Read Part 1.Fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals believe God has preserved His word. The debate among them is mainly over the manner of preservation and the form the preserved word has taken. Some believe we have a God-preserved, word-perfect text we can identify with certainty. Others believe we do not.
Those who hold to identifiable, word-perfect preservation cite several passages in support of their doctrine. Part 1 of this series examined several of the strongest of these to see what they they actually teach.1 I concluded that these passages lead us to believe God will preserve His word perfectly in a form that is at least potentially discoverable, but that they do not promise that God’s people will always be able to point to a particular manuscript or text and confidently claim it is the word-perfect, preserved text.
Others have examined these passages (and others) and come to very similar conclusions (Moritz, 86-88; Beacham and Bauder, 116-123; Williams and Shaylor, 83-111), and defenders of certainly-identifiable, word-perfect preservation have responded with counterarguments and accusations. Many of these obscure the real issues in the debate and attempt to frame it in a way that heavily favors their view.
Note: This article is reprinted from The Faith Pulpit (August 1999), a publication of Faith Baptist Theological Seminary (Ankeny, IA).
Note: This article is reprinted with permission from As I See It, a monthly electronic magazine compiled and edited by Doug Kutilek. AISI is sent free to all who request it by writing to the editor at [email protected].
The Book: A History of the Bible by Christopher de Hamel. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 2001. 352 pp, paperback. $29.95
Once upon a time, a band of vigorous tribesmen occupied a high and arid plain. They were surrounded by snow-covered peaks, and what little water they had trickled down from the glaciers and snowfields above. Water was precious to them, for their lives depended upon it. They took care not to waste a drop.
For some time, I have believed we needed to make a change in the translation that we use at Red Rocks Baptist Church as well as what we use at Silver State Christian School. But I have been in ministry long enough to know that “change,” regardless of how small it may seem to leadership, can impact church members in a big way. Over the years, I have made a
number of changes in our church, not in core beliefs but in the area of methodology and practical ministry.
Note: This is a summary article, condensing 15 pages of notes, of the Steeling the Mind Bible Conference in the enchanting lake city of Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho, on October 21, 2006.
