I love science and new technology. They lead us to confirmation of the truth about our Bible. We can trust it–and its Author!

²⁰ Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. ²¹ For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:20-21

We have been looking at four questions I wrote at the end of chapter two of, “A Grand Illusion,” by David Young about what radical progressives believe–or don’t believe.

Why do we need to recognize Jesus as Lord?
Why do we need a Savior?
How can the Bible be “living and breathing?”
What is holiness?

We are on the third question,

How can the Bible be “living and breathing?”

The phrase, “living and breathing,” comes from the NIV version of 2 Timothy 3:16-17,

¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

The ESV says, “breathed out by God,” NASB says, “inspired by God,” as does the Living Translation. The AMPLIFIED version says, “God-breathed.” All of them mean the same thing: Scripture comes from the mouth of God. We, in the 21st century, base Scripture on the decision of the Council of Nicaea, with took place in 325 AD. It includes 66 books which are broken into these categories:

• the Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy),
• History (Joshua-Esther),
• Poetry (Job-Song of Solomon),
• Prophecy (Isaiah-Malachi),
• the Gospels (Matthew-John),
• History (Acts),
• Epistles (Romans-Jude),
• and Prophecy (Revelation).

The Roman Catholic version contains more books, and Eastern Orthodox has even more. At the time of Jesus, the Hebrew Old Testament had been translated into Greek called, the Septuagint (LXX), around 200 B.C. John Barnett has done quite a bit of research on the subject and here is what he said,

Many of the Jews in Jesus’ day used the Septuagint as their Bible. Quite naturally, the early Christians also used the Septuagint in their meetings and for personal reading. Many New Testament apostles quoted it when they wrote the Gospels and Epistles in Greek. What is most fascinating is that the order of the books in the Septuagint is the same order in our Bibles today, unlike the Hebrew scrolls. So this means that:
Jesus Primarily Used a Translation
Jesus and the Apostles: studied, memorized, used, quoted, and read most often from the Bible of their day, the Septuagint. Since Matthew wrote primarily to convince the Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was their promised Messiah, it follows that his Gospel is saturated with the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, when Jesus quotes the Old Testament in Matthew, He uses the Hebrew text only 10% of the time, but the Greek LXX translation—90% of the time!
Amazingly, Jesus and Paul used the LXX as their primary Bible. It was just like the Bible each of us holds in our hands, not the original Hebrew Old Testament, but a translation of the Hebrew into Greek. But it was based on precisely the same original and inspired words and reads like the Bible we hold today.

There’s more, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. Suffice it to say that we can trust the Bible for truth.

Abba, You have supplied us with a written form of Your love. May we study it, memorize it, use it, quote it, and read it often even as Jesus and the Apostles did. Amen.