|
Page 3 of 6
The Bible is not...
The Bible is not just a book of rules.
The bible is not a cosmic "to do" list to earn God's love. When we
measure our goodness according to the standards given on the Bible we
all fail. Some of us can perform rather well in certain aspects of
righteous living but the message if the book of the covenant says:
Rom 3:23-25
Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious ideal; yet now
God declares us "not guilty" of offending him if we trust in Jesus
Christ, who in his kindness freely takes away our sins.
25 For God sent Christ Jesus to take the
punishment for our sins and to end all God's anger against us. He used
Christ's blood and our faith as the means of saving us from his wrath.
TLB
The blood of Christ is the life offered to enforce and satisfy god's
covenant. "Our faith" is the same as Abraham's "believing" or signing
over everything of himself and his ways into God's covenant proposal.
The bible is not just a history book.
The history in the Bible is a record of many events important to the
making and verification and teaching of God's covenant relationship
with man. The history in the Bible is accurate, but it is not a
complete history of the earth. There are some events like the three
years of Jesus life on earth that are recorded in some detail, but huge
sections of time aren't even recorded. The reason is that as the book
of the covenant, only the information pertinent to finding and living
in God's covenant is collected and preserved.
The Flood of Noah is described from this same perspective. It
doesn't describe the science of how the flood came and the cataclism of
climate change, the elimination of most dinasours, mastadons, etc. The
Bible tells us what we need to know about why the flood came, and what
renewed covenants God gave to Noah, his sons, and all other life after
the flood. The bible gives us the "need to know" covenant news and
lets the rest of discovery to good sound science and archeological
investigation. Many people claimed the story of the flood as fiction,
but the more we find out about the earth, rock layers, fossil records,
and such, the more evidence is found to support the truth of the bible.
The Bible is not just a book of science ...
but the science that is in the bible is sound.
Job 26:7
He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space;
he suspends the earth over nothing. NIV
This was written long before it was an accepted belief that the
earth is a planet freely spinning in orbit around the sun, which it is.
Similarly,
Eccl 1:6
The wind goes toward the south,
And turns around to the north;
The wind whirls about continually,
And comes again on its circuit. NKJV
... describes the rotation of winds in high and low pressure wheather
systems long before we understood the jet stream and its control of
winds.
If we return to the passage from Job, it becomes obvious that the
information given about the earth and the oceans is given so we can
comprehend the immense power of God with whom we have our covenant.
Job 26:7-14
He wraps the rain in his thick
clouds and the clouds, are not split by the weight. He shrouds his
throne with his clouds. He sets a boundary for the ocean, yes, and a
boundary for the day and for the night. The pillars of heaven tremble
at his rebuke. And by his power the sea grows calm; he is skilled at
crushing its pride! The heavens are made beautiful by his Spirit; he
pierces the swiftly gliding serpent.
"These are some of the minor things he does, merely a whisper of his power. Who then can withstand his
thunder?" TLB
|
