Today’s Daily Lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 14 through 15:
14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)
Here is just one little, tiny, easily shippable reason why I’m not a fundamentalist and do not believe the Bible is “inerrant”.
Paul said he baptized ONLY (his emphasis) two people. Then in the VERY NEXT SENTENCE (my emphasis) he says he baptized others.
It’s nothing. It’s normal. A simple correction. Unless you are an innerrrantist, in which case your whole faith rises and falls on this kind of simple mistake.
Believing in inerrancy doesn’t make someone more Godly. But it does make for a whole lot of grueling and unnecessary mental gymnastics which in the end always flop.
Let’s give our minds a rest, and the Bible some grace, and accept that it was written by fallible human beings, and not by the very hand of God.
Let’s let God be God, and take that burden off of the Bible.
It will free the Bible; and it will also free us.
PS — My Sunday School class is reading Peter Enns’s book “How The Bible Actually Works” right now. Check out the book or look up the Peter Enns podcast. They are great.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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