Bible Study

 BIBLE STUDY                             

Why study about the origin and validity of the bible?

            

   As you may have noticed, I am still working out the bugs in formatting some of my documents  as I bring them to this site ( Friends and Family Forum blog spot.com). I have upgraded my windows program several times over the years and some of the older formatting is not transferable to the new. I hope the material is still helpful and I intend to bring it all up to date as we go forward. The two posts that I put up on July 10th are the material that we will be studying for the next several weeks on Friday night.
            The importance of a good and sound approach to Bible study can not be overemphasized. We are addressing  two major issues in our Friends and Family Forum as we continue our studies throughout the summer and on into the fall. They are closely related but I believe they should be considered separately.
            First we will consider and discuss in detail the origin and veracity of the Bible itself. This study I have titled "The Word of God". This is a topic that we have touched upon many times as we go through the various books of the Bible. Some individual books are attacked and challenged more vigorously by critics than others. Daniel for example has always been a favorite of those who deny the validity of Biblical Prophecy. We dealt with that issue when we did our complete verse by verse study of that very important book. May I say in passing that all of the questions raised by the critics concerning the historicity and the prophetic accuracy of the book of Daniel have all been dealt with and put to rest. Only the willfully ignorant and deliberately obstinate, agenda driven, anti super-naturalists still cling to any denial as to the ancient dating of the book. The same can be said and demonstrated for the Bible as a whole.
           If we expect to use the Bible to understand truth and to employ it in our efforts to help others come to a knowledge of actual truth, then we should be able to answer the basic questions concerning why we trust in it as valid source, indeed the exemplary and ultimate source of truth ourselves.
          Secondly, we will be taking up an in depth study of the topic of Hermeneutics. Once we have established the fact that the Bible contains the truth (by the way, I love Francis Shaffer's definition of'  "True truth" - "The verbal propositional revelation of God that, while not exhaustive in all areas of knowledge, is true in all that it does reveal; including the natural as well as the supernatural world.").
          We will take our time as we explore the "Historical Grammatical" approach to proper Bible interpretation. The idea is, that even though we may be convinced that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God, that is no guarantee that our understanding of it is infallible. We must approach Bible study with the greatest reverence and gravity. Knowledge is not gained through osmosis. Neither is it wise to let someone else tell you what to believe. The duty of every Child of God is to read, study and be ready to defend the Bible. That may sound extreme to some, but in fact this is clearly what the Bible itself has to say concerning the matter. I invite anyone who is interested in understanding reality, yes, I said reality, real reality, to join us either on line or in person for the next several weeks as we continue to study the Bible.