Redefining God's Word

[OllieFranz]

I feel like you are taking that out of context. I didn't say people couldn't know God without the bible, but only that they would not know His commandments, Will, and character just to name a few. But most importantly without the bible we would not know the Christ, which is the center of most of our belief.


So yes, its possible to know God just by looking at His creation, but without His word how would we know what He requires of us?

Sometimes I worry that when I italicize a word, it does not always register as emphasized, or that the purpose of the emphasis is lost.

Even Paul says that you don't need the Bible to know God

Yes the Bible is important and it gives us details not available through general revalation. I do not disagree with you there. But you seemed to imply that we can know nothing about God except through the Bible. That is what OhioProf was objecting to and what I commented on.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear artybloke,

It works both ways, brother.

No it doesn’t, that’s the whole point. We know what love is through Jesus Christ and why God is love.

What is Christ to you? Look for that.

No I am asking you, Christ is Christ, He is the same Christ to all.

Doesn't Jesus say, seek and you shall find? If you seek Christ, you will find Christ. If you're constantly worried whether something might be the devil, you'll probably find the devil.

Ah so the Bible you refer to the Bible and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Thanks, I agree, you test against God’s word.

Many of them might well be interesting. Why not try listening to them? You might find out something.

well I can and do. I can also test them to see whether they are of God or God’s love

I'm not sure you do yet.

Well yes I do believe God is love because I believe the testimony of Jesus Christ.

 

[Jet_A_Jockey]

If you look for the devil, you'll find the devil. If you look for Christ you'll find Christ.

It seems to me you're unduly worried about what is good or bad. Look for what is loving, look for what is faithful and true, stop worrying about whether something is right or wrong, stop hiding behind correct doctrines or disputations about what is or is not correct behaviour.

God is love. Wherever you find love you find God.

well he's not called the Great Deceiver for nothin!

 

[Jet_A_Jockey]

Sometimes I worry that when I italicize a word, it does not always register as emphasized, or that the purpose of the emphasis is lost.

Yes the Bible is important and it gives us details not available through general revalation. I do not disagree with you there. But you seemed to imply that we can know nothing about God except through the Bible. That is what OhioProf was objecting to and what I commented on.

Okay so we just had a misunderstanding then. I agree with you on this, as I can testify that my own search for God was led by personal experiences in life.

 

[savedandhappy1]

Is the Bible of today the same as the original?
Found this interesting.


http://godsreal.org/?p=78

Is the Bible of today the same as the original?​

Weather it’s Secular Humanists, Muslims, or just skeptics your talking to, be prepared to hear that the Bible has been changed. They always say that. They can’t answer when or by who, but they still slang this idea of an altered Bible as if it were true. Well has the Bible been changed or not? Let’s examine the evidence.

What Version?​

One “proof” some people try to use to show that the Bible has been changed is that there are many different translations. However this does not prove that there aren’t good translations, or that the Bible has been changed so that we don’t have a good copy today by any means. The fact is that we have so many ancient copies of the Scriptures that we absolutely can be 100% sure of the Bible we have today. Are there translations we should avoid? Sure, just like there are false Gospels we should avoid. I would suggest using the KJV, NKJV or NASB English versions of the Bible- they are some of the truest versions available in English.

Ancient Manuscripts of Scripture​

The amount of ancient Manuscripts of the Bible is amazing. There is no ancient book of any kind with the amount of early manuscript evidence that the Scriptures have left. A count taken in 1980 showed 5,366 separate Greek Manuscripts (the New Testament was originally written in Greek). Codex Sinaiticus contains the whole New Testament and much of the Old Covenant Scriptures and is dated to 340 AD. That’s pretty old. Cotex Vaticanus dates to around 325 AD and has all four Gospels and almost the whole Old and New Testaments. Some of the most amazing finds though are smaller fragments of Scriptures found. The Chester Beatty Papyri has most of the New Testament and is from about 250 AD. The Bodmer Papyri 2 collection, discovered in 1956, has the first 14 chapters of the Gospel of John and alot of the last 7 chapters and dates to around 200 AD. The John Rylands Papyri contains a part of the Gospel of John dating around 117 AD- with the original Gospel being written about 90 AD. What’s interesting is that this fragment was found in Egypt, showing that this Gospel was delivered all the way to Egypt just a couple decades after it was originally written!

The Verdict​

Alot of Bible bashers attempt to discredit the Bible by mentioning that there are some 300,000 individual variations of the Text in the New Testament. What they don’t mention is that the vast majority of these differences are spelling errors, punctuation errors, and inverted phrasing. The Gospel and the Word of God needs to be preserved, not exact spelling of ancient words. Scholars have proven that the Modern Text is 99.5% textually pure, and even with the debate over a couple small portions, no teaching would be effected by any of these portions. Therefore is the Holy Bible reliable? You can trust that your Holy Bible is 100% reliable and preserved!

 

[artybloke]

No it doesn’t, that’s the whole point.

Yes it does.

Well yes I do believe God is love because I believe the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Then show that love to your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ and stop putting legalistic burdens on them you don't have to take up yourself. By their fruits you shall know them, and so far you haven't shown much love. So if you can't show it, I can't believe you have it.

 

[artybloke]

Scholars have proven that the Modern Text is 99.5% textually pure, and even with the debate over a couple small portions, no teaching would be effected by any of these portions.

a) not true. b) irrelevant. It might indeed be exactly as first written (though, as the nearest full documents (as opposed to tiny fragments) of the NT we have are from the 4th Century BC, there's no way of telling) that says nothing about whether it's historically accurate or not. Or true to the knowledge we have today (scientific, historical or whatever.)

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear artybloke,

Yes it does.

Well no it doesn’t, thats just what you say, but you are wrong as I have demonstrated the Bible says God is love and describes that ultimate love through Jesus Christ. Indeed one of the things you have been referring to as love is described in the Bible as sin.

Then show that love to your gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ and stop putting legalistic burdens on them you don't have to take up yourself.

I do show that love to them and to all gay friends, in what way dont I? Some of my brothers and sisters in Christ honour God with their bodies and do not indulge in same-sex immorality, its about time all at least attempted to instead of outright disobedience. You know the first and greatest command is love God
1 Corinthians 6:18 "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

a) not true. b) irrelevant

Then that makes you a non-believer.

 

[Cash80]

Zaac,

You really should be more careful before you slander someone in a post. You should be careful that what you are posting is accurate. It's certainly rude to compare me, or any person, with Satan. And you should not assume that just because someone is gay that they are committing ANY "acts" with someone of the same sex.

I have said on numerous occasions that I do not have sex. I am single. You imagine that I commit "acts," but you don't know what I do. You accuse me of sin and compare me to Satan because of what you imagine I do.

You don't know me. It's bad practice to judge someone else, particularly based on what you imagine they do.

So, are you living a celibate life?

 

[tulc]

Then that makes you a non-believer.

...in your doctrines perhaps, It doesn't however make him a non-Christian.
tulc(just thought that should be pointed out)

 

[savedandhappy1]

a) not true. b) irrelevant. It might indeed be exactly as first written (though, as the nearest full documents (as opposed to tiny fragments) of the NT we have are from the 4th Century BC, there's no way of telling) that says nothing about whether it's historically accurate or not. Or true to the knowledge we have today (scientific, historical or whatever.)

Dating the Oldest New Testament Manuscripts

by Peter van Minnen
In the 30's and 60's of the twentieth century a number of other, very important manuscripts have become available. We owe this to the efforts of two wealthy book collectors, Chester Beatty and Martin Bodmer. These manuscripts are of a special class for two reasons. They are written on papyrus and date from well before the fourth century. The earliest papyrus manuscripts come very close to the time when the New Testament was written. Of course, manuscripts on papyrus were known before, but these dated from a much later period and tended to be rather fragmentary. For almost all New Testament books we now have manuscripts earlier than the fourth century.

http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/manuscripts.html

The Manuscripts Tell the Story: The New Testament Is Reliable

By James Arlandson
Westcott and Hort say here what other textual critics repeat again and again, as we will see in this article. Classical texts are accepted as genuine after they have gone through an editing process of purging out errors, but these texts have much fewer manuscripts behind them. On the other hand, the New Testament has far more manuscripts behind it, which works to its advantage. The more manuscripts, the better, because they can be cross-checked with others. (The problem emerges when there are only a few manuscripts.) Therefore, the New Testament should also be accepted as genuine and restored, even more so than classical texts.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/the_manuscripts_tell_the_story.html
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[FONT=times new roman,times]First, Strobel asks why it is so important to have thousands of manuscript to support a document like the New Testament. Metzger replies:[/FONT]

[FONT=times new roman,times]Well, the more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like. The only way they'd agree would be where they went back genealogically in a family tree that represents the descent of the manuscripts. (p. 59)[/FONT]
​

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/the_manuscripts_tell_the_story.html

Here are just a few sites that disagree with you. I was going to put more on but received some info I needed from my Pastor, so that I can get this mornings sermon on podcast, and must go take care of that.

 

[Phinehas2]

Dear tulc,

...in your doctrines perhaps,

Nothing to do with doctrine, if someone doesn’t believe something they are a non-believer. If they don’t believe in doctrine they are non-believers in the doctrine.

It doesn't however make him a non-Christian.

I dont know, give me your definition of Christian.