Troubling Passages of Scripture - Part 4 - Are Parts of the Bible NOT the Word of God?

There are actually several types of passages I am talking about here so I want to take each in turn:

1. Satan Speaks: While the Bible may record the words of the devil, that does not mean those words are authoritative simply because they are in the Bible. They are just there to record what happened and what was said. Even when the Devil uses Scripture (See the temptation of Jesus in the Gospels), he most certainly is twisting it to his own ends. What this part of the Word of God teaches a Christian is how the devil operates and what he does. We however should not see those things the devil says as accurate as far as what WE should do.

2. Job's Friends and Others: This category includes a lot of guys who speak in Scripture and are dead wrong in what they say, or teach things in the Bible that are contrary to other parts of the Bible. One time I heard a preach preach from Job and he was quoting one of Job's friends to prove that calamity results from sin. Guess he never read the end where God says everything Job's friends said was wrong. This is why you have to get the full context of anything you read in Scripture. Otherwise you might drop your finger on 'Judas went out and hanged himself' and think that applies to you. It is not that these are not part of the Bible, what they do is show us what beliefs are wrong. What we do have to note is that they are wrong and not believe them ourselves.

3. Paul Speaking by Permission and Not Commandment: 1 Corinthians 7:6 -- When Paul speaks of concession, not command, does that invalidate this as the commands of God? Guess it depends on your definition of inspired. If you understand that God allows the writers to input themselves as part of that inspiration (see here) then this is still inspired by God just with a different flavor. One that allows that God to use the Scripture writers own thoughts, issues, personalities and make them part of His Word.

4. Scripture Trumps Scripture: Matthew 19:1-12 -- when Jesus responds to the Pharisees he makes the statement that Moses allowed for divorce because of the hardness of their hearts, thus it seems that two passages of the Bible that seem to be at odds with each other. Several factors can be considered 1) What does it mean for the Bible to be inspired (above), 2) The progressive nature of that revelation (see here) and 3) that the Bible may also present options for the believer. In this case you can simply view marriage as a contract which can be annulled at any time or you can view it as a 'one flesh' covenant that is supposed to last a life time. In this case, the second option is a higher walk, but things happen so the first option remains.

5. Passages with Textual Problems: If you have a more modern translation you might find a textual note on a passage that indicates that it does not appear in older manuscripts. Most notable are John 8:1-11 (The Woman Caught in Adultery) and The longer ending of Mark's gospel where from 16:9 to the end is not in older manuscripts. This is the field of textual criticism where old manuscripts of the Scriptures are compared. What textual critics look for is changes as the copyist makes mistakes and age of the manuscript. The age is important because the closer some thing is to the original writing the less chance there are changes from the original because there has not been the time to make those changes. In the two cases above, both have the problem of not being supported by older texts, this means they very well could be additions put in by later people. This one is a harder thing to deal with. The thing to remember is that in all of these differences, not one of them openly contradicts anything else in Scripture nor do they present too many things that are not said elsewhere so for the most part they are not new material. In these cases, I simply have to shrug and say - 'do what you want with them' . It does not hurt to believe them or not to believe them.

6. Miscellaneous Stuff: How about the times the apostles are saying: 'this person greets you' or 'bring me X' seeing that the person's and things being talked about no longer exist. Once again, God in the situation and using it to inspire does not mean that the authors were brainwashed and these passages actually show that idea. Those verse that just seem to be filler at the end of letters, etc. Once again, context and inspiration definitions come into play.

What we see in all this is that the Bible is a very human book as well as being divine one. God inspiring the writers does not take away the very human situation they were in or their humanity itself. In fact it seems that the writers of Scripture have their humanity enhanced. The Bible and inspiration are really a God and Man collaboration and as we interpret it we should keep that in mind.

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