Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 1074 Why does our Bible contain exactly 66 books—39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New? Why not more? Why not fewer? Some people suggest that important books were left out or that the selection was arbitrary. But when we examine the evidence, we discover that these 66 books bear distinctive marks…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 1086 Some claim to have discovered elaborate numerical patterns hidden in the biblical text—patterns they say prove divine authorship beyond doubt. Others dismiss all such claims as misguided numerology. What are we to make of numerical patterns in Scripture? Are there genuine patterns that reflect divine design, or is this a distraction from the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 1102 If Scripture is the Word of God, how can it also be the work of human authors? Does the human element compromise its divine authority? Or does the divine element override the human contribution? This question parallels one of the great mysteries of our faith – how Jesus could be fully God and…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 1103 When we say every word of Scripture is inspired, does that include the chapter and verse numbers? Were they part of the original text, or were they added later? This is a practical question that affects how we read and study the Bible. The Short Answer No, chapter and verse divisions are not…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1031 When we talk about the sufficiency of Scripture, we’re asking a profoundly practical question: Is the Bible enough? Does it give us everything we need for faith and life, or do we need something more? This isn’t an abstract theological debate. It affects how we do church, how we make decisions, and how…
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1046 When we open our Old Testament, we are reading a translation of ancient Hebrew manuscripts. But which Hebrew manuscripts? And what about the Greek translation that Jesus and the apostles so often quoted? This question sits at the heart of how we received our Bible and which text we should trust as authoritative….
Reading Time: 5 minutesQuestion 1047 If you have ever compared an Old Testament quotation in the New Testament with the Old Testament passage itself, you may have noticed that sometimes the wording does not match exactly. This is not a translation issue in your English Bible—it reflects the fact that the New Testament authors frequently quoted from the…
Reading Time: 4 minutesQuestion 1114 Anyone who has read the Bible seriously has encountered passages that puzzle, trouble, or even disturb. Genealogies that seem pointless, prophecies that remain obscure, apparent contradictions between accounts, commands that seem harsh to modern ears, and theological statements that the greatest minds have debated for centuries. If God wanted to communicate clearly with…
Reading Time: 6 minutesQuestion 1134 We live in a religiously diverse world. Many religions claim to possess sacred scriptures: Islam has the Quran, Hinduism has the Vedas and Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism has the Pali Canon, Mormonism has the Book of Mormon. What makes the Bible different? Is it simply our book as Christians, no more objectively authoritative than…
Reading Time: 3 minutesQuestion 1125 Let’s be honest: when you hit one of those long lists of names in the Bible, “And so-and-so begat so-and-so, who begat so-and-so,” your eyes may start to glaze over. Some of those genealogies go on for pages. Is it okay to skip them? Won’t God be disappointed if you don’t read every…