April 99
Recently I was speaking to a friend over dinner and he made the comment that Proverbs was a collection of wise sayings of that day but not inspired. He used the following verse to prove their error:
Do not answer a fool according to his folly
, or you will be like him yourself. Pr.26:4He then pointed out that in the next verse it contradicts the previous verse when we read:
Answer a fool according to his folly
, or he will be wise in his own eyes. Pr.26:5I believe that these verses do not contradict themselves, but rather instruct that there are two ways to answer the fool. Sometimes by answering him according to his folly you show him what folly his comment really is. However there are other times, or possibly with another fool, that your sarcasm may not be perceived, therefore it is better to answer him with wisdom. Yet the point my friend tried to make is a dangerous one. If we teach that Proverbs is not inspired but merely a collection of wise sayings of that day, who is to say that Psalms is nothing but a collection of poetry and songs of that day? For would you consider our songs written by our contemporaries inspired? Then what of "Job", is it not merely a private debate on whether God lets calamity come upon the righteous? Then what of "The Song of Solomon", is it nothing more then a collection of love letters? I could go on with these rhetorical questions, yet the point is: if we so much as raised one question in our minds as to the inspiration of any portion of scripture, we would have knocked over the first domino after which all the dominoes could fall. It is called a domino effect or a case of precedence from which other portions of scripture could suffer that same fate. The Bible clearly teaches:
All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2Ti.3:16-17)When I was a teenager, I would take only the words of Jesus as the inspired Word of God. I still remember as a child, when someone said something to the effect of: "That was Paul’s giving his own personal opinion and is not inspired. Yet what does Peter say?
"...our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2Pe.3:15-16)
Paul was so clear on what was inspired by God, that when he answered the questions that the Corinthians had sent him; he records the only piece of scripture that was not inspired:
Now for the matters you wrote about: ... To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): ... To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): ...." (1Co.7:1,10&12)
The foundation of the Christian faith is the inspirational reliability of the scriptures; to discredit one portion is to put a crack in that foundation that will bring down the great house of Christendom. We must watch what disclaimers we place on scripture, lest we teach the uncertainty of scriptural inspiration and cause people to reject not just a portion of the Bible but the gospel itself.