God's Word..only men and women who make mistakes in understanding them!
"All scripture is God-breathed." 2 Timothy 3:16
We cannot select only certain passages and disregard others. Even as a Calvinist, I cannot honestly say that I have ever heard an Arminian brother or sister say that the bible is NOT the very word of God.
No. I've dealt with some who disregard sections of scripture because it doesn't fit their image of God.
That's true. God had to take me from what I was taught by "man" and other doctrines of what others told me I should believe about Him, and then reveal Himself to me as He IS. When this happens, it will go against the grain of our flesh. The wisdom of God seems like foolishness to our fleshly minds. If we truly take Jesus at His word that He alone is our Teacher and His Spirit guides us into all truth, we'll never be the same.
Just as I am the only one who can give another person my heart and my true self, so it is with God. Only God can explain Himself to the human heart and mind.... and it will go against the natural mind's workings and logic!
I think you've also applied the filter to what Jesus said as well.
If it goes against what God has written on your heart, if it shows you God is not loving and kind and gentle and merciful and truthful, it is not the Holy Spirit that is guiding you, because that is what and who God is. Jesus said God is good. I believe that and anything to the contrary is not coming from God or the Holy Spirit.
See I would put it the other way around, if what the Holy Spirit is impressing upon us conflicts with what Scripture says, we're not being lead by the Spirit.
Beware the one who can destroy both body and soul.
See that is the issue--is the inerrantcy of a man made book and the belief that it came from and was dictated by the Creator of all that exists going to be the ultimate test of what I am being told about that Creator or is it so important that God be good and loving and truthful that I am willing to reject any source telling me different, including that man made book so many want to worship in place of the only one that is truly perfect and without error, God Himself.