In our last post we talked about inerrancy. Inerrancy means, to put it simply, that the Bible is free from error. There is another concept that’s closely related to inerrancy called “infallibility”. Infallibility means that the Bible “cannot fail”, or is reliable in what it teaches us.

Something can be inerrant for a variety of reasons. It can be inerrant by pure dumb luck. For example, if you give me a complex math problem, I can pick a random number out of the air for an answer. If the answer is correct, it’s inerrant - but not due to any skill on my part. It can also be inerrant because the speaker knows their subject and is authoritative. Ask that same question of a skilled mathematician, and the answer will likely be inerrant - this time because of the skill and knowledge of the mathematician.

An answer can also be inerrant, but misleading - this is where an answer is given that’s “technically correct”, but may not be complete. Or it can be considered inerrant because it contains correctly reported incorrect information. An example of that would be, “Joe said that the sky was yellow yesterday at noon.” It may be true that Joe said that, but his statement was false if the sky was not in fact yellow.

Infallibility means that if the Bible speaks about a subject, it cannot be incorrect and it doesn’t deceive or mislead. The Chicago Statement On Biblical Inerrancy states in part that the Bible:

“is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.”

It clarifies the definition of infallibility as follows:

“lnfallible signifies the quality of neither misleading nor being misled and so safeguards in categorical terms the truth that Holy Scripture is a sure, safe, and reliable rule and guide in all matters.”

This follows with the statements of Jesus:

“and Scripture cannot be broken”
- John 10:35b (ESV)

“For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished”
- Matthew 5:18 (ESV)

You’ll note that Jesus isn’t suggesting that Scripture might not be broken.  He’s not saying that some of Scripture can’t be broken.  He’s stating categorically that the texts that were written can’t be broken.  It’s just not possible. 

The Bible therefore teaches that its infallibility and inerrancy provides a solid foundation for our faith, as well as a reliable guide for daily living.  This is one of the foundational principles of Christianity.

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In response to a reader question, I’m going to be beginning a short series covering some of the fundamentals of Christianity (and, by extension, Christian life).  Today I’ll be talking about the topic of inerrancy, and what the Bible teaches about the subject.

All the word “Inerrancy” means is that something is without error. If you hand in your math homework and all of the answers are correct, your math assignment is inerrant.    In the case of the Bible, “inerrancy” is the belief that the Bible was communicated and written down just the way God said it in the first place.  The Bible itself states this in 2 Timothy:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16, ESV)

Here we have the apostle Paul stating that all Scripture is “breathed out by God”.  In other words, it should be treated as if the words on the page are God speaking directly to us.  There is no mention of passages that we might want to exclude, or passages that would be profitable with a little bit of revision - it states clearly, “all Scripture”.

Of course, at the time of Paul’s writing “all Scripture” would have meant the Old Testament, and would not logically have included Paul’s own writings.  But the book of 2 Peter affirms that Paul’s writings have the same standing as the Old Testament:

“And count lthe patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters.  There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:15-16, ESV)

By stating, “as they do the other Scriptures”, the author of 2 Peter is stating that Paul’s writings are also, in fact, Scripture.  The statement wouldn’t make any sense otherwise.

This teaching comes with a qualifier, however.  Let’s look at it again, “the Bible was communicated and written down just the way God said it in the first place.”  The key here is the phrase “in the first place”.  It’s widely accepted that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible (except the part at the end of Deuteronomy where Moses dies, which would have logically been finished by somebody else - possibly Joshua).  God spoke to Moses, and Moses wrote.  We believe that what Moses wrote was inerrant.

It’s always possible that further copying of the Hebrew and the process of translating the Hebrew into English could produce errors.  That’s why many Biblical scholars are so focused on the discovery of ancient manuscripts - if we have more and older copies of the text, we can be more confident of what the text originally said.  In fact, according to “A General Introduction To The Bible” by Norman Geisler and William Nix, the amount of New Testament text that’s open to any real dispute is only about 400 words - none of them critical to any core teaching of Christianity.

This desire for the best possible text is also why Bibles aren’t typically translated by a single individual. Most Bible translation are the work of a committee of experts in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic that spend a large amount of time reading, re-reading, discussing, and agreeing upon a good translation for each word or phrase. Biases on the part of individual translators are more likely to be weeded out by the intense review process. Thus our English Bibles aren’t inerrant, but the conservative translations are very reliable and trustworthy for in-depth study.

This only serves to reinforce our confidence in the basic belief that the Bible we have has been well-preserved through the ages, and that we can trust it to be free from error.

In my next post, I’ll be handling a topic closely related to inerrancy - infallibility. Stay tuned!

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I was going to start this blog off with some posts about the core beliefs of Christianity.  Rest assured, those are still to come - but there are a couple of other topics that I believe need to be addressed first.

I’ve noticed an anti-intellectual movement in many Christian circles, and frequently it takes the form of railing against “big, fancy words” under the guise that “it’s not about all that fancy doctrine and theology mumbo-jumbo, it’s all about Jesus”.  It’s easy to be swayed by the apparent simplicity of this argument, because yes - it is all about Jesus.

However, while you’re talking about Jesus, you need to describe what you’re teaching, what you’re doing, and what you believe.  For that, you need both doctrine and theology…there’s just no way around it.  We’ll define both words briefly in this post, starting with theology.

Theology is a word we get from two Greek words, “theos” and “logos”.  “Theos” is the Greek word for God, and “logos” is the Greek word for “word”.  When you combine the two, you get (roughly) “words about God”.  In fact, if we translate John 1:1 just using these couple bits of Greek, we get:

“In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with Theos, and the Logos was Theos.” (John 1:1, ESV with substitutions)

The roots of the word are right there in the beginning of the Gospels.  Moving from our rough definition, “words about God”, we refine it a bit and get the modern definition for theology, “the study of God”.  You’ll see this same word combination elsewhere as well.  For instance, you probably studied biology in high school.  The word “biology” comes from “bios” (the Greek word for life) and “logos”, and it means “the study of life”.  Theology is, in its most basic form, the study of God.  Therefore, if you’re studying God, you’re learning theology.

While you’re studying theology, you’ll also be learning doctrine. The word “doctrine” doesn’t come to us from Greek directly, but it is an English translation of the Greek word “didaskalia”.  This word can also be translated as “teaching” or “learning”,  and it’s the root of the word “indoctrinate” as well.  If you say that a school teacher “indoctrinated the children”, you’re saying that the teacher repeatedly communicated their teachings to the children.  The word “indoctrinate” is usually considered to be negative in our culture, but it doesn’t have to be.

Webster’s dictionary defines the word doctrine as “in a general sense, whatever is taught”.  Doctrine can be true or false, and the Bible encourages us:

“But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1, ESV)

Again, there are many purportedly Christian teachers out there that claim that what they’re teaching isn’t about doctrine or theology.  This is appealing to many people, because it makes it sound like the teacher has no underlying motives or agendas.  The thing is, if you say something as simple as “Jesus loves you,” you’re teaching somebody (doctrine) about what God is like (theology).  So why do the teachers make the claim if it’s patently false?

There are of course those who make the claim in ignorance. These people are well-meaning, and what they usually mean is that Christianity doesn’t have to be as complicated as some people make it.  I can sympathize with this point of view, because the core of Christianity is really very simple.

But there are others out there that use this type of statement to defuse objections to something they’re about to say.  After all, the thinking goes, if doctrine isn’t being taught you don’t have to worry about whether or not it “accords with sound doctrine.”

This is in direct opposition to what Paul says to the Galatians:

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8-9, ESV)

We are to monitor what we’re being taught, compare it with what we’ve learned, and sort out the differences to discover where the truth actually falls.  You can’t do this by uncritically accepting what a teacher says; you have to turn to the Bible and discover what it says for yourself.

There is an absolute truth, and that truth is revealed to us in Scripture. Because of that, doctrine and theology are not the enemies of Christianity; they’re delightful companions on the journey.  Enjoy your journey this week!

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