SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Text to the Minute Church Prize, where we encourage and equip people to interact with the biblical text. We are your host, Tim Martin and Brian LeMet.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

We are continuing our series entitled Ink and Inspiration. And this week we want to build off of last week where we talked about who wrote the Bible and really dive into a little bit more of this human side of scripture and really mess with the question, how human is the Bible? And we're going to divide this into two parts. This week we're going to look at part one with inspiration. And next week we're going to look at the same question book, look at the transmission of the text, how the how we receive the text today from uh the original audience there. So, Tim, I kind of want to look at this in maybe two different parts, and there's a lot of different angles to go uh with this, but I want us to kind of begin in the old testament, I think, and look at maybe an example of the Psalms and kind of just start from this question of who's talking in the Psalms and why does that matter, especially when we think about the human side versus the inspiration in God side? Um, is God talking to Himself here? Like what's kind of occurring in the Psalms?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Yeah, it's something that I really never have thought of prior to taking a class when I was working on my master's uh on the book of Psalms, uh, and and this was a topic of discussion in class. And I never have thought about this, but really ever since then I've kind of struggled. Uh my view of inspiration may be maybe less strict than some others. Uh we talked in our last episode about verbal plenary inspiration, and I believe in a certain flavor of that, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

I'll pause. And if you didn't listen to that episode, go ahead and pause this and go back there because you'll want that before diving into this.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Yes, you'll receive a penalty if you don't do that. Uh, you may not understand what we're talking about. But you know, it was about, well, in the Psalms, you know, often in the Psalms, many times, well, the Psalms are doing several things. You have the halil psalms like praise psalms that give praise to God. Well, they don't make any sense that God's speaking to Himself. Doesn't make any sense that a lament psalm uh or an imprecatory psalm where we where one of the writers of the Psalm or the speaker of the Psalm wishes some kind of terrible calamity on their enemy, uh, or or when they're crying out, you know, my God, my God. Frustrated with God, yeah, frustrated at God, you know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And uh that wouldn't make any sense for God to be saying that to himself. And so as we went through that discussion, you know, f for me, I'm always reluctant to make the Bible inhuman uh in a way where the human authors don't have any participation in it whatsoever. Uh and so when I think about the Psalms, what I would my belief personally is that they are uh sayings, Psalms, whatever you want to call it, I mean the technical name, um, of people, of human beings that said these things to God, even either in anger or in praise or in a request or whatever it is. Um and then the recording of those in the the texts that we have, and the text that I believe would have existed in in Paul's day and Jesus' day in the Second Temple period, I believe that God made sure that they were recorded accurately. But I don't believe it's God talking to himself. The same thing could be said of other wisdom literature like Job. You know, Job's friends are not speaking by inspiration of God because they're saying things that are false. And I don't think Job is speaking by inspiration of God because God turns around and scolds him very strongly. But I think I don't think Job wrote Job, you know, and so I think that whenever it was recorded uh andor uh uh experienced an editorial process that God had the author or authors uh of of the Psalms uh of of Job of Ecclesiastes of Songs of Solomon or Song of Songs, that whatever was recorded was what was said. Does that make sense? That that the conversations between Job and his his friends that we have what they said accurately, even though it wasn't written down by an eyewitness, I believe, to those things being said. And obviously the Psalms are not just written by one person, they're David and other people, but I believe what we have written down, perhaps they were written down secularly, but I think they that what was said by David in a psalm, for example, is what David said. What we have recorded uh or what was recorded, I will say in the autographs, we'll talk about that next week, uh, in the original writing, I think was what those people said. I think whatever the preacher said, Kohaleth in Ecclesiastes, I think those are the musings that he went through in his mind. Uh and perhaps he wrote those down. Uh but what we have preserved for us today is exactly whatever the preacher had in his mind. Some people think it's Solomon. I don't I don't know that I buy into that, but you know, but it's different than where we have a thus saith the Lord type statement in the Old Testament.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

And it's interesting when you think about the Old Testament, the perspective that's being shared, because in the wisdom liturgy, you have a lot of first person of this person sharing what's on their heart and what they're feeling, where other parts is more narrative and it's not from that the voice of that person. When we think about Psalms and how human that emotion is there, how is it how is Psalms viewed in the New Testament? Do looking back, do they treat that any different than other parts of the Old Testament?

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Certainly Paul uses the Psalms a lot. Uh Jesus quotes from a psalm that I just mentioned a minute ago when he's on the cross, uh, when he says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Paul uses them mostly for rhetorical purposes. There are times when the Psalms are used for what I would call fulfillment citations, meaning that this was said uh and and comes true and is made to fulfillment in Jesus. Uh and so you know, Paul obviously viewed them as worthwhile. Uh I I would say Paul would probably lump them under um what we would call scripture. You know, there's no such word in Greek as scripture, but when Paul says the word grapha, he means writings that are sacred in the context in which they're uttered. Um and so I think Paul would lump them under that as being useful texts that are that are something that can be used to make his rhetorical purposes. I mean, he he blends together sometimes the Psalms and the prophets in the same paragraph. Yeah. Uh when he's when he's making an argument, but there are also psalms that are talked about being fulfillment psalms. So in in that case, I think the original psalmist was acting no differently than a prophet. You know, he was saying something that comes to complete fruition in Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Yeah. And that that's one of the things that I want our audience to realize here is that sitting and thinking through the human side of it is not a negative thing. And it adds um a connection in my mind to scripture, especially like in the Psalms. And you know, we ourselves are very human. And one I guess the way that I view scripture a lot of times is like the way I view Jesus coming, like you had deity in her flesh and was still perfect and still fulfilled what God wanted. I see scripture maintaining that same tension there of you do have a human side of it, but you also have a divine side of it, and it can fulfill God's purpose in a similar way. And that just because a human side is entered into the picture doesn't weaken God's ability to accomplish what he wants.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Like, yeah, and and I know our audience is is probably thinking about 2 Timothy 3.16, where we have the English translation of it is all scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for teaching, for rebuke, for instruction, for training in righteousness. Uh and I believe that's 100% true. Now we have to understand that there is no verb the is, for example, is not in that, and it's not it's not in Greek. So it also could read, all God breathed scripture is useful for, because God breathed is this adjective that I think Paul makes up, is that it can all be also mean all God breathe scripture is useful for rebuke and training and righteousness and and etc. And so for me, the very word scripture that we render in English means it's an authoritative text. And uh we'll talk about some of that as this series goes on, uh, especially when when we have a uh a podcast in the future about the canon, uh the canonization process. But yeah, it's it's okay. What is scripture? Offhand, we would say it in context of 2 Timothy 3.16, it is everything that Timothy's mama and grandma would have taught Timothy to make him wise to salvation, which is what we would call the Old Testament. They would have referred to it just as the Bible, I guess. Uh and so it begs the question, I think like some Jews even look at the Old Testament and think about, since we're talking about the Old Testament, you know, the Torah, Jews divide the Old Testament much more simply than Christians do. You have the Torah, then you have the Ketuvim, the writings, and then you have the Nebuim, the prophets. The Torah, every pinstroke is the Word of God. The prophets, those that's the Word of God when the prophet says it's the Word of God, when it gives some kind of oracle or thus saith the Lord type thing. And in the writings, which are a lot of narrative, Joshua, Judges, Books of Samuel, the books of Kings, Ezra, Nehemiah, the wisdom literature that you mentioned as well, there's a different view about inspiration. I'm not saying I share that view, but I can understand where that view comes from when we're just looking at historical narrative. The way I come down to it in the Old Testament is I believe that by the time we get to the time of Paul, the Old Testament, I believe, was pretty much in the form we have it today. I'm not saying that we we don't we do not have other than Dead Sea Scrolls, we don't have uh the Hebrew Bible uh, you know, any that's the oldest copies we have, uh, and I don't have the originals. But I believe when the originals or the autographs were written down, and then how they got to Paul's lap and Timothy's mama and grandma's laps, that they they said what God wanted them to say and any historical part of it was accurate. Does that make sense? Yeah. And told in a way that brought the theological purpose. The old testament tells tells history and a theological purpose with a theological purpose. And so I that's why that's why I think Paul said that about the the scriptures. Now people extend that verse to include the New Testament, and I understand why. I don't necessarily do so in context, but I understand why that is.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yeah. All right, let's turn the page and let's go to the Gospels when we think about we have these four Gospels, uh they focus on different elements. Some are in in all the Gospels, and some uh parts of Jesus' life are not. I think Luke is interesting in the way that it opens, and I think it's worth reading Luke one, one through four here. Um inasmuch as many has undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. You know, when we went through the different like inspiration camps, I guess you could say, um, one of those was just this idea that God took over people and they were just pretty much like a typewriter, um, which that's not where we fall. Um and this is one of those passages that that stuck out to me when I was like younger, trying to figure out inspiration, is that, well, that doesn't if that's what happened, this doesn't make sense. And Luke referencing sources and going in to talk to other people and compiling things like there is very much a human endeavor there. Um, and that doesn't exclude God's hand in this as well. Um what what do you make of this opening here in Luke?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Well, I think the last thing you said there is important for us to remember, and we'll circle back around to it, uh, that w we have to believe, number one, to believe the New Testament, we have to believe the testimony of these witnesses. Uh I understand there's extra biblical evidence that refers to Jesus and refers to his crucifixion and refers to Christianity and those things. But we don't have anything that tells us he walked on water, okay? Or that he made a paralyzed person and walk, that we can, you know, Josephus' comments are somewhat questionable, but that if we even have the original Josephus. But anyway, the the idea of Luke as a historian, uh, and we we think about the entire narrative, Luke, Acts, which if if if we accept, which I think is very, very makes the most sense, and I think is pretty much commonly accepted, Luke also wrote Acts, then Luke wrote most of the New Testament. We know that there were oral traditions circulating about what Jesus said and what Jesus did in the first century and on into the second century. Uh, and we also know that people wrote things down that could uh about Jesus. Could some of those writings have been inspirational, inspired, and we just don't have them anymore? Absolutely. Uh is what we have accurate and what God wants to say in the synoptic gospels and in John? I believe that. I don't believe that means there's not one out there. Now, I don't believe some of the gospels that we'll talk about in our upcoming episode about canonization that don't make any sense. Uh, but even ancient Christians refer to other gospels. There are ancient Christians that are either late first century, early second century that refer to the gospel of the Hebrews, gospel of the Egyptians, gospel of the Ebionites. Uh, and so we see uh things referred to, I think even uh Papias refers to uh a gospel of the Hebrews, uh, and I think he says that uh Matthew's gospel was originally written in Hebrew. But for the fact that he decided to compile these things, but he had a purpose in doing that, so that Theophilus, even if that's a fictional figure, most people debate whether that's a fictional figure or a real figure, it says, so that you can really, really know that what you have believed in, so I think Theophilus is already a convert to Christianity, that you can have faith and you believed in them, and that you and I today, and Christians for the past 2,000 years, we assume uh that Luke wrote this and he wrote the book of Acts based on uh on some decent evidence, uh, and that very early on it was accepted as as scripture, and so I have to believe, as a confessional statement of faith, that Luke's recording of the things that he studied, compiled, heard, read in the form that we have it and the way he's compiled it here are accurate and God kept him from error. And wherever he needed a little bit of help, the Holy Spirit gave him some help. And so that's what I believe about Luke. I have to believe that about Luke and Mark, because as far as we know, they were not eyewitnesses to we're going to accept traditional authorship of all four gospels in this discussion. Matthew and John, they they were eyewitnesses to most of these things and more than they can even write down. Uh and so I I think about that Luke used tools and then the Holy Spirit used Luke as a tool. Does that make any sense? Yeah. But God ultimately, what you said in a minute ago, that God took care of it and it well, the Holy Spirit, you know, took care of it when Luke put the final product out here.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

And John's statement there at the end of his gospel is interesting in that all right, what did that look like deciding what went in this gospel, what was recorded and what wasn't, you know, when he references like, oh, I mean, books can't contain everything that happened.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

And so we have to assume that God guided Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and what they wrote down. And, you know, there's issues between the synoptic gospels that you have to work out, but we have to remember I don't think these people are writing down journalistic history. I think they're writing down uh historiography of Jesus and they have a purpose in what they're doing. And yeah, the Holy Spirit must have decided what's going to be included and what gets excluded. I wish we did have everything that Jesus did. It'd be so incredible to read. We'd we'd we'd never have to study anything else in the New Testament. We could just read his what he's. I think there was a lot of sermons on a lot of mounts, is what I'll tell you. Uh, and a lot of things that we don't have.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Yeah. All right, let's move forward in the New Testament to maybe some of Paul's writings. And it's interesting because Paul gets very personal in some of his letters. Um, one example, I won't read this word for word, but in 2 Timothy 4 um 9 through 13, in that area, like he references multiple people. He references uh Luke alone is with me, you know, get Mark and bring him, he would be useful. Oh, yeah, I need my cloak and these books and parchments. You know, he's listing off these different things. That's just one example. In most of his writings, he's gonna have kind of a list of people he's gonna say hello to, you know, like and greetings and stuff like that. Like, how should we view those things? Like, are I know sometimes people have a tendency to skip over those, like if they're like reading through the Bible, like do they have value? Like what is there value in those like personal side of scripture?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, when I think about Paul, when we're thinking about him speaking with apostolic authority. So therefore, I would say whatever came out of Paul's mouth when he was preaching or talking to his audiences, or whatever Paul wrote down with some very occasional letters here, that he's mostly addressing something that's going on. Everything he said, he speaks with authority. Right? But he also speaks very personally. And so I don't think Paul was I don't think it was divine dictation. I I think Paul, if you think about in his salutations, in his in his um prayers, in his thanksgiving statements that he makes at really the front of almost everything that he writes. I hope that's heartfelt from Paul when he says, I pray for you and ask you to pray for us, and I thank God every day for you. I hope that's the human being Paul saying that, and then he wrote it down, so we don't even have to deal with like uh another person writing it down, like we may have talked about in the Old Testament. Uh now, like I said, we'll talk about transmission next week, but in the autographs, originally Paul wrote these letters. Now, there's some debate about some of the letters in Pauline authorship, but traditional is that Paul wrote 13 epistles right of the New Testament. We have what Paul wrote. So everything that he wrote down, I know is holy and sacred, and there's no error in it. Whether it's in the doctrinal part or if it's in the I thank God every day for you, or greet Erastus and so-and-so and Mark is with me, all those things are true, but they're Paul, the human being, speaking about things he knows. So-and-so is with him, and so-and-so said, Hey, tell so-and-so hello, uh, or I'm sending to you to so-and-so, or bring me the parchments and stuff like you read there. To me, if it's just the Holy Spirit, divine dictation saying, I pray for you every day, or uh, I'm concerned for you, you know, or pray for me, if that's just divine dictation, then that's really meaningless to me. It doesn't tell me that Paul was somebody who loved these people, cared about these people. Can you imagine all the people Paul had to pray for? I mean, uh pray without ceasing. There's a reason he said that is I don't really know how he fit them all in. Because we don't even have letters to everywhere that Paul went. You know, he had to pray for the people in Lystra, he had to pray for the people in Derby, he had, you know, there's all kinds of things. You know, he even wrote letters to places he hadn't been, like Colossae and Romans. So, you know, uh he had to pray for people in Athens. We don't have a letter to the church in Athens or Berea. Um, and so to me it takes away the love and the care, the pastoral concern that Paul has if you say those passages are just divine dictation. But everything that Paul says, he speaks with authority. So anything that he writes down, and certainly the doctrine that we have, um, you know, it's it's Peter that says, you know, the things that Paul wrote are hard to understand, and they are like the other writings. We typically translate that word scripture. In context, I think Peter is referring to the sacred scriptures of Judaism, and so he recognizes them as authoritative. Yeah. But I can't take the human element out of it. I I can't personally. I'm not saying anybody should believe that, but I I think Paul is writing what's on his heart in a lot of times.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Yeah, and the Bible is is much more than just a book of theology. I mean, this is our early Christians, the reality in life and them fulfilling the mission that God has given them to it. And it's very personal, and there's a deep connection there, I think, when you see Paul's prayer and him pouring his heart out for the people in God and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

When you think about John, you think about the apocalypse. John, I think John accurately records the visions that Jesus showed him. But when he says, And I looked and saw, I think he's giving me that. Guess what? I looked and saw uh these things. And when he says, and we and we were witnesses of and the things that we learned, um, you know, certainly when we look at the red letters, we know that that's Jesus talking. Um, but uh yeah, I don't think we want to take out the fact that Paul really loved these people and and said things to them that you would say in a personal letter to somebody. To me, it gives it more value, not less value. And I know there's people who would disagree with what I'm saying because it maybe they hadn't stopped and thought about it, but that's what I personally believe.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Yeah. And that's I mean, that's part of what this podcast is for us to discuss and wrestle with these things. And um it's an element of faith in scripture and God as well. There's a passage I want us to talk about just briefly. I think it's sometimes misunderstood. Um so wanna get your thoughts and kind of explain this for people if maybe they come across this and it kind of threw in for a loop. But in First Corinthians chapter seven, um, Paul makes a statement. I'll just read verse 10, um, but obviously the context is bigger. I'm sure you're gonna allude to that. But it says, To the married, I give this charge, not I, but the Lord, the wife should not separate from the husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest, I say, not I, uh, I, not the Lord, and then he keeps going. Yeah. I know people have come across that passage and was like, wait, hang on. It is like Paul stepping in or stepping out of this, like God telling him what to say here, and I think have like struggled with that saying. What what's Paul referring to here when he says, um, not I, but the Lord, and then I, not the Lord later?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Yeah, of course, this passage in 1 Corinthians 7 is tied up with the the entire, you know, divorce and remarriage debate. Uh because Paul in context is thinking, talking to people whose spouses, uh particularly maybe their husband, have not been converted. Something that was probably a frequent occurrence um in the uh New Testament period, that perhaps the wife may be converted to Christianity, but the husband's not. Well, that creates a really difficult situation because you have not only uh the gods that the husband would worship, but you have ancestral gods, household gods, and then how do we tell the woman to submit to their husband but yet not submit to it worshiping his gods? But the, you know, the the position here is not I'm not telling you to divorce them because of that, and perhaps even the unbelieving husband may be won over by the faithful wife. But in this passage, if you read this passage without reading Jesus' commands on divorce, Paul doesn't put in an adultery clause here. Uh it just sounds like Paul's saying nobody can ever get divorced, and if they ever get divorced, they can't get remarried. But when we couple that with Jesus' teaching, so the reason I say that is not because I have figured out that argument, and I really don't particularly ever think that I'll take the time to research that. But when I when I think about what Paul is saying, when he says that phrase, I don't think he's stepping in and out of inspiration, right? Like we say, oh, wait a minute. Has everything in 1 Corinthians 1 through 6 been just Paul yapping? Uh I think parts of it are Paul expressing his personal concerns and personal thoughts. He's got a lot of concern about Corinth. He spent a year and a half there, he loves these people. Um I think what he's saying is he he's backing up what he's saying. This is not me teaching, but I'm telling you, the Lord said this. Jesus Christ said this about divorce. Not because he would probably say it's the Holy Spirit inspiring him to write this down, not Jesus inspiring to write it down. Now I know in the theological world that's a the big discussion about there's no difference between three, but there's a difference in the New Testament writers' minds in the in the three. So I think he's saying, don't forget Jesus said this. It's not just Paul saying this, even if Paul's saying it by inspiration, I'm telling you I'm backing this up by saying Jesus himself said that. That's how I understand that. I think that's how the Corinthians would have heard it. Now, there's been plenty of ink spilled on that passage to be sure, but that's I understand as well. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. He's he he's backing it up. He's saying the Lord himself said this.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Yes, yeah. I I just felt like that was worth us mentioning because I'm sure somebody has come across that. No, no, I can see where that would be questionable.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Well, wait a minute, was what Paul said, you know, ten sentences ago, just Paul talking? Yes, it's Paul talking with the apostolic authority that Paul has.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yes, yeah. All right, hey, when uh we're wrapping this up. Let's land the plane here with this thought. We have alluded to it a few times here, but final question is why is a human element beneficial when thinking about the Bible?

SPEAKER_00 26:20

For me personally, it's one of the reasons that I believe the way that I do. And you know, I I know, like I said, I'm sure there's people that would probably don't agree with what I say or maybe make them angry, but you know, I'll keep my own counsel on how to interpret the Bible and think about the Bible. But uh for me, it it's so important. Like the human part that makes me think about the Old Testament, for example, is I tell people, if I was going to make this stuff up, there would not be so many flawed characters, you know, in the Old Testament. Even David, the guy that you know everybody wants to hang their hat on, he's a he's a he's a terribly flawed character. And obviously none of his sons turn out worth anything. Even Solomon ultimately did not receive enough from his father and had all this wisdom from God and still turned to idolatry, but his own son tried to overthrow him from the throne. Uh and so he's he's a flawed character. But if you're talking about a guy that you're going to hang your hat on, you know, I'd give the chronicler version of David. I wouldn't ever even written uh 2 Samuel. Um but you know, you've got all this, even Noah. You know, what happens after this great righteous man who's who is the we don't know that his family was righteous, but Noah was righteous. But what happens when he gets off the boat? You know, he becomes intoxicated, and potentially there's a sexual relationship between him and his son, you know. And so uh Lot, who's told righteous, well, he has sex with his daughters. You know, there there are flawed characters, and and the kingdom is flawed, the kingdom goes down in ruin. You know, I wouldn't tell them stories if I was making it up. Um but those are human beings. And I also think that when we see a human being, for example, like Kohaleth in Ecclesiastes, these musings that he goes through, I think a lot of those same things. When I read that, I'm like, yeah, I don't understand a lot of these things either, and everything does seem to be in vain. And, you know, I have, you know, uh challenges about, you know, why doesn't why is the world like this? And why doesn't God get involved in this, and why do these things happen? And so um to me, and then I see people who are angry at God in the Psalms or asking God questions, uh, to me that really makes the Bible different than I think just some made-up book of religious sayings. And then when I think about the personal nature of Paul's letters, of Peter's writings, of John's writings, uh, of James, of Jude, uh, and really of Luke as well. Um, and I don't want to say that Matthew, Mark, and John are impersonal, but I mean they don't have a and even the Hebrews writer is not an epistle. We call it an epistle, but it's not a letter, it's a sermon form. But I think that the writer of that has a genuine concern in his heart that he wasn't just somebody, whether it was Paul or if it was Luke or if it was Apollos or whoever wrote it, they didn't just all of a sudden have this thing come over them and they just write this thing down that meant nothing to them. I think the writer of Hebrews had a great concern for his audience. I think James had a great concern for his audience. Paul did, Luke did. I I think that you know Luke says he did. I want you to know Theophilus and be confident in things you've learned. And so um I think John wanted to convey those visions that Jesus gave him for a particular purpose because he knew those churches needed to hear it. Uh otherwise, why didn't he even write them down? Why didn't he just experience these visions? Well, God told Jesus told him to write these things down. But I don't want to take away the fact that that the writers had concern about their audience. I think if we do that, then to me the Bible becomes weakened in my mind. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yeah. And I have a very similar answer, I guess, response. I mean, when I go all the way back through the narrative scripture, humans have been a part of it all along and have messed up, and yet God was still able to bring about what he wanted. So would we really be that surprised that there's not a human element in scripture? And if we feel like that weakens God or where he can't fulfill what he wants through that, then I think we may have a misunderstanding of who God is and his power.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Um so it doesn't take his authority away. It doesn't take the validity, it doesn't take sacredness that we have in the Bible because ultimately we are looking at the narratives and we are looking at the teachings to help us understand more about God. You know, Romans 15 tells us that we the the former thing, it took well, I say Paul told the Romans, and I think it's applicable to us, the things that were written before, written for our instructions, that through their encouragement of scriptures we might have hope. Okay. That tells me the purpose of the Old Testament to at least the Roman Christians and probably to me. So I don't want I don't want what we said here to take away from I think the Bible is authoritative and the sole guide for the doctrine of the body of Christ and God's people, but also understand it was it was written by people and inspired by the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Uh what do you call it? Uh administrative what do you know, not administrative? Uh superintended, is that the fancy word that people use? Superintended by the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

We'll go with that. We'll end on a fancy word there. Hey, check out our description below the podcast for additional ways to connect with us to our fellow students of Scripture. Thank you for joining us for TechSort.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

We hope you will join us next week. This is a podcast of the Mount Juliet Church of Christ. You can find more personal growth resources like this one at mountjuliat.org slash resources. The Mount Juliet Church of Christ exists to glorify God and make disciples by helping people grow in Christ, love one another, and serve others.