How To Reply To Someone Who Says That We Should Not Worship The Bible?
Question: I have heard men sometimes say that we should not worship the Bible. But, I think, God's Word is in the Bible. And Jesus is the living Word of God. So please help me wrap my mind around this, means to understand it more clearly. How to I reply to someone who says that we should not worship the Bible?
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
What is the Word of God?
The Bible answers this question in the following way,
"The whole Bible was given to us by inspiration from God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives; it straightens us out and helps us do what is right." (2 Tim 3:16, NLT).
"For no prophecy recorded in Scripture was ever thought up by the prophet himself. It was the Holy Spirit within these godly men who gave them true messages from God [by breathing His Word through them]." (2 Pet 1:20-21, NLT).
In short, whatever inspired directly by God written to His people through any appointed messenger of His have become the Word of God.
In fact, from Adam to Moses, after the fall of our forefather Adam in to sin which made sin spread to all humans from birth on wards, Adam himself who taught the people of faith the way to God through sacrifice which God had taught to him in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:21; 4:5-7, 16), became a type or shadow of the redeemer Jesus Christ who is the last Adam who had been expected to teach the knowledge of salvation and rescue the whole humanity who believe, from the clutches of sin and death to make them serve God acceptably for eternity ahead (Rom 5:14, 12; 1 Cor 15:45; Heb 9:14).
So from Adam on wards there was a traditional Word of God that was passed on through the word of mouth confession to the people of faith, through approaching God within the prescribed and commanded way through clean animal sacrifice (Gen 7:8-9), which they faithfully carried on (Rom 10:10). In fact, as we have seen above, the people of faith looked forward to the Messiah's coming to redeem them from sin and released their tangible faith by sacrificing calves and goats and birds (Isa 53:4-5; Heb 9:7-10, 12-13, 14), during the days of Jesus they looked with their eyes upon the salvation of the Lord in the flesh which is Christ Jesus (Luke 2:20), after Christ has ascended in to heaven, we as the people of faith have looked backward to our Messiah Jesus who brings the light of revelation from the Word of God to our hearts for the past two thousand years (Luke 2:32; 1 Peter 2:24).
Cain left the Presence of God and brought on earth a violent and godless generation all over the earth, their daughters who were very beautiful became a test of faith for the people of faith as they began to intermarry and act against the will of God to become rebels against God (Gen 6:1-4). Slowly the Spirit directed people whose thinking were holy began to become corrupted like the ungodly people, that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and therefore the wickedness of man was great in the earth (Gen 6:3, 5). This pushed God to become so saddened by the fact that even the people of faith have become corrupted with all the godless humans who had multiplied, thus he came to the point where he felt saddened and grieved in his heart by the man [(i.e.) the rebellion of Adam through which all humans rebelled] who was made on earth by Him (Gen 6:6).
Among all the humans on earth, God found his man and showed grace in his eyes, and that was Noah and his family who obeyed him (Gen 6:8; 1 Peter 3:20-21; Heb 11:7). Through the sons of Noah, again God chose one of his sons named Shem and led him to become a people of faith (Gen 9:26). Thus through that line of Shem, God again chose a single man named as Abraham and started to lead him to become separate to walk in faith and become the people of faith through whom He had planned to bring the Messiah Jesus Christ to the world that had been sinking in sin and lawlessness (Gen 12:1; Heb 11:8).
Thus the people of God became synonymous with the name Abraham the man of faith forever and ever, and also he has become a model to approach God in the right way and become pleasing to Him (Gal 3:7; Rom 4:16). What was the Word of God at that time? It was first the word of the mouth from the ancestors tradition which would have got shared through the word of mouth, must have pushed Abraham to make sacrifice and approach God in humility before him, after which the revelation of the Word of God through vision must have been received by Him to which he had obeyed to become a father of faith for all succeeding generations (Acts 7:1-4).
It must not have been hard for Abraham to hear about the procedure of animal sacrifice to be heard from the Patriachs themselves, because God had taught Adam the sacrifice of faith in the Garden of Eden, He lived for 930 years and died, if someone of his descendant had heard from him and they had lived for a long time, atleast within the next person of faith alive in the succeeding generation who lived for a long long time of several centuries together, would have passed on the Word of God through mouth to Abraham the father of faith regarding the right way to approach God through the clean animal sacrifice of faith.
The Bible is meticulous in recording the ages of the patriarchs from Adam to Abraham. It states how old each was when his first child, or the child in the Messianic/covenant line, was born, how long each lived after that, and/or how old each was when he died. Hence, by simple arithmetic, the Year of the World (in Latin Anno Mundi, so usually abbreviated to ‘AM’) that each patriarch was born, lived and died can be easily and accurately reckoned, and any possibility of a ‘gap’ is thereby eliminated from these Genesis lists. Thus Adam, who was created on the sixth day of the first year, and died AM 930, could have talked with his descendants all the way down to Noah’s father, Lamech, who was born AM 874. And Noah’s son, Shem, born AM 1558 and died AM 2158, could have talked with his descendants all the way down to and including Abraham (born AM 2008).
So through the Word of the mouth the tradition of Abraham's descendants passed on and must have also had written records in Hebrew along with it through inspiration (Exo 1:1-7; 4:24-26; 5:3; 6:1-8, 13 (i.e. command - Forward Vision)).
Thus from there Moses carried the Word of God with him and as a result of it, the law of the first five books of Moses were passed on to the Israelites from God through angelic agency to him (John 1:17; Gal 3:19). Usually we think that the law of Moses was the first book of the Bible, but even before that the Book of Job must have been present as the period of tradition in it suggests the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Joseph the great patriarchs of the Bible, and must have been passed on to the people of faith and then to Moses to become added to the inspired book of the Bible the Word of God (Job 1:1). 'Iyyob' which is Job in Hebrew means the 'Persecuted One.'
After Moses what was the Word of God, whatever God inspired to the people of God which was the nation of Israel and instructed for them to walk in righteousness became the Word of God. The Word of God began to be given to the Israelites mainly through Prophets, but also the priests and kings and even laymen were also sometimes used to give the Word of God (Num 12:6-8; Jer 7:25; 35:15; Deut 13:1-18). Thus the law and the prophets ended with John the Baptist who became the last prophet of the Old Testament times (Luke 16:16; Matt 11:12-13).
The people of God who carried the faith got so corrupted at the time when Jesus came, that they became great hypocrites who believed that studying the Scripture gave them eternal life to conveniently forget that those very Scriptures were the ones which spoke about Jesus the Messiah, they did this because they did not want to come to Jesus to get saved as humility was needed and they continued to live in their pride (John 5:39-40).
Jesus Himself even after his resurrection have to teach and rebuke his disciples to make them understand that all that the Word of God spoke was, about Him and only Him, and that he had come alive according to it to give salvation to his people who believed him in faith (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45, 46-47).
Now that the Lord has raised his foundational apostles in the first century AD, the whole of the New Testament came in to existence within the next seventy years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again Satan tried to make the inspired Word get diluted with his lies, but then God raised great men of God who used the Canon scale to measure and separate the inspired from the uninspired, and to authoritatively declare to the Church what Books of the New Testament they should be using as the Word of God.
The word is a collection of inspired Books written and canonized by humans through the help of God which we call as the Bible. The following verse of Jesus in which He said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63), he was speaking not about the Holy Spirit but about the humans spirit which can only receive the Rhema voice or word of God within them, the flesh cannot receive anything from God. So it should not be misinterpreted as life is in the printed Scripture, but rather in just the person of Jesus Christ the Word of God who speaks in the present time to your spirit from heaven through the Scripture and gives life eternal to our soul if we choose to hear Him because he has no errors at all as the God of all creation (Heb 12:24-25; John 8:46).
If Jesus Himself with humility was not ready to argue with Satan except say "...it is written", which released the mighty weapon of the Rhema fired up by the Spirit of God which then become the Sword of the Word of God to destroy the enemies lies and deceit, then automatically it shows that the all humans who believe in the infallibility of Scripture can only uphold its value and experience its power because of humility in their lives, which will only defeat Satan and his demons, and continue to keep them be victorious over the spiritual enemies of their soul for the Glory of God. Because the Jews searched the Scripture without accepting Jesus as their Messiah, they were not able to receive the life of God which gives light to understand the Scripture through Jesus Christ (John 1:4; 8:12; Luke 1:77; 24:45; Isa 49:6), but they instead received death by the letter that was mistaken to hold eternal life without the Spirit quickening it (John 5:39-40; 2 Cor 3:6, 7, 9; Rom 6:23; 7:13). In other words, the Word without the Spirit will dry us up to death, the Spirit without the Word will blow us up to death. The balance always remains whether we search the Scripture to find the truth and at the same time are prayerful enough to hear through it from God in our spirit to use it as the Sword of the Spirit against the lies of the enemy and ground ourselves in the truth by faith and patience which brings heavenly reward to us for now and for eternity ahead (Acts 17:11; 11:16; Heb 10:35-36; Eph 6:17).
Now the Word of God in the flesh is Jesus Christ, He was in the beginning was God and was with God, but now has become the only and only Mediator between all humans and God forever, after he has risen from the dead to live forever at the right hand of God to judge the world in God's time for sin and righteousness on earth and in heaven along with the cloud of witnesses who lived for Him by faith (John 1:1-3; 1 Tim 2:3-5, 6-7; Acts 26:23; Acts 27:30-31; Mark 14:62; Heb 12:1). In the thigh of Jesus Christ and on his robe will be written, "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS", and He will forever will be called 'The Word of God' (Rev 19:16, 13).
If someone is not born again and if they call themselves as Christians, even though they might even go to Church, even if they will have the Bible laid at the head side near the pillow to drive demons away or use those words in the paper to be rolled up inside a small metal sheet and tie them above the biceps or around their wrist or waist believing wrongfully that it will drive the devil away and bring good luck just like as the pagans do with talismans, it will mean nothing to them except the superstitious belief present without real faith in them, which brings no life of the power of the Word of God in to operation in their lives and situations (Mark 7:9, 13; 1 Thess 2:13). So a born again person will love to read and even kiss the Word of God understanding it as he reads with heavenly joy because of his love for JESUS, but will no way worship the Scripture. Yes God's word is in the printed Bible, that is why we revere whatever is written in it and not just the physical Book. For example, there is a temple in south India where they received the Bible given to them by missionaries and have kept it inside the temple's most holy place to revere and worship it without ever opening it to read what it says, it is indeed an absolute idolatry like any other type which God abhors and commands against doing it.
Now through the Scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit, we are coming to know Jesus the Christ who is the living Word of God who is in heaven through it more and more, as we continue to seek God and read expecting God to speak to us through it, and then God opens up our understanding and we start to hear the voice of God through the Word of God in our spirit guiding us as we seek Him diligently through doing his word (Heb 11:6; Jam 1:22).
As we start to get more acquainted to the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will write the Word of God in our heart through which we will be able to continue to communicate with God and worship Him in spirit and in truth for the Glory of God now and forever in eternity ahead (Heb 10:16; John 4:23-24; Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:26-27; Isa 59:21)! Hallelujah!
You can reply confidently to someone who says that, 'We should not worship the Scripture?', saying, 'Neither we are told not to worship apart from the Scripture?' (John 17:17) and therefore keep the balance to experience the personality and nature of Jesus Christ within us and partake in it daily by obeying and following Him spiritually through the new man by rejecting the old man which is our sin nature (2 Peter 1:4).
When a matchstick is fired up to light a candle, the darkness around flees to make us see where we are and who we are, the same happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to quicken the Scripture, it gives us spiritual light immediately within our darkened soul to understand who Jesus is and what He can do for us when we believe. Only believe and all things are possible with Jesus day in and day out!
Much Blessings....
Answer: Greetings in Jesus wonderful name!
What is the Word of God?
The Bible answers this question in the following way,
"The whole Bible was given to us by inspiration from God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives; it straightens us out and helps us do what is right." (2 Tim 3:16, NLT).
"For no prophecy recorded in Scripture was ever thought up by the prophet himself. It was the Holy Spirit within these godly men who gave them true messages from God [by breathing His Word through them]." (2 Pet 1:20-21, NLT).
In short, whatever inspired directly by God written to His people through any appointed messenger of His have become the Word of God.
In fact, from Adam to Moses, after the fall of our forefather Adam in to sin which made sin spread to all humans from birth on wards, Adam himself who taught the people of faith the way to God through sacrifice which God had taught to him in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:21; 4:5-7, 16), became a type or shadow of the redeemer Jesus Christ who is the last Adam who had been expected to teach the knowledge of salvation and rescue the whole humanity who believe, from the clutches of sin and death to make them serve God acceptably for eternity ahead (Rom 5:14, 12; 1 Cor 15:45; Heb 9:14).
So from Adam on wards there was a traditional Word of God that was passed on through the word of mouth confession to the people of faith, through approaching God within the prescribed and commanded way through clean animal sacrifice (Gen 7:8-9), which they faithfully carried on (Rom 10:10). In fact, as we have seen above, the people of faith looked forward to the Messiah's coming to redeem them from sin and released their tangible faith by sacrificing calves and goats and birds (Isa 53:4-5; Heb 9:7-10, 12-13, 14), during the days of Jesus they looked with their eyes upon the salvation of the Lord in the flesh which is Christ Jesus (Luke 2:20), after Christ has ascended in to heaven, we as the people of faith have looked backward to our Messiah Jesus who brings the light of revelation from the Word of God to our hearts for the past two thousand years (Luke 2:32; 1 Peter 2:24).
Cain left the Presence of God and brought on earth a violent and godless generation all over the earth, their daughters who were very beautiful became a test of faith for the people of faith as they began to intermarry and act against the will of God to become rebels against God (Gen 6:1-4). Slowly the Spirit directed people whose thinking were holy began to become corrupted like the ungodly people, that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually and therefore the wickedness of man was great in the earth (Gen 6:3, 5). This pushed God to become so saddened by the fact that even the people of faith have become corrupted with all the godless humans who had multiplied, thus he came to the point where he felt saddened and grieved in his heart by the man [(i.e.) the rebellion of Adam through which all humans rebelled] who was made on earth by Him (Gen 6:6).
Among all the humans on earth, God found his man and showed grace in his eyes, and that was Noah and his family who obeyed him (Gen 6:8; 1 Peter 3:20-21; Heb 11:7). Through the sons of Noah, again God chose one of his sons named Shem and led him to become a people of faith (Gen 9:26). Thus through that line of Shem, God again chose a single man named as Abraham and started to lead him to become separate to walk in faith and become the people of faith through whom He had planned to bring the Messiah Jesus Christ to the world that had been sinking in sin and lawlessness (Gen 12:1; Heb 11:8).
Thus the people of God became synonymous with the name Abraham the man of faith forever and ever, and also he has become a model to approach God in the right way and become pleasing to Him (Gal 3:7; Rom 4:16). What was the Word of God at that time? It was first the word of the mouth from the ancestors tradition which would have got shared through the word of mouth, must have pushed Abraham to make sacrifice and approach God in humility before him, after which the revelation of the Word of God through vision must have been received by Him to which he had obeyed to become a father of faith for all succeeding generations (Acts 7:1-4).
It must not have been hard for Abraham to hear about the procedure of animal sacrifice to be heard from the Patriachs themselves, because God had taught Adam the sacrifice of faith in the Garden of Eden, He lived for 930 years and died, if someone of his descendant had heard from him and they had lived for a long time, atleast within the next person of faith alive in the succeeding generation who lived for a long long time of several centuries together, would have passed on the Word of God through mouth to Abraham the father of faith regarding the right way to approach God through the clean animal sacrifice of faith.
The Bible is meticulous in recording the ages of the patriarchs from Adam to Abraham. It states how old each was when his first child, or the child in the Messianic/covenant line, was born, how long each lived after that, and/or how old each was when he died. Hence, by simple arithmetic, the Year of the World (in Latin Anno Mundi, so usually abbreviated to ‘AM’) that each patriarch was born, lived and died can be easily and accurately reckoned, and any possibility of a ‘gap’ is thereby eliminated from these Genesis lists. Thus Adam, who was created on the sixth day of the first year, and died AM 930, could have talked with his descendants all the way down to Noah’s father, Lamech, who was born AM 874. And Noah’s son, Shem, born AM 1558 and died AM 2158, could have talked with his descendants all the way down to and including Abraham (born AM 2008).
So through the Word of the mouth the tradition of Abraham's descendants passed on and must have also had written records in Hebrew along with it through inspiration (Exo 1:1-7; 4:24-26; 5:3; 6:1-8, 13 (i.e. command - Forward Vision)).
Thus from there Moses carried the Word of God with him and as a result of it, the law of the first five books of Moses were passed on to the Israelites from God through angelic agency to him (John 1:17; Gal 3:19). Usually we think that the law of Moses was the first book of the Bible, but even before that the Book of Job must have been present as the period of tradition in it suggests the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or Joseph the great patriarchs of the Bible, and must have been passed on to the people of faith and then to Moses to become added to the inspired book of the Bible the Word of God (Job 1:1). 'Iyyob' which is Job in Hebrew means the 'Persecuted One.'
After Moses what was the Word of God, whatever God inspired to the people of God which was the nation of Israel and instructed for them to walk in righteousness became the Word of God. The Word of God began to be given to the Israelites mainly through Prophets, but also the priests and kings and even laymen were also sometimes used to give the Word of God (Num 12:6-8; Jer 7:25; 35:15; Deut 13:1-18). Thus the law and the prophets ended with John the Baptist who became the last prophet of the Old Testament times (Luke 16:16; Matt 11:12-13).
The people of God who carried the faith got so corrupted at the time when Jesus came, that they became great hypocrites who believed that studying the Scripture gave them eternal life to conveniently forget that those very Scriptures were the ones which spoke about Jesus the Messiah, they did this because they did not want to come to Jesus to get saved as humility was needed and they continued to live in their pride (John 5:39-40).
Jesus Himself even after his resurrection have to teach and rebuke his disciples to make them understand that all that the Word of God spoke was, about Him and only Him, and that he had come alive according to it to give salvation to his people who believed him in faith (Luke 24:25-27, 44-45, 46-47).
Now that the Lord has raised his foundational apostles in the first century AD, the whole of the New Testament came in to existence within the next seventy years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again Satan tried to make the inspired Word get diluted with his lies, but then God raised great men of God who used the Canon scale to measure and separate the inspired from the uninspired, and to authoritatively declare to the Church what Books of the New Testament they should be using as the Word of God.
The word is a collection of inspired Books written and canonized by humans through the help of God which we call as the Bible. The following verse of Jesus in which He said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63), he was speaking not about the Holy Spirit but about the humans spirit which can only receive the Rhema voice or word of God within them, the flesh cannot receive anything from God. So it should not be misinterpreted as life is in the printed Scripture, but rather in just the person of Jesus Christ the Word of God who speaks in the present time to your spirit from heaven through the Scripture and gives life eternal to our soul if we choose to hear Him because he has no errors at all as the God of all creation (Heb 12:24-25; John 8:46).
If Jesus Himself with humility was not ready to argue with Satan except say "...it is written", which released the mighty weapon of the Rhema fired up by the Spirit of God which then become the Sword of the Word of God to destroy the enemies lies and deceit, then automatically it shows that the all humans who believe in the infallibility of Scripture can only uphold its value and experience its power because of humility in their lives, which will only defeat Satan and his demons, and continue to keep them be victorious over the spiritual enemies of their soul for the Glory of God. Because the Jews searched the Scripture without accepting Jesus as their Messiah, they were not able to receive the life of God which gives light to understand the Scripture through Jesus Christ (John 1:4; 8:12; Luke 1:77; 24:45; Isa 49:6), but they instead received death by the letter that was mistaken to hold eternal life without the Spirit quickening it (John 5:39-40; 2 Cor 3:6, 7, 9; Rom 6:23; 7:13). In other words, the Word without the Spirit will dry us up to death, the Spirit without the Word will blow us up to death. The balance always remains whether we search the Scripture to find the truth and at the same time are prayerful enough to hear through it from God in our spirit to use it as the Sword of the Spirit against the lies of the enemy and ground ourselves in the truth by faith and patience which brings heavenly reward to us for now and for eternity ahead (Acts 17:11; 11:16; Heb 10:35-36; Eph 6:17).
Now the Word of God in the flesh is Jesus Christ, He was in the beginning was God and was with God, but now has become the only and only Mediator between all humans and God forever, after he has risen from the dead to live forever at the right hand of God to judge the world in God's time for sin and righteousness on earth and in heaven along with the cloud of witnesses who lived for Him by faith (John 1:1-3; 1 Tim 2:3-5, 6-7; Acts 26:23; Acts 27:30-31; Mark 14:62; Heb 12:1). In the thigh of Jesus Christ and on his robe will be written, "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS", and He will forever will be called 'The Word of God' (Rev 19:16, 13).
If someone is not born again and if they call themselves as Christians, even though they might even go to Church, even if they will have the Bible laid at the head side near the pillow to drive demons away or use those words in the paper to be rolled up inside a small metal sheet and tie them above the biceps or around their wrist or waist believing wrongfully that it will drive the devil away and bring good luck just like as the pagans do with talismans, it will mean nothing to them except the superstitious belief present without real faith in them, which brings no life of the power of the Word of God in to operation in their lives and situations (Mark 7:9, 13; 1 Thess 2:13). So a born again person will love to read and even kiss the Word of God understanding it as he reads with heavenly joy because of his love for JESUS, but will no way worship the Scripture. Yes God's word is in the printed Bible, that is why we revere whatever is written in it and not just the physical Book. For example, there is a temple in south India where they received the Bible given to them by missionaries and have kept it inside the temple's most holy place to revere and worship it without ever opening it to read what it says, it is indeed an absolute idolatry like any other type which God abhors and commands against doing it.
Now through the Scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit, we are coming to know Jesus the Christ who is the living Word of God who is in heaven through it more and more, as we continue to seek God and read expecting God to speak to us through it, and then God opens up our understanding and we start to hear the voice of God through the Word of God in our spirit guiding us as we seek Him diligently through doing his word (Heb 11:6; Jam 1:22).
As we start to get more acquainted to the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will write the Word of God in our heart through which we will be able to continue to communicate with God and worship Him in spirit and in truth for the Glory of God now and forever in eternity ahead (Heb 10:16; John 4:23-24; Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:26-27; Isa 59:21)! Hallelujah!
You can reply confidently to someone who says that, 'We should not worship the Scripture?', saying, 'Neither we are told not to worship apart from the Scripture?' (John 17:17) and therefore keep the balance to experience the personality and nature of Jesus Christ within us and partake in it daily by obeying and following Him spiritually through the new man by rejecting the old man which is our sin nature (2 Peter 1:4).
When a matchstick is fired up to light a candle, the darkness around flees to make us see where we are and who we are, the same happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to quicken the Scripture, it gives us spiritual light immediately within our darkened soul to understand who Jesus is and what He can do for us when we believe. Only believe and all things are possible with Jesus day in and day out!
Much Blessings....
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