Providing Teaching for the Christians in Iran

It is important to insist that even my strong feelings of belief in the inspiration of Scripture is not what make the Scripture inspired or true. The Scriptures were inspired and true before I was born and they will be inspired and true after I'm gone.

So while the witness of the Spirit is absolutely vital for me to know the truthfulness of Scripture, we need to make sure that we understand that they are true in and of themselves. The next article says, We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture.

We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizing, or discounting its teaching or rejecting its claims of authorship.

This article lays the foundation for our next discussion, and that is, how to interpret the Bible correctly. We will be especially looking at the meaning of that word, exegesis, to truly interpret the Bible in its own context.

But for our purposes now, as we are close to finishing our time in this study, we just emphasize the need to allow the text of Scripture to interpret itself. And the last article we will look at says this, We affirm that a confession of the full authority and fallibility and inerrancy of Scripture is vital to a sound understanding of the whole of the Christian faith.

We further affirm that such confession should lead to increasing conformity to the image of Christ. We deny that such confession is necessary for salvation. However, we further deny that inerrancy can be rejected without grave consequences, both to the individual and to the Church.

We dare not make a confession of inerrancy a part of the Gospel message. But at the very same time, what this article is saying is that when it is denied, the Gospel itself is left standing upon a deficient foundation.

The person who says, I believe in Jesus Christ for my eternal salvation, would be wise to believe the same things Jesus believed about the inspiration of Scripture. Thank you very much.