How do you determine in a statement in the Bible is from God?

A question I would add is: how do you know if the inspiration you personally receive from a Bible verse is from God? Different people can apply a Bible verse or understand a Bible verse differently. Their inspiration from that verse can be different and maybe not always from God.

The two trumpets of God...

The Word
The Spirit

radhead said:

A lot of people quote the Bible to try to support their arguments about what God is thinking, or about what God might do.

But this is just a simple question. What process do you go through before deciding that the verse is inspired by God to begin with?

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Always, always, ALWAYS understand the context.

All Scripture is inspired. That doesn't mean it was written to apply to our personal question today (it wasn't - none of it was).

However, there are many principles that can be learned from Scripture, and these generally DO apply to us today.

But everything must be properly understood.

In some cases there are good early commentaries (John Chrysostom has much). But basically if you are trying to figure it out on your own, the best thing is to try to understand who was being talked to, when, for what purpose, and what that tells us in the overall picture of Who God is, and how He relates to man. Even so, it is unfortunately possible to make mistakes in doing this, because we all already have theological lenses we read Scripture through.

The entire Bible is a human compilation. The books that are considered canonical were established by a number of councils of church leaders dating from the 5th century AD up to the 17th century. And different Christian denominations have somewhat different notions of what scripture is properly included in the canon. So in the end, like everything else about religion, it comes down to faith. One just has to have faith that the committees that compiled the Bible were divinely inspired. Which is way more faith than I could ever have.

~Anastasia~ said:

Always, always, ALWAYS understand the context.

All Scripture is inspired. That doesn't mean it was written to apply to our personal question today (it wasn't - none of it was).

However, there are many principles that can be learned from Scripture, and these generally DO apply to us today.

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Unfortunately we all know that the Bible says radically different and somewhat contradictory things on different pages. The general principle on page 105 may contradict the general principle on page 205.

My approach when I was a Christian was to open the Bible to a random page and begin reading until (hopefully) I get an answer to my question. That may sound a little bit like divination, but that is what I did.

cloudyday2 said:

Unfortunately we all know that the Bible says radically different and somewhat contradictory things on different pages. The general principle on page 105 may contradict the general principle on page 205.

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Sometimes this is true, which is why context and overall understanding is important. There are also some very UNgodly things written in the Bible too, because it reports what all sorts of people said and did.

It makes me hesitate to suggest anyone try to figure it out on their own. Really, I think that's a bad idea. But many people are pretty much forced to do so, so ... all I can do is try to offer what I can and hope it might help a little.

My approach when I was a Christian was to open the Bible to a random page and begin reading until (hopefully) I get an answer to my question. That may sound a little bit like divination, but that is what I did.

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Yes, not exactly recommended. But who knows, if that's the best you could do and had a sincere heart, God has mercy.

jayem said:

The entire Bible is a human compilation. The books that are considered canonical were established by a number of councils of church leaders dating from the 5th century AD up to the 17th century. And different Christian denominations have somewhat different notions of what scripture is properly included in the canon. So in the end, like everything else about religion, it comes down to faith. One just has to have faith that the committees that compiled the Bible were divinely inspired. Which is way more faith than I could ever have.

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I'm not meaning to be disagreeable, but that's really a bit misleading if that's all the info offered.

Official councils and statements came along later, but the Church was given instruction before the NT was written, and so they generally recognized true writings from spurious ones as they were being circulated. That recognition was the basis of the formal canon. It wasn't just sheer chaos up to that point. The 39th Festal Letter of Athanasius in 367 lists the same NT canon we all share today, so it hasn't changed since before that time.

The difference in OT canon is caused by a separate issue within the Reformation.

Again, not wishing to be disagreeable, but I feared your post could be misunderstood.

~Anastasia~ said:

Yes, not exactly recommended. But who knows, if that's the best you could do and had a sincere heart, God has mercy.

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Apparently I'm not the only person who uses this method. It is called "bibliomancy" ( Bibliomancy - Wikipedia ). It is used in other religions too such as Judaism. ... IDK it always seemed like a natural way to ask for guidance from God.

cloudyday2 said:

Apparently I'm not the only person who uses this method. It is called "bibliomancy" ( Bibliomancy - Wikipedia ). It is used in other religions too such as Judaism. ... IDK it always seemed like a natural way to ask for guidance from God.

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I'm sure you probably heard the joke about that ...

A person opens the Bible and his finger lands on part of Matt 27:5 - "Judas went and hanged himself". That didn't sound good, so they tried again.The next stab hit Luke 10:37 - "Go thou and do likewise". Figuring to try once more, the next verse was John 13:27 - "What thou are about to do, go and do it quickly."

Pretty bad, huh?


I tried it too out of desperation a few times, many years ago. Not with any real success, nor with the disaster from the joke. Usually just something totally in incomprehensible for my situation. Which it could be worse - there are plenty of verses one should never read as a "message from God" given various situations in their lives.

radhead said:

I agree. There was a very dark time in my college days, after being reprimanded by an employer and not knowing how to improve myself for the job, when I remember opening up the Bible and just reading. I probably started in Matthew. I can remember being encouraged after reading a few pages, and not even really being conscious of what I was reading. But I was feeling a solidarity with those multitudes of others who have also looked to the Bible for spiritual guidance.

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To tell you the truth, I often feel peace in reading the Scriptures, no matter what part I'm reading. But I wouldn't necessarily know for sure others experience the same. I'm glad you felt encouraged. There is something to say for being connected to those in the world and through history who have drawn strength from faith.

~Anastasia~ said:

The difference in OT canon is caused by a separate issue within the Reformation.

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Thanks for replying. But what Protestants consider to be the Apocrypha, was considered to be holy scripture by some church fathers for centuries. As I recall, these books were found in the Greek Septuagint, which was the preferred scripture of Augustine and Clement. And they are 2nd tier canonical (deuterocanonical) for Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

But my main point is that the Bible was written and compiled by human beings. Like any other product of the human mind, it is subject to error. (And to the cultural milieus in which the various books were composed.) Sincere believers will disagree on what parts are valid for purposes of establishing doctrine. So ultimately, it comes down to faith. You just have to believe that whatever scripture you accept is divinely inspired.

jayem said:

Thanks for replying. But what Protestants consider to be the Apocrypha, was considered to be holy scripture by some church fathers for centuries. As I recall, these books were found in the Greek Septuagint, which was the preferred scripture of Augustine and Clement. And they are 2nd tier canonical (deuterocanonical) for Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

But my main point is that the Bible was written and compiled by human beings. Like any other product of the human mind, it is subject to error. (And to the cultural milieus in which the various books were composed.) Sincere believers will disagree on what parts are valid for purposes of establishing doctrine. So ultimately, it comes down to faith. You just have to believe that whatever scripture you accept is divinely inspired.

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Yes, you are correct. Sincere people do arrive at different interpretations. And Protestants ultimately eased certain books out of their Bibles, first by lowering their importance then later removing them altogether. That's really for Protestants to examine. They tend to justify basing it on a Jewish canon established some centuries after Christianity.

But at any rate, I just wanted to point out that it's not as though there was great doubt as to what was Scripture.

Degree of inspiration and what that means is another topic folks might need to consider.

But bottom line, it seems the question is whether or not what it says (especially by and about God) is true?

That's where interpretation is very important. Well-meaning people sometimes have developed an understanding that is VERY contrary to what early Christians understood. Christ is God revealed to us. If what we think we know about God doesn't square with the the Jesus of the Gospels, then our understanding is wrong.

But that's more to the OP, sorry, and not really in reply to your post. I suppose I was trying to stay on topic.

Our faith needs to be in Christ. If we replace that with faith in the Scriptures instead, and we misinterpret them, then our faith is misplaced and/or we risk damaging it.

radhead said:

What process do you go through before deciding that the verse is inspired by God to begin with?

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It's all inspired. The tricky part is working out what a verse actually means.

radhead said:

A lot of people quote the Bible to try to support their arguments about what God is thinking, or about what God might do.

But this is just a simple question. What process do you go through before deciding that the verse is inspired by God to begin with?

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My understanding is that Christians take every verse as an axiomatic truth. There is no rational process.

This would explain why reasoning with them is impossible.

radhead said:

A lot of people quote the Bible to try to support their arguments about what God is thinking, or about what God might do.

But this is just a simple question. What process do you go through before deciding that the verse is inspired by God to begin with?

Click to expand...

This topic is a controversial one. There are dozens of inferences across various forms of Christianity.

inspiration is usually thought to apply to the whole canon, not a particular verse.

Historical grammatical method looks at the genre, style, context, figures of speech in the original languages to help determine what the original audience would have understood.

From there hermeneutics helps the reader determine which portions of the message applied to the reader in his or her context and culture.

Finally the Holy Spirit guides us to passages and convicts us of things we should benpaying attention to. The Bible plays a general, principle-centered or rule-based function in guiding, the HS is situational and applied personally.

That distinction is helpful when a person is commenting on theological issues then the scriptures in their original context are gathered and examined to see what inference best explains the scriptural data. So when a person says the HS told them, "Jesus is not God," it is easy to discount that statement as false as it is a category error.

"The Holy Spirit wants me to stop hoarding my possessions and to start helping people materially with my abundance," is a statement that is easily supported scripturally but also can ring true or false depending on the individual.

This method above while common to Evangelicals currently, is not representative of current Christian practice and certainly not historical practice.

radhead said:

A lot of people quote the Bible to try to support their arguments about what God is thinking, or about what God might do.

But this is just a simple question. What process do you go through before deciding that the verse is inspired by God to begin with?

Click to expand...

The Bible is accurate enough to convey God's will in order for humans to be judged on the Judgment Day. So you don't need to worry about in the case that it's not accurate. You only need to worry about it when it's accurate enough as a human account of testimony for the conveying of the judgment or salvation message from God.