How do you know the Bible is the word of God

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billt9 said:
A valid question, I believe. Ultimately for me it comes down to faith. I look at Jesus Christ, I look at his deeds, I look at his words (as recorded in the bible, of course) and I believe him - I trust him. I can’t explain it any better than that.

As a hymn goes, “Because they promise, I believe.” I believe it because he said it.

That millions, billions, follow him is not proof. Billions follow Mohammed; they are wrong. Billions of Hindus worship idols; they are wrong. In Jesus’ day almost all (not the Jews) worshiped multiple gods. Paul told them they were wrong, that “Christ crucified” was the only way, and thank God for us he did.

PS. I believe that holy scriptures are closed with the death of the apostles. As others have pointed out, holy scriptures warn against taking away or adding. that is why I do not accept the book of Mormon or the Koran or anything else as God’s holy word.
God sent his son to teach and to die on the cross for our sins, the ultimate act of love as said by Paul. What could be more final than that; more complete than that? “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous.” I don’t belief he “held anything back” for later revelation. I don’t believe in gnosticism (secret knowledge revealed only to a select – a few). Jesus revealed everything that is important for us to know now (of course, there is much we don’t know that will be revealed in heaven, Paul, chp 13) but everything essential was revealed by Christ 2000 years ago.
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Bill,

If you said this to me then I would ask…

How does your Faith differ from the burning in the bosom of the Mormon when reading the book of Mormon?

Where is you got that Faith?

If you believe in not adding and not subtracting then how is it you accept that Protestant printing presses removed the Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha in the Protestant Bible?
 
CopticChristian said:
Bill,

“Where is you got that Faith?”

From God; prevenient grace I think John Wesley called it (and I believe he got it from Augustine who, I believe:), was a Catholic scholar). But I am no scholar on this. I do know that as fallen creatures everything we get is from God but we do have free will to accept or reject (i.e., I am not a Calvinist).

“If you believe in not adding and not subtracting then how is it you accept that Protestant printing presses removed the Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha in the Protestant Bible?”

The Catholic Church erroneously included them (no offense:) )because it used the translation of the OT into Greek which for reasons I can’t explain had these extra books that are not in the Hebrew OT. The OT was written in Hebrew, you know, and these extra Greek books are written much later than the Hebrew books, and are rejected by the folks that wrote the OT (the Jews).

Yes, I know the writers of the NT wrote in Greek and largely quote from the Septuagint, but there are no Apocrypha quotes from the Septuagint in the NT.

So bottom line, I think the inerrant (yes I believe that) OT was the Hebrew OT written by the Hebrews, not the Septuagint translation, and the inerrant NT was the Greek written by the Apostles (or the “aides” like Mark and Luke) not the translations into Latin (Catholic church wrong about this) and for that matter not the KJV translated into English (some Protestants wrong about this too). PS I recall that the Catholic theologian largely responsible for the Vulgate (Jerome, I believe, without looking it up) noted that the Latin he was redoing had OT books not in the Hebrew bible and he recommended they be left out but the powers that be ignored him.

Summary: I believe the autograph are inerrant. I do not believe that any copy or any translation is inerrant. Since we have no autographs that means, i admit, that nothing we have is inerrant (as shown by the differing ancient copies we have), but the Holy Spirit insures that we do have the essentials for salvation available in translations we can read (ie, English in my case, etc)
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billt9:
I suggest you fix your response qoute.
 
jopala said:
Right and wrong are written on the tablets of a man’s heart. Ones belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God can be genuinely known in much the same way. Does it really matter so much that I call myself one name and you call yourself another. Accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior should be sufficient for you, should it not. I sometimes feel that as kind as we Christians frequently are, we, at times lose sight of the prize. Jesus Christ is Lord…what else really matters! Humbly I say to you we are all vain creatures but we must trust our Heavenly Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit to lead our hearts in these matters.
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May I ask what you practice,I am told you contact spirits in the Faith? just curious please ,with respect.Could you correct what I am told ,Thank you.
 
billt9 said:
A valid question, I believe. Ultimately for me it comes down to faith. I look at Jesus Christ, I look at his deeds, I look at his words (as recorded in the bible, of course) and I believe him - I trust him. I can’t explain it any better than that.

That millions, billions, follow him is not proof. Billions follow Mohammed; they are wrong. Billions of Hindus worship idols; they are wrong. In Jesus’ day almost all (not the Jews) worshiped multiple gods. Paul told them they were wrong, that “Christ crucified” was the only way, and thank God for us he did.
God sent his son to teach and to die on the cross for our sins, the ultimate act of love as said by Paul. What could be more final than that; more complete than that? "Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous.

…My Thoughts on this…
Jesus said, Many will come( in my name ) as bright shining Angels,to deceive,600 yrs later ,the Koran through a translater to a man ,this Bright Shining Angel told him that ,God has no Son who ever says he has is a Liar,written in Clasical Arabic which most Moslems cannot read or understand,the man made faith come about,But Wait Jesus said this would happen 600 yrs earlier ,plus what kind of Angel would say God has no Son .It speaks for itself,it is a Faith of Hate and spreading like wildfire unless we hold firm to our Faith ,God knows what is happening plus many times good has come out of it.Lets hope that in spreading this Cult,many conversions to the truth come from it.
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How do I know the Bible is the word of God? The Holy Ghost testified of its truthfulness to me sometime in 1996.
 
Fatboys said:
I have read through most of the posts and it still does not make sense to me. Catholics believe that the canon is closed although there are no scriptures to back up this claim.
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How would there be Scriptures to say that the canon of the Scriptures is closed? :confused:

The Bible is a human work - inspired by God, but still just ink on paper - it can’t defy the laws of time and space.
So was the canon closed after the death of Christ, or after the death of the apostles?
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The canon of the New Testament was closed when Pope St. Innocent I declared it closed in about 405 AD. The canon of the Old Testament was closed, and the canon of the New Testament was reaffirmed, at the Council of Trent toward the end of the 1500s.

The Church was given authority by Jesus Christ to do this when Jesus said to Peter (which means Rock) "Upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail - whatever you permit is permitted, and whatever you forbid is forbidden; whatever you close is closed, and whatever you open is opened. (Matthew 18, somewhere in the middle of the chapter.)
Why wouldn’t more of God’s word be important? We know that many of the ancient writtings that have been kept by the catholic church but are not included in the bible are not divine writtings?
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You can’t just add books and pretend that they are God’s word - it doesn’t work like that. If it wasn’t written by an Apostle or one of their close companions during the 1st century, then it can’t be included in the New Testament. If it was rejected by the Councils of Hippo, Carthage, and Rome, then it is not part of the New Testament. If they never even heard of it, then it is not part of the New Testament.

The Book of Mormon wasn’t written until the 1800s, by Joseph Smith and his companions, and was certainly unknown to the Early Church, and therefore cannot be included.
 
Bible_is_truth said:
God sent his son to teach and to die on the cross for our sins, the ultimate act of love as said by Paul.
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There is Someone greater than Paul who said this first: Our Lord Jesus prophesied His death, the reason for it, and fulfilled it. (John 15:13) “This is the greatest love a man can shew, that he should lay down his life for his friends”
 
Fatboys said:
I have started this thread so I can understand why people can not understand why mormons believe in more of God’s word than other mainstream Christians. And why others can not accept that there is more of God’s word. We are asked why we believe in these books. I ask how do you know that what you believe in is real or more correct than what I have. History is fine, but victors always write the histroy.
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For me it came down to locating the church, in the world today, that existed in the first century; specifically speaking, began on Pentecost. I did not want to belong to a church if that church was started by a man, unless of course that man’s name was Jesus. Seems reasonable…

Jesus said: I will build MY church…To each their own of course…🙂
 
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billt9:
Bill,

It is difficult to read answers within quotes.

You accept the notion that the Septuagint is the accepted norm, the original King James included the DC…

sceti.library.upenn.edu/sceti/printedbooksNew/index.cfm?textID=kjbible&PagePosition=1

The Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic Bibles all contain these books as far as I know and Protestants in the 16th century as you say…suggest this is error.

Since there is no such thing as an infallible Protestant.or a Protestant Church…how is it you can say that this is infallbily correct or is your opinion on this fallible?
 
NeuroTypical said:
How do I know the Bible is the word of God? The Holy Ghost testified of its truthfulness to me sometime in 1996.
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Neuro,

So, am I to believe that the essential way to testify of truth of anything is by virtue of the Holy Spirit testifying to an individual? If this is so then how does the Bible explain this so that all may benefit?
 
po18guy said:
There is Someone greater than Paul who said this first: Our Lord Jesus prophesied His death, the reason for it, and fulfilled it. (John 15:13) “This is the greatest love a man can shew, that he should lay down his life for his friends”
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well, I don’t disagree except that what Paul said in the Bible is the word of God, is the word of Christ, who is God (the son); it is the word of God through Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit (also God)

what Paul said outside the bible is not, but then we don’t have any of that, so we don’t have to worry about it:)

reminds me, we used to have an assistant minister who said something like “when it comes to Paul or Jesus, I will go with Jesus everytime.” I don’t think he had thought it out fully.

The words written to the Romans, etc. which we believe are written by Paul, are God’s words (as per above). Jesus, we know, never wrote anything in the Bible.The “red letter” text in the bible is what Mark said Jesus said, or what Mathew said Jesus said, etc. Jesus didn’t write any of it. But we believe – we know – when Mark wrote down what Jesus said it is accurate because Mark was guided by the Holy Spirit, just as Paul was, and every other biblical author was, whether he was quoting Jesus or not. Because of the Trinity, they are ALL Jesus’ words.
 
NeuroTypical said:
How do I know the Bible is the word of God? The Holy Ghost testified of its truthfulness to me sometime in 1996.
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You do realize that this does not equate with evidence. We must have something more than a feeling on which to stand because feelings can come from God, our own desires, or the enemy. That is why we were given the gift of reason. We need reason to help us discern truth. I’ll give you an example:

I believe that the Bible is the word of God because of who Jesus is. We read the accounts of his life, what he said, what he did. We can reasonably come the conclusion that the witnesses to his life are credible. And so we are left with a decision to make. Was Jesus who he said he was or not. I concluded that he was who he claimed to be; the Son of God. Then I look at what he did. He started a Church, promised to remain with it until the end of time, gave it the authority to bind and loose and to forgive sins and promised that the Holy Spirit would guide it into all truth. This Church, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, discerned, from all of the writings circulating at that time, the canon of Sacred Scripture. This Church proclaimed the Bible to be the inspired word of God. That is how I know that the Bible is the word of God.
 
Billt -

Regarding the deutercanonicals…

Which Jews are your referring to?

When …what year…do you contend that the Catholic Church erroneously included them?
The Catholic Church erroneously included them (no offense )because it used the translation of the OT into Greek which for reasons I can’t explain had these extra books that are not in the Hebrew OT. The OT was written in Hebrew, you know, and these extra Greek books are written much later than the Hebrew books, and are rejected by the folks that wrote the OT (the Jews).
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Porknpie
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Good questions. Also, regarding the following statement that he made:

“The Catholic Church erroneously included them…”

How can his statement be trusted as fact, inerrant, infallible etc. etc. if it is a fallible statement, and it is because he does not believe that anyone can speak inerrantly aka infallibly. :confused:
 
billt9 said:
well, I don’t disagree except that what Paul said in the Bible is the word of God, is the word of Christ, who is God (the son); it is the word of God through Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit (also God)

**what Paul said outside **the bible is not, but then we don’t have any of that, so we don’t have to worry about it:)
reminds me, we used to have an assistant minister who said something like “when it comes to Paul or Jesus, I will go with Jesus everytime.” I don’t think he had thought it out fully.

The words written to the Romans, etc. which we believe are written by Paul, are God’s words (as per above). Jesus, we know, never wrote anything in the Bible.The “red letter” text in the bible is what Mark said Jesus said, or what Mathew said Jesus said, etc. Jesus didn’t write any of it. But we believe – we know – when Mark wrote down what Jesus said it is accurate because Mark was guided by the Holy Spirit, just as Paul was, and every other biblical author was, whether he was quoting Jesus or not. Because of the Trinity, they are ALL Jesus’ words.
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Bill,

So if I say something that is true unless you find it written somewhere it cannot be true because you cannot read it.

Where is the book that says you were born, in a town, with family and had numerous experiences and memories and when your mother told you this or that and your father told you this and you did that…if it isn’t written then it did not happen…

Paul said many things that were not written that exist as the deposit of Faith of the Church…that was learned from Christ so that the Church may have these truths…

Oral Tradition in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam:
Introduction
Werner Kelber and Paula Sanders

found here…seems that the secular world has found what you deny…

journal.oraltradition.org/issues/25i

Catechism means to echo…and the Catechism is a deposit of Faith…learning in ancient days was to be told and then to echo back what you learned…

What did I tell you Johnny…yes Mom I know…The Catholic Bible has the Deuterocanonicals that the Protestant printing press took out…

Understand:thumbsup:
 
billt9 said:
well, I don’t disagree except that what Paul said in the Bible is the word of God, is the word of Christ, who is God (the son); it is the word of God through Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit (also God)
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Regarding the bible, did Jesus leave Christianity with a way to discern truth, especially in light of the fact that there are now so many opposing truths given any one doctrine e.g. the catholic understanding of the Eucharist vs the protestant understanding. Both cannot be right. Or, are we left with inerrant truth found in the holy bible with no way to discern the truths found therein…no way to resolve doctrinal differences, in the same way they did in the 4th century e.g. hypo static union Trinity etc…
 
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