Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy 2

What do Christians mean when they say the Bible is inerrant? The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy tells us what leading inerrantist mean by inerrancy. I’ll be posting a section of this statement each week until I’ve posted the whole thing.

You can read a short historical background to this statement and it’s preface in the first post in this series. The meat of this document starts with A Short Statement, posted below.

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A Short Statement

1. God, who is Himself Truth and speaks truth only, has inspired Holy Scripture in order thereby to reveal Himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God’s witness to Himself.

2. Holy Scripture, being God’s own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.

3. The Holy Spirit, Scripture’s divine Author, both authenticates it to us by His inward witness and opens our minds to understand its meaning.

4. Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God’s acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God’s saving grace in individual lives.

5. The authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded, or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible’s own; and such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the Church.

Sunday's Hymn

We Are God’s People

We are God’s people, the chosen of the Lord,
Born of His Spirit, established by His Word;
Our cornerstone is Christ alone,
And strong in Him we stand:
O let us live transparently
And walk heart to heart and hand in hand.

We are God’s loved ones, the Bride of Christ our Lord,
For we have known it, the love of God outpoured;
Now let us learn how to return
The gift of love once given:
O let us share each joy and care,
And live with a zeal that pleases Heaven.

We are the Body of which the Lord is Head,
Called to obey Him, now risen from the dead;
He wills us be a family,
Diverse yet truly one:
O let us give our gifts to God,
And so shall his work on earth be done.

We are a temple, the Spirit’s dwelling place,
Formed in great weakness, a cup to hold God’s grace;
We die alone, for on its own
Each ember loses fire:
Yet joined in one the flame burns on
To give warmth and light, and to inspire.

—Bryan Leech
Text and Tune (c) 1976, Fred Bock Music Co.

Listen at The Center for Church Music.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus at The Happy Wonderer
• Lord’s Day 7, 2010 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Our God Is Love at Whatever Is Good
• Break Thou the Bread of Life at Hiraeth
• Heart Aflame - February 14, 2010 at The Upward Call
• Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed at Field Stone Cottage
• Thy Work Alone, O Christ at Whatever Things

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

Saturday's Old Photo

Here’s an old photo post originally written right before Valentine’s Day 2007. It was missing its photo—many of the old Blogger posts are—so I’ve uploaded it again and I’m reposting everything for this Valentine’s Day.

This picture of my husband and me was taken about four months after we started dating. By this time I knew that we’d get married, but I wouldn’t have admitted it to you. I was only 18, after all, and just starting my first year of Bible school.

He was 23 and ready to settle down. He’d asked God to send him someone and the next day I started work at the truck stop where he was already working. He thought I was cute; then he found out I was a pastor’s daughter and that was all the confirmation he needed. He was wise not to tell me this until much later because I’d have sent him packing.

I married him in the end because he was a worthy Scrabble opponent. When you meet your match at Scrabble, it is foolish to let him go.

We played Scrabble for blood, no mercy. My strength was inventing words and convincing him they were real by making up bogus but plausible definitions. His talent was using all seven of his letters at once on a triple word score. In one game, he did that three times in a row. How could I come back after that?

That last winter we played 22 games and each won 11. That last winter was when I learned that sometimes you must let your perfect Scrabble match go.