July 30, 2012

The Fundamentals - Torrey - XXVII - Chapter 5 (The testimony of the organic unity of the Bible to its inspiration)

Required reading
The Fundamentals edited by R. A. Torrey (Available from Amazon or free here) -  Read Chapter 5 (The testimony of the organic unity of the Bible to its inspiration).

My summary
This week Pierson teaches us about the organic unity of the Bible which thereby demonstrates its inspiration.

Thus we hear that the unity of the Bible is:

-->(i) structural;
(ii) historic;
(iii) dispensational;
(iv) prophetic;
(v) personal;
(vi) symbolic;
(vii) didactic;
(viii) scientific;
(ix) organic.

What grabbed me
Didn't agree with everything in today's reading but there were still some great quotes.

I enjoyed this summary statement of the Bible's composition: 'Here is a collection of books; in their style and character there is great variety and diversity ; some are historical, others poetical; some contain laws, others lyrics; some are prophetic, some symbolic ; in the Old Testament we have historical, poetical, and prophetical divisions; and in the New Testament we have historic narratives, then twenty-one epistles, then a symbolic apocalyptic poem in oriental imagery. And yet this is no artificial arrangement of fragments. We find "the Old Testament patent in the New ; the New latent in the Old."  In such a Book, then, it is not likely that there would be unity ; for all the conditions were unfavorable to a harmonious moral testimony and teaching. Here are some sixty or more separate documents, written by some forty different persons, scattered over wide intervals of space and time, strangers to each other ; these documents are written in three different languages, in different lands, among different and sometimes hostile peoples, with marked diversities of literary style, and by men of all grades of culture and mental capacity, from Moses to Malachi ; and when we look into these productions, there is even in them great unlikeness, both in matter and manner of statement ; and yet they all constitute one volume.'

There is enormous variety in the Bible, yet its unity still abounds.  It simply must be divine.

Next week's reading
Read
Chapter 6 (Fulfilled prophecy a potent argument for the Bible).


Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.

No comments: