Can the Bible Be Wrong?
If the Bible can be wrong anywhere, someone has to decide where. The moment we sort Scripture into the parts we trust and the parts we doubt, we have made ourselves judges over God's Word. Inerrancy and infallibility are the Bible's answer: God's Word is true in everything it says, and it never fails.
We believe the Bible and teach it to be perfectly true. We confess that the sixty-six books from Genesis to Revelation are God's Word, without error and without failure, and that God has kept every word He inspired.
This is not finally a doctrine about the Bible's reputation. It is a doctrine about God. Scripture is breathed out by God (Inspiration), and God cannot lie. If the Author is perfectly truthful, His Word is too.
It also touches every part of the Christian life. Your assurance of salvation rests on promises written in this Book (1 John 5:13). Your hope in the resurrection rests on its history. Every sermon you hear and every verse you share with a friend assumes that what the Bible says is so. If its truthfulness is uncertain, all of that is uncertain too.
Can you trust the Bible on the pages where you cannot check it? Inerrancy says yes, because you can trust the God who breathed it out.
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For Deeper Study
- Christ and the BibleAmazon John W. WenhamA clear, largely non-technical study showing that Jesus treated what Scripture says as what God says.
- Defending Inerrancy: Affirming the Accuracy of Scripture for a New GenerationAmazon Norman L. Geisler and William C. RoachA defense of the historic view by a founding member of the council behind the Chicago Statement, answering recent critics. Geisler did not hold a young earth; we differ with him there.
- The Battle for the BibleAmazon Harold LindsellThe 1976 book that documented how evangelical schools and denominations were drifting from inerrancy.
- Five Views on Biblical InerrancyAmazon J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett, eds.R. Albert Mohler Jr. defends the historic view alongside four contributors who restate, qualify, or reject it. Useful for understanding the alternatives.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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The Inspiration of Scripture
All Scripture is breathed out by God. The Holy Spirit carried the human writers along so that every word they wrote, in every part of the Bible, is the very Word of God.
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