When speaking of the Bible, what is the meaning of:
Actual,
Ample,
Authentic,
Bona fide,
Enduring,
Enough,
Forthright,
Lasting,
Real,
Reliable,
Sufficient,
Timeless.
Trustworthy,
True/Truthful,
Truth-telling.
Home For the Seeking Spirit > Words About the Bible > trust words
This page concerns describing the Bible with words about its authenticity and truthfulness. A lot of people are making claims of conspiracies that limited the content forcibly to what it is today. This is not where I can argue against those with historical fact, but I will leave you with one thing that can be pretty well demonstrated based on actual historical information. By the time the books emerged as Scripture due to everyday use, ca. 200 AD, Christians still had no strong central authority, and were still struggling amongst themselves about many core matters of the faith, like what Christ was and how the Spirit worked. Even their foremost leaders were disputing these things. Those arguments would continue for another two centuries. The people and their leaders had already decided what they would turn to in order to sort that out: the books they trusted most from experience, which then became our New Testament. They also judged that these works told believers what they needed to know to live the faith, and taught them how to dialogue and relate with God in their lives -- that is, that these books were enough to teach us that task.
The words below are offered as a place to start thinking about the Bible, and its role in your life and that of believers in Christ as a whole. Take up this challenge: think prayerfully about the use of each of these words. Are they true and/or useful, and in what ways? What does that mean for how I read the Scriptures? In what way(s) does the word go too far, or not far enough? There's a place for words that confine and words that broaden - how does the word do this? Or is it intellectual gibberish? Who in the past has said such things, and what did it lead them to do? If you find out what you really think of the Bible, it will lay the groundwork for how you learn Jesus through it.
Authentic [ Greek authentikos (of the author)]. Real; matching the truth or fact, and thus reliable or verifiable.
The Bible is what it claims to be, and is not an imitation or con job. It really is from God, and really is what God reveals to us about us, about our world, and about God. There are some well-publicized forums where they vote on what they believe is and isn't really historical or is and isn't really said by Jesus or the disciples. Their conclusions have at times been helpful in stripping away some of the illusions which have been shielded by Christian tradition. Yet, they seem bent on trying to create a new image of what Jesus was, and that image has a surreal feel to it. A sense develops that their 'historical Jesus' is a fascinating guy but not someone I'd be inspired to follow, much less die for. Yet the hard and unavoidable fact is that this is exactly what the people around him were inspired to do. The New Testament conveys an inspirational Jesus, an authority Jesus, a Spirit-empowered Jesus, a Jesus who would inspire what we know happened thereafter. An authentic Jesus. And it says this Jesus did the one thing most ultimately worth doing, setting us back aright with the Father who loves us. It would take something that big, that real, to be worth more than a passing glance 2000 years later. Through the Bible, the Spirit gives you the authenticity of Christ Jesus, from which comes authentic character and authentic happiness.
Other words for 'authentic' include:
Sufficient [ Latin sufficere (to be or have enough) < sub- (secondary, beneath) + facêre (to make)]. Enough; to meet the needs of right now (or today)..
When said about the Bible, 'sufficient' refers to the belief that what is found in the Bible is all that is needed to be saved. This word is especially important for Anglicans. Some extremists have stretched this term beyond all sense by claiming that the Bible is 'enough' for designing one's life, and that what isn't there doesn't belong in a Christian's life. Get real. The Bible only directly covers a small part of life's doings. It wasn't meant to cover everything; it was meant to convey God's love and God's good news. It has guidance for your life, but it takes thinking and praying and doing to find out what that is. Yes, shape your life by it, but in God-given freedom. Serve God, not a book. All the foundational and essential stuff is in there, but you yourself have to work it through.
Other words for 'sufficient' include:
Timeless : what the Bible teaches transcends the eras in which it was written or edited, is still true and important today, and will continue to be true and important tomorrow. This does not mean that every aspect of it is 'timeless'. For instance, what was important about the widow giving money was not its specific value in ancient currency -- which is dated and of its time -- but that she gave for God's purposes from what little she had -- something true of the faithful poor in any era. As with anything else eternal or supernatural, and in the manner God lived here as Jesus, the truths of the Bible show themselves through the natural and time-bound. So each Bible story is very much a part of its time, but its message is very much a part of ours, and for our children.
Other words for 'timeless' include:
Trustworthy: You can rely upon the Scriptures.. The Spirit is working through the Bible, thus you can turn to it and trust that you're not being tricked. You can set your life on it. Many millions have set their lives well by it. As is true of the other featured words on this page, the Bible is trustworthy because the One who inspired it and uses it to reach you is trustworthy. If that were not so, 'trustworthy' would be a most weasely word.
Another word for 'trustworthy' is 'reliable' (worthy of trust or reliance).
Truthful: It tells the truth. God will not deceive us, therefore neither does the Bible. We can trust the Bible to lead us down the right path, because the Spirit speaks through it for that purpose. Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, "what is truth?" Today, people ask that same question, in a world where all things are not as they seem. Some are cynical that there is at all such a thing as 'truth', much less that anyone is full of truth. Many think of the Bible as a 'spin book' for either an established hierarchy or for a God of cruelty and irony. The truth is, the New Testament is biased and not at all impartial: it has something it wants everyone to know. I can't prove, I can only testify to the truth of that something, or rather, someone - Jesus.
Other words for 'true' or 'truthful' include:
"The truth that makes possible truthful speech, heartfelt speech, is a person. The “it” in “Because it is true” is a person. Truth for us is not a principle or system, not a structure of correct insights, not a doctrine. The expression of the truth may use any of these means to say what is true, but as Barth rightly insists, “Jesus Christ in the promise of the Spirit as His revelation in the sphere of our time and history is the truth.” Only in the person of Christ are we encountered by the one who can unmask our illusions without utterly destroying us. In Christ we are made intimate with God, making possible a nearness from which we do not flee."
------ Stanley Hauerwas, from 08 May 2012 commencement address, Seminary Of the Southwest
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