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| No | 63% | 1229 votes | Total: 1958 votes | |
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Add to Favorites The ultimate authority, the most credible answer to any issue, will always be the word of God. Christians know that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and we consider His words to be the food that sustains our spiritual lives.
We rely on Jesus' own words. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4) We rely on the fact that Jesus was seen and heard by more than just one person and that there are reliable testimonies that corroborate one another, just as the testimonies in any trial in a court of law must corroborate one another in order to be believable.
The entire Bible is a collection of the writings of many authors over many centuries, most of whom did not know one another, yet they saw visions from God that corroborate one another.
The Bible is a miraculous book for the things that were seen thousands of years ago were played out on earth thousands of years later, and this is the only book that can be matched with historical events in this way. Even today events on the world stage are proceeding exactly as the Bible predicts they will.
Christianity could not survive without the Bible because the Bible is the written expression of our Lord Himself. Christians could not survive without Christ because Christ IS the Word of God. John 1:14 says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."
The Word of God (the Bible) is the seed that, when planted in a properly prepared heart, will bring forth the righteous fruits of the Holy Spirit in abundance in the life of the believer. How do I know this? Matthew 13:23 states Jesus said, "But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty."
The Word of God imparts God's authority to those who believe and obey God. It is the foundation of our Faith: literally the ground upon which we stand when we approach God to ask Him for anything. We know we must not ask for things that are not promised in His word, but we can ask with confidence for those things that are promised.
The Bible is not merely any old book. Without the Bible Christianity would not exist because no Christian can survive without it. Even those in the deepest, darkest parts of the earth who have been deprived of any Bible or scripture portions can survive as Christians only if they cling to the simple truths: Jesus lives! God is Love! Jesus is coming back to earth again. God is just! Believe on Jesus and He will save you! They crave to know the secrets of how to live without sin, and how to obey God during times of persecution.
How can they know these things if someone does not tell them? And whoever it is that tells them is reaching to them from the very heart of God that is expressed to us as THE BIBLE.
Christianity has survived because the Bible has been preserved, sometimes miraculously, through times of great trial and persecution. God watches over his word to preserve it and to perform it.
In Acts 10:36 the apostle Paul correctly states, "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)...
vs 42. And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead." Preaching is simply telling. The Bible tells the Good News that God exists and imparts salvation, forgiveness, healing, prosperity and everything else needed to all who surrender to Him, believe and obey.
The Bible exists because God ordained its existence, and it cannot be destroyed. It will be the light that guides, the food that sustains, the love letter that comforts God's people until Jesus comes back to the earth again, and no amount of debate or wrangling over it will change that fact.
Learn more about this author, J. T. Lillian Nissen.
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Yes
Actually, this question is loaded and pretty much a moot point. It's like the proverbial question, "Which came first the chicken or the egg?" The question is like a double edged sword. Could Christianity, (ie: church) survive without the Bible, or would the Bible exist without the work of Christians (ie: the church)?
The Church could and would survive without the Bible, but not without the "Gospel." Matthew 16:18 promises that Christ's church will never face defeat. It does not base that guarantee upon the existence of "the Bible." To defeat Christianity is to defeat God; that cannot and will not happen. Christianity (ie: church) is the body of Christ. He cannot and will not be defeated, therefore we know that the survival of Christianity is/was predestined.
However, God, Himself, inspired written preservation of His words. Because He is omnipresent and knows the heart and nature of man, he knew that to leave the Gospel unwritten, would be leaving it to the mercy of humankind. The Gospel would have been vulnerable to corruption and perversion by men filled with lust for power and selfish motives. Yes, there would have been those men who were faithful enough to stay true to the Gospel as delivered by Jesus. On the other hand, there would have been the unfaithful and egotistical men who chose to pervert His words. Without Scripture to compare with what is/was taught by Christ, there would most likely have been many people who would have followed those who preached lies.
In other words, the Bible is God's method of checks and balances. Scripture holds Christian teachers and leaders accountable for what they teach. If it is contrary to what is revealed in the good Book, it is a false Gospel. God preserved the Gospel in written form to ensure accuracy for the generations to come. In Scripture, Paul and Silas commended the Bereans for testing what they taught according to the Scriptures:
Act 17:11; These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
St. Augustine, a father of the Church during the Fourth Century A.D., said in Chapter XV, Book XII of his Confessions:
18. . . . The preachers of Thy Word pass away from this life into another; but Thy Scripture is spread abroad over the people, even to the end of the world. Yea, both heaven and earth shall pass away, but Thy Words shall not pass away. . . . .
He explains the necessity of the written word in his book, On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 4, Origin of Writing:
5. . . . But because words pass away as soon as they strike upon the air, and last no longer than their sound, men have by means of letters formed signs of words. Thus the sounds of the voice are made visible to the eye, not of course as sounds, but by means of certain signs.
As mere mortals, we can only speculate whether Christianity would have survived after Christ's ascension and continued with any kind of accuracy without being preserved in writing. We do know,however, that God chose to ensure the preservation of His Gospel through written form and oral instruction from His apostles down to today's ministers. Had He decided to preserve His in the form of oral teachings and traditions only, then, yes, His Church (Chrisitianity) would have survived. Because He ordained it to be so.
Learn more about this author, Lisa Collins.
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