Steve Ray has a list of more than 35 loaded Questions for "Bible Christians" (quotation marks his)(link to the whole list). I originally planned to respond to just 35 of them, but the series seems to have been of interest, so in this extension, I'm responding to three more numbered questions in his list, plus fourteen "bonus questions" that take the form "Where does the Bible say ... ." I'm trying to provide the answers in the same common format as the original series, for easy reference. This is number 1/17.
36) The Koran explicitly claims divine inspiration, but the New Testament books do not. How do you know that the New Testament books are nevertheless inspired, but the Koran is not?
Simple Answer(s):
1) The New Testament claims that all Scripture is inspired:
2 Timothy 3:16-17
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
2) The Koran does not claim to be "inspired" or to have been given by "divine inspiration." It claims to have been directly written essentially from the Creation and simply revealed to Mohamed.
3) We accept the Scriptures on faith, and that faith is reasonable.
4) Faith in the Koran would be unreasonable.
Important Qualification(s):
1) We realize that the New Testament wasn't yet complete when 1 Timothy was written. Nevertheless, "all Scripture" was intended to include "all Scripture" and not simply the Old Testament Scripture.
2) It's not simply the fact that Scripture calls it itself inspired that produces our faith.
3) We realize that each individual book of the New Testament may not explicitly state "This book is inspired Scripture" and that consequently a person who wishes to engage in extreme skepticism will always find a reason to doubt. However, such doubt is not reasonable.
- TurretinFan
Sunday, February 14, 2010
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3 comments:
Thanks TF. I have been following this series. This is greatly edifying. The part of Indonesia where I am from has more catholic than protestants. What makes it worse is that most of the protestant churches there are liberal and pluralistic in theology. Two radio shows which seek to defend the gospel have just recently been banned because of criticism against liberal/pluralistic theology.
Three years ago an evangelist was kicked out of a church because of debates he did with Catholics theologian.
God bless you in all your endeavors.
Paijo
Indonesia
Paijo,
I'm very glad that this series has been edifying. May God bless you and his persecuted church in Indonesia!
-TurretinFan
I would go at 3] and 4] with another reasoning.
Huh?
Consider TF's:
3) We accept the Scriptures on faith, and that faith is reasonable.
4) Faith in the Koran would be unreasonable.
Consider me:
We do accept the Scriptures by His Faith alone, and that Faith is unreasonable in the beginning.
Faith in the Koran would become reasonable over time only to a Muslim by the inspiration received from their inspirer.
The basis for the Faith once delivered to the Saints and the faith delivered to the Muslim is different.
Faith is unreasonable to the Saint and [f]aith is unreasonable to the Muslim at its inception.
But as Faith matures within and without for the Saint, what was once unreasoned and unreasonable becomes perspicuous and perspicacious, quite reasoned and reasonable as TF has demonstrated here today.
What he has done is demonstrate just how reasoned and reasonable God's Faith once delivered to the Saints is over the process of time and maturity all the while God's Faith convinces just how unreasonable and unreasoned the [g]od of the faith of the Koran truly is.
While visiting Nigeria several years ago I was introduced to one of the soundest Nigerian Preachers of the Faith once delivered to the Saints I have ever known. He was born into a Muslim family and raised in the Islamic faith. As a young adult something began to happen to him quite similar to what Our Faith accepts happened to Samuel the Prophet's mother at the beginning the discipline in God's Faith.
You should familiarize yourself with that truly inspiring story of Samuel's mother's conversion to Christ, 1 Samuel, if you are not keenly aware of it?
I would come to the most elementary bit of it for brevity. And I might add, now, in passing, that this too is one clear example why Mature Christians should pray with greater ferver and zeal for God's Kingdom to come and His Will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
1Sa 1:11 And she vowed a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head."
Here is a true example of how God converts His own from being "just" reasonable persons to being, Just and justified persons living by His Faith and not their own.
Does anyone have to tell Hannah the truth about Truth? Even Eli could not deter her from where God was leading her. Her own unbelief in God could not deter her from her cause to have an unusual and unreasonable conversation and relationship with God that brought her out of her doubts and unbelief into a full time ministry of proclamation and defense of Truth Himself by His Faith at work in her soul, that that is so unreasonable to a reasonable thinking person?
All faiths, the One True Faith and all other faiths, are unreasonable to the hearer of the Word until something outside of them occurs that changes them from carrying on in an unreasonable relationship with their God or [g]od, depending on who their God or [g]od is when inspiration comes to them.
Everyone lives by a belief system.
Not everyone lives by "the" Belief System of the Eternal, Holy, Everpresent God.
In fact, the Saints sometimes live first by another faith foreign to their called nature as the young man I met in Nigeria showed me.
Here may become the outcome of Our Unreasonable Faith lived out through our lives in this world:::>
Luk 6:22 "Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
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