“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Another way of saying this would be, “all Scripture is God-breathed,” or “all Scripture comes from the mouth of God.” This means God is directly responsible for causing the Bible writers to put down everything that He wanted written without error and without omission. But what of the Bible I hold in my hand? Is it God’s Word? Can it be trusted? The answer is yes! Both truths—the inspiration and inerrancy of the original manuscripts and the trustworthiness of the Bible in my hand—must be acknowledged. To affirm the inspiration and inerrancy of the original writings while casting doubt on the authority of the Bible that is available to us is just plain silly. Can you really imagine someone seriously saying, “I have good news and I have bad news: the good news is that God wanted to give us a message and therefore caused a book to be written; the bad news is that He didn’t possess the power to preserve it and therefore we don’t know what it said!” A view of inspiration without a corresponding view of preservation is of no value. read more
Fundamentalism began in the later nineteenth century as a concerned response to the rise of higher criticism and doctrinal deviation and also as a response to the worldly drift among God’s people. How far back does the movement go? Surely not before the Believers’ Meeting held in Chicago, 1875, with their concerns about prophecy and German theology. Some have dated it from 1909, with the publication of “The Fundamentals” and the first edition of “The Scofield Reference Bible.” Surely it dates no later than the 1920 Northern Baptist Convention, when Curtis Lee Laws coined the term Fundamentalist. By any view, however, the movement was a departure from the drifting attitude expressed by mainstream Protestant orthodoxy. A look at the marks of the movement will bring that out clearly. The old Protestants did not seem to have these identifying qualities.
Biblicism
The Fundamentalists took a more rigorous view of the Bible than many of their forefathers. Commonly during the nineteenth century the believers held a strong view of inspiration, but it was not yet an issue. The Princeton men get credit for their strong view, but the great majority of ministers would hardly have faulted them for the way they put into print what most had commonly accepted. Now with the strong view of inspiration came an equally strong view of inerrancy and of literal interpretation. read more
Editor’s Note: This article was reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections. It appears here verbatim. I do not know anyone famous. I can boast of no connections to powerful people. And so like most of us commoners, a brush with a person of renown is an experience you don’t soon forget. I have had a handful of these encounters, but one stands out above the rest. I tell this story repeatedly, not because I’m infatuated with the experience, but because it so clearly illustrates a deeper reality I want the world to hear.
Tom White was a high school friend of mine in Pennsylvania. Tom was not famous, but his dad was. Tom’s dad, Bill, was a six-time All-Star and Gold Glove first baseman in the National League from 1956-1969. By the time Tom and I became friends, Bill was a seasoned radio announcer for the New York Yankees and on track to become the first African-American president of the National League (1989-1993).
My family moved from the east coast to Minnesota the summer before my senior year of high school. Wanting to keep in touch, Tom called one day to inform me that he would fly to Minneapolis with the Yankees who were scheduled for a weekend series against the Twins. If I would meet Tom at a prearranged location outside Met Stadium, he would take care of things from there. I cannot convey the thrill of that offer. read more
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). Another way of saying this would be, “all Scripture is God-breathed,” or “all Scripture comes from the mouth of God.” This means God is directly responsible for causing the Bible writers to put down everything that He wanted written without error and without omission. But what of the Bible I hold in my hand? Is it God’s Word? Can it be trusted? The answer is yes! Both truths—the inspiration and inerrancy of the original manuscripts and the trustworthiness of the Bible in my hand—must be acknowledged. To affirm the inspiration and inerrancy of the original writings while casting doubt on the authority of the Bible that is available to us is just plain silly. Can you really imagine someone seriously saying, “I have good news and I have bad news: the good news is that God wanted to give us a message and therefore caused a book to be written; the bad news is that He didn’t possess the power to preserve it and therefore we don’t know what it said!” A view of inspiration without a corresponding view of preservation is of no value.
I do not know anyone famous. I can boast of no connections to powerful people. And so like most of us commoners, a brush with a person of renown is an experience you don’t soon forget. I have had a handful of these encounters, but one stands out above the rest. I tell this story repeatedly, not because I’m infatuated with the experience, but because it so clearly illustrates a deeper reality I want the world to hear.