Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

All Scripture is God–breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

• 2 Timothy 3:16

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

• Genesis 2:7

“B. B. Warfield is best known for his exposition of the doctrine of Scripture.  He was the ablest defender in his time of the traditional belief that the Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God.
…
“ ‘The effort to explain away the Bible’s witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding  how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler‘s triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones and demonstrate of stone after stone its pathway is definite, limited and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately, do not come upon us stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each in turn — but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction. just so, we may explain away a text or two which teach plenary inspiration, to our own closet satisfaction, dealing with them each without reference to its relation to the others — but these texts of ours, again, unfortunately do not come upon us in this artificial isolation. Neither are they few in number. There are scores, hundreds of them — and they come bursting upon us in one solid mass. Explain them away? We should have to explain away the whole New Testament. What a pity it is that we cannot see and feel the avalanche of texts beneath which we lie hopelessly buried as clearly as we may see and feel an avalanche of stones! (The Inspiration of the Bible)”

• Tony Lane, A Concise History of Christian Thought

B. B. (Benjamin Breckenridge) Warfield (1851-1921) was the last principal of the Princeton Theological Seminary and acclaimed by many as the last great Presbyterian theologian of that seminary.  Note:  When he left his position as principal, he was replaced with “the first president” of the seminary, but in some circles, he being the last in both of these categories is significant in that the seminary split soon after.  Warfield spent much of his life as the caregiver for his wife, who seemed to have some sort of breakdown after a terrible thunderstorm.  Thus, much of his life was spent at Princeton.

While Charles Finney was a Presbyterian pastor, he did not hold to all the tenets of the Reformed theology.  Many other pastors of that time followed Finney’s example, but Warfield tried to draw in the reins, returning to a purer sense of Calvinism.  One of Calvin’s principles is the inalienable Word of God.

As people continue to find scraps of ancient biblical writings, it confirms that the Bible was carefully copied over the millennia.  We may not have a full 2000 years for the New Testament, but that may come in my grandchildren’s lifetime.  We have many more years back to Moses.

Some might argue hundreds of thousands of mistakes by copyists, but most of these are spelling errors.  The manner of writing the languages used in the Bible has changed slightly over time.  In understanding these types of “errors”, there are very few that remain.  The latest versions of the NIV have a few texts in italics.  Archaeologists have not found the confirming manuscripts for those.  But the teachings of Jesus and the spiritual message that God sent to earth, by divine inspiration to the writers, does not change with or without those small sections.

When someone tells you to search the Scriptures for the answers, they are telling you to go to a reliable source – that is a well-documented translation.  There are charlatans out there that have changed what God was saying in the Bible.  There are commentaries on various translations, and some of those commentaries provide a range of contextual accuracy in translation and literal, word-for-word translation.  You can use those guides to decide which Bible is best for you.

But the key is that God breathed His Scripture into the hearts of those who wrote it down.  God breathing into anyone is only mentioned twice in the entire Bible.  God breathed life into Adam and Eve.  And God breathed the words that were written down in the Bible and have now been translated into many, many languages around the world.

When Gloria Gaither wrote the song He Touched Me, she was touched herself, thinking that Almighty God would take the time, in love, to reach down and touch us.  It was an intimate thing to do.  It struck her with great awe.

But to breathe into us?  In a way, the Holy Spirit does that with each of us.  The Holy Bible is the God-breathed word of God, but to understand it, even in part, we need to surrender to God and trust Him completely.  And the Holy Spirit will then enter us and one of those fruits of the Spirit is understanding.

The Holy Spirit provides that understanding, but only in small doses at a time.  If we understood half of God all in one quick breath, we would be overcome by His awesomeness.  So, we need to keep reading, over and over again.

Maybe the concept of the avalanche can be taken in that respect.  We read a bit of Scripture and God reveals Himself, just a little.  That excites us so much that we share that with others, but one of our friends has progressed further down the path of faith.  They say, “but what about…” and they ask us to read the passage again, and Pow!  God has opened our minds to deeper meaning.

Oh, as B. B. Warfield wrote, what would it be like to see the entire avalanche at once…

That day will come.  When we meet Jesus face to face.  But on that day we will have a new body, with a new intellect that can handle awesome beyond our wildest imagination.

If you like these Tuesday morning essays about philosophy and other “heavy topics,” but you think you missed a few, you can use this LINK. I have set up a page off the home page for links to these Tuesday morning posts. I will continue to modify the page as I add more.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.