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NASB | Romans 9:13 Just as it is written, "JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Romans 9:13 As it is written and forever remains written, "JACOB I LOVED (chose, protected, blessed), BUT ESAU I HATED (held in disregard compared to Jacob)." [Mal 1:2, 3] |
Subject: Apocrypha or Dead Sea Scrolls Helpful? |
Bible Note: Ted, what other books are you talking about? There are literally tons of "other books" besides the Word of God, but God did not write them, did not reveal Himself in them, and they are not "given by inspiration of God" and therefore are not "profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." [2 Timothy 3:16,17. The Word of God (the Bible) is the only authority for faith and practice. And anyone who thinks this Word is incomplete and that he must search elsewhere for truth is deceiving himself. "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword..." [Cf. Hebrews 4:12]. ..... You asked for opinons of these other books and I will give you mine. I base this opinion on many years as a Christan who has made some effort to know God's word by reading and studying it -- for some 55 years, in fact. Don't waste your time on counterfeits that have been rejected for centuries as spurious fakes, unreliable and uninspired. I don't know your age, but if you happen to be, let's say, 30 years old, and lived to be 969 years old like Methuselah did, and if during those 939 more years, you devoted yourself with diligence and much zeal to the study of God's word, chances are great that you would know it considerably better than you do now. But the chances are even greater that at the end of those 939 years you would not have begun to come close to exhausting its riches. Stay with the word of God, friend. Don't presume to nourish your soul by drinking at the fountain of stale second-rate rejects when you can drink freely at the fountain of Living Water. And please don't presume that any of these "other books" are capable of giving you reliable answers to your spiritual questions. They were written by men who may have less spiritual insight than you do. ....... You have questions about divine election and predestination? So does everyone else who is wise. The answers to all these tough questions are in the mind of God, and only fools presume to know everything about the mind of Almighty God. The proper measurement of human wisdom is less in what one knows and more in his realization and acceptance of what he does not know and, because of his finite, human limitations, what he can never know, at least as long as he walks the earth on feet of clay. Again, in summation, I sincerely say to you that if you do not find all the spiritual answers to all your spiritual questions in the Bible, the complete and inerrant word of God, you most assuredly will not find them anywhere else under the sun. But by all means go to the Word and drink of it deeply. You will find answers to all the spiritual things you need to know, and even though you will not find answers to all that you now think you want to know but cannot know or perhaps should not know, your study of God's word is capable of empowering you with the wisdom to know the difference. --Hank |