Soul Rejoice

  THE EXISTENCE AND NAMES OF GOD Theology Proper- Lesson 7   In the previous six lessons, we have defined Christian Theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. For this reason, we spent some time verifying the reliability of the Bible as the revelation of God through men, the recognition and collection of which books were divinely inspired, and the accuracy of the Bible’s transmission through history. Now, as we turn to the study of the existence and being of God, we, through reliance on our definition of Christian Theology, can skip over the “natural proofs” of God’s existence [1] and start to dig deep into the Scriptures. What has God revealed about Himself?   This is THEOLOGY PROPER . In Theology Proper, we study the being of God. We need to first realize that while God has made Himself known in the hearts of all people, because the creation testifies to His existence and being (Rom 1:18-22), sin has ruined our ...

CANONICITY AND PRESERVATION Bibliology- Lesson 6 We have defined Christian theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible. We have also studied how God moved the authors of Scripture by His Spirit, so that they, without error, wrote down what God desired them to write. We need to ask: “How do we know which writings belong in the Scriptures?”   This brings us to the issue of CANONICITY . When we speak of the canon of Scripture, we are referring to those books that are included in the Bible. The word canon comes from the Greek Word κανων (kanon, from which we get our word ‘cane’), which means “rod, measuring rule, standard” (Gal 6:16; 2 Cor 10:13, 15, 16). “By 350, Athanasius was the first to use the term in the technical sense in which we use it today—to designate the collection of inspired books as the ‘standard’ of the faith.” [1]   When you get down to it, canonicity is much simpler than many would lead us to believe.

  INERRANCY AND AUTHORITY Bibliology- Lesson 5 If we define Christian theology as the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible, we must be sure of the trustworthiness of Scripture.    “The trustworthiness of the Scriptures lies at the foundation of trust in the Christian system of doctrine, and is therefore fundamental to the Christian hope and life.” [1]     In the last lesson, we learned that the Bible claims that it is the revelation that was breathed out by God ( inspiration ) that is sufficient for life and godliness. We also learned that the Bible is clear ( perspicuity ), yet must be illumined to us by God. Once illumined to its truth, the Scripture animates a person. Finally, we learned that the Bible endures forever ( eternality ).   If all of this is true, then it follows that the Bible is both inerrant and authoritative. “There is no such thing as inspiration which does not carry with it the correlation of inf...

BIBLICAL REVELATION, INSPIRATION, SUFFICIENCY, PERSPICUITY, ILLUMINATION, ANIMATION, AND ETERNALITY Bibliology- Lesson 4   If Christian theology is the study of the being and works of the God who has revealed Himself to us in the Bible, then it is to the Bible that we go to learn about God.    The Bible is the REVELATION of God. The word ‘revelation’ comes from the Greek word αποκαλυπτω (apokalupto), which means to uncover or reveal. When we speak of the revelation of God, we mean the revealing of the being and works of God. As we will see, God has revealed Himself in a multitude of ways.   He has made Himself known to us in the Bible. We sometimes will refer to this as SPECIAL REVELATION . How, then, did God reveal Himself to the authors of Scripture?