Posted on 03/21/2022 8:37:27 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The recent now-deleted tweet by Andy Stanley, son of famed pastor emeritus Charles Stanley of the First Baptist Church, Atlanta, reads:
“The Christian faith doesn’t rise and fall on the accuracy of 66 ancient documents. It rises and falls on the identity of a single individual: Jesus of Nazareth.”
Stanley’s tweet was taken from a sermon he preached on March 6 at Browns Bridge Church in Cumming, Georgia.
When first reading the tweet on social media, I was saddened and sickened. This kind of statement was all too familiar to me. I had often heard it made by the moderates and liberals who were in control of the Southern Baptist Convention back in the '80s. I had defended the faith against this kind of approach to the Scriptures in the Baptist Associations where I had served — a time when my support for the Bible as divine and totally without error was in the minority and marginalized.
This kind of doctrinal error is what conservatives worked and sacrificed to save the Southern Baptist Convention from and succeeded. Moreover, other denominations that embraced what Stanley was teaching ended up on the trash heap of spiritual impotence or blatant apostasy.
It was, therefore, quite painful for me to hear a prominent preacher with the considerable influence of Stanley, one who has affirmed his own belief in inerrancy, declare something so contrary to that affirmation.
Unfortunately, Andy Stanley’s view of the Bible is not uncommon today in many seminaries and various mainline denominations that were once faithful. It holds if one argues for the highest view of Scripture as the Church did in the past, then one is in danger of a form of idolatry, elevating the Bible above Jesus, and therefore, guilty of the sin of Bible worship. In other words, you can make the Bible even more important than Jesus. You can give the Bible a prominence the Lord himself didn’t give it.
This is a seductive and harmful argument for those who may not know any better. It’s really a departure from the doctrine handed down by the Church, which has always maintained Christ, the Living Word, so identified himself with the Written Word, the Holy Scriptures, that no teacher can diminish the authority of one without also equally diminishing the authority of the other.
No one ever held a higher view of Scripture than Jesus did. In fact, over and again, Jesus encouraged everyone to judge his entire person and work by what the Scriptures said. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared he didn’t come to oppose or supersede the Scriptures, but to fulfill them exactly — completely — to fulfill every “jot and tittle” (Mt. 5:17-20).
Years ago, after leaving the pastorate to become the Christian Action League’s executive director, I joined a church where a man came before the congregation as a pastoral candidate. First, the candidate made a general statement about his doctrinal beliefs and church polity and then fielded questions from the audience.
One statement the candidate made was a red flag for me. He said he believed Southern Baptists had elevated the Bible above Jesus. So, before the entire church, I asked him to please explain what he meant.
To the point of embarrassment, the candidate kept avoiding a direct answer to the question by talking about things that weren’t pertinent. When he finally got around to addressing it, he did so in vague generalities, which essentially amounted to no answer at all.
At last, I sought to pin him down and asked: “Please tell us plainly. Do you believe the Bible is the infallible and inerrant Word of God? Yes or No?” His response was honest, but revealing when he replied, “No, I don’t.”
At this point, the candidate became very angry and began to attack my person with insults, declaring he believed the Bible as much as me. I responded that not only did he not believe the Bible as much as me, but he didn’t believe it as much as the people in that church. I then said to him, “You believe the Bible contains the Word of God, but you don’t believe it’s all the Word of God. Correct?” He acknowledged my assessment of his beliefs was accurate.
“Well, I agree with the candidate,” one lady said as she jumped to her feet to defend him. “He’s right! I think our denomination has wrongly given more prominence to the Scriptures than to Jesus.” To which I replied to her, “Please tell me how any of us can know anything authoritative about Jesus outside of the Bible?”
The candidate then replied, “I know! By experience!”
“Experience?” I responded. “And by what standard shall we measure the reality or truth of one’s experience without a Bible that does not err, and is authoritative in everything?” I asked. “How can we tell whether our experience is from God or the devil? Are we to believe our experience can never lead us astray — that our experience will never lead us to a counterfeit Christ?”
No one said anything further and the candidate withdrew his name for consideration, saying he could never be in a church with someone like me. Others, however, argued that I had just saved the church from many troubles and possible failure.
The crux of the matter is abundantly clear for those willing to think and look to the Scriptures. What Andy Stanley espouses is not what Jesus believed and taught about Scriptural authority. Let’s not forget Jesus Himself submitted to the Scriptures. Our Lord so identified Himself and his ministry with Scripture that he affirmed to the degree that one accepts the Scriptures is the degree to which one may know Him.
It should trouble us greatly anytime someone holds a different view of the Written Word than the one held by the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. It ultimately leads to making our own opinions, beliefs and experiences the authority rather than God’s revelation. Such only leads to error, compromise, and a falling away from the faith.
No, not originals, while as said, merely being found in the company of some writings of Scripture does not make such of that class, lest many other writings would be also.
"After the fact OG LLXX? That's just shape shifting for deflective rabbit holing no- time to go down... Stick with the OG original, you can't go wrong."
Enough with the sophistry, as you must know that there is no original LXX, and being Old Greek does not make it original, while rather than "shape shifting for deflective rabbit holing," the size and contents of the 1st c. LXX is the pertinent issue, and seeing as you have no LXX copy which contains all the Deutros for hundreds of years, or early ones that agree with each other regarding the content, and some add more, then it is you who is engaging in shape shifting.
And contrary to the premise of a 1st c. larger LXX, Although the claim that the Apocrypha were once in the Palestinian canon breaks down completely, as soon as the real Palestinian evidence is examined, one must still consider the possibility that the Hellenistic canon was wider than the Palestinian, and so was able to embrace them. This, of course, is the Old theory Of the Alexandrian canon, current since the eighteenth century.176...
The original grounds for the Alexandrian canon hypothesis were the comprehensive manuscripts of the Septuagint. The Septuagint is a pre-Christian Jewish translation, and the larger manuscripts of it include various of the Apocrypha. Grabe's edition of the Septuagint, where the theory was first propounded, was based upon the fifth- century Codex Alexandrinus.
However, as we now know, manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era," and since, in the second century C.E., the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint in favour of revisions or translations more usable in their controversy with the church (notably Aquila's translation), there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century, are all of Christian origin. (The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church: and its Background in Early Judaism by Roger T. Beckwith | Nov 1, 2008, p. 382)
What is there in the apocrypha that uniquely supports Christian faith anyway?
"Actually agree"
Meaning the premise that Jews nuked the Deuteros in seeking to rob Christians from support (and Luther to keep Catholics from the same) is overall lacking in support.
", though Macabbees for me of course.. but its not that impacting- I agree with you - but shouldn't we look then at all scripture unsupportive of Christianity then? No."
But souls who died due to manifest idolatry, (2 Macabbees 12) with no warrant for surmising they repentant at the last, and with offering being made for them in the interest of them seeing the resurrection (of the just) does not teach RC Purgatory, and at face value actually teaches contrary to it.
And indeed "remember the caves" in which it was shown that merely being found in the company of some writings of Scripture does not make such of that class, lest many other writings would be also.
And the class written after 70AD exposes the demonic fraud... Every Christian has to believe this... choose the right side.
That is an assertion, not an argument.
Enough for today.
I love Catholics enough to tell them the truth. I went to Catholic HS and know the incongruence its tenants are with Scripture.
It wasn’t a fore-shadowing I discovered myself. I came across it years ago, but damned if I can remember where. I did go ‘wow’ when I came across it.
Read later.
No, but was raised in Lutheran Church before ELCA became completely apostate. Received salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ at about 12-13 in a S Baptist church. Spent time in a number of different denominations. Attend a non-denominational Christian church now, basically Baptist in doctrine, but is going apostate . . . not many churches left. . .
It matters which Bible one uses.
The Bible program here is simple to use, powerful and free to download:
https://www.purebiblesearch.com/
Q: Have you been biblically “born again” by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is God?
Do you have biblical assurance that you will go to Heaven when you die? It is a simple decision and procedure.
N.
I’ve been tricked in a similar way too, usually chapter or verse is too high.
Public education designs their learning plans to have children communicate in accordance with a robust programmatic linguistic behavior and content-neutral word choice to prevent them from understanding anyone who speaks of any place independent of the global community.
I have always liked John Hagee’s preaching, his son-not so much.
The son tries to preach like his father, but fails in that respect.
John sits in a chair at the side of the platform while his son preaches.
Many preacher’s sons should be in a different business imo.
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