Why The Bible And Not Just Any Other Book?

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 49, 24 June 1965, Page 7

Why The Bible And Not Just Any Other Book?

Why is the Bible re- j garded by Christians as as the niost important hook in the world? This is a question asked by the Rev. I. H. Robertson in this week's Voice of the Churches. Why he a,sks, ivot one of the countless numbers of books written about the Ohristian faith since the Bible itself? Is it not possible that they might be m/>re up-to-date and in tune with contemporary life? "These are questions that are on my mind as the five protestant churches in Taupo prepare for a week of concentrated attention to the Bible, culminating in the annual-house-to-house collection for the British and Foreign Bible Society. "These questions demand an answer even more insist- ! ently when we consider jhow the Bible came to be i written in the form in which we have it. History records that the "canon", i.e, the body of divinely inspired writings was the outcome of the

two councils of Ohristian leaders, one at Jamnia in 90 A.D. and the other at Carthage in 397 A.T). . . "Their decision to include sonle books, and to exclude others, seems to have drawn an almost arbitrary line between what is divinely inspired and what is not. (We have inuch of what was left out in a separate group of books known as the Apocrypha, and many of these could well be worthy of inclusion.) "The Rible oontains all that is fundamental to the inost important Christian doctrine, faith in, and experience of God. "The Bible is, therefore, a guidebook for Christian living. It cannot, however, be used as a reference book to which we turn to find a specific answer to every question concerning life in all its aspects.

"O11 a text-by-text hasis we find confujsion and (vontradiction. We would find the same confusion if when building a house, we looked at the plan and started by building a Kitchen cupboard, then the doors and windows and the j flre surround, without first pouring the foundations and erecting the chimney and frame work. "When we build a house, we study the plan in great detail, until we are thoroughty conversant with the general features. Then the details fit into place. From a two-dimensional blueprint, we interpret the arehitect's ideas and construct a threedimensional house. "Several people who pool their ideas and interpretations of the Bible truths build each other's understanding. This is one of the reasons why Christian people need the fellowship of each other, and why the Taupo Inter-church Commit-j tee has arranged studies of ! the Bible for each evening! of next week."