Let God Be True And Every Man A Liar

With General Assembly for the Church of the Nazarene coming up next week, it may prove to be the major turning point for the church and its future.  Many questions must be answered which have been unanswered in the last four years.  The apostasy within the church must be addressed and dealt with in a significant and forceful manner, or the church will die spiritually.  It may grow in numbers, or financially, but it will die nonetheless if the spiritual matters are not address.
I am writing a pre-Assembly article for next Monday.  The following is a re-post of an article John Henderson wrote.  I believe it is pertinent because of the major issue of what to believe about the Bible, whether it is true in whole or only in part, and whether it truly is the word of God, or only “contains” it.​

Let God Be True And Every Man A Liar (Romans 3:4)​​​

Reposted, originally written ​by John Henderson, June 1, 2011

A Christian lady who recently attended an interview session for a prospective pastor of a Nazarene church where she attends posted online her experiences from the interview.  Among those were are the following excerpts:

“no questions regarding anything about doctrine or scripture…except when I asked how he would present the gospel in a ‘positive way‘. One of the people I shared the questions with asked about the inerrancy and infallibility of scripture…..said he did believe it …but when I added in all areas….geographical, historical, and scientifically…he did not agree …..most if not all in favor of his admittedly liberal approach to ministry and admitted that he uses books like Kimball, and the others I listed, like Osteen as a basis for his sermons and ministry approaches…. (although admitted his home congregation didn’t care for those messages)…..looking for a progressive thinking congregation….when I addressed the “sin” issue of the gospel….he suggested not knowing me and my religious background….that I maybe grew up in a legalistic church or maybe was abused as a child….neither of which is true….I had a good cry when I left….not about being alone…just about the state and direction of Christ’s holy Church.”

I am among those Nazarenes who are very weary of neo-Nazarenes or pseudo-Nazarenes who are trying to ascend to leadership among us while dragging along the emergent church heresies.  As former General Superintendent James Diehl said rather recently, they are already here and what we need is a resurgence of old-time holiness among us.  We certainly do not need an “emergent Nazarene” assimilation of socialistic progressivism, eastern mysticism, postmodernism, new age social gospel, and all its accouterments.  We need people who do not hesitate on or apologize about the cardinal questions of sin and biblical inerrancy as well as all other biblical truths.  No human being is qualified to pick and choose as to how the Scriptures are inerrant as they may assert.  They are not qualified to say which ones are and which ones are not inerrant nor how they may be so.

I highly favor the proposal of change in the Manual presented at the last General Assembly (on which no action was taken):

 “RESOLVED that Manual paragraph 4 be amended as follows:

IV. The Holy Scriptures

4. We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, [inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation] inerrant throughout, and the supreme authority on everything the Scriptures teach so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.

 (Luke 24:44-47; John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21).”

The phrases they asked that should be added was “inerrant throughout, and the supreme authority on everything the Scriptures teach.”

Questions that might be asked of anyone who appears to equivocate on the inerrancy of Scriptures are:

If the Scriptures are inerrant only in “things necessary to our salvation” (something the Scriptures do not claim):

1. What are some examples of those Scriptures “necessary to our salvation”?

2. What are, therefore, some examples of those Scriptures NOT necessary to our salvation? Why are they not? Who makes the distinctions, who decides that? What qualifies them to do that? On what authority is that based?

3. Does that not mean, therefore (given 2) that Scriptures NOT necessary to our salvation are NOT inerrant and, therefore, ambiguous?

4. If they are not inerrant, why are they Scriptures? Why are they in the Bible at all? What would be their divine purpose for being among the inerrant passages?

If the Bible is not inerrantly inspired by God in any part, it is not at all trustworthy because there is no one outside of the Scriptures themselves who is qualified to tell us which ones are or are not inerrant.  We could never be sure because we have nothing left but fallible human reasoning as our ultimate authority.

We need to stop equivocating with the uncertainties of neo-orthodoxy*,  the seedbed of postmodernism, and embrace an understanding of simple things, such as:  If it is Scripture, it is inspired of God and it is infallibly authoritative.

The Holy Spirit did not mix speculation with inspiration.  We need to understand that if we say that any part of the Scriptures are not inspired, we are saying that the Holy Spirit made mistakes and that God is teasing us with error mixed with truth.  We are saying that we cannot trust the passages that declare that all Scripture is inspired of God and that holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.  It is satanic haughtiness right out of the serpent’s mouth that still questions what God has said.  To devalue God’s Word is to challenge God Himself.

We have no right to posture our opinions and presumptions so as to say that any word, phrase, or account in the Scriptures is not there by a full and complete inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which makes it irrefutable.  Even the words of pagans quoted in context are there because the Holy Spirit recorded them.  God did not waste words in His Scriptures.  We need to be always seeing the divine message, not quibbling over this or that speculation or bogus knowledge about the Bible.  If the Bible seems to have errors, it is not the shortcomings of Scriptures.  It is our own shortcomings comprised largely of ignorance and intentional stupidity.  It is we who missed the message.

The Bible is not a book of science but if it speaks of something of a scientific nature, it is always true, even if some smart aleck of the day thinks otherwise.  No man has the authority or qualification to validate or judge Scriptures.  The Scriptures authenticate Scriptures, and they judge us. God’s Word is always historically and geographically correct.  For us Nazarenes, that means all 66 books and every word in each book.  Every “jot and tittle!!” Those who think otherwise are missing their facts somewhere—or distorting them.

Significantly, it is the only Book in the history of mankind that has never been proved wrong in any respect.  Every alleged discrepancy is easily refuted by the Scriptures themselves.  Its critics have come and gone by the wagon loads.  That Book is still here and will be here when the current crop of naysayer’s carcasses have turned to dust (if Jesus tarries that long).

There was a time when I thought that the elitists among us were few and basically disconnected.  Was I ever so wrong!  They are well organized, well connected, and well-heeled.

Maybe we are lobbing too many soft balls to these people.  Perhaps we should be pitching the hardball-98 mph-questions to these self-appointed experts of the faith, such as:  Why are you here?  Why do you seek to undermine our confidence in the Lord and in His Word?  What do you offer in its place that gives as great a hope and assurance of eternal life and such wonderful guidelines of holy Christian living on earth?  Why do you want to drag us into hell with you?

*(http://www.gotquestions.org/neoorthodoxy.html)

Question: “What is neo-orthodoxy?”

Answer: Neo-orthodoxy is a broad term, but it is mostly used in the sense of “modern contemporary theology” or “liberal theology.” Fundamentally, neo-orthodoxy differs from orthodoxy with its approach to the “doctrine of the word.” . . . . The orthodox view holds that the Bible is the revealed Word of God, which was given by inspiration of God. By inspiration, both verbal and mechanical, it is meant that the Holy Spirit was in full control of the Bible writer, by either verbally dictating everything he was writing or by using the person as a tool to work through. This doctrine of inspiration comes to the logical conclusion that the original manuscripts are without error or contradiction. Two Scriptures that are quoted in support of this view are 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:20-21.

Neo-orthodoxy denies this orthodox approach of inerrancy and inspiration, saying that inspiration was not given verbally or mechanically, but that the author interpreted the events or word of God, thus writing his own interpretation. This denies what God has revealed to us in the above passages, among others. Scripture in its original manuscripts is the very words of God in the words of men. . . . In orthodox circles the Bible is regarded to be the complete and sufficient revelation of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17, Jude 1:3). Neo-orthodoxy believes the Bible is a medium of revelation (while orthodoxy believes it is revelation). To the believers in neo-orthodoxy, revelation is therefore dependent on the experience (or personal interpretation) of each individual, making truth a mystical experience, rather than a concrete fact. Neo-orthodoxy would make a distinction between the “word of God” and the “revealed Word of God,” calling the Word of God (Bible) the “letter” and the revealed word of God the “Spirit-word.”

 

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Mocking and Rejecting God And His Word

“Professing to be wise, they became fools.” Romans 1:22

They twist God’s word for their own purposes.  We see them all around us now more than ever before, or so it seems.  Perhaps they are just simply less subtle and have been emboldened to be more plain about their heresies.  Complacency by both leadership and laiety alike further enables them to take a stronger foothold in our “Christian” universities, seminaries, and churches.  The sincere desire for “unity”, “love”, and setting aside “minor” differences has led to a watering down of God’s word and a reliance on man’s rationalizing to decide what is valid in Scripture.

Tom Oord of Northwest Nazarene University, a highly regarded professor of theology and philosophy, is perhaps the leading false teacher in the Church of the Nazarene.  He has been allowed to continue on and on with his poisonous agenda of evolution and open theism, and you would think he would be out by now, and teaching in a secular school instead.  Why he remains, as well as others, is either a matter of complacency, or fear, or the leadership sees no problem with his ideas.  He certainly is not there because he holds fast to biblical truth, because he has rejected biblical truth in place of his own.

In his latest article that caught my attention, he practically starts off with a falsehood:

“I take the Bible with utmost seriousness”

Anyone who does not believe Adam and Eve were real, or who believes that God cannot know the future, or who believes that God can learn from His mistakes, or that God could not have created all things in a brief period of days- does not take the Bible seriously!

He then starts slowly explaining how he came to his disbelief:

“Witnessing to God’s truth seemed to require that I believe the Bible was without error on all matters, including matters related to science.”

His love of man’s wisdom instead of God is shown in these words:

“Instead, I started reading the Bible carefully and the work of biblical scholars.”
“I also discovered discrepancies in the Bible.” (so he says)

“My quest for better ways to think about the Bible prompted me to read theologians and Bible scholars from the past and present.”

His claim of “discrepancies” can be proven to be false, and that is another whole new article in itself.  He also rejects John Wesley’s own testimony that he believed in biblical inerrancy, conveniently dismissing it as being inconsistent at best.

He continues with his high regard for what “leading scholars” think:

“And I discovered through reading and conversations that those considered the leading biblical scholars and theologians today also reject absolute biblical inerrancy.”

“Perhaps even more important was my discovery that great theologians and biblical scholars of yesteryear believed the Bible’s basic purpose was to reveal God’s desire for our salvation.”

“The vast majority of Evangelical scholars with whom I talked also didn’t think the Bible has to be inerrant about scientific matters.”

These statement are all indications that show he clearly does not come to his conclusions based on what the plain teaching of God’s word is, but rather on the wisdom of “great scholars and theologians.”  Throughout his writings you will see examples of what he “thinks” is, instead of taking God’s word for it, when God clearly speaks in a literal, not allegorical fashion.  But leave it to Tom Oord and other intellectuals to decide what’s best for us and convince us that only certain parts of Scripture are infallible; the rest are not trustworthy in what they say, because of a so-called conflict with “science” and man’s foolish and unproven theory of evolution.

Scripture instead asks “Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  1 Cor. 1:20

And then he finishes with a flourish and an example of his superior intellect over what the Bible teaches:

“After my studies, I came to believe that the Bible tells us how to find abundant life. But it does not provide the science for how life became abundant.”

So Tom Oord’s premise is this: we cannot believe anything the Bible teaches us, even if evidently in a plain literal way, if it has to do with such things as geography, science, history, anthropology, or even politics.  No, to Tom Oord and others, we can believe in biblical inerrancy only in matters of salvation.  I don’t know who originally came up with this, but it is certainly not based on God’s word.  The Bible does not teach us this at all; it is man’s invention.  I believe the answer as to why he thinks this way, is that he has no trust in God’s word at all.  It is impossible to trust God’s word, and then at the same time say that parts of it are false.   And if he does not even trust God’s word, let me dare ask the question: is Tom Oord even saved?

How do we determine which parts of Scripture has to do with salvation, and which does not?

For instance, in Romans 5:12, it is written that “sin entered into the world” and thus “death” by sin.  Does Tom Oord reject the fact that the “man” that Paul is talking about is none other than Adam?  And if sin entered the world through Adam according to Scripture, followed by death, how is that compatible with the story (fable) of evolution, which logically says that death came into the world long before man existed?  Is Paul a liar, thus making God a liar, since what Paul wrote IS God’s word?  How then can Tom Oord or any other pastor or Christian leader tell us that this passage has nothing to do with “matters of salvation?”

Let me make it clear as far as what I believe.  If you are actively teaching others that evolution is compatible with the Bible, you are a false teacher.  If you believe this theory to be true, you are sadly deceived and need to re-visit the Bible and what it says.  You have been fed a lie, and if you think that a Christian can continue on in their Christian faith solidly believing in only part of God’s word, and not stumbling on account of that belief, you are sorely mistaken.

In part two of his series on BioLogos, Oord says the following:

“I think, however, that the Bible can be trusted about what it says about salvation even though its statements about the natural world – when interpreted literally – may be wrong.”

What total arrogance!  His reliance on “biblical scholars once again brings him to this man-driven conclusion:

“After all, biblical scholars say we best interpret Genesis 1 and other Bible creation passages as hymns and theological poetry, not scientific treatises.”

And then the height of arrogance in the following:

“For instance, evolution tells us that it took millions of years for creatures to evolve into the complex forms we now see. But if God gives freedom and/or agency to all creatures and they act as created co-creators, it would make sense that creating complex creatures takes time.”

Yes, for Tom Oord, it does not make sense that God can create anything in a short amount of time.  For him and his colleagues, it only makes sense that God needs millions and millions of years to create life.  Perhaps Dr. Oord believes that God made some mistakes over those years, and had to try several times before He got it right. After all, that is what process theology teaches, does it not?

This is total foolishness, and this is only a small part of what is destroying the Church of the Nazarene from within.  Tom Oord is a lover of wisdom, not a lover of God’s holy and pure and inerrant word.  The doctrines which he conjures up are senseless and speculative, and in the general sense of how the word “fool” is used often in Scripture, it means void of understanding or any moral sense.  This aptly describes Dr. Oord and all those who are teaching this philosophy.  They are devoid of understanding of God’s word, notwithstanding all of their training and degrees.  They are corrupt shepherds leading the flock to destruction.

And the rest of the leaders in the church?  What about them?  Silent as usual.

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John Wesley Was A Fundamentalist: A Rebuttal To Dr. Truesdale’s Argument

John Wesley was a fundamentalist.  He believed the Bible is inerrant and infallible in all that it teaches.  Let’s set the record straight.

“Wesleyans aren’t fundamentalists because that would require them to exchange a high doctrine of Scripture for a low one.”… “We shouldn’t ask the Church of the Nazarene, which is a Wesleyan denomination, to exchange its high doctrine of Scripture for a lesser one.”  (Al Truesdale)

These words by Dr. Al Truesdale in his article from Holiness Today (Why Wesleyans Aren’t Fundamentalists) sums up the thinking of some modern day Nazarene theologians who seem to be revising Nazarene history, as well as revising the history of John Wesley.  In this article, Dr. Truesdale flips things upside down and makes the incredible assertion that those who believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible word of God in ALL that it teaches and affirms, have a low doctrine of Scripture.  For him, and other theologians in the Church of the Nazarene such as Thomas Oord, those who reject biblical inerrancy are the ones who have a higher view and doctrine of Scripture!

Dr. Truesdale was my Greek New Testament professor at Eastern Nazarene College in three classes. Greek New Testament was my favorite subject at ENC, and he was an excellent teacher whom I greatly respected.  But I am afraid he is wrong in much of what he asserts here.  As I spent some time thinking on what approach I would respond, of which there were several, I received the following from my friend Allen Marsh.  It addresses one of the approaches I was contemplating for a rebuttal, which would deal with the historical aspects of the views of Wesley and fundamentalists.  Another approach would also be to deal with the question of whether the Bible is fully inerrant in ALL that it teaches.  Allen’s approach in his writing was solely to address historical accuracy, and here is what he wrote:

(by Allen Marsh)

 “Why Wesleyans Aren’t Fundamentalists” has much good information.  It also contains errors.

The very first sentence is opposite of fact—that fundamentalists have a low view of Scripture (inerrancy) and Wesleyans (certainly not all) have a high view (the Bible has errors).  To believe the Bible IS the Word of God is a high view while to believe the Bible only CONTAINS or BECOMES in certain situations the Word of God but contains errors is a low view.

According to the article, John Wesley, early Methodists, and the early Nazarenes had a low view of Scripture.  I will here argue for historical accuracy, not to prove inerrancy.

Wesley wrote:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (consequently, all Scripture is infallibly true).”

“We know, ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God,’ and is therefore true and right concerning all things.”

“[I]f there be any mistakes in the Bible there may as well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth.”

“Will not the allowing there is any error in Scripture shake the authority of the whole?”

Here are two examples from Methodism:

Adam Clarke stated:

“Men may err, but the Scriptures cannot; for it is the Word of God himself, who can neither mistake, deceive, nor be deceived.”

Richard Watson (1781-1833), the first systematic theologian of Methodism, stated that the authority of scripture “secures the Scriptures from all error both as to the subjects spoken and the manner of expressing them.”

Following are a few examples regarding early Nazarenes and inerrancy:

Many of the early Nazarene leaders came out of the Methodist Church during the conflict in the early 1900’s referenced in the article. They stood unequivocally for biblical inerrancy.  E. P. Ellyson, in his Theological Compend, wrote, “The Holy Spirit knows all the truths of nature, and would not inspire an untruth.”  “Logically and morally we are as much bound by the geological writings of Moses as by the theological writings of Saint Paul.”

 

As late as 1948 Ross Price wrote in the Herald of Holiness, “Our Lord…assumed the absolute truth of the Scripture…. The Bible is correct astronomically, geologically, historically, medically, botanically, zoologically, meterologically, prophetically, and spiritually.” (29 Nov. 1948).

Not until the 1960’s did soteriological inerrancy become the Nazarene view in academic circles although it was first suggested in the 1930’s.  That view is taught in academic circles but not to the general public.  The adult Sunday school lessons for the Fall of 2010 taught Genesis 1-11 as historical, not fictional.  Try teaching soteriological inerrancy to the tribes of third-world countries.

For one thorough study of this, see “Eighty Years of Changing Definitions in the Church of the Nazarene” by Dr. Daryl McCarthy.

The above information reveals the fallacy of most of the article’s other arguments, but I want to speak to one more.

The author says, “God himself, not information about him, is the primary content of revelation.”  He says fundamentalists are concerned with facts about God while Wesleyans are concerned with relationship with God.  How can you know a person without knowing information about him?  You can’t.  The more you know about the person, the better you know him.

The author said that “not everything in the Bible is essential to God’s self-disclosure.”  But it is.  The Bible says He created the heavens—He is greater than that.  It discloses God’s power, wisdom, holiness, love, mercy, justice, creativity, organization, attention to detail, etc.  God is truth.  His written word is “God-breathed,” true in its entirety when understood as it was written. There are problems with translations and there are problems with interpretations, but that the Bible is inerrant is the historic Wesleyan and Nazarene position.

Dr. Gleason L. Archer said that “almost every problem in Scripture that has been discovered by man, from ancient times until now, has been dealt with in a completely satisfactory manner by the biblical text itself.”  And Dr. John Warwick Montgomery said, “I myself have never encountered an alleged contradiction in the Bible which could not be cleared up by the use of the original language of the Scriptures and/or by the use of accepted principles of literary and historical interpretation.” 

To be honest, those promoting soteriological inerrancy only should say they have changed from what our founders believed.

Additional Resources:

http://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/biblical-inerrancy/

http://www.fwponline.cc/v16n2/v16n2reasonera.html

http://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/inerrancy-and-wesleyanism/

http://www.fwponline.cc/arm_extend/Inerrancy_01.pdf

 

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The Crux of the Matter: Concerning Inerrancy of Scripture, Part 1

(John Henderson)

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.- II Corinthians 11:3-4

 

2 Thessalonians 2:7a,10-12: “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work …And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.  And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

2 Peter 3:16 “As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”

2 Peter 3:3: “Above all, understand this: In the last days blatant scoffers will come, being propelled by their own evil urges…” 3:5: “ For they deliberately suppress this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water.”  3:17-18: “Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard that you do not get led astray by the error of these unprincipled men and fall from your firm grasp on the truth. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the honor both now and on that eternal day.” (NET

Romans 1:24-26: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature….”

 

This is “installment two” of addressing the limited inerrancy falsehood.  Number one was “The Word is Nigh Thee.” Under good advice, I am struggling with how to put things in a simpler manner so that the average person who does not spend as much time as I on these things can grasp what is happening.  Several of us have discussed these things back and forth and have come to the conclusion that all emergent error is based in one thing:  a denial of the full (total) and complete inspiration of the Scriptures in every detail.  Everything else feeds off of that intentional delusion.  An email corresponded wrote:

Having just finished reading one of Dave Hunt’s Berean Calls, I wanted to send along some of his quotes that align completely with what I have seen in my former [large Nazarene] church.

“The Bible allows for no compromise, no discussion, no dialogue with the world’s religions (emergent) in search for common ground. Remember, Christianity is not a religion but distinct from all of them.”

“Jesus didn’t say, ‘Go into all the world and dialogue about faith.’ He said, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.’”

“A reasonable and genuine faith must take very seriously what Jesus said – not what somebody says about what Jesus said, but His very words as recorded in the Bible.”

These quotes are what I try to explain to those who believe because they hear ‘gospel words,’ the name of Jesus, and all kinds of key Christian terms….that it does not mean the emergent agenda speaker is ‘preaching the Gospel’. Why? Because he does not believe in the inerrancy of scripture and has been brainwashed into believing only parts of the Bible. He often is doing the above-mentioned…dialoguing, debating, explaining, arguing, speculating, scrutinizing, telling stories in essence, making excuses, and of course having conversations. This is not preaching the anointed power of Christ’s message that compels sinners to come to the cross…and reminds believers that they daily must make their lives right with God.

From what the writer is saying, it is not possible to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ unless you unequivocally embrace the total inerrancy of the Scriptures.  Otherwise, you will be preaching “another Jesus,” a false “Jesus”.  You will end up doing just as she indicates and that is talking all around the Word of God instead of correctly preaching the Word of God.  You will throw yourself wide open for the infiltration of all sorts of detestable heresies such as substituting the creation account for a modified atheistic viewpoint, lying that God is limited in any way, denying miracles (Jonah, the Virgin birth, dead raised, etc.), and end up nit-picking passages—in essence placing the wisdom of man above the revelation of the omniscient God.  Theoretical meandering such as this seeks to overrule revelation even when passages of the Bible are referenced—but not actually observed.

An important point being made in the writer’s statement has everything to do with how the emergent heresy is slathered (spread thickly) with a pretense of gospel preaching, a look-alike “gospel”.  The method works for a period but becomes apparent as the lavish counterfeit eventually wears thin and even the least perceptive observer starts to notice things are not as they seem.  I’ll not belabor that point, having talked about it often in previous articles.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the entire emergent structure will instantly crumble if the errancy of the entire Bible is not firmly established, if the cover-up is not maintained, with those they try to persuade.  In fact, everything they say that is part of their system of teachings can be traced right back to their denial and misuse of the Scriptures in some manner.  An idea of limited inerrancy or total errancy is the hinge-pin[1] for all they embrace.  It is what holds them together and makes them operate.  They have no message apart from it.  If they should accept the full authority of Scriptures, their many arguments that go against plain Scripture are immediately refuted by those Scriptures.

I mentioned in the previous article the paper written by Jason Bjerke[2] in which the writer addresses the controversy surrounding the Bible’s inspiration, inerrancy, and authority.  He acknowledges the historical attacks from the outside but brings sharply-focused attention to the attacks from within.  He makes ample references to statements by some of the modern leadership of the Church of the Nazarene as examples of attacks from within.  It should be noted that the Church of the Nazarene is not alone in this because there is evidence that similar or identical attacks come also from other denominational leaders, including Southern Baptists, the Evangelical Friends, the Wesleyan Church, and Pentecostals; as well as from publishers, para-church organizations, and missionary organizations that once were solidly Biblical. 

Neither Bjerke nor I intend to besmirch the Church of the Nazarene, their leaders, or those other groups but it is important to inform the main body of those groups of what is actually being taught them to an extent they at least can make an informed decision about what they want to do about it one way or the other. 

No lies.  No cover-ups.  No looking the other way.  No making excuses.  No denials in the face of evidence.  No ducking for cover.  No hit-and-runs, as so many of them so often do to those who question them. 

I remain willing to be publically corrected by the Scriptures if I am wrong about anything.  I am willing to have my rationale publically examined and challenged according to the common rules of rational logic.  I ask the same of them—but do not expect they will ever rise to that challenge. They have not risen to that challenge so far.  Perhaps there I still a chance they will.

Among Bjerke’s opening statements is this:  “This attack [on the inerrancy of the Scriptures] is not blatant or overt but rather subtle in its nature as it begins with the compromising of orthodox Christian beliefs.”[3] He defines orthodox as theological views that are affirmed by the Bible and have been held to since the New Testament Church. 

Modern new liberalism leaders have taken orthodox content and subtly shifted it into a neo-orthodoxy.  Neo-orthodoxy is a form of liberalism that, at its root, departs from the traditional understanding of inspiration of Scriptures.  “Neo-orthodoxy denies [the] orthodox approach of inerrancy and inspiration, saying that inspiration was not given…[by a method of divine inspiration apart from the will and design of man], but that the author interpreted the events or word of God, thus writing his own interpretation. This denies what God has revealed to us in the [Scriptures].”[4]

“Neo-orthodox ‘truth’ is therefore defined as that which is relevant to my experience, compared to the orthodox approach which states that truth is concretely stated in the word of God and is not dependent on anyone’s experience to verify it. Neo-orthodox ‘truth,’ therefore, becomes relative and not a concrete fact by which true Christianity can be measured. Neo-orthodoxy further teaches that Scripture is not the only form of revelation, but that revelation can be directly obtained from God, for God is still speaking / revealing at present.….If the church has come to a point where it believes that truth is relative to the interpretation of each individual or minister and that God is still declaring new revelation, then it is sure to lose the truth.”[5]

The “new” revelation idea, “new things” as variously expressed in emergent practices, is not limited to far-out charismatic and “prophetic” elements, such as kundalini.  It can be seen in an almost over-the-top reference to the “leadership” of the Holy Spirit in ordinary functions of otherwise normal Christian service. It is in the same category of:  “He doth protest too much.”

Neo-orthodox “theologians” will try to go beyond the idea of the Bible writers’ writing through their own personalities but will also attempt to claim that the inspired authors functioned under the limitations of human knowledge and human conditions and that those limitations are revealed in their writings to the extent that errors occurred in the original manuscripts.  Thus they will say that the Bible BECOMES (not IS) the infallible Word of God as a rule of faith (pertaining to our salvation).  All else (in those 66 books) are not Scripture by default. 2 Peter 1:21 is not written in that context.  The verse right before it plainly says: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”

New liberals may try to deconstruct words like “prophecy” and say it applies only to foretelling.  That incomplete statement might work some until they have to deal with another of their denials that God is omniscient. 

Actually, the foretelling meaning of that word is critical to inspiration.  Only God knows with absolute certainty all events that will unfold from before creation and into eternity beyond this existence.  No man could ever do that with 100 percent accuracy.  As we know, the Bible is not a history or current events book.  That is not its purpose.  It always looks to God’s future and must necessarily be completely accurate, even when speaking of ordinary things in the present tense.  That is only possible through full inspiration.

Emergent liberals try to smooth it over by talking about “the story of salvation” and “the Scriptural message” so that you might think they are referring to every part of the Bible.  They are not and they eventually tell you so.  They are being seductively selective as to which passages they say are inspired—thus are Scripture according to them; and which they say are not inspired—thus not Scripture according to them.  

They exert neither the intellectual honesty nor the necessary courage to go so far as to tell you which passages are and which are not inspired.  That is why you have something like that pretentious decision tree to lead you into further delusions.  You will even hear them say it is a Wesleyan position but that very assertion is subjectively developed according to their own whims to get you to think they are speaking from a perspective John Wesley would endorse.  There is little chance, from his writings, that Wesley would recognize the “Wesleyanism” touted about these days.

The decision tree I just referenced and wrote about in the previous article is an illustration of that very error whereby the reader is left to his or her own biases, prejudices, understanding, and interpretation to determine inerrancy.  That doesn’t sound like being moved by the Holy Spirit unless, of course, you are making a wild claim as mentioned above about being extra-biblically guided by the Holy Spirit—something that He would never do.  One would easily hear from seducing spirits in that fashion but never from the Holy Spirit!

I listened to a television news program where a prosecuting attorney and a defense attorney were discussing with the moderator the two views of the same case.  The prosecuting attorney made a very important comment:  “The truth doesn’t change.  The truth remains what it is.”  When that idea is applied here, we see that we are discussing the problem of promiscuously trying to change the truth into what it is not because it has never been and never will anything but the truth is and always has been.

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[1] A hinge-pin A short cylindrical rod of hardened steel running laterally near the front of the bar of a break-open gun’s action around which the barrel hook revolves when the gun is opened.

[2] Jason R. Bjerke. “Limited Inerrancy and its Theological Issues“. (Gospel of Christ Ministries, www.gcmin.org). April 11, 2011. (See the attached chart that is in his article)

[3] Ibid. 4.

[4] “What Is Neo-Orthodoxy?” www.GotQuestions.org. (clarifications added in the brackets).

[5] Ibid.

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The Word Is Nigh Thee

[Note:  My appreciation to Mike Jobbins and others for making this data available to me.  You people did a fantastic job in bringing this together.  I am honored to have received your work to comment on.]

Deuteronomy 30:14: “But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”

Romans 10:7-9: “Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)  But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

One of the issues that fully convinces me that the Church has entered the predicted falling away, where men prefer deception to revelational truth and are willing to essentially sell  their souls for the flesh pots of the Great Apostasy, is the pretentious and hypocritical assault on the Scriptures by those who should know better.  The most tragic of it is that most of this assault comes from within denominations and their people that once preached and lived a Scriptural holiness that was unapologetic, unashamed, and relied on the full authority of all Scripture to prove their claim.

The most insidious error is the massive subtlety in how the Scriptures are maligned.  Their disparagement of the Scriptures furnishes the basis upon which all of the rest of the whimsical inaccuracies of all postmodern emergent teachings rest. By corrupting the plain statements of the Word of God, they attempt to turn the Bible against itself.  They resort to a system of inconsistent ideas and statements whose falsehood is a logical consequence of the act of holding them to be true based on nothing better than assumptions.  In plain English, they not only put their theological foot in their mouths, they only open their mouths to change feet.

Regardless of any other claims they may make, they always throw back to logical fallacies and human reasoning based on those fallacies.  That is where they stop.  They go no further. 

Jason R. Bjerke, wrote a paper April 11, 2011 titled, “Limited Inerrancy and Its Theological Issues.”  It is published by Gospel of Christ Ministries at www.gcmin.org.  Page 40 is a chart of this kind of false reasoning that is the topic of his paper.  I have named the chart for my purposes, “A Heretic’s Decision Tree on Scripture Inerrancy.”  Since the chart does not copy into emails and other places, I will furnish a brief description of it, along with some of Bjerke’s comments on the issue.  One can take any passage from the Bible and follow down the decision tree to decide if that passage is “inerrant” or merely “accepted as truth under the big tent approach.”

The decision on the inerrancy of any given passage or verse is made by subjectively answering the question, “Does the Bible passage relate to salvation.”  I say it is subjective because no guideline or authority is presented for determining the answer; and the answers (“solutions”) are all subjective.  I should say about legitimate decision trees that they depend for their usefulness on answers based on evidence or a common understanding of the facts.  This tree offers no such basis for the answers at all.  Bjerke provides a scholarly and comprehensive response to many of the false, often adamant, explanations offered by proponents of limited inerrancy.

The “Yes” answer leads you to the statement:  “The Bible passage is Scripture and is inerrant.”  The “No” answer leads you to the statement: “The Bible passage is not Scripture and is not inerrant.”  Notice that both answers offer an up-front determination about a passage of the Bible without the slightest offer of data.  Under the “No” answer, it supposedly “becomes the Word of God as it is read.”  Under both are two similar statements that the passage is supported by experience, church tradition, and critical thinking (reason), with a possibility of yes and no answers that lead to other conclusions.  Again, no authority is offered for those conclusions.

If you have grasped this gobbledygook by now, you are three steps ahead of me.  I have absolutely no idea how they came up with those answers, especially considering the previous paragraph I just presented.  It is clear they did not go to the Scriptures for their authority.  That means they went elsewhere, somewhere way outside of the Book of God.  They meandered into human reasoning capabilities and experiences.  In fact, they as much as say so on both sides of the so-called determination path to either “Accepted as Truth under the Big Tent Approach” or “Accepted as Scripture which is inerrant”—the final answers for both answers.  Even the “inerrant” decision has a lot of wiggle room on this chart.

The first question, “Does the Bible passage relate to Salvation?” offers no objective way to determine that answer.  Apparently, that is left up to the subjective judgment of the reader of the Bible passage.  I have had that thrown at me before with such remarks as, “You have your opinion and I have mine.”  Opinions, however, are not evidence.  Personal choices or personal preferences are opinions.  Thus begins the path to error, no matter how you answer the question because “thus saith the Lord” is completely disregarded.  Revelation is a non-factor in this approach.

We already know that God does not have a library on a cloud so we can find out which parts of His Word are inspired and which are not.  We only have from Him that 66-book library we call the Bible.  All that other “information” has its origins somewhere besides Him.

As far as I can tell at this point in time, this notion is the foundation for all claims to limited inspiration, including “only in matters pertaining to our salvation.”  They call it Scripture one moment and then call it not Scripture almost at the same time.  Which is it?  Both answers are based solely on experience, tradition, and “critical thinking.”  Do I need to go into that to show that each are among the most unreliable aspects of proving or disproving anything, let alone the Word of God.  They are tenuous aids at best and far from strong in making a believable point.

There is a world of difference between saying that “Scripture is not everything contained in the Bible, but rather the passages concerning salvation” and the clear teaching of Scripture that everything inspired by God is Scripture and therefore inerrant, as Bjerke pointed out on page 12.

It is dangerously presumptuous to take a position that comes up short of the Bible being anything but fully inspired and fully inerrant in all matters whereof it speaks.  It is apostasy on parade that is more shameful than a gay pride parade in New York City on a sunny summer afternoon.  We can wrack our brains with myriad of philosophical approaches and pseudo-scientific “proofs” and never be able to either prove any jot or tittle of the Bible is erroneous or to prove any position other than it is totally inerrant and that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”.  It is to call God a liar or stupid.  We know He is neither of those.  All of the sanctimonious babble on it is plain hooey, and that is far more than just my opinion versus another’s.

The notion of judging the Bible by an arbitrary standard such as “pertaining to our salvation only” is man-concocted—purely imaginary and arrogantly condescending upon the Word of God.  It does not come from God and can be found nowhere in the Scriptures. It comes down to the fact that many among us are pushing the boundaries of revelational truth and trying to make it into what God has never said that it was. It is vital that we pull back those artificially extended boundaries created by conceit and spiritual depravity and return to the simple truth of “thus saith the Lord,” and nothing else.

If no one objects (or even if they do), I will just stick with a favorite Bible verse and John Wesley on this:

Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Wesley:  “…if there be any mistakes in the Bible, there may as well be a thousand.  If there be one falsehood in that Book, it did not come from the God of truth.”  Just so we are clear:  Wesley was not making allowances for any error in the Bible.  One flaw discredits and nullifies all.

If I am to take seriously Deuteronomy 30:14 and Romans 10:7-9, the only conclusion is that every jot and tittle of the Scriptures are indeed inspired Scriptures and, in truth, pertain to our salvation so that it is an exercise in sinful futility and carnal arrogance to try to nit-pick the holy Word of God and claim differently.

Ravi Zacharias has said that argument will take you in all kinds of directions but that people naturally need to go beyond argument to actual experience, observation, things that elicit emotions.  Oddly, postmodern emergents rely on just that very thing.  If they can get you to feel good, they have won the argument with you.  That means that those who hold firmly to spiritual truth must understand that logical argument alone will not win the day.  We can talk all day about the legitimacy and wonders of marriage, for instance, but love must be there as well; otherwise marriage is just a concept.  I have heard holiness preached precept upon precept and watched the constant glaze-over in the eyes of the congregation.  I have also heard holiness preached and watched the enthusiasm in those who were listening.

One of my daughters reminded me of the need to express these matters in simple concepts and terms.  That is so true.  Much of this error is convoluted and camouflaged in clouds of terminology that superficially sounds so wonderful but lacking in substance.  We counter-emergents tend to fall into their trap and respond in kind, further confounding the issue for the ordinary person who does not spend a lot of time researching these things as others do. 

Once we have the idea, we are duty-bound to translate it all into the common language we all understand.  We need to get into the habit of not only appealing to the intellect but also to the heart.  A young man who seeks to win the affections of the girl of his dreams does not tell her, “I hold dear, adoring, and enduring affections for you.”  All she needs to hear is, “I love you.”  She will respond more favorably to simplicity than clouding the message.  Keeping it simple can be challenging.

Dr. Gran’pa
(John Henderson)
[NOTICE:  ANYTHING I write over this signature may be copied or shared with others

and is deemed as published material unless otherwise stated herein]

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