"Unless I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis, my conscience is captive to the Word of God." With these famous words, Martin Luther publically recovered Scripture from relative obscurity in the medieval church. For Luther and the other Reformers, the recovery of justification by faith alone coincided with […]
Like the gospel, a proper understanding of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture is never something that we can take for granted. This is especially true when we live in a culture that is simultaneously naturalistic and mystical. As contradictory as these positions seem to be, they conspire against any ultimate claim to a revelation […]
In his Phaedrus, Plato claimed that the spoken word was more powerful than the written word. Presence and gravitas could be conveyed through speech. Print, on the other hand, muted one's rhetoric. The great philosopher intended this as a blanket statement, true with respect to all persons. Plato's observation was prophetic, with regard to the […]
When Jesus was on the earth, he said some difficult things. When he said these things, the crowd stopped following him. His disciples still hung on, despite the fact that they probably did not understand either (see John 6). Looking back, we can see why. Although much of what Jesus was talking about would make […]
Against the repeated claim that the doctrine of inerrancy, unknown to the church, arose first with Protestant orthodoxy, we could cite numerous examples from the ancient and medieval church. (1) It was Augustine who first coined the term "inerrant," and Luther and Calvin can speak of Scripture as free from error. (2) Down to the […]
Article I.WE AFFIRM that the Holy Scriptures are to be received as the authoritative Word of God. WE DENY that the Scriptures receive their authority from the Church, tradition, or any other human source. Article II.WE AFFIRM that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority […]
Michael Horton recently had an engaging e-mail conversation on inerrancy with Michael Spencer, the "Internet Monk," and Donald Richmond, a presbyter and examining chaplain with the Reformed Episcopal Church. Here is what they had to say about this controversial topic. Horton: "The Bible, in its original autographs, is without error in all that it affirms." […]
Over the years, challenges to biblical authority have taken a lot of different forms. People have offered historical challenges: Do we really know where these books come from? Are we sure about their date and authorship? Others have offered hermeneutical challenges: Can we really understand what the Bible says? What about all the different interpretations? […]
Scripture's capacity to testify to itself is at the center of the Christian faith. An emphasis on this capacity and a clear expression of it is one of John Calvin's great gifts to the church. For example, Calvin said: Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest […]
Michael Horton, White Horse Inn co-host, recently interviewed R. C. Sproul, president of Ligonier Ministries and author of numerous books, including Knowing Scripture and The Holiness of God. Our series this year is "Recovering Scripture." Besides recommending your book, we are looking at various aspects of the Bible in terms of its major themes and […]
The relationship of Christianity and culture and its implications for education continue to be fascinating topics. In Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith, philosophy professor at Calvin College, has written one of the most interesting and thought- provoking studies of Christianity and culture in recent years and provides, by his own admis-sion, some fairly […]
This is a very helpful little treatise that accomplishes its goal of providing a clear and orderly theological account of Holy Scripture. There are, in my opinion, too few of these kinds of serious and yet generally accessible books, and the author, John Webster, is a significant voice in contemporary theology. Webster is well aware […]
In 2008 during the annual book fair in Frankfurt, Germany, novelist Orhan Pamuk criticized how the Turkish government treats writers and artists. He was well aware that Turkey's president, Abdullah Gul, was in the audience that day: "A century of banning and burning books, of throwing writers into prison or killing them or branding them […]
The intense debates over biblical inerrancy of an earlier time have now subsided. Sides have been taken. The church has moved on and is now occupied with other issues. It is a good moment, then, to look back and think about what was accomplished in the earlier warfare. Let me begin by laying out a […]
