Posted on 06/30/2004 4:21:51 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback
God Bless, and thanks for correcting my spelling.
Re #8 - The bible has been transcribed and retranslated a few million times. Mistakes will make it past the editing process as long as human beings have anything to do with the transcription.
Yes, but let's remember that the core issue is, was the Holy Spirit the co-author of these works, or are they just bilge somebody made up? If option A is true, then one can count on said Spirit to work out any kinks we might introduce by our imperfection. If option B is true, Christianity and Judaism are bilge.
Billy Graham tells of how he once told God, "Alright, I've decided I'm going to believe that everything in Your Word is true, even if I don't understand it." He said after that the Scriptures became a fire in his hands, a hammer to break down stone hearts and lead people to Christ. The Bible is truthfully recorded, and true in its teachings, and there is great power in beliving the Word is true.
There is a vast gulf between "accurate in its teachings" and "all that is written here is truth." For example, large sections of Job are pure bilge, because God included it to show the foolishness of the underlying philosophies.
See my conversation with thoughtomator in this thread. Shalom Aleichem!
True, but what bothers me is that so many people who reject "once saved, always saved" seem to think a Christian can go to Hell for offenses one step above jaywalking. Jesus didn't hang on a cross for that. I read a book on evangelism by one pastor who recounted telling one of his flock that any sin you plan ahead is enough to lose your salvation. First, I'd like to see his scriptural backup for that, and second, most of us would have to "re-up" several times a month!
I would figure because it's implied in 2 and 8. No Holy Spirit, no accurate scripture.
Such as? They seem to hang together pretty well in my estimation.
If your goal here is to elaborate on questions #2 and #8 and provide them with enough context/definitions, clarifying confusions you think I may have about them, details I may be missing, etc., in such a way so that I may eventually be convinced to answer them "Yes" instead of "No", I'd like to ask you why you would feel it necessary to do that.
Thanks for your great comment!
My random thoughts on this, as a Christian that is as conservative as possible. Not all points are related to each other though:
1) The survey is seriously flawed in several questions. As others have commented, we have parts that are ambigious, or even misleading in a statistical sense. For example, "Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?" could lead people to answer no if they think this question implies whether you can find the Pythorgas' theorem, or "George III is the King of Britain in the year 1770 AD" explicitly in the Bible. The assertion is wrong - everything in the Bible is true, but God's emphasis in the Book is not to set out all truth under the sun - it is the account of who He is, how He interacts with us, how we are related to Him, and tell us about the world, which He created, from the perspective of Him.
Another question "Is the Bible accurate in all its teachings?" will also trip a lot of otherwise Bible-believing good Christians. For instance, if you grow up in a (Jim Wallis) Sojourners-following church (I define this as to mean that as an average evangelical church very conservative theologically, that believes Jesus is God and man, He died and bodily rose back from the dead, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone only, but also think that the Bible teaches you to be pacifist, pro-Ralph Nader on social welfare, foreign relations, economic, and environmental issues) and you think following God's teachings in its entireity demands you to diss Bush and vote someone Left because he is (relatively) pro-market and the Iraq war, what do you think you will answer for 9?
We need more common sense and understanding from statistics in respond to surveys like this. This type is juvenile high school work - which wouldn't get you passing Form 7 Mathematics with Statistics in New Zealand if you put this as your project.
2) I have known a lot of atheist/non-Christian political conservatives, who will have scored poorly in this survey, as well as many hard-left Democrats well to the left of John F. Kerry that are very good Bible believing Christians will come out 9/9 on this. It may not say much about how these people think politically.
3) If the figure on US populations is 4%, how about this country (New Zealand)? Last time we have a NZ government census that says "Christians" is about 66%, around 26% have "no religions". Another mysterious "survey" claimed by an atheist says 71% of all New Zealanders believe that there is "no such thing" as God! Considering that only 8% of the population could correspond to "Christians" in the American sense, does it mean that only 0.72% of New Zealanders have truly Christian worldviews? (Or whatever the worldview defined here)
4) having said these, let me say that I score around 8 to 9 out of 9 here. I have my reservations on the survey but I agree that a lot more Christians ought to have a consistently Biblical worldview.
Truth is no good unless it's proclaimed.
Is there a problem? It's not as if I have a gun pointed at your head.
I'm all for proclaiming truth. But what that has to do with trying to convince me that my answers to questions 2 and 8 ought to be "Yes" (if I just think about them in the right way, understand definitions better etc) is not entirely clear.
Is there a problem? It's not as if I have a gun pointed at your head.
No. I'm just honestly wondering why one would find it necessary, why one would think to oneself "I *must* explain things in such a way so that he decides to change his answers from No to Yes".
What exactly do you think you will have accomplished if (after enough of your rhetorical massaging of their meanings) I say "ok fine, if that's what they mean, then Yes to 2 and 8"?
All I'm trying to say is that it's a mistake to view these eight questions as the be-all and end-all of Truth.
I once heard a definition of born again as starting a mature relationship with God. Kind of liked that approach that we begin maturing and have an active relationship with God and that it is through Jesus that we can have it.
You bet, Silver guy. Glad to hear your wife is doing better. Prayed for her when I saw the request, but it was after the fact.
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