Words

We love a good speech. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople in 407, was called the "Golden Mouth" because of his excellent sermons. People who came to hear him speak were advised to bring no money because they would become so intent on his words that they didn’t notice the pick-pockets.

Today, a pastor with excellent oratory skills can sometimes form a mega-church or gain a large following.

We join churches, follow leaders, vote for politicians based on their ability to woo our ear.

A writer long ago lamented the problem of golden speech. He saw no people loyal to God but rather unfaithful ones who lied, flattered and deceived - trusting their own words over any other.
"They say, 'Through our tongues we have power; our lips are our own—who can be our master?'" (Ps 12:2)

There's power in our words. James called the tongue a fire that no man can tame.

And there should be power because God breathed his own life into us. We know the power of God's word. We know, from John, that the Word was in the beginning and it was with God and it was God. (John 1:1)

Our psalmist had harsh words: "May the Lord cut off all flattering lips and the tongue that speaks boastfully." (Ps 12:3)

But he offered words of hope as well. God's words, he reminded us, are pure words - like silver refined in a furnace.

We live today in a cacophony of words, blasted by speeches and enticements to buy, to go, to follow.

God listens to the groans of the afflicted and poor rather than magnificent oratory.

What am I listening to?

Fighting alfalfa

When we moved to our current home, we literally carved living space out of an alfalfa field. If you're not familiar with alfalfa, in the West it's a common livestock feed which is cut, dried, and baled for storage.

Our location in Colorado is technically called a desert and the farmers here get crops largely by supplemental irrigation. Or they use dryland techniques to tease every ounce of moisture out of the ground.

That was the case with our alfalfa field. It hadn't seen more than rainwater for many years.

We assumed that tearing it out and building a home would be relatively easy.

But that crazy alfalfa keeps coming back!

We build a flower bed over one patch of alfalfa after hoeing it out. We added 18 inches of dirt to the box - and the alfalfa pushed through that.

It is impossible to pull alfalfa by the roots. Those roots have run deep to some private source of water. I may have a new look at eternal life after wrestling with alfalfa for five years. Those plants seem equipped to live forever!

If you've read Psalm 1, you remember the writer's word picture regarding a tree planted beside a stream of water. It goes like this:

... a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither... (Psalms 1:3)

Our alfalfa is like that with roots finding some stream of water that allow it to grow in spite of my opposition. It overcomes serious attacks because it is rooted in water that gives it life.

I have looked at Psalm 1 as a sweet introduction to the Psalms, but my battle with alfalfa reminds me that we will have serious skirmishes in our lives. We will be opposed by forces. We cannot survive unless we have deep roots into living water.

What's the living water? Fortunately, the psalmist anticipated that. Living water is God's Word.

Do we cling to God's Word with the tenacity of my alfalfa? That Word is not a sweet treat - a donut to start my day. It is what keeps me alive.

Delight in the living Word today.

Etchings

I’m learning that the difference between reading God’s Word and memorizing it is the difference between writing with a marker on a whiteboard or etching the message into it.

I decided to memorize the book of Titus this summer. I just finished writing a series of devotional essays on the book and, besides, it’s short. Where else could I go to say I’ve memorized a whole book of the Bible?

Yeah, Philemon, but you get the idea.

I had studied Titus pretty well, I thought, in writing the essays but as I memorize the first chapter of Titus, I’m discovering points I had completely missed before.

I wrote God’s word in marker before, reading it repeatedly and studying it. But now, as I sluggishly etch His word, concepts are becoming clearer.

Memorizing is a muscle that needs to be strengthened. Titus 1:1 took over 3 hours to get locked in (and I’m not sure it is eternally locked in yet) but Titus 1:12 took less than an hour and 1:14 was done in about 20 minutes. The muscle is getting a little stronger. (And, no, I didn’t spend 3 hours all at one time. This was over three weeks of review.)

I know, you don’t have time to memorizee. Me, neither. But what a privilege it is to uncover another layer of God’s meaning. Give it a try. And hold me accountable!

New book

When I see young people excited about God's Word, I always check it out. Bible quizzing has been one of the avenues, where teenagers memorize different books of the New Testament (it varies from year to year) and then join competition against other teams.

Tomorrow, I have exciting news that references Bible quizzing, but for now, I want you to know a little more about it. Here's a promotional clip about Bible quizzing (done by my talented daughter):

God's story

Story is about principles, not rules.

-Robert McKee, Story

Even a quick thumbing through the pages shows that the Bible is filled with stories. Other religious books tend to embrace lists of rules but God preferred stories to convey his truths.

Stories are not necessarily fiction and I don’t mean to imply that the biblical accounts are fictional.

I’ve been reading Robert McKee’s book, Story, which is considered a classic in screenwriting. McKee starts the book with the statement above.

A rule directs us: “Do it this way.” A principle says, “This works and have worked many times.”

A story frees us from formulas to discover principles. The first biblical story, which reveals God creating a beginning and time and matter, does not have a check list of rules.

Instead, the story gives us images:

• In the beginning, God…
• From chaos, God bringing order.
• God is light, conquering darkness.
• God rules heaven and earth
  
• The spirit of God sweeping over the earth.

And really, that’s what we need to know. We understand instantly that God preceded time, that he always has existed, that he created.

We resonate with stories, which is how God wired us. We learn well through stories and God teaches well through stories.

To McKee, the story inspires us as it “seeks to order chaos and gain insight into life.”

God’s stories do that: find meaning out of chaos and give us insights for living. Enjoy God’s stories, knowing that they bring us truth about God’s nature and ours.

Through whose eyes?

I’ve been thinking about worldviews lately.

I recently read an insight regarding the Left Behind series of books that I had not thought of before. You probably know the story line, where Christians disappear from the earth in the Rapture.

The critic commented on how little difference it made to that world when the Christians vanished. Family members missed loved ones but society hardly noticed, except in curiosity.

Wouldn’t you think that if all the Christians disappeared, society would suffer? There’d be no more Salvation Army. Prison Fellowship would vanish. I know many who have given up their summer vacation to build a house for the poor in Mexico or dig a water well in Haiti.

I think that when we, as followers of Jesus, reach out sacrificially, it’s because of our worldview. And it matters to the world, even if they don’t want to admit it.

Today some see our passion as fanaticism: dangerous and listing toward terrorism. Humanism is the common religion today where we assume that belief in ourselves is the key to unlimited dreams and success. It’s supposed to be about what we know and do.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” according to Proverbs 1:7.

Paul endorses that approach: “In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.” (Col 2:3)

We are in an age where it’s understood that, if we only educate properly, we will cure the world’s woes. That’s a humanistic worldview, trusting in our own potential.

That’s not my worldview. I want my eyes to be marinated in God’s Word. My responses and plans can’t be based on my faith in my own potential, but faith in the Creator of the universe.

Have you thought about your worldview lately?

There is a way that seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death.
Prov 16:25

Getting the meaning

Biblical scholar Ben Withington has an interesting (and long) article about biblical meaning. Here is his summary:

1. Biblical texts have meanings
2. we need help to understand them
3. historical criticism is not the bogeyman, it is a good Sherlock Holmsian process that helps us understand the meaning of these texts
4. we should not listen to those who suggest ‘meaning is in the eye of the behold’ or in the ‘act’ of the reader’, if by ‘meaning’ we mean the plain Biblical sense of the text, not what I would like to find in there
5. historical criticism is in many ways the best hedge against misunderstanding and misinterpreting the text, and we should be glad for that if we care about the truth of the Word God, and desire to handle it prayerfully and carefully.

Note: when he uses "historical criticism" he does not mean being critical of the biblical texts, but studying them with a discerning eye to get to the meaning.< /b>

But Ben makes strong points about uncovering the meaning of a text rather than simply asking, "what does this mean to you?" which implies too much about the importance of the reader and not enough about the intent of God through the author.

Read what he has to say. Click here.

About Bible quizzing

Imagine 15 teenagers tensely perched on metal folding chairs, intently watching the quizmaster reading.

“Time in. Question: according to Philippians 1:7, 'What is it?'” says the quizmaster.

There’s a mad scramble as teenagers leap to their feet but only one has lifted off the electrical pad first, and his or her light glows before the quizmaster.

“Number two, Refuge,” the quizmaster says. “Refuge” is the name of the team.

And Number Two has 20 seconds to give a word-perfect answer based on that verse.

For your reference, Phil 1:7 reads: “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me.”

And so Number Two answers, “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you,” earning 20 points for his or her team.

That’s Bible Quizzing. I coached a team last weekend at a tournament in St. Joseph, Missouri with 15 teams doing a tune-up for national competition which will be in Minneapolis in April.

The season starts in September and quizzers are not expected to memorize all the material. For example, on my team, Alex had Ephesians, Timothy had 2 Timothy, Kay memorized Philippians, and so on.

The competition is fierce but every quiz starts with prayer and every quizzer encourages other quizzers – on their team and others.

We’re nearly done with this season and will start looking ahead to memorizing the book of Luke for next year.

We had 16 quizzes in 24 hours (each lasts about a half hour) and we all came home brain-numb. My team finished 7th out of 15 teams, not bad for a group of kids who had never been to this level of competition before.

But isn’t it cool to see teenagers filling their mind with God’s word?

It changes them, as we know it will. That makes it worthwhile for me.

Generational Love

To live with the Bible is more like living with a multi-generational, extended family than with a crotchety grandfather who keeps telling us of the good old days.

Leander Keck

Galatians 1

Ack! How is this new teaching better than what I taught you? That may have been Paul’s thoughts as he wrote his letter to the Galatians.

Last week, I introduced the book of Galatians and asked you to read the first chapter. Paul, who had just returned from his first church-planting swing through the area of Galatia (eastern Turkey), quickly learned that new teachers had followed in his steps. They were revising his message, telling the new believers that they needed Jesus plus some Jewish practices such as circumcision.

Paul was like a mama bear protecting the new followers. And some of his questions in the first chapter of Galatians go right to the point: What was the authority of these new teachers?

They had none, of course. They were changing the gospel of Christ. Paul was horrified that the new believers were buying it. Didn’t they look at these teachers’ authority?

Paul spent Gal 1 defending his own authority to teach, reminding the Galatians that he spoke not to please men but his authority came from Jesus. He spoke to please Jesus.

Re-read Galatians 1, reviewing Paul’s authority and the new teachers’ authority. Journal the answers to these questions and your responses to the chapter (and feel free to leave comments on them as well):

Why did Paul have authority to teach?

Do we know the authority of our teachers?

Do we speak with the authority of God’s word? Or do we speak to please others?

What do we base our faith on?

On Writing

Maybe you want to be a writer. You blog, you read books on writing, you have a best-selling novel wafting through your dream senses.

Let’s talk.

If you google “writer,” you’ll find 24 million hits. And most of those are things for writers to collect buy. Writing is big business.

It can get overwhelming and maybe you’re stuck on how to meet your goals.

So let’s start with the obvious: what is your goal? Write it down. (What else would a writer do, anyway?)

My goal is to express ideas in a clear, creative way that impacts people and honors God.

Writing is about ideas. My sister is an artist who paints her ideas. My husband is a carpenter who builds his ideas. But for me, I write.

Writing is about thinking. I’ve found that I work out the idea as I write. It’s a meandering process that resembles that snaking line at Disneyland but I have often completed a few paragraphs to wonderingly discover thoughts that I didn’t know I had. How does that work?

But I want to give you a single assignment before we examine that any further. Write down your goal. Keep it in one manageable sentence. None of this using semi-colons to string 1000 words together. Pare it down. Make it clear. Store it on your hard drive where you can find it. I’d love to hear what you come up with.

Remember that words are important to God. God’s words created the world and God’s Word saved the world. Being made in God’s image ought to open that door of expressing thoughts with words

Next week, we’ll look more at the process of thinking and writing.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…”

Gen 1:26

Reading or collecting?

Odd, the way the less the Bible is read

the more it is translated.

C.S. Lewis

So why signs?

The music was upbeat and the images bouncy, but I just didn’t get it. What were they trying to sell in that ad? Style drowned out the image for me. That’s because I’m an outsider to the cool world branded by the marketers.

Fortunately, that’s not the case with John’s writings. In his book, he tells us exactly why he wrote.

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:31

This week we’ve discussed the link between knowledge and belief. In a variety of settings, John showed us people who thought they knew because they have seen miracles. But their belief didn’t stick.

Today, we don’t get to see Jesus walking into Cana and bring a dying son back to life. But we do get to read about it. For the nobleman who had to choose between sight and Jesus’ words, the decision was agonizing. But in taking Jesus at his word, the father saw the gift of life.

It’s more important to believe Jesus’ word than to see his miracles.

Miracles happen today, bringing encouragement to those who follow the King. But don’t we long for more – to see the miracles from Jesus’ hand?

We don’t get to see those signs firsthand, but that didn’t produce enduring belief for the first-century observer anyway. The privilege of reading God’s Word is ours and by believing we have life in his name.

Tying the knot

Thomas is sometimes our spokesman, blurting out words that we’d like to say: Jesus, I won’t believe until I see the nailprints in your hands and touch the sword slash in your side. (John 20:25)

Ours is a world of material where we can feel the warmth of the sun, touch the roughness of tree bark, taste the tang of , smell a new rose, see mountains jutting into a azure-blue sky.

For many, there is nothing else. There is no spiritual, no unseen, no imperceptible – only what we can detect through our senses.

Jesus walked with those whose belief followed their senses. They saw and then believed. His ministry began in an insignificant village where he transformed cleansing water to wine, a clear image of his coming redemption. His second miracle was in that same town where he transformed death into life in healing a dying son.

The stories told between the Cana account of John 2 and the Cana account of John 4 explore the link between knowledge and belief. For many reading John’s gospel, the quest was for secret knowledge to open the box of understanding.

But the belief of those who saw Jesus’ miracles and then thought they grasped the truth was not made of the stuff of eternity. That belief faded like fog in the sunlight. The way to life was through belief. John is clear on that.

The way to belief is not through knowledge. Seeing is not believing.

Jesus challenged a nobleman to take him at his word. In doing that, the father found life and belief.

Thomas demanded physical evidence before pledging his heart to Jesus. But as Jesus stood before him, Thomas melted into belief.

Don’t we sometimes long to hear Jesus’ voice or touch his hand? Yet Jesus made it clear that belief does not come from seeing but from his word.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 21:29

Next: So why signs?

Is seeing believing?

It was about a 16-mile walk for a desperate father, dry and empty in spite of others on the road. He could have sent his servants but this was a task of the heart, a longing for the impossible. His heart pounded with the adrenalin of fear and distress.

He approached to Jesus with a simple request: come to Capernaum and heal his son, who was dying. (John 4:46-54) He had no other hope.

Jesus’ response was puzzling. This well-known teacher and healer started discussing belief. The father had asked for healing, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that belief?

But Jesus lumped him in with his countrymen: “unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” Jesus had just returned from Jerusalem, where people thronged to the signs he had done. In Samaria, his ability to tell a woman her past opened doors for deeper discussion. People clung to the miracles.

Desperation was in the man’s reply: please hurry before my son dies.

“Go home,” Jesus told him. “Your son lives.”

The crisis took shape. Would the man remain to badger Jesus? Would he leave Jesus and the opportunity for healing? What if his son wasn’t healed?

Were Jesus’ words those of promise or dismissal?

Amazing words follow for the man believed Jesus’ word and went home. We know he later learned his son was healed at the time Jesus sent him home.

We learn something of the nature of belief. Jesus challenged this weary and worried father: believe my words, not what you see. Your people demand to see but I want you to trust my words, not my actions.

Life is linked to belief. Jesus’ words, not a visible sign, led to life. A man and his household discovered life through the Word.

Next: Tying the knot

Words of encouragement

And God said “let there be…” and it was. John identified Jesus as the Word, the logos, the statement or speech of the Father. God chose to communicate himself and his nature through words.

And he gives us the same privilege, to use words to communicate about God and his nature. I am fascinated by words, for we know they are powerful. A statement of criticism can overwhelm many pats on the back. Yet a well-crafted note can stir our spirits to new heights.

How we use words makes all the difference. James warned us that the tongue is a fire, able to burn away chaff or ignite a movement. It reveals our hearts and our deepest intent.

For whatever reason, God has given me a love for words. My library is stuffed with books about grammar and style and usage. I spent my 16^th summer writing a novel on an old black manual typewriter, zoning out chores and Mom’s voice to pound out the movie running in my head.

As my relationship with God grew, I knew this talent would be wonderful in his kingdom. He’d be so glad to have me as one of his scribes. (We spell this: a-r-r-o-g-a-n-c-e.)

But as my heart has been broken by my own pride and greed, I have given this writing to God. It is his to do with he wants, and I cringe when he says, write. Sometimes I compare rather than obey and so I am stricken. My words seem like dishwater at a table of rich wines.

Recently, he told me it was time, and so I wrote about the miscarriages that broke my heart. Now, those articles have helped earn Sumballo the Blog of the Month award from Writers…Interrupted.

Maybe someone bearing the pain of miscarriage might be touched by His eternal compassionate touch.

I am honored, and I am encouraged to trek on. When God is at work, you never know what’s next.

Angela, thank you for nominating me. I am grateful to receive this award and I want to share the joy. Check out the website.

Words are powerful and we wield them only by God’s grace.

Dive In: Author's intent

Water pours (pun intended) through the book of John. I’ll illustrate shortly. Diving into a text means that we notice the author’s design, and use those elements to lay open deeper meanings.

The author’s point is key. We cannot look at a text and lay our design on it. Our first step must be to discover the author’s meaning. If we believe in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, then the author’s intent reflects the intent of God as well.

It should not be compromised by the all-to-common “this what the text means to me.”

But let’s go back to John for illustration.

Reading should always be done both with a microscope and a wide-angle lens. If you look at the first four chapters of John (that’s the wide-angle approach), you’ll see water imagery. Notice:

• John the Baptist uses water to baptize many in John 1. We know from Acts that this was referred to as a baptism of repentance.
• In John 2, we have water turned to wine. Large jars that usually held water for ceremonial cleansing were instead filled with water then transformed into wine for drinking.
• Although Jesus, in the latter part of John 2, does not specifically use water, he cleanses the temple in Jerusalem.
• When Jesus counsels Nicodemus, he explains the idea of being born of water and of the spirit. (John 3:5)
• In the latter verses of John 3, our focus returns to John baptizing. He wants nothing of the spotlight, however, taking a dispute about purification (cleansing?) as an opportunity to point to Jesus.
• John 4 is obvious: Jesus meets the woman at a well and discusses living water.
• The healing of the nobleman’s son happens at the end of John 4.. Although water is not obviously a key factor, our author points out to us that this miracle happened at Cana, the same town were water was turned to wine.
• In John 5:1-15, we read about the cripple at the pool of Bethsaida, hoping the water would heal him but instead Jesus did.

I have some thoughts on the author’s intent here but I’d like to hear something of yours. Would you share a comment about something you think the author was trying to communicate? Don’t feel you need a lengthy discussion. We can build an interesting discussion through several insights.

Remember, the idea is to share a thought on what the author may have been trying to communicate. I’m anxious to hear what you notice.

Dive In: Commentaries

I was only 17 at the time, so the meetings were welcome. All the Sunday school teachers gathered every other week while our pastor taught us the lesson we were to teach to our children. I had 5-year-olds and didn’t want them infected with wrong doctrine.

Today, my feelings about those meetings are a bit mixed. They were helpful to me as a young teacher but the more experienced teachers refused to do any study on their own. Their preparation consisted of repeating what the pastor told them.

We do the same thing with our Bible study when the first resource we pick up is a commentary. I have challenged you to read-read-read your Bible and to examine with care, noticing detail and also trying to discern the big picture.

A commentary should be one of the last books you pick up as you dive into the text. Commentaries are written by people who, in spite of their labor, cannot help bias and limitation. No commentary can fully capture the meaning of any text.

Add in to that that biblical scholarship continues to develop. New discoveries have added depth to biblical understanding. The Dead Sea Scrolls have added great richness to biblical scholarship, for example, because old texts were discovered, allowing translators to better discern word usage and syntax of first century writings.

For centuries, biblical scholarship tried to explain the lack of archeological evidence for the Assyrian nation. Many assumed it had not existed but then an ancient Nineveh was discovered. Discoveries help us better plumb biblical meaning.

All this to say that older commentaries are somewhat limited. They didn’t have the benefit of the Dead Sea Scrolls and archaeological finds. They worked with the knowledge of their day and they have very helpful insights. But don’t rest your analysis of a text on ancient commentaries alone.

Just like reading different translations of the Bible helps reveal meaning, reading more than one commentary helps produce a balanced presentation.

I will make some recommendations. Please know these are not inexpensive books. You may never own the entire set of them. I try to buy a text as I study a particular book, depending on financial resources. However, these will enrich your study.

My favorite commentary is The New American Commentary from Holman Press. It is evangelical and conservative, scholarly and deeply steeped in Hebrew and Greek research. Each volume is $20-$30 new. I’ve found used volumes for less.

Another suggestion is New Testament Commentary by Baker Press. It is from a Reformed standpoint. It is written by two authors so isn’t quite as consistent as the NAC, but still a valuable commentary.

Some helpful scholarly authors are: F.F. Bruce, Ben Witherington, Howard Marshall, Douglas Moo, Leon Morris, Craig Blomberg, Walter Brueggemann, Brevard Childs. This is a very limited list, but it might give you a foothold into further study.

Often you can find articles on the internet by these authors.

My basic tools for Diving In are several translations of the Bible, the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, a good atlas (we’ll look at those another time), and The New American Commentary.

First, study the details of the biblical text, noticing its design and provenance. Try to discover the author’s point to his original audience and see if that idea still resonates today. THEN dig out commentaries to see if others agree with your analysis. If no one has seen what you’ve seen, maybe you’ve better go back to the text and do some more digging. Use a commentary as sort of a answer sheet to check your work, not the place to begin.

Don’t just repeat what a commentary tells you. Dive in and drink the text for yourself. You’ll be revived and renewed by what you discover.

Friday Five: Lord of all

In the beginning God created

Gen 1:1

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

Psalms 19:1-2

The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

Isaiah 40:28

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Romans 1:20

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Heb 11:3

Dive In: Textual Error?

Someone just handed you a sheet of paper with 10 sentences on it. Here’s the first:

The flowers are red and blooming in my front lard.

Here’s the second:

The flowers are fed and blooming in my front yard.

And the third:

Rhe flowers are red and blooming in my front yard.

Do you think you could come up with the correct sentence even though every one of the 10 sentences was different? I'm think this is easy pie.

We rest our defense of God on his errant, inspired Word, so you should be aware of arguments that may be thrown in your face:

• We do not have any original texts of biblical writings.
• Many of the copies of the original texts have mistakes.

Both of those statements are true. However, we have roughly 5000 copies of the original texts. That’s bushel baskets more than any other historical writing. Scholars would love to have five copies of some of the ancient Greek poems.

Let’s go back to our example at the beginning. The mistakes in the biblical copies are those kinds of mistakes. The original texts were copied by scholars who used scrupulous methods. One technique had a teacher to read a text to 10 or 20 scribes. Their job was to write down exactly what he said. They provided a safeguard for his possible slip of tongue plus they could compare with each other.

They worked very hard to get every mark exactly right, but sometimes “typos” happened. A letter was forgotten or two words run together. Maybe a scribe did what we sometimes do. Ever quoted a Bible verse and added “The Lord Jesus Christ” when that particular verse said, “The Lord”? Those kinds of errors happened, too. A scribe may have added a phrase from common usage, even if it wasn’t in that particular verse. He may have forgotten a mark that changed a letter.

The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls underlined the overall accuracy of the copy system. Many very early copies were discovered. The closer the copy is to the original text, the more accurate it is assumed to be. So biblical scholars were anxious to compare more recent copies to the old copies discovered with the Dead Sea collection. What they discovered were that very few mistakes had been made.

The newer texts were extremely accurate, and many of the errors were of the sort we’ve discussed – easily recognized and understandable.

I’m discussing the area of textual criticism. (Don't think of criticism as disapproval but as serious examination of a subject.) There are many resources available but one I’d recommend is James White’s The King James Controversy. It has several excellent chapters that explain textual criticism in non-scholastic terms.

This is an important area for us as we dive in to the text, because many bash the Bible as error-filled. Although written texts can have errors, the ideas contained there are inerrant. Today, a typo in a Bible does not diminish its value as the inspired word of God and the same principle applies to the texts carried forward over the centuries.

God’s Word is not limited by ink and frail human hands, but has been protected from ancient times to today. We can trust His Word and can defend it against charges of error.

If you comment on today’s lesson on your blog, would you link to it below? We’d all enjoy gaining your insights and/or questions on the subject.