What is the Bible? E-Book

Graham A. Cole

• Herausgeber: Lexham Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Questions for Restless Minds
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 61

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

The book that understands you. Christians are people of the book. But does the Bible still speak today? Can an ancient book still be relevant? In What is the Bible?, Graham A. Cole asks why Christians should value God's word. Fundamentally, God's word gives light. It reveals God. It also reveals this world. It gives a new perspective on the past, present, and future. And God's word illuminates you. It knows and understands you better than you do. It doesn't simply answer your questions; it asks questions of you. It will not leave you unchanged. Learn what makes this book so valued by so many people. The Questions for Restless Minds series applies God's word to today's issues. Each short book faces tough questions honestly and clearly, so you can think wisely, act with conviction, and become more like Christ.

Leseprobe

QUESTIONS FOR RESTLESS MINDS

What Is the Bible?

Graham A. Cole

D. A. Carson,

Series Editor

What Is the Bible?

Questions for Restless Minds, edited by D. A. Carson

Copyright 2022 Christ on Campus Initiative

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

LexhamPress.com

You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at [email protected].

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Print ISBN 9781683595137

Digital ISBN 9781683595144

Library of Congress Control Number 2021937693

Lexham Editorial: Todd Hains, Abigail Stocker, Mandi Newell

Cover Design: Brittany Schrock

Contents

Series Preface

1.Introduction

2.Two Stories: One French, One American

3.Such Insight in a Book

4.Reason and Its Limitations

5.An Examined Faith

6.A Secularist with Questions

7.And Yet Questions Persist

8.Acquiring a Taste

9.Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Study Guide Questions

For Further Reading

Series Preface

D. A. CARSON, SERIES EDITOR

The origin of this series of books lies with a group of faculty from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), under the leadership of Scott Manetsch. We wanted to address topics faced by today’s undergraduates, especially those from Christian homes and churches.

If you are one such student, you already know what we have in mind. You know that most churches, however encouraging they may be, are not equipped to prepare you for what you will face when you enroll at university.

It’s not as if you’ve never known any winsome atheists before going to college; it’s not as if you’ve never thought about Islam, or the credibility of the New Testament documents, or the nature of friendship, or gender identity, or how the claims of Jesus sound too exclusive and rather narrow, or the nature of evil. But up until now you’ve probably thought about such things within the shielding cocoon of a community of faith.

Now you are at college, and the communities in which you are embedded often find Christian perspectives to be at best oddly quaint and old-fashioned, if not repulsive. To use the current jargon, it’s easy to become socialized into a new community, a new world.

How shall you respond? You could, of course, withdraw a little: just buckle down and study computer science or Roman history (or whatever your subject is) and refuse to engage with others. Or you could throw over your Christian heritage as something that belongs to your immature years and buy into the cultural package that surrounds you. Or—and this is what we hope you will do—you could become better informed.

But how shall you go about this? On any disputed topic, you do not have the time, and probably not the interest, to bury yourself in a couple of dozen volumes written by experts for experts. And if you did, that would be on one topic—and there are scores of topics that will grab the attention of the inquisitive student. On the other hand, brief pamphlets with predictable answers couched in safe slogans will prove to be neither attractive nor convincing.

So we have adopted a middle course. We have written short books pitched at undergraduates who want arguments that are accessible and stimulating, but invariably courteous. The material is comprehensive enough that it has become an important resource for pastors and other campus leaders who devote their energies to work with students. Each book ends with a brief annotated bibliography and study questions, intended for readers who want to probe a little further.

Lexham Press is making this series available as attractive print books and in digital formats (ebook and Logos resource). We hope and pray you will find them helpful and convincing.

1

INTRODUCTION

Weddings can be such fun, can’t they? And they come in all shapes and sizes from huge to intimate, from casual to formal. The last wedding I attended was a classic Southern one where the bride had eleven bridesmaids. The setting was on a mountain and the feast afterwards was by a mountain lake. My wife especially appreciated the occasion. She is a fashion designer and for a time ran her own bridal business. One dress she sold was to a couple with an Armenian heritage, and we were invited to the wedding in their Armenian Orthodox Church. What a spectacle! Robes, incense, color and pageantry. What struck me in particular was how the priest held the Bible. It was handled with silk cloth. Human hands were not to touch the sacred book. What made this book so precious to him? Personal conviction? Tradition? That experience of the Armenian wedding raises for me the question of why value this ancient book.

Let’s begin our exploration of this last question by considering the stories of two very different people who found transformative value in the pages of this famous book, a book that understood them—at least that is the claim.1

2

TWO STORIES: ONE FRENCH, ONE AMERICAN

Émile Cailliet was raised in a naturalistic environment in France. In fact, he first saw a Bible at the age of twenty-three. He had a longing though for self-understanding. He expresses that longing in powerful terms when he writes: “During long night watches in the foxholes [in WWI] I had in a strange way been longing—I must say it, however queer it may sound—for a book that would understand me. But I knew of no such book.”2 So what did Cailliet do? He set out to construct one himself: “Now I would in secret prepare one for my own private use.”3 Over time he constructed his book made up of quotations drawn from literature and philosophy. In the end, however, when he read his compilation he found only disappointment: “It carried no strength of persuasion.”4 Instead of insight he found emptiness.

Around that same time his wife happened on a Protestant church, went in and met the elderly pastor. As Cailliet relates the story: “She walked to his desk and heard herself say. Have you a Bible in French?”5 Indeed he did. And Cailliet’s wife upon his return home gave him the copy of the Bible. (How she found this church is an interesting story in itself.) He vividly describes what happened next:

I literally grabbed the book and rushed to my study with it. I opened it and chanced upon the Beatitudes [Matthew 6]: I read, and read.… I could not find words to express my awe and wonder. And suddenly the realization dawned upon me: This was the Book that would understand me! I needed it so much, yet, unaware I had attempted to write my own—in vain.… I continued to read deeply into the night, mostly from the gospels.… A decisive insight flashed through my whole being the following morning as I probed the opening chapters of the gospel according to John. The very clue to the secret of human life was disclosed right there, not stated in the foreboding language of philosophy, but in the common everyday language of human circumstances.6

Cailliet went on to become a noted philosopher and Christian thinker.