And how can we measure whether each and every word in the Bible contains that and only that which God intended it to contain? By using the Bible to measure the Bible?
The Bible was not designed to be a textbook of science and history, but what it says in the way of history and science is absolutely true. But we need to distinguish the parts of the Bible that are written
for us in terms of our education and encouragement, and what is written
to us as doctrine and direct instruction.
For example, "Judas went out and hanged himself". That was written about what Judas did when he became deeply depressed about what he had done to Christ, but that doesn't mean that we should go and do the same when we get depressed. The description of Judas was written
for us, but not
to us.
But when Paul wrote: "Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, singing to yourselves in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" he wrote
to us because this is his direct instruction for every believer then and now.
When Elijah called down fire on the altar at Mt Carmel and then killed all the prophets of Baal, that was written
for us and not
to us, because we are not instructed to call down fire on altars or kill false prophets.
But when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church he wrote:
"Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:1-3), he was writing
to us, so that the whole of 1 Corinthians applies to us in our day as much as it did to the Corinthians and every Christian believer in every other church where Paul's letter went.
But we have some prejudiced religious (not Bible) teachers who take 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 and say they are written
for us in our day and not
to us. This is not what Paul pointed out at all. He said quite clearly that everything he wrote to the Corinthian church applies
to every Christian believer everywhere, in his time and in ours.
So, once we have distinguished between what is for our education and encouragement, and what is to us for direct instruction, then we can approach the Bible with confidence knowing that we can rely on it for knowing God's plan and purpose for our lives and how we can live holy and righteously in this world.
