Hour 1: The Inerrant and Authoritative Word of God

Do you have questions about the authority of the Bible? Would you like to know about the inspiration of Scripture? Is there evidence supporting the idea that I can trust the Bible? Well, you have come to the right place because today is a very special edition of Open Line with Doctor Michael Radonich. This is Moody Radio's Bible study across America. I'm Michael Radonich, and I'm the professor of

Great to be with you, Michael.

Okay, now I'm going to try to I'm going to try if you don't identify yourself as we're talking, I'm going to identify you a little bit so people will know the difference. That'd be great. Especially when you say something wrong. I'm going to say, oh, that was Jim. No, no, I'm not going to do that. Uh, also joining me is Doctor Steve Sanchez. He's a contributor to the Moody Bible Commentary, and he is a fellow New Yorker and fan of the New York Yankees.

That's right. Go, Yankees! Yeah.

That's right. Being outnumbered here. This is Jim. I'm being outnumbered.

Well, yeah. It was so nice. Uh, Steve is from Brooklyn.

That's right.

And people often ask me where I'm from. I say I'm from the Holy Land, Brooklyn, New York, and that's it. So that's that's where I'm from. And it's so good to have, as we say in Yiddish, a landsman, a fellow countryman from Brooklyn, right here with me. So, anyway, I want to get right to it. Trish has done some help for us. She has compiled questions that our listeners have sent in, and that's great. She's going to join in in a little bit. I didn't even say

Well, I think the notion, I think many of us learned Doctor Charles Ryrie definition of inspiration. So that's a very common definition. It's God's superintendence of the human authors of Scripture, so that using their own individual personalities, they compose and recorded without air his revelation to man. In the words of the original autographs.

That's great, that's great. I had to memorize that twice in my life.

I remember I had to relook at that now because I have to review that. But it's a great definition.

Let's start with the idea that God superintended human authors and then so that they would produce without error, God's word. Right? That's it. But they did it in their own personalities, their own styles. That's what it's talking about.

That's right. If people have in their mind a dictation theory that God is saying words and someone is there like a scribe writing them down as they come. That's not what we're talking about when we suggest super intention. God's in control. They are his words, inasmuch as he's in control. But he's working through the people who are getting these words down onto papyrus.

Or manuscripts.

Or manuscripts or other kinds.

Or clay tablets.

Or clay tablets.

Stone tablets.

So let's go to the two key passages, I think, from the New Testament that deal with inspiration and superintendents. There's a good word for it. The first passage is second Timothy 316. And so you hear the pages turning. We're having our little Bible study here, and that's where it says that all Scripture is inspired. The word inspired God breathed the stars.

Remember learning that in Greek class?

Yeah. And I remember, uh, the most basic idea is that this Bible has been God breathed, the text of Scripture has been God breathed. And that's the thing I want to really distinguish. How is this different from, as I said before, Shakespeare?

That's right. The issue is source. Yeah. The authority of the Word of God is bound up in the fact that he is the author of Scripture. When we look at Shakespeare, we read that and we say, oh, that's so inspiring to me. I want to be different. This is a wonderful piece of literature. We might have that reaction when we read the Word of God, but that's not where its authority comes from. He is the author. It's out of his mouth. It's literally God breathed and therefore it has authority.

So it's a divine human book. That's right. God is the divine author. That's right of Scripture. And now when we talk about inspiration, what is inspired?

Well, we talk about inspiration. We're not talking about the we're talking about God's Word doing it. And it's not necessarily the people. It's now kind of the words that come out through God's breathing breath into the into the.

It's the text of Scripture.

The text of Scripture.

It's the Bible that's inspired. So often we think it's the writers that inspired, you know, the inspired author said, no, we have nothing in the Bible that says authors are inspired. We only say the inspired text of Scripture. So from Genesis to Revelation, what I think we have to be really clear about is that the text of Scripture is what is inspired. It is the very words of Scripture. It's what we call theologians have called verbal inspiration. It's inspiration down to the words Paul wrote.

Other things that we don't have.

If you find his grocery list, what are you gonna do?

It's not inspired. Yeah. That's right. If it were, that would be suggesting that Paul has some authority on his own. Yeah, but he doesn't. Only the words of God through him onto this text.

It is interesting that there are references to other writings that the apostles wrote, and yet we don't have their remaining.

For there was another letter to the Corinthians. That's very clear. Right. But that was not accepted as the authoritative word of God, and it was never included in Scripture. And if we found it today, it'd be a nice thing to find. It wouldn't be part of the Bible.

It wouldn't be part of the Bible. Exactly.

Okay, so that's the what of inspiration? It is the text of Scripture. The how of inspiration is in the other key passage that we want to talk about. And that's second Peter 121 where it says, uh, that men were moved. I'm going to read this whole little section here, beginning with verse 20, and I'm going to ask you guys to kind of chime in here on what this means. First of all, you should know this. No prophecy of Scripture comes from one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever

That it's not coming from their own vocabulary, their own experiences. It's coming directly from God. So even though there the human agent that God uses to give us His word. We're still hearing it directly from God Himself through the Spirit of God. Well, he.

Did use his own style, though, right? His own words.

Right?

So, and we see that as we read the text there.

You can tell the difference. So when it says that no prophecy comes from one's own interpretation, it means that I can't say that I think it means I don't care what what the author meant.

It's an authority question. Again, the issue is who's the source of this? And the source is the Holy Spirit. They're being carried along by God. The authority comes from them. It doesn't matter how important you are or how studied you are. The authority lies in the scriptures themselves because they're from God.

And they didn't say, okay, I'm going to write the Bible now.

I will decide to do that now. Yeah.

When they wrote, it wasn't. Their will is what it goes on to say. Never came by the will of man. Isaiah didn't say, you know what, I'm just going to write a book of the Bible right now. He didn't do that. But when he wrote his book, that's what God made him do. Now he used his own words, right? He used his own style. And he even understood, I think, what he was writing. Don't you think.

The notion of a good analogy is like the wind in the sails of a ship? Exactly. And so that's the way it's carried along. It's moving along. It's not the energized by the individual himself. The Spirit of God is providing that energy and that.

That word moved by the Holy Spirit. The word moved is the word that was used of of the wind moving a sail. It always makes me think of the Princess Bride, you know, because in The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya looks and he sees that ship catching up on them. And he says, is he using the same wind we're using? And it's the sails are different, but the wind is the same. And in the same way, the Holy Spirit moves men. But the the men are different. And so

And that's so important without that guarantee. This is a mixed bag. Yeah. How do we know? And what we'll tend to do in our sinful state is pick the parts we like and treat those authoritatively and the ones we don't like. Well, those belong to Jim. Those apply to him. Not to me.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well that's right. Like going back to second Timothy 316, because it says that he that the Bible is profitable, but it's also purposeful. It's intended to do things. And so it's not it's intended to perform something in us, to cause us to become more like his son, to.

Transform us, to be men and women of God who are equipped to do his work. That's what it is. Uh, that is a great place for us to take a little break. Here. We come back. Trisha's got some questions that you have sent in, and we're going to take those as well. You're listening to Open Line with Michael Ray Dolnick and joining me today, Jim Coakley, Steve Sanchez of both of Moody Bible Institute, they are experts in what we're talking about inspiration, authority, Canonization, all the important

We'll be right back.

Are you looking to deepen your grasp of Paul's powerful epistles, the Moody Bible commentary on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians is your key to unlocking these treasured books with clear explanations and practical insights. This resource illuminates Paul's teachings on grace, unity, joy, and the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. Request your copy of this Moody Bible Commentary excerpt. When you give to open line, call (888) 644-7122 or visit Open Line radio.org. Welcome

Well, I just compiled what everyone sent. So this is great that we have a chance. We gave people the opportunity to send in specific questions on these topics, so they responded greatly. Um, the first question is, what evidence is there that the Bible is inspired?

You know, that's I often get well, how do you you're holding this book that's old and it's you know why? Why this not the Quran, why this? And not some other sacred writing? What do you say?

You know, for me, the power of fulfilled prophecy is an amazing sign that the words of this book don't find their source in man, but in God himself. I'm looking at one right now in Isaiah chapter 45. The fact that God mentions a man named Cyrus long before he shows up on the scene, and you have to ask yourself, who would know that? How would they know that someone can't prognosticate a couple hundred years the name of a person and his role in delivering God's people

I think we also have to look at the subjective. I think we see lots of change lives as a result of what this word has done. And so I think even though that's that's again, kind of anecdotal, but still the numbers, the transformed millions that have changed lives as a result of this word, I think is a powerful testimony to the power of God's Word.

What convinced me I always had this. I always accepted that the Bible was from God. Growing up, I just assumed it. Uh, not the New Testament, but my growing up. I believe the Hebrew Bible was given from God, but I really hadn't thought about it much. It wasn't. It was just assumed when I finally became a believer in Jesus. It was the predictions of the Messiah in the Hebrew

The Hittites, the Hittites. I spend my summers doing archeology. We find things and archaeologists down through the ages have found things that suggest the Bible is incredibly accurate. And we would expect that if God is its source.

Yeah, that's so important that we we get that. So I think historical accuracy is one of the great things about the Bible. There are some things that have not yet been confirmed by archaeology.

That's true. We're waiting for the Archaeologist's spade and for Steve to dig it up.

He's going to dig it up. Exactly. You know.

People are surprised. It wasn't until 1993 that we actually found textual evidence outside of the Bible for David. Yeah. And the Tel Dan inscription found in 1993, 1994. There's David's name right in the middle. That was pretty late. Yeah. Until then, we had the Bible. Yeah.

And it was. And there's a lot of critics that say, oh, there never was a David. He was like King Arthur.

That's right.

Figment of Israel's historical imagination.

Yeah. And then.

We find this.

Stone. Yeah. And it's found. I love going there. I'd say this is where it was found. And you can. You can see the Israel Museum.

Yeah, there it is. There it is right there.

I was just in the Oriental Institute in Chicago, and they have the Sennacherib prism, and it mentions Hezekiah by name. And I tell the students, I said, you know, from that point on, everyone agrees that Israel existed because Sennacherib gives attestation to Hezekiah. But why not go back further if it can be trusted at this point, where is it that you draw a line and say, we can't trust the Bible's historicity anymore? Yeah.

So I think that between historical accuracy, biblical prophecy, and then also transformed lives, I think we can say, yes, this is a book that is unique, different and truly inspired. But people do have other questions. Yes.

Fabiana and Beth's questions are very similar. They both wrote us on Facebook. Fabiana says, I learned that the scriptures alone, the breathed word of God, is the one that has the power and not exactly the explanations of his words. And then Beth says she was actually in a conversation with someone about second Timothy three verses 14 through 17,

Well, they are they're kind of distinctive questions along the same line. The first one is it's the Word of God that is powerful and not men's interpretations. It's so popular today to have study Bibles. I've contributed to a couple of study Bibles. Uh, we have the Moody Bible Commentary, which though it cites Scripture, it's not a study Bible, but and and I always tell people, get a Bible and I hold up my Bible. That is just a Bible. I use a study Bible as a resource when I'm

That's right. You read the text of Scripture and everything else. Are the commentary, the additions that helps that learned people have decided to include to help you understand what's in those pages. But if you compare one study Bible to another, they don't all agree. They don't agree in the notes, even though they might be using the exact same translation.

And I would say to that, I think I want to push back a little bit, because even in the scriptures, people have to explain what the Word of God means. Philip had to explain to the Ethiopian eunuch what he was reading out of Isaiah 53. Nehemiah, when he's speaking to the exiles, has to give the sense of what he's reading from the Word of God. So we do need people to help us guide what the Word of God is saying. So we still need teachers.

Oh, there's no question. But of course, I think that that what we're saying about a study Bible. And this is why I encourage people, because I think the study Bible people spend all their time in the notes, the notes instead of in the text, read the text in first John, it says that we have an anointing that

Interpreting the Bible is difficult. Yeah. I mean, there are easy passages that anyone can understand and you get them pretty quickly. There are others that even scholars sit there and say, okay, there are three views here, and we're not actually sure which is the right view.

I'm about 49% sure of this one.

That's right.

Yeah, 51% sure of.

The other one. You know, I.

Would like to say sometime when you get your study Bible, just get out a marker on the page and and mark the text area and say absolutely true there. And then on the on the annotations at the bottom say could be wrong, you know, but but probably right, but could be wrong. And that's what we want to emphasize, that it's the text of Scripture, not people's opinions that are right.

We do want to emphasize that, but we also want to have value to the ones that God has used over the centuries to help us with background issues. Steve and I both teach life and Bible times. There's no way that you're going to get that information about a geography of a site, or the history of a person, unless you have that background information. So we do need that stuff. So it's not like just me and the Holy Spirit. And that's all I need to understand the scriptures. In fact.

That's dangerous.

That is rather dangerous.

As we interpret outside of our theological context. Without that extra the bumpers on the side.

If you will. Correct.

It's a great time for you to mention this. We so agree that it's helpful to have explanations that all three of us participated in the Moody Bible Commentary. Amen, which I want to encourage people. You can go to our website, openline line radio.org, and you can scroll down and you will see a link to the Moody Bible Commentary. And you click on that and it gives you an

Though, don't you think?

Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, especially the ones I wrote.

Yeah, I participated.

In a Bible translation project and one of the translators told a funny story. He was teaching on this book in a Sunday school, and he gave his opinion, and someone in the class said, well, that's not what it says here in these notes. He said, well, I wrote those notes and I changed my.

Mind and it was done.

I like it when sometimes people call me and they say, what is such and such verse mean in Daniel? I said, well, let me look at the commentary and I'll tell you what I think it means, because I don't always remember what I think it means.

So now you said the study notes may not. They don't hold as much authority. How about the cross-references? Where do those come from that are in my Bible that does not have the study notes.

I'm always a little leery of cross-references, unless I know what the philosophy is of the person who's putting them there, because why are they putting those references there? Are they just doing a topical leapfrog from verse to verse to verse, that really have no connecting connective tissue between those verses, or are they really done a good study to show that this text is informing this other one?

Yeah, I have found this. I found that there are many. I'm really big in what is called inner biblical interpretation, how the Bible reads itself. I think that what they used to call scripture interpreting Scripture and, and there are certain phrases and ideas that are frequently linked, and a lot of, of the cross-references do that. There are other times where they don't see what I see, and I'm that's why I'm writing them in the margins of my Bible,

So again, it's the work of people trying to help one another interpret the Word of God. And they don't always get it right.

Sometimes it's really helpful.

Sometimes it's very helpful. So that's.

Really good. Those are okay to use. Oh sure. If you're doing your study. Yeah, absolutely.

But the key is to.

Not use them slavishly. I mean, you have to use them with critical thinking and say, look, this one doesn't really fit. It must have fit to someone at one time, but I'm not seeing it. I'm not going to use that one.

But they're really helpful, you know. Okay. I'm amazed, too, that people do that because it shows that they have a pretty holistic knowledge of the Bible. You know, there were there were actual cross reference Bibles before there were computers. So.

Right.

So that's pretty.

Well the Masoretes, as you know, were doing some amazing stuff with.

Those are the Jewish scribes of the Middle Ages.

Yes. And how they were able to say, okay, this is the fifth time that this exact phrase was used in this Bible.

And so we owe.

Them a debt. We owe.

Them.

It's for them that we have good copies of the Old Testament.

Yeah. The Hebrew.

Bible. Exactly. I want to go to the second question. There is this idea that it's the church that is the authority that we have and not the Bible. So the church or the tradition can tell us what the authority with authority, what the Bible means, what how do we deal with that?

I think the issue there is our church wants to help its people understand the Word of God. That's the bottom line. And when we look at the Word of God, people have different interpretations and that can be confusing. It's helpful. Sometimes people like to think an authority will tell me what to believe, and they rely on that. I'm not so sure that that's always helpful.

No, it's that's why there was a reformation. That's right. Sola scriptura. It is not. The Bible is the authority we have. The Word of God is what is our authority instead? You know, as we said, teachers are great, but it's the word of God that's the authority. It's only Scripture, that's our authority. And though I appreciate very much what what churches have taught and doctrinal statements and churches and things like that. Ultimately, what we have to

It's where does authority.

Lie? Yeah.

That's right.

It lies in the Word of God. And that's that's so crucial for us to remember. Well, this is very intriguing. We have lots more questions about the authority of Scripture and more questions about how we got the Bible. And so keep listening. My guest today, Jim Coakley. Steve Sanchez, this is a special edition. Trisha and I are here talking about your questions about the Bible, uh, particularly about the Bible and how God gave us his word. So stay with me. This is, uh, macadelic. And we'll be

Okay, let's move into an RNC, if we could. What do we mean when we talk about the Bible being inerrant?

I want to jump in here sometimes people said that the Bible was authoritative, right? And then after a while, people said, yeah, it's authoritative, but it's not true. And so then in history, theologians came up with the term that the Bible is God's infallible word. And they said, yes, it's infallible about life and spiritual things.

But not in history or in science or in other things.

Yeah. And so then we came up with the word inerrancy, meaning the Bible is without error. But what are we talking about when we're talking about inerrancy?

You just said without air, the idea that this is God's Word, and we can trust it for what it's trying to accomplish and say about whatever subject matter it talks about.

I think that's important. If God is the source of Scripture, if the words are literally God breathed, then his characteristics are going to cover that word as well. God does not speak error. Therefore his word is not going to have any error regardless of what it speaks on, because he's its source. The doctrine is rooted in the source of the Word of God.

So I know, like the Moody Bible Institute doctrinal statement essentially says, If I'm going from memory here, it says that the Bible is without error in everything that it affirms or teaches is.

That's right. Whatever it touches.

Whatever it touches.

Okay. So there are. So we had people call here and there, they're flat earthers because there's four corners of the earth. What do you say?

Listen, we understand that text must be interpreted. If I say a million people came to my house last night because I threw a dinner party. Nobody charges me with lying. They understand that I'm using a specific kind of illustration. It's a genre, if you will. And we must afford the Bible the same way. It doesn't intend to be taken literally at that point, and so we ought not interpret it literally when it doesn't intend that.

So when.

It says the sun came up, it's not saying.

It's.

Phenomenological language. We understand that.

You know, every meteorologist will tell us what time, you know, we see the meteorological reports. They'll say something like, sun up at 615 in the morning. No one thinks he thinks it's a flat earth.

That's right.

That's the way people talk. It's called figures of speech, right? If I tell you it's raining cats and dogs, you know you're not going to go get a pet out there. It's. You're just going to stay inside.

But there is a challenge. How do we know when there is a figure of speech as compared to something very literal? If I say, hey, Michael, I'll be back in a minute. Now, that sounds very specific because there's a unit of time, but, you know, it's a short while. So we have these questions, okay, three days and three nights, you know, these kind of passages in the Bible, is

They're interpretive issues. They're interpretive issues, but they're not saying that there's errors in the Bible. That's correct. And it's that hyper literal approach that makes people think that there are errors. And of course, there are other issues that we'll talk about as well. But there are people who say, well, what passages should we interpret that way? Of course, with the creation narrative and and things like that. And so but the point that we're making is that everything that

It's a matter of interpretation in some cases.

Yeah, yeah. So are you saying that the Bible I'm holding in my hand is inerrant, or is there are the words in my actual English Bible in Aaron? That's a.

Fantastic question. And both the Moody Bible Institute's doctrinal statement, which the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy agrees with roots, inspiration, and inerrancy in the original manuscript. The original autographs we call them, which are not in our possession. Which raises

Yeah, it's when we're talking about the Bible being inerrant, it's inherent in the original autographs. And to be precise, when Isaiah wrote Isaiah that that was the that one copy, he said, well, I don't have that, Steve. What am I going to do? Well, here's the thing. I used this just the other day. Someone was asking me about this at a at a meeting I was at, and I said, if I got 20 birthday cards and they each said happy birthday, but in 20 of the 20 cards, 15 of them spelled birthday wrong.

We still know what it said.

It's still because I have all these. I know what this is. I know what kind of card it is. And even though I can tell a misspelling, I know that by doing textual criticism, I know what was intended. Maybe a better example would even be photocopies, where it keeps smearing right? And age as it ages, and it gets a little bit more unclear, but you have enough of them that you can say, ah, I know what the original.

Occasionally people will use the illustration of the telephone game as a way to criticize the process by which we have the text. That's can be nothing further than the truth there. The telephone game is not accurate. When students young people play that game, their intention is to deceive one another. We're talking about people who cared about the Word of God, who wanted to preserve it for later generations, and they were careful. Did they get it perfectly right?

Could you define textual criticism? You. You have used this term a couple of times.

Textual criticism is the study of the ancient biblical text. It could be the study of any text. That's right. You can do textual criticism of Shakespeare or.

Other Quran or Quran or.

The Septuagint, which is a translation of the Bible. Uh, but you can what you're doing is you're studying all the available evidence to determine what the original text actually said. And textual criticism, I would say we're about 99% sure 99 and 4,400% sure of what the original text of the Bible said. There may be some things where we say, maybe it could be this reading or that reading, but

And in fact, no major doctrine of the Christian faith is altered or changed at all by the end of the.

By a variant reading.

Supposed variants.

That's right. That's it.

You know, someone actually wrote a question about text criticism. I noticed it. It's question 11 here.

Okay. Ernie wrote us in Washington, uh, listens to us on the website, and he wants to know about the interpretation of the terms in Matthew 1924. Camilla or Camilla's. Um, in light of some who claim that one term was changed to soften the rigor of the statement. What is your perspective specifically? Was there a change in the term linguistically to make a specific point for those who may have spoken Greek or Aramaic? Okay, so.

Camilla's I mean, Camilla means camel and it was the largest animal in the world of, of Israel in the first century. Uh, and and so what it what the verse says is the Lord Jesus says it's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle. Some people have gone into all sorts of weird ideas about that, about there being a small gate. Right? Uh, called the eye of the needle. No, I think Jesus was being kind of funny.

Yeah.

Uh, big animal, very small. Uh, entry opening and.

Not going to happen. Yeah.

And it's hard. It was. It's very tough. Money can often grab our hearts and keep us from God. And that's his point now, later on, later manuscripts, some, just a few. They changed the word to Camelon, which actually is a large rope, right.

Like a fishing line of some of some heft.

Yeah, some heft. Exactly. Uh, and it's because they were trying to these these copyists were trying to fix what Jesus had to say because they said, oh, Jesus wouldn't make a joke. You know, he.

Hung out with fishermen, so he would have used that domain.

Yeah.

Rather than needles and thread. This is a big one.

And so they change a couple of letters, but it's so clear that that's the change that textual criticism says.

Now we know.

We know that it was a camel entering the eye of a needle. And and by the way, someone asked me just a few weeks ago about did Jesus have a sense of humor? And I mentioned Elton Trueblood's book The Humor of Christ. But I also mentioned this passage.

Yeah.

Uh, in Matthew 19, because that was a funny thing to say.

Biblical authors are very good. Even Jesus, with punning and playing off of words and word plays. And that's biblical humor.

Yeah. And so, uh, so no, I don't think that this is a problem verse. It is just it is a perfect example of how textual criticism is a very helpful thing we know, and how clearly we know what the original words were, rather than a saying that something got lost in translation or transmission or anything like that. So, uh, there's another question here about inerrancy, Trish, don't you think.

There are lots of questions? Um.

You know what? Let's get to those questions when we come back. Uh, because we want to get a whole bunch of them together. You're listening to a very special edition of Open Line. It's all about how we can trust the Bible. And I am having a great time with Steve Sanchez and Jim Coakley and Trish McMillan. We're going to be right back with more of the questions you sent in right here. This is Michael Ray Dolnick on Open Line. Stay with us. Ministry isn't a solo effort.

Yeah, I can still go back to the King James Version. Thy word is truth. That's the way I memorized it first. And so that's that. That's a very important verse.

And so what we have to say is what you're saying is that in the original autographs of Scripture, this was true. It's without error in everything that it affirms. It's not saying that there are no figures of speech or summaries or things like that which are precision.

Yeah.

But rather it is just saying it is true. And someone wrote in with a question Trish mentioned. Go ahead. Yes.

John wrote us on Facebook and said if you believe the verbal inspiration of the scriptures, how do you resolve the differences? And he gives a specific example of what God said at Jesus baptism. Um, the Matthew 317 says, this is my son. This is my beloved son. In Mark and Luke both say, you are my beloved son. Why did the spirit inspire inspired the writers to use

I love it. Well, it could be a copyist error. Could very well be. I love it that he says it does not change the meaning. I think that that is such a crucial point that he makes. And. And so the thing I want to say about we have the synoptic Gospels, the Matthew, Mark and Luke, who are

Or recording it on their phone. Yeah, we could do now.

They're not.

Doing that. But what they're doing is they are trying to communicate the truth of God and they are inspired. So I think it's wrong to try and force a word for word comparison. One professor I had would say, maybe God said both could be.

But I think we also have to realize that these are books. So the biblical author has an agenda or a theme or a concept that they're trying to promote. So when I see a change like this, I always rally around it because it helps me to look at, okay, what may be perspective does Matthew have that maybe is a little different than Luke? And again, not competitive but complementary to what they're trying to say. In this case. Matthew is quoting from Hosea chapter 11 earlier in chapter two.

I absolutely agree that this issue may reflect different purposes in the Gospels. In fact, it seems to me that Mark and Luke are recording what was spoken directly to Jesus. They they have a direct quote from Psalm two seven. You are my son. So in those two gospels, the message is, this is what was spoken directly to the Lord Jesus. On the other hand, Matthew seems to be reflecting the perspective of John the Baptist and the crowd.

You know, one of the things you guys are drawing out is that this doctrine is more complicated than most people realize. Yeah. If you have in your mind that secretary taking dictation. Yeah. It's more sophisticated than that. It's not out of reach, I think, for people to understand, but it's going to take a little more work than an overly simplistic understanding.

But I actually think it actually helps us in Bible study, because then we get to see what the biblical author is trying to make a point about.

What's he emphasizing?

What's he emphasizing? And so this really helps us I love these kind of things because.

Every book is different.

Every book is.

Different. Every author has a different purpose as they tell the story.

It's one of the reasons.

Why I always say that we need to interpret the text of the Bible, not the events behind it. What people are asking when they want to say what was said, you're my son or this is my son. They're trying to get back to the event. But what we're trying to say is, what does this text mean? Right. And that's why I want to read what Matthew says. I want to read what Mark says. What Mark. Luke says that the real emphasis here is a divinely inspired interpretation

That applies to every book of the Bible that you study, to be fair. You're going to read Romans, study Romans. Don't bring all the theology from every book. And necessarily every time you have a question, focus on the argument of the author in that book.

I think it also is your presuppositions about the text. If you kind of come predisposed that the Bible is authoritative in God's Word, you're going to give it the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these kind of issues. But if you're looking for loopholes, you're looking for things to kind of say, well, I'm not going to have to follow this word because of these little minor issues. That's a whole different perspective.

Too often we're looking for excuses not to believe them, because if we can just throw the book out, then we can do what we want. And who wants to do that? It will. It will ruin our lives. But yet that's what people are looking for. I think you're right. Our presupposition has to be that this is God's authoritative word. It's his inspired word. It's his word without error. And I just love it that the writer who sent that in and says, well, the meaning doesn't change.

He knew already.

Okay, then you got your answer right there. But it's the emphasis that we're looking at. Well, this has gone by so quick. I'm so glad we have another hour because there's so many more questions we need to talk about. Questions about how we got the Bible and why we can trust the text. And what about translations and all those things we're still going to talk about. So don't go away. Stick around for the second hour of Open Line on most of these stations if you'd like. Check