BY JACK WARD
Several years ago, Alexander J. Barron, a licensed Missionary Baptist preacher, decided that the Bible is not the word of God, but that is OK; he will continue to preach it.
He says, “I believe in preaching the word of God. I believe in the saving of souls from the clutches of dark forces. I believe that God is all-loving and all-powerful, and that his son, Jesus of Nazareth, was the son of God, who has given us a way to live life fully and abundantly. Yet, I do not believe the Holy Bible is the infallible word of God.”
He cites this argument: “The Holy Bible is a collection of Christian texts that is the result of refinement by men who thought they were led by God to discern his teachings. The early Christian world was diverse, and everyone had a different take on the Gospel of Jesus. These disagreements were ‘settled’ in large meetings of high-ranking priests called ‘Councils.’ The Council of Hippo (one of the African Synods) drew up a collection of texts, which is now the Catholic Bible (including a class of texts I, as a Protestant, would call Apocrypha), in 393 AD. St. Jerome is credited with creating the Old Latin Vulgate, which was the outcome of the African Synods and was used as the Bible for centuries.”
Bottom line for Mr. Barron is that because men decided upon the Bible, he says it cannot be the word of God. He evidently has never understood that man can create perfect books. One is called a dictionary. Another is an owner’s manual. Those books are technically perfect. Why? Because Webster knows words intimately and builders know what they build intimately. If man knows God intimately, can He not write a perfect book if a perfect Holy Spirit leads him?
There is no doubt about the Old Testament. We know that the Old Testament in your Bible is the same one that was used before Jesus walked the earth. That has been settled by scholars for years. We have verifiable copies of the Old Testament older than Jesus.
The New Testament books were already in circulation within the church as early as 90 AD. The Church Father Justin Martyr and the Jewish historian Josephus both stated that the writings of the apostles were circulated by the churches as Scripture.
Mr. Barron is talking about the time when the Catholic Church decided which texts to use. The Catholic Church came along several hundred years after the true church had already been established, and the word of God and the New Testament were already in circulation. Pick up any good study Bible and see the “origin of the Bible.” Google it on your computer, and you will see the hand of God at work in the minds of men to give us His word long before the Catholic Church even existed.
The greatest and most obvious evidence that the Bible is the word of God is the prophecies about Israel’s return to its land. About 2,900 years before 1948. Leviticus 26:33 and 26:44, Deuteronomy 4:27-31 and Isaiah 66:22 prophesy the scattering of Israel throughout the world. Deuteronomy 30:3, Ezekiel 37:11-14, 37:21-22, Zechariah 8:7-8, 12:2-3 and 12:6-9, Jeremiah 30:10-11, Isaiah 11:11-12 and Isaiah 35:1-2 prophesy that Israel will return to their land in the last days.
Even history tells us that God did scatter Israel all over the world in AD 70 after the fall of Jerusalem under the leadership of Roman general Titus. About 1,878 years later, they returned to their land, Israel in 1948.
Mr. Barron, if the Bible is not the word of God, then it contains the greatest coincidences in human history. A book that first says it makes prophecies, then makes several prophecies and they all come true. What are the odds of that? Same as you dropping one million quarters from an airplane 5,000 feet in the air and they all fall in a perfect stack, all head side up.
Come on, Mr. Barron, you know in your heart that the Bible IS the word of God. You just do not want to admit it.
Listen to Pastor Jack’s sermons every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. on 98.9 WSIP FM. Check out the Tomahawk Missionary Baptist Church Facebook page and our website at tomahawkmbc.com.