Today's passage of Scripture is Deuteronomy 4:24 which reads: "For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God."

Today's words from a theologian are from John Calvin. He said: "There is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God."

Our first topic for today is titled "How Do We Know the Bible Is the Word of God? (Part 2)" from the book, "Understanding Theology in 15 Minutes a Day" by Dr. Daryl Aaron.

THEORIES OF INSPIRATION

Down through the centuries since the New Testament books were completed and added to the Old Testament, many have claimed to believe in biblical inspiration under definitions that differ to some degree from what the Bible says on the matter. The following are "defective ideas of inspiration":

Verbal dictation, or mechanical inspiration, is the view that God fully dictated the Bible, and that the human authors merely wrote down what he told them to record, basically reducing them to word processors with a heartbeat.

There is some truth in this. For example, Moses wrote down the Law as God instructed, and maybe some prophetic messages were received from God word-for-word. But if he dictated the entire Bible, there would be one style of writing -- God's -- and this is not what we observe. Each human author has a different style.

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Our second topic for today is titled "The Methodology of Old Testament Theology, Part 4" from "The Moody Handbook of Theology" by Dr. Paul Enns.

Today, we will look at the IDENTIFICATION OF AN OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

Several elements should be evident in an Old Testament theology.

(1) The doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture is necessary if justice is to be done to the biblical text. There can be no true examination of the biblical text if man sits in judgment upon that text with the criterion of human reason.

(2) Old Testament theology should involve exegesis of the biblical text, applying proper hermeneutical principles, thereby allowing the biblical text to speak for itself. This results in an inductive rather than a deductive study.

(3) Old Testament theology is built on the premise of progressive revelation and, through exegesis, discovering the progress of the revelation of God in history.

(4) Old Testament theology examines the different eras, particularly as noted through the covenants God made with His mediators, to discover how God has revealed Himself in biblical history

(5) An Old Testament theology should discern a unity of the Scriptures; the revelation that God has given concerning Himself should reflect an ultimate consummating purpose whereby the God of the Old and New Testaments brings glory to Himself. That unity is found in the kingdom concept.

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