Answers about inspiration

Why hasn’t anything been inspired recently? Revelation was the last inspired book and it was a long time ago. Why aren’t there any more?

The straightforward answer is that it is up to God, not us, when he chooses to leave us inspired books. The books of the Bible were given to achieve his purposes. There have been other times in history when God did not choose to leave his written word; actually nearly all the time this has [...]

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Can we rely on scripture?

Detailed question Why should we rely on scripture so much when written from Paul, such as Romans, Ephesians, Colossians? Wasn’t he just a human being who could have written on his own beliefs? The witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is at the foundation of Christian faith. In the first century the evidence was [...]

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What do 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:20-21 mean?

2 Tim 3:16-17 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,  (17)  that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. This means that the Old Testament plus the New Testament (much of which would have been written when [...]

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Is the baptism Jesus commands (Mat. 28:19-20) of man or of God?

All that Jesus taught was from God (John 14:10), so his command about baptism is from God.

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If an early Christian author quoted from a non-canonical book, does that mean they regarded it as scripture?

Not necessarily. Christian authors throughout history quote from lots of different sources to help them deliver the message they intend. Every quote an author make isn’t necessarily preceded by the comment that what follows is or isn’t considered part of Scripture. It is taken for granted that the reader also knows what is and what [...]

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How did the NT canon become established? Did the church decide what books it should include?

We’ll deal with both of these questions in turn: How did the NT canon become established? As each new part of the New Testament (NT) scriptures was written it would have become accepted by the Christian community because it was written by people they knew were authoritative.1 In this way the traditional canon of NT [...]

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Who is the author of the Bible?

The Bible itself tells us that God is the ultimate author of Scripture: All Scripture is breathed out by God… (2Tim.3:16) God caused people to write it down for him, probably in much the same way that he caused the prophets to speak for him: …no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, [...]

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Are both the OT and the NT inspired?

In the second letter that Paul wrote to Timothy he says: All Scripture is breathed out by God… (2Tim.3:16) It is obvious to see that this refers to the Old Testament (OT; 2Tim.3:15-16), which was considered to be God’s word before the New Testament (NT) was written, but does it refer to the NT as [...]

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Is Mark 16:9-20 original?

Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 And they were saying to one [...]

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Does God speak to us?

The person who asked this question cited two scriptural passages: And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. (1 Kings 19:12) For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious [...]

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