About
Purpose and the Bible
The purpose of this website (bibletruth4u.org) is to present Bible truth that will help you -- believers in Christ and unbelievers -- truth you may have missed in your own reading of the Bible and/or in what you have read in books, periodicals, devotionals, or the Internet -- or what you have heard in church or school, at conferences, or even on cruises.
More specifically, our goal is tackle questions that have been asked -- and questions that need to be asked -- about the Bible and spiritual matters. We aim to provide answers to these questions and to explain Bible passages that are often misunderstood. In fact, we will try to fill in the gaps that Bible commentators often leave when they skip commenting on some of the more difficult parts of a passage.
We want to help believers to a clear, consistent, and correct understanding of Scripture. We hope and pray that everyone will feel welcome and will profit from the studies included here, regardless of their current level of Bible understanding.
Perfection and the Bible
The studies included here are all based on the fact that the Bible is the only perfect book ever written. It is totally accurate (inerrant) in all that it says -- not just in its doctrine and morality but also in what it includes in relation to history and science. What may seem to be contradictory statements are -- when properly studied and understood -- simply truths for different people and/or different situations. The perfection of the Bible follows naturally from the fact that it was "God-breathed" (2Ti 3:16), and God makes no mistakes.
Preservation of the Bible
The Bible is the most attacked book in history. It has been banned, burned, belittled. Yet God has seen fit to preserve it through the ages.
We do not possess any of the original manuscripts, but studies of existing manuscripts and of quotations in church history show that we have between 98% and 99.9% of what was originally written. The Dead Sea Scrolls readings match the Masoretic (Hebrew) text with roughly 95% to 99% accuracy. Textual analysis of the more than 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament shows that 99.5% to 99.75% of the text is preserved accurately. Differences in spelling account for most of the variations (70-90%), word order about 9%, grammar and the presence (or absence) of the definite article only about .9%, synonyms and other minor alterations only about .1%, and variation in only one late manuscript 9.75%. A mere .25-1% contain a somewhat meaningful variation. No major doctrine or element of history, science, or morality is affected.
Progress in the Bible
It is important to remember that the Bible was not all revealed to and written by one person during one brief period in history. God gave His Word over a period of about 1600 years -- beginning with Moses around 1500 B.C. and ending with the Apostle John around A.D. 90.
This is usually referred to as "progressive revelation" -- God using about 40 different men, mostly living in Israel and writing in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek). Thus, the truth about any subject is not all found in one chapter or book or even one section of Scripture. Thus, we should logically focus on the most recent books of the Bible (the New Testament -- but especially the Epistles) for God's latest directions for mankind.
Portions of the Bible
The Bible contains a variety of literary forms (genres) -- e.g., legal, historical, poetical, proverbial, evangelical (the Gospels), and pastoral (the Epistles). Some sections of Scripture were intended for only a restricted group of people (e.g., Israel or the Church). Many folks have been unnecessarily confused and even harmed by taking a portion of Scripture from one of these areas and trying to apply it to another. For example, Proverbs 22:6 ("Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."). This has been taken to be a guarantee from God that if parents do a good job their children will turn out "all right" -- and many might wish that this were the case. However, it is found in a poetical book of Jewish proverbs; even in English, proverbs must be considered as general truths that may be usually but not universally true. They have exceptions. So it is that many of the misunderstandings of what the Bible actually says are due to taking passages out of context -- not considering the audience to whom they were written or the time period or the type of literature they are. An old adage that is still true is that "content without context may become a pretext."
Promises in the Bible
Perhaps the area where the most misunderstanding of Scripture occurs is with Bible promises. There are 3,000 - 8,810 promises in Scripture (depending on which scholar you consult), but most of them are NOT for us today in the Church, the Body of Christ. When a couple gets married, they make promises to be loving, loyal, etc. to one another -- not to any other person (present or absent). Likewise in the Bible, God makes promises to groups and to individuals that are meant for them -- and them alone -- and, thus, are not be be appropriated or applied to others. Thus, God's promise to Abraham of land, fame, and posterity (Gen 12:1-3), to Joshua of success (Josh 1:8), to Jeremiah of further revelation of truth (Jer 33:3), to Israel to bring them back from 70 years of captivity (Jer 59:10-111), and to Jesus' disciples of the power to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils" (Mt 10:8) were not meant for us today in the age of grace (not the Law).