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The Bible - Inerrant Word Of God by Jeff Pohlman © 2005
Some of the most interesting reading you will ever do is checking out the field of study called apologetics, which means to make a clear statement about something that could possibly be misunderstood, in such a way as to portray all of the known truth about the given subject (an apology for any misconceptions). In our day, one such author is Josh McDowell and his famous book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (one of his co-authors is Bill Wilson). Another such author in the apologetics field is Winkey Pratney. If you go to a library and ask for the Christian Apologetics section, you might be surprised at the size. Many of the authors started out with a very cynical or skeptical viewpoint, where they thought that the Bible was a loose collection of silly stories, was mostly completely wrong, largely historical fiction, no different than reading Homer's, Iliad, and Odyssey. It is stunning to see responsible author after author stumble straight into the conclusive statement that the Bible and it's events CAN be corroborated, and that it truly is a miracle that it HAS stood the test of time. It is not my place to prove such things to you, and you will just have to study it for yourself.
POSITION For our little collection of chosen called out ones, we simply exercise the faith-action knowing and believing that the Bible is true, it is written by our Father - the Creator of the universe, and that it does not contradict itself. At one time in our lives, there was a fellow who performed the function of pastoring. As a teacher, he made a statement that has stuck with us ever since. He spoke of how certain Biblical concepts seemed to be contradictory, but upon further investigation, we find that they are what he called, "truths in tension." Typical statements are those like, "if God is a loving God, then how come He allows __________ (you fill in your own blank with phrases like -to be killed, or -maimed, etc.)" This is not necessarily easy to find the answer to, yet, if one is sincere in finding the mind of God, He does not hide Himself from those who earnestly seek His answers. Sometimes we don't like the answers, especially when it comes to His judgment and desire for righteousness, but He does show Himself, and we will many-times end up with one of those truth-in-tension discoveries. The premise of our little group of called out ones is the same as when Jesus first taught it to the early believers, that each person is capable of approaching God by himself, through the blood of Jesus, and finding the answer(s) for himself/ herself, directly. We could enumerate answers from the Bible, to give proof texts, however, that would be unfair. We believe that you too are capable of extracting these answers for yourself, from the same Bible. These types of discussions (not arguments) are at the core of our meetings at times, as we each hammer out our "walk" of faith in Him. No one person has all of the answers, except Father God Himself, Jesus is the ONLY High Priest in our group, the rest of us are equals, and we encourage everyone in the group to seek answers, where we come together collectively to encourage and find those answers, in all peace, sincerity and wisdom. There is a phrase for this and it is called inductive reasoning, as opposed to deductive reasoning. Inductive is where you use the written word as a case study against itself, and deductive is where you look at outside commentary against the piece itself. We use inductive reasoning first, and after we feel (faith in action) that we have the word straight from God, then we might look to see what outside commentaries are saying. This places the responsibility for coming up with the answer(s) directly upon the one doing the searching, and the Author - God Himself. If you think that neither can be trusted, then you are at a loss right at the starting gate, and you might as well not do any searching in any texts, because your cynicism and doubt has a firm grip on your beliefs. This is not an irresponsible way of claiming something is true, when it possibly couldn't really be backed up with scripture. It is indeed our way of saying that what we are saying is in scripture, and we are willing to be taken to task to look it up yet again, to see that it is proven true - and we know that He has put it in His Book. We don't quote a bunch of cute little phrases that are nothing more than conjuring machinations of men's imaginations - no, that would be dangerous (like the poorly-yet-often quoted "God helps those who help themselves," which is NOT in the Bible), we talk of that which we know to be real - truly from Him. A chilling prophetic word is given to all who would be readers of the Bible, in its last book, chapter and verses, found in Revelation 22:16-21 [Red letters are direct quotes of Jesus Himself] (New American Standard Version - AMG Publishers - Spiros Zodhiates, Th.D. Greek Study Bible). 16- I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the ekklesia/ called out ones. I am the root and the off spring of David, the bright morning star. 17- And the Spirit and the bride say "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. 18- I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book; if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; 19- and if anyone takes away from the words of this book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. 20- He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen. Come Lord Jesus. 21- The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. © 2005 Permission to copy or reprint granted only if full version is quoted and proper notation of authorship recognition is given.
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