706 - Authority / Inspiration of Scriptures

Download paper_706.pdf

Rejected

Comments

[Curtis Turner]

Laws of biblical interpretation dictate that we correctly get the essential meaning from the scriptures without distortion. The Bible is not a scientific book which makes some of the interpretation an open question. Interestingly, though, we find more and more that things stated long ago are as up to date as medical research today. I believe that, for example, the earth is very old . . . perhaps 4.5 billion years old, that dinosaurs died off in a cataclysmic disaster that occurred about 65 million years ago, and that an ice age covered much of our northern hemisphere just 12,000 years ago. Do these things disqualify me as a Christian? No. The more important question is am I a disciple of Jesus Christ and how does that affect the way I live. Wesley said that we arrive at truth through scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Scripture is the be all and end all of discussions. But it must be correctly interpreted according to the laws of biblical interpretation/exegesis. A fundamentalist approach would categorically throw this out the window.