Just curious on this point. If men were responsible for taking 'God's word' and putting it to paper, could it be that somewhere along the way, there were errors? That parts of the Bible might not be free from corruption?
A complete scroll of Isaiah, all 66 chapters, was found in the dead sea scroll collection which is dated to around 200BC.
The second oldest text we have of Isaiah is from the 10th century.
Want to guess how much difference there is? Virtually none. The differences are mainly issues of spelling that don't change the meaning of the text.
We have fragments of most new testament books from the 2nd century, within about 100 years of Christ, which attest to the accuracy of what we have today.
99% of the variations we find between new testament greek manuscripts over the course of more than a thousand years are just issues of spelling and grammar, most of which aren't even translatable into english. Of that 1%, a smaller percentage of verses and words are questionable and could be significant to the reading of the text - however, despite that, our understanding of who Jesus is and what He did does not hinge on those few verses.
Furthermore, for hundreds of years Christianity was a persecuted minority that had no power to alter scripture and force those changes on other Christian communities. These textual traditions developed in parallel to each other, across the Roman empire, over hundreds of years, despite persecution, yet they all are remarkably close considering the circumstances.
It requires faith to believe in the overall message of the Bible, and it requires the belief in God's grace to have a relationship with Christ...and to me, experiencing the Holy Spirit is all we truly 'need,'
Could you please explain what you mean by "experiencing the Holy Spirit"?
The Holy Spirit is a gift given to those who are in Christ (Acts 2:38) As we see in John 15, in a rather complex way of restating the same thing in many different ways to help emphasize the point, this relationship involves more than just some kind of feeling or experience. It involves obedience. It is through obedience to God's word that we abide in Him. This is what loving God is. As Jesus said, those who love him will keep his instructions (John 14:23), which leads to God abiding in us.
That is why the first and greatest commandment to Israel was given that they must love the Lord God with all their heart, soul, and strength (Dueteronomy 6:5).
Jesus re-interates this for us in Matthew 22:
Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
so why is it necessary to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God?
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). There is no variation of him or shadow cast in turning (James 1:17). He is not a man that he should lie (Numbers 23:19).
To put it another way: God speaks truth and His truth never changes.
The reason is: God defines what truth is. He is truth.
What God speaks or reveals to you directly by the Holy Spirit today will never contradict something He has already revealed or said in the past. He will not give you a vision of a future that contradicts the plan he has already revealed. He will not tell you to do something that violates His character and nature, going against the moral truth He has revealed to us already.
When God reveals prophetic truth to us it will happen - Guaranteed. Some said in the 19th century that Israel had to be a nation again at some point because God's word said it would be before the end times. They were thought of as crazy for taking this literally. Until almost a century later it happened. Prior to that, people were prone to spiritualize and allegorize the prophecies because they couldn't imagine how Israel could ever re-emerge as a nation.
It's not just abstract parable. It's truth you can count on. Jesus did literally heal people. He said he would send us the Holy Spirit so that we would do greater works than He. Today we see people healed, even the dead raised, around the world, by the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus.
In the same way, God reveals moral truth to us and that will never change. His truth, His Word, is a rock - that firm foundation we are told to build our house on, because everything else will eventually be swept away by the storms.
That is why the bible is critical. Through it we not only can see what truth is, but we can learn to discern whether or not it is the Holy Spirit really speaking to us. Without that biblical grounding on what truth is, it's easy for people to be led into deception - 2 Corinthians 11:14 , Galatians 1:8 , 1 Timothy 4:1
Although the Bible does say that the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, from a practical standpoint most people need to have their mind renewed (Romans 12:2) and their senses trained to discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:14), in order to avoid being misled by things that are not the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5:26, Ephesians 4:22-24.
Jesus said that His sheep know His voice and follow Him. This is true, however, if someone has spent their life following their own lusts or demonic voices, they need to learn to recognize the voice of Jesus leading them. The bible is a part of that process.
Part of what the Holy Spirit will lead someone to do is to pick up a bible and start renewing their mind to the truth contained within, as a way of calibrating you to God's truth. The easiest way to recognize a counterfeit when you come across it is always to spend your time studying what is true. That's how they would train people to recognize counterfeit money, by having them study real dollars to such an extent that they can instantly just know something is out of alignment when encountering a countefeit bill.
