I explain every one of those texts based on the presupposition that I have. Then you start peppering me with individual words, phrases, verses, and even larger passages. I believe the Bible is perfect and inerrant because the Bible says so. Then I ask, “Does the Bible teach that it is inerrant and perfect?” You say, “Yes.” So then I ask, “Okay, so which Bible is the inerrant and perfect one?” You say, “None are.” So is the teaching of the Bible inerrant and perfect? I can go through my Bible and show you a doctrine of its inerrancy and perfection. Don’t make perfect and inerrant mean something different than what they obviously mean in light of what the Bible says about itself. Also, don’t call it inerrant, if you don’t believe it is inerrant. I would say, don’t call the Bible perfect if you don’t believe it. They believe that it is inerrant, but it isn’t perfect. They also don’t believe that scripture says that scripture is perfect. There are those who do not believe it is perfect. If the Bible is perfect, then it can’t be given extra perfection. I’m not going to say that we both agree the Bible is inerrant, fully realizing that when you say “inerrant” you don’t even mean “inerrant.” You mean something that allows you to believe the Bible is inerrant without believing that it is inerrant. I believe that and not in a hypothetical way. Since inerrancy relates to what God inspired, if there are missing words, then it isn’t inerrant any more. Every Word that God inspired has been preserved in the language in which it is written. When I say the Bible is without error, I mean that it is without error. I can hold up the Bible and say, this is the inerrant Word of God. I can agree to an ambiguous, hypothetical inerrancy, and then agree that the Bible is inerrant. Two different men can say they believe in inerrancy and then disagree on ten different doctrines of scripture. Men don’t even agree on what the Bible teaches, let alone on what’s right that it does teach. However, all things considered, if you take all the combined passages of the Bible to come up with those teachings, all the right teachings are available in the Bible. When someone says the teachings of scripture are inerrant, if that’s even what he means, because that can become very ambiguous, he doesn’t mean that you can’t find errors in the Bible. It’s teachings, and even that is ambiguous, because even with that, he doesn’t mean teachings. You thought he meant words, but he didn’t. He’s playing a shell game, moving those shells around very quickly. He doesn’t bring up inerrancy in the context of the teachings of the Bible. Inerrancy means that you can trust that the teachings of the Bible are without error. It’s hard to say what he means, but it’s probably the following. Someone holds up a Bible and calls it the inerrant Word of God. He’s not saying that there are no errors in the words. I think he even knows that we think he means words. We think he means, no errors in the words. And then someone says, I believe in the inerrancy of scripture in the context of words. Let’s say we’re talking about the words of scripture. You know it’s a man, but you call him, a her. The controversy revolves around calling a biological male, “him,” or a biological female, “her.” People change the meaning of the words and expect us to play along. You know right now the concern about the gender of pronouns used to address the sexes. INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: SEPARATION OR UNITY INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: PRESERVATION OF SCRIPTURE AND VERSIONS INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: OBTAINING A LIFE’S PARTNER INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: EVANGELISM AND PREACHING
INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: EVANGELICALISM AND FUNDAMENTALISM INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: DRESS OR APPEARANCE
INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: DIVORCE, GENDER OR SEX, MARRIAGE, COMPLEMENTARIANISM INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: CONTINUATIONISM AND CESSATIONISM, HOLY SPIRIT, AND SPIRITUALITY INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: CERTAINTY, CULTURE, EPISTEMOLOGY, MEANING, TRUTH, WORLDVIEW
INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: BEAUTY, MUSIC, WORLDLINESS, AND WORSHIP INDEX BY SPECIFIC TOPIC: BAPTISTS AND CHURCH