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Reply instruction
At least 150 words, give constructive feedback, apply biblical principles, and meaningfully contribute to the class discussion on the topic. all replies must be substantial and thoughtful in nature. These interactions are intended to mimic conversation. In conversation, there are statements, as well as questions. Remember you must not only engage with the provided prompts, but must also engage with your classmates as well. Substantive answers will reveal signs of active listening, application of content, and engagement.
Thread 1
Growing up I didn’t believe in God, so attending church, reading the Bible, and praying were all unknown dimensions in my life. It was on March 14th, in 2020 that Christ revealed His Glory to me and I became a partaker in the Body of Christ. Nobody came to me offering to pray over me, or handed me a scripture pamphlet or preached to me on the street corner. The creator of the Heavens and the earth Himself revealed Himself to me through His illuminating glory. I saw the Glory of God. It wasn’t until few weeks later after reading the Bible on my phone that I was gifted my very first Bible, and met the Word of God face to face for the first time, changing my life forever.
I understand the perspective of the skeptic, the doubts one has due to the “contradiction” in the Word, and the narrative that Biblicists are just propagandists trying to promote their own perspectives and theologians have their own agenda. I understand these skepticisms because I once was a skeptic. I was once in a space and time where the words, “I will never believe in God,” fell from my tongue. I grew up in a culturally, ethnically, religiously diverse area where you come face to face with and experience the faiths and traditions of all the worlds religions, so I have witnessed those of all the earth’s religions individually and collectively trying to push their own religious agenda.
The truth is that this forced and unnatural turn-off is not only specific to Biblical scholars, Christians and theologians. All religious people are subject to this behavior, regardless of which faith they represent. The truth is that when you read the Bible, through the inspiration, illumination, and transformation by conviction and persuasion (Elmer 2001), one’s understanding grows into the revelation that existence points to the all encompassing metanarrative that all in all, from the beginning to the end, it all in fact points to Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone (Elmer 2001).
I also understand the skeptics feelings of distrust in relation the reliability of the Bible due to having no record of the physical autographs of the Biblical literature. However, the vast majority of all ancient texts that we rely upon today are also not the autographical copies of their literature. According to the words of Strauss, 99% of original ancient manuscripts have disappeared and or dissolved as result of age. Like the Bible, our sources of ancient literature that we trust in today has been copied by hand generation by generation. As a result of this process, evidence of more than 5,000 copies of New Testament manuscript has been recorded, which far surpasses any other ancient work of literature. Giving the Bible a title of superiority (Elmer 2001) in comparison to other literatures regarding the lasting impact that it has had on humanity.
Also, if you read the Bible for yourself unto understanding of each of it’s books, you will realize it’s bold honesty through and through. Such honesty is exactly characteristic of who the God of the Bible is as the Truth (Elmer 2001). For the literature to be inspired by the Truth itself, its content must also reflect the truth in all ways and in every scenario, infinitely many, the Truth is evident always.
Thread 2
As christians, we know that the Bible is true and that all sixty-six books are inspired by God. But, people who are not Christians have a hard time believing that a book that has been passed down through many generations is false, inaccurate, and has many mistakes. Even thought as Christians we know that this is not true, we have to be able to explain to non-believers that that bible is true and is apart of God’s special revelation. According to the ACE videos by Dr. Joshua Chatraw and Dr. Mark Straus, “The Reliability of the New Testaments” and “General Reliability of the Gospels”, says that “People make a claim by saying that how can we know that the Bible is true and inspired by God if we do not have the original manuscripts that Paul wrote (0:41).” To prove this statement wrong Straus stated that “We have more reliable work from the New Testament than any other work from other literature from that time period (2:04).” This means that we have more reliable copies of the New Testament then any other literary work from that time period. Also, Straus also explains that “We also have more than five thousand copies of hand written translations from the original manuscripts, close to ninety-five percent (1:54).” This means that there are many copies that are very close the Paul’s original writings. According to the article “Arguments that the Bible is the Word of God” ,By Elmer Towns, it claims that people say that “the Bible is a good book, but full of errors (Towns, 4).” This means that “the bible is more like a fairytale than an actual good book (Towns, 4).” Towns also claims that “if this book is written to deceive us, surely it could not be from God who claims to be the truth (Towns, 4).” One last reason that Towns claimed that the Bible is inspired by God is by showing the Bible’s “Convicting, Convincing, and the Converting power of the message (Towns, 7).” Towns says that, ” the Bible has a transforming power to change the lives if the individuals. This empirical argument that other books cannot claim (Towns, 7).” Towns also says that “As they came in contact with the message of God’s Word, they were brought under conviction and accepted its message concerning Jesus Christ. When they came to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, they were converted (Towns, 8).” This shows that the bible is inspired by God because no other book can impact and changes peoples life like the bible can, which is something only God can do. All in all, the world is still going to argue that bible is false and inaccurate, but until the world really digs down and reads the Bible, people will never see what the Bible truly have to offer.
