Expert: Mr. McClellan - 6/14/2008

Question
A friend and I are both Methodist, but disagree on this point -- is the Bible considered the Word of God or just man's interpretation of historical events?

Answer
Hi Lallah,
Whichever one of you believes that the Bible is just man's interpretation of historical events is at direct odds with what the writers of the Bible plainly claim and that was supposedly irrefutably established by miracles in the presence of great numbers of eye witnesses. If you believe that the Bible is just human interpretations of historical events, you are saying that the writers of the Bible lied. If they lied, then they cannot be trusted. They all claimed to be telling the exact truth. If they cannot be trusted, then you cannot "know" the will of God. If you cannot know the will of God, you cannot be sure that you are obeying his will. If you cannot be sure that you know and are obeying his will, then you cannot possibly be a Christian, you cannot be saved, and God cannot possibly be just in punishing you if you do not obey him. If that is true, then there really is no such thing as sin anyway except as humans define it and God is completely out of the picture.
The Bible makes it very clear that the God it describes is perfectly just. The writers claim that what they said was God's will was exactly what God revealed to them and proved true by miracles that no human could possibly duplicate. Try walking on water, raising a person that has been embalmed and buried for days to from their grave, calming a storm simply by commanding it to stop, instantly causing people who were born crippled to be able to walk as if nothing had ever been wrong, causing blind people to instantly be able to see clearly simply by telling to see or touching their eyes, or taking a little lunch box of food and feeding thousands of very hungry people with the food in it and then having more left over than you had to begin with, or instantly being able to speak a foreign language like a native. With all of our modern science no one can do such things today and they certainly could not have done them thousands of years ago unless made possible by the same power that created the universe to begin with.

Read the following passages carefully.

The first comes from the Old Testament and was what Moses said and had written down by scribes. Are you, or anyone else for that matter, ready to prove that these things were lies and did not happen exactly as described?

Deu 18:9  Soon you will go into the land that the LORD your God is giving you. The nations that live there do things that are disgusting to the LORD, and you must not follow their example.
Deu 18:10  Don't sacrifice your son or daughter. And don't try to use any kind of magic or witchcraft to tell fortunes or to cast spells or to talk with spirits of the dead. Deu 18:12  The LORD is disgusted with anyone who does these things, and that's why he will help you destroy the nations that are in the land. Deu 18:13  Never be guilty of doing any of these disgusting things! Deu 18:14  You will go in and take the land from nations that practice magic and witchcraft. But the LORD your God won't allow you to do those things. Deu 18:15  Instead, he will choose one of your own people to be a prophet just like me, and you must do what that prophet says.
Deu 18:16  You were asking for a prophet the day you were gathered at Mount Sinai and said to the LORD, "Please don't let us hear your voice or see this terrible fire again--if we do, we will die!"
Deu 18:17  Then the LORD told me: Moses, they have said the right thing. Deu 18:18  So when I want to speak to them, I will choose one of them to be a prophet like you. I will give my message to that prophet, who will tell the people exactly what I have said.
Deu 18:19  Since the message comes from me, anyone who doesn't obey the message will have to answer to me. Deu 18:20  But if I haven't spoken, and a prophet claims to have a message from me, you must kill that prophet, and you must also kill any prophet who claims to have a message from another god. Deu 18:21  You may be asking yourselves, "How can we tell if a prophet's message really comes from the LORD?" Deu 18:22  You will know, because if the LORD says something will happen, it will happen (exactly as described to the last detail). And if it doesn't, you will know that the prophet was falsely claiming to speak for the LORD. Don't be afraid of any prophet whose message doesn't come from the LORD.

Gen 21:2  Although Abraham was very old, Sarah had a son exactly at the time God had said. (Exactly)

Exo 9:35  that he (Pharaoh) refused to let the Israelites go. This was exactly what the LORD had said would happen. (Exactly)

Jos 7:12  What they stole was supposed to be destroyed, and now Israel itself must be destroyed. I cannot help you anymore until you do exactly what I (God) have said. That's why Israel turns and runs from its enemies instead of standing up to them. (Exactly)

Jos 23:6  Be sure that you carefully obey everything written in The Book of the Law of Moses and do exactly what it says.
Notice, again, the word "exactly."

How did the writer say that a true prophet of God could be identified? Do you know anyone that can fortell the future in exact detail without ever being wrong? No, you can't.

The next was written by one of Jesus' first apostles. Did he lie? If he did, how do you know? Can you prove it? The passage below, as well as many others, plainly says that these miracles were not just allegories. Nicodemus did not say, "You could not tell us these stories unless God were with you." Simply telling people such stories would prove absolutely nothing. Anyone can invent stories. To say that they were just allegories is to say that they were not real actual events and no one could justly be held accountable if they did not believe what they were intended to varify as the true word of God.

Joh 3:1  There was a man named Nicodemus who was a Pharisee and a Jewish leader. Joh 3:2  One night he went to Jesus and said, "Sir, we know that God has sent you to teach us. You could not work these miracles, unless God were with you." Was Nicodumus stupid? Did he not know that Jesus was just making up stories? Nicodemus was one of the many religious authorities that had witnessed, first hand, some of the things that Jesus had done to prove who he said he was and that no human could possibly have done by his own power. Only the power that caused the universe to come into existence could have caused such "miracles" to happen.

Read the sixth chapter of John. There you will read of more than one of the miracles Jesus did and what they were meant to prove. He then uses the miracle where he literally feeds thousands of hungry people real bread and fish as an allegory to describe the effect of his teachings which were proved true by the miracle and if believed and obeyed would result in immortality rather than just a little relief from temporary hunger like the bread and fish the people had just eaten a little earlier.

Did the writer of Hebrews lie? If he did, how do you know? Can you prove it? Read what he says here.

Heb 2:1  We must give our full attention to what we were told, so that we won't drift away. Heb 2:2  The message spoken by angels (messengers of God) proved to be true, and all who disobeyed or rejected it were punished as they deserved. Heb 2:3  So if we refuse this great way of being saved, how can we hope to escape? The Lord himself was the first to tell about it, and people who heard the message proved to us that it was true. Heb 2:4  God himself showed that his message was true by working all kinds of powerful miracles and wonders. He also gave his Holy Spirit to anyone he chose to.

Did Paul lie? How do you know? Can you prove it? Read what he told one of his young converts.

2Ti 3:14  Keep on being faithful to what you were taught and to what you believed. After all, you know who taught you these things.
2Ti 3:15  Since childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures that are able to make you wise enough to have faith in Christ Jesus and be saved. 2Ti 3:16  Everything in the Scriptures is God's Word. All of it is useful for teaching and helping people and for correcting them and showing them how to live (according to the will of God).

How anyone can claim to be a Christian and believe that the very scriptures that Christianity is based on is a lie, the simple and opinionated ideas of humans playing their own god, is absurd and plainly hypocritical. They are implying that God, if he exists, is an irresponsible, tyrannical idiot that is smart enough to create the universe but unable to communicate with humans in a way that they can comprehend his will accurately and alike, or to even know that humans are unable to know for sure that he exists and do not have the ability to know or understand his will or that he even has one for sure. If God is the one behind the writing of the Bible, he must not have known that it was a totally useless effort on his part. Pretty stupid, huh? Only people who are being their own God and want to decide for themselves what they want to be right and what they want to be wrong would say that the Bible is just the opinionated ideas of humans and their individual interpretations of historical events. Are they really being serious? Have they never even read the Bible?

If the Bible is not the true word of the God it describes and is only the opinions of humans as they interpret historical events, then the Bible is totally useless as a guide to right living not to mention being a complete fabrication and a totally untrustworthy and hypocritically judgement of all those who practice the sins it describes and clearly condemns. What would be the value in using it to teach if you can just make up what you want?

Anyone who could claim to be any brand of Christian and believe such things has to be totally irrational and incapable of sound logic.
I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but it is just too obvious for anyone not to see it.

I hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Mr. McClellan