Subject: Is belief in the bible needed to be save |
Bible Note: Hello again hetfield, Just want to make a point here with part of your argument. You write: "Saying the bible has saved us is like saying to the person who witnessed to us saved us." Very well said. Christians do no not say that the bible "saves" us and without going back through every response in this thread, I don't believe anyone on the forum has said that. Perhapse this is where you are having a difficult time with what Christians claim. The bible does not save us, the finished work of Christ is what saves us. But One first has to know of this work and then believe it and have faith in it for ones salvation. It is through the bible that we learn of the work of Christ that saves us. That is how the bible is able to say to us that the faith that we have in fact does come by hearing the word of God. In and of myself I do not even have the faith to believe in the bible or to believe in Jesus Christ and what He did to save me. It is God Himself that gives me that faith and He has done so through my reading and hearing others teach His word, the bible, while speaking to my heart through His Spirit. I fear that your ability to believe may have been hindered by the early experiences that you mentioned earlier in this thread. It seems as though you are looking for scientific type data or other evidence outside of scripture to convince yourself that the bible is real or not. In any case, you are placing your hope and basing your salvation on information that you believe to be no more than the written words of men. This is a scary thought. It seems to me that it would be impossible for someone to truly believe in the true God and at the same time believe that He only spoke to us between the lines and paragraphs of the writings of several men. That would be a most cruel joke for God to play on mankind, leaving us to wonder which part to believe and which part to throw out. That would hardly be a mechanism for building faith. One final thought. If you are truly searching for the truth in this matter then it is fair to say that you are not sure. Otherwise you would believe you already know the truth and would not need to spend this kind of time working it out. If this is true let me ask you to consider not making statements such as "the bible is not the word of God". You might imagine how offended God might be if it is in fact. Sincerely, Jeff |