Re: [TruthTalk] Fw: Rikk Watts on Genesis 1

[Judy Taylor]

Caroline Wong wrote: We know Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings but not literal promises we get to hold God to. We can hold to His promises by faith but we don't get to hold God to anything - Proverbs is the wisdom of God - and yes it is literal to one with understanding. We know Psalms is Israel's songbook and it contains some pretty raw things said against their enemies and that we're not allowed to pray or think same way because of the new command Jesus gave us to love our enemies. There is also a "prophetic" element in the Psalms and David is not saying anything that God has not already said about His enemies; David is not about taking personal vengeance.  He is waiting on God for the same thing we are promised in the NT ie that "vengeance is His and He will repay" Even the Chicago Statement of very conservative inerrancy acknowledge the presence of hyperbole in Jesus' statements and also that inerrancy does not apply to any translation. The Chicago Statement is that of the Reformed Evangelical or Calvinistic crowd who have their own particular brand of hyperbole.  I'd be interested in which of Jesus' statements they attribute this to since He only spoke what He first heard the Father speak...  Approaching the bible as truth in history, poetry, wisdom literature, biography and prophecy does not hurt a person's faith or relationship with God. It makes both stronger and richer. It is the product of our scientific age that we've understand truth only as scientific or mathematical and lost the beauty of truth in other forms. Scripture may contain all of the above but it was not written for this purpose. Nor is it scientific; rather it is spiritual in nature and is only understood by revelation given by the Holy Spirit.  judyt