Examining the doctrine of Scripture—its inspiration, inerrancy, authority, canon, and interpretation.
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1101. I hold to verbal plenary inspiration without embarrassment, and it is worth being precise about what the doctrine actually claims, because plenty of people, believers and sceptics alike, picture something closer to the Islamic doctrine of the Qur’an than to what Scripture says about itself. Did God dictate the Bible word for word,…
Reading Time: 9 minutesQuestion 1097. Woke interpretations of Scripture have become common enough in recent years that I think every believer needs some tools for recognising them, not so we can win arguments online but so we can guard the actual meaning of the text we love. What I mean by the phrase is a pattern of reading…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1096. Bible movies and dramatic readings have exploded in popularity over the last few years, and I get asked about them often enough that I think the question deserves a proper answer rather than a shrug from the pulpit. Series like The Chosen have brought Jesus and the disciples into millions of living rooms…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1095. Audio Bible listening has become one of the most common ways church members tell me they get through Scripture, usually confessed with a slightly apologetic tone, as though listening were a lesser cousin of proper reading. I want to put that apology to rest, because for most of human history, hearing the word…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1094. Bible apps have changed how most of us meet with Scripture each morning, and I think that change deserves more thought than a shrug and a download. I use a Bible app most days myself, so this is not a piece written from the safety of a leather-bound pulpit Bible looking down its…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1093. AI Bible study is something I get asked about often now, usually by people who are not sure whether using a tool like this on their Bible reading is clever stewardship or a shortcut around the very discipline that forms the soul. I do not come to this question as a technophobe. My…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1092. Meditating on Scripture is one of the oldest disciplines in the Christian life, and one of the most misunderstood, because the word “meditation” now carries associations that have very little to do with what the Bible means by it. When people hear “meditate”, many picture emptying the mind, sitting cross-legged, chasing a blank…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1091. Claiming verses is something I have watched sincere believers do in genuine faith, and something I have also watched leave people confused and hurt when the outcome they claimed never arrived. I understand the instinct. When life is hard, a promise like “I know the plans I have for you” feels like exactly…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1090. Scripture and prayer belong together so closely that I have never known a season of neglecting one that did not, sooner or later, weaken the other. I say this from experience as much as from study. There have been stretches of ministry where my Bible reading thinned out, and without my quite noticing,…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1089. Scripture in counselling is where I keep returning whenever I sit with someone in pain, because the Bible speaks to the whole person, not only to their beliefs about God. I am not a trained clinical psychologist, and I refer people to good professional help when a situation calls for it. But as…