Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 1017 Whether an unbeliever can understand the Bible has direct implications for evangelism, for how we engage with non-Christian friends around Scripture, and for how we understand the Holy Spirit’s work. The answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no, and getting the nuance right matters both theologically and practically. What an…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 1018 The phrase “textual criticism” can sound alarming, as though it describes scholars sitting in judgement on the Bible and finding it wanting. The reality is almost the opposite. Textual criticism is the scholarly discipline by which ancient manuscripts are compared in order to establish, as closely as possible, the original wording of the…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 01203 These two terms describe two distinct works of the Holy Spirit in relation to Scripture, and confusing them leads to serious theological error. Getting this right matters because it protects the uniqueness and authority of God’s Word. Inspiration Defined Inspiration refers to the unique work of the Holy Spirit by which He moved…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10020 People who have never opened a Bible often assume it is a collection of religious rules, ancient legends, or moral advice gathered across the centuries. Those who have read it sometimes come away feeling something similar — overwhelmed by its size, its diversity, and the sheer distance between its world and ours. Yet…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10023 Anyone who reads through the Old Testament carefully will encounter laws that seem to belong to an entirely different world: regulations about food and clothing, skin diseases, what to do when a neighbour’s ox damages your field, when capital punishment is required, and how annual festivals are to be observed. The question of…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 60088 The assumption that science and the Bible are locked in fundamental conflict is one of the most widely held in contemporary culture. It surfaces in popular journalism, in university lecture theatres, and in the private doubts of many Christians who feel caught between the faith they hold and the world the sciences appear…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 10030 Before assessing what the Bible is, it is worth listening to what it claims to be. This is not circular reasoning — it is the same approach you would take with any significant document. A witness’s self-testimony may ultimately be accepted or rejected, but it has to be heard before it can be…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10027 By almost every external measure, the Bible should not hold together as a single coherent work. Sixty-six books. More than forty human authors. Three languages. A composition period spanning roughly fifteen centuries. Multiple literary genres — poetry, history, prophecy, law, wisdom literature, biography, letters, apocalyptic vision. Yet the Bible presents itself, and has…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10028 Most Bible readers have had the experience of a passage opening up with a clarity and personal directness it had never carried before — something has changed, though not in the text itself. And most have had the opposite experience too: reading words that are technically comprehensible but which carry no weight, no…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 10025 The Bible is a large, complex, ancient document. It contains poetry, prophecy, law, history, biography, letters, and apocalyptic vision. It was written across fifteen hundred years in three languages, addressed to people in vastly different cultural and historical situations. Christians claim it is the word of God for all people in all ages….