Jade wrote: What exactly was Saul’s disobedience?

Don’t want to get off topic but to quickly answer your question, Saul was instructed by Samuel to wait until he arrived and he (Samuel) would offer the sacrifice. Saul seemed to have a good excuse but only in our eyes, not God’s.

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Todd

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Jade

/Definitely. I do not reject scripture.

But, undeniably – copyist, translation and other human errors exist in our present-day bibles.

And, certainly! The Holy Spirit is fully able to lead us out of all errors into all truth./

Yet these errors in copying and translation are miniscule in comparison to what has been copied and translated correctly. There is no overwhelming amount of errors so as to render the Scriptures unreliable.

Quoting from others,

"Since we do not have the original manuscripts, some have urged that an appeal to the lost originals renders the whole case for the inspiration of the Scripture irrelevant. To reason in this manner is to do despite to the very serious work that has been done in the field of textual criticism. Textual criticism is the science which seeks to reconstruct an original text by a careful analysis and evaluation of the manuscripts we presently possess. This task has to be accomplished with respect to all documents from antiquity which have reached us through manuscript copies. The Old and New Testament Scriptures are probably those which have reached us with the most extensive and reliable attestation. FOR MORE THAN NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE CASES (emphasis mine), the original text can be reconstructed to a practical certainty. EVEN IN THE FEW CASES WHERE PERPLEXITY REMAINS (emphasis mine), this does not impinge on the meaning of Scripture to the point of clouding a tenet of the faith or a mandate of life. Thus, in the Bible as we have it 9and as it is conveyed to us through faithful translations), we do have for practical purposes the very word of God, inasmuch as the transcripts do convey to us the complete vital truth of the originals"

"In those minuscule segments of existing manuscripts where textual criticism has not been able to ascertain with absolute certainty what the original reading was, NO ESSENTIAL ARTICLE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IS AFFECTED."

/The Spirit bears witness of Christ.

John 15:23 –
When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me

1 John 5:9-12 –
If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son.
The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.
And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life./

Yes the Holy Spirit bears witness of Christ. But I don't believe it is apart from what the Holy Spirit inspired to be recorded in Scripture concerning Christ.

"You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; (John 5:39)

The Spirit and the Word work together. I believe we can rejoice in this along with the fact that our translations are for the most part highly reliable versions that don't pour out large bits of error. It's a PTL!

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David Winter

Far from saying that the Bible is unreliable, brother David, I am saying that the reliability of the Bible is UNBREAKABLE because God has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth.

How do we know that we are led by the Holy Spirit and not other spirits? We know when we are led to Christ (John 16:13-15; John 6:37).

How do we know that we have ALL Truth? We know when Jesus is our ALL because Jesus alone is Truth.

Paul declared, so simply and straight to the point, and so do I:

1 Cor. 2:2,5 –
For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified………that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.


Blessings

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Jade

Also, David, you said:

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Jade

/Far from saying that the Bible is unreliable, brother David, I am saying that the reliability of the Bible is UNBREAKABLE because God has given us the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth./

A big AMEN to that!

/How do we know that we are led by the Holy Spirit and not other spirits? We know when we are led to Christ (John 16:13-15; John 6:37)./

And you use two Scriptures to make your point. The Spirit and the Word work together. One can be led closer to Christ through what they read about Him in the Word.

/Paul declared, so simply and straight to the point, and so do I:

1 Cor. 2:2,5 –
For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified………that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God./

And a big Amen to that! I was allowed to lead a group in the church here not so long ago and we studied the atonement in as many of its aspects as we could. "For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified..." is in my opinion the key to the revival the Church is seeking.

Blessings.

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David Winter

/I ask: Why then is the NIV, for example, much maligned?/

I'm not that familiar with the issues surrounding the NIV. I've never used it but one is under no obligation to use the NIV if they think using another would be more useful and edifying. Several men in our men's group at church use different translations and none of these men are steeped in error in any way. No problem.

Thanks.

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David Winter

Re NIV:

https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/niv_sodomite_on_committee.htm

This article is wildly over the top, but the basic facts are true.

I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.
1 Corinthians 1:10

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Bill

Skepticism and Criticism

Since the Renaissance, and more particularly since the Enlightenment, worldviews have been developed which involve skepticism about basic Christian tenets. Such are the agnosticism which denies that God is knowable, the rationalism which denies that He is incomprehensible, the idealism which denies He is transcendent, and the existentialism which denies rationality in His relationships with us. When these un- and antibilical principles seep into men's theologies at a presuppositional level, as today they frequently do, faithful interpretation of Holy Scripture becomes impossible.

Transmission and Translation

Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. The verdict of this science, however, is that the Hebrew and Greek texts appear to be amazingly well preserved, so that we are amply justified in affirming, with the Westminster Confession, a singular providence of God in this matter and in declaring that the authority of Scripture is in no way jeopardized by the fact that the copies we possess are not entirely error free.

Similarly, no translation is or can be perfect, and all translations are an additional step away from the "autogrqapha." Yet the verdict of linguistic science is that English-speaking Christians, at least, are exceedingly well served in these days with a host of excellent translations and have no cause for hesitating to conclude that the true word of God is within their reach. Indeed, in view of frequent repetition in Scripture of the main matters in which it deals and also of the Holy Spirit's constant witness to and through the Word, no serious translation of Holy Scripture will destroy its meaning so as to make its reader "wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (II Timothy 3:15)

Inerrancy and Authority

In our affirmation of the authority of Scripture as involving its total truth, we are consciously standing with Christ and His apostles, indeed with the whole Bible and with the main stream of church history from the first days until very recently. We are concerned at the casual, inadvertent, and seemingly thoughtless way in which a belief of such far-reaching importance has been given up by many in our day.

We are conscious too, that great and grave confusion results from ceasing to maintain the total truth of the Bible whose authority one professes to acknowledge. The result of taking this step is that the Bible which God gave loses its authority, and what has authority instead is a Bible reduced in content according to the demands of one's critical reasonings and in principle reducible further once one has started. This means that at bottom independent reason now has its authority, as opposed to Scriptural teaching. If this is not seen and if for time being basic evangelical doctrines are still held, persons denying the full truth of Scripture may claim an evangelical identity while methodologically they have moved away from the evangelical principle of knowledge to an unstable subjectivism, and will find it hard to not move further.

We affirm that what Scripture says, God says. May He be glorified. Amen and amen.

(R. C. Sproul - from "Explaining Inerrancy" - p72-74 - copyright 1980)

doc: I was at ease before in believing the words in the Bible were really God's words. But recently having looked into the issue of inerrancy again, I am now at ease more than I have ever been. Christ Himself is of greatest value to the Christian but we have so great a salvation in that it includes His trustworthy word! I just wanted to throw a little encouragement and edification your way. What you read is the real deal.

Thank you.

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David Winter