A new reader on Medium.com asked me some excellent foundational questions that a seeker might ask of any believer. Below are the questions and my shallow answers.

If the bible is so indispensable to the objective of trusting Jesus, why wasn’t it mentioned as so by Jesus, or anybody else? Not even once.

This link is a quick list of some of the verses that mention the Bible, in the Bible. Two of those examples are…

Matthew 4:4 – But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

2 Timothy 3:16-17 – All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Just looking at the gentile believers referenced in scripture, as well as those that followed, since they had no scriptures of any kind before believing, nor did they have much access until the printing press 1500 years later, nor did anybody who wrote the NT instruct them to do so, why is it so central now?

The 1^st-century believers had the Old Testament which Jesus quoted from quite frequently, as well as claiming He and God “are one” (John 10:30). Further, the centrality of the Bible over two thousand years later is an example of evidence for its divinely inspired content. The New Testament believers began as a small band called “The Way” and grew as Jesus and the disciples thereafter offered His teachings. Much of the NT is letters to house churches throughout the known world that were eventually compiled in Scripture. Many who attack the validity of the Bible point to how decisions were made as to what letters/writings to include and what to exclude, implying that man made those decisions and therefore the book is not divine. Biblical Christians would respond by saying God, in His omnipotence, made those decisions and man complied.

It is a false dichotomy to say that we follow Jesus through the Bible OR we follow feelings, dreams, and impressions. According to scripture, anyway. Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. He didn’t even hint that he would send the Holy Spirit to write more scripture. Who is the Holy Spirit to you? What is the role of that person in your life.

This dichotomy is the basis of much of Christian conflict. Biblical Christians (my term) believe in an inerrant Bible in its original autographs. Other Christians believe the Bible is not written by God (and penned by man), but written by man, and therefore can be ignored in places where one believes differently (ex. Abortion, Homosexuality, Salvation, etc.). If one accepts this latter view, then “Christianity” is not only open to various interpretations of Scripture, it is totally open to one’s “feelings, dreams and impressions”. In my view, that melts down Christianity into something unrecognizable and subverts God’s original intent in communicating His instruction manual for life, to mankind. Biblical Christians believe in a “closed canon”, meaning the Holy Spirit, God the Father, and God the Son (the Trinity) has provided man with His complete teachings and no new revelation should be accepted as divine. That does not mean dreams, feelings, etc are irrelevant. It does mean that all need to be filtered through the lens of a Biblical Christian worldview as best as man can understand what God has written. As to the role of the Holy Spirit as a Counselor in the life of the believer, the quickest way for me to answer is the following link.

Have we replaced faith in Jesus, the person, with faith in the testimony to him? It could be that the scripture is 100% inspired by God and inerrant as it was written (which we do not have by deliberate mistranslation), and its sole purpose (according to scripture itself John 5:35-40) is to bring [us] to Jesus. It is more like training wheels than the bike itself.

In my view, one can have “faith in Jesus” without His testimony (the Bible). However, it is a dangerous road to travel because again, one relies on the opinion of others, feelings, impressions, etc. rather than direct communication with Christ Himself (through Scripture). It would be like deciding to get married to someone based on how others know them vs. actually getting to know them personally yourself before “tying the knot”.  Without going on a rabbit trail, your use of John 5:39 is interesting. The context is Jesus challenging those who are rejecting Him because they miss the prophecies about Him in the OT. They have Him standing in front of them, performing miracles, yet refuse to acknowledge who He is. Today we have both the OT and the NT, as His written word and do not have Jesus standing in front of us. Our reliance on who God is should therefore come from the Bible.

If you were a man who keeps his word, period, who could always be trusted to keep his word, so much so that people began to write about it, even interview you to make sure it was accurate… would it make sense to put trust in you or to form a religion around the writings about you?

My answer is no because the formation of a religion implies some level of divinity, simply knowing someone who could be “trusted to keep his word” is not the same as divinity. Divinity is on a supernatural plane not a human, natural plane. Jesus, as part of the Trinity, called Himself God which to all who understand the term, implies characteristics such as omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, among other extra-human traits. Jesus did not just “keep His word”, He was the only man (God/man) who lived a life without any sin. That was a theological requirement for Him to die on a cross for mankind’s sin. No human has/will live a life without sin (Gal. 5:19-21) which is foundational to the Christian belief that we are saved by accepting Christ as both our Savior (who paid for our sins) and our Lord (Rom. 10:9).

 If a large part of the Bible is intended to reveal Jesus…, what is the rest of the Bible’s purpose?

The Bible is primarily an instruction manual for life. However, it is also a book that offers a view of who God is, one who both loves us and judges us for our behavior (and that is a can of worms). If I was the author of the Bible, there are things I would leave out and it would be written in many fewer words and it would be much clearer in certain areas. In my view, there are core teachings that allow one to be saved (details here) but there are also many areas of theology that can be viewed from different angles (as evidenced by the number of different Christian denominations, church theology, etc.). To me, Scripture could have been much shorter and clearer, but, for good reason, I was not consulted. 

Where does scripture call itself the Word? What if you substitute Blble for Word in places like John 1? Jesus the Word and the ‘written’ word are not the same thing.

So here is a partial list of places where the “word” was used in the Bible. Note that in Hebrews 4:12, “word” is lower case and in John 1:1 “Word” is in upper case. When lowercase, it refers to the Bible (in the OT and NT), but as you implied, in John, the capitalized version is disclosed in John 1:14 when the Word became flesh. That reference for some theologians is an indication that John is telling us the OT prophesy (the word) would ultimately be fulfilled as Christ (the Word). Others believe it was a way to marry the OT and NT by saying that Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matt 5:17). If you look through the link I gave you, you will see that of the 40 or so verses, the only one that capitalizes “Word” is John 1:1 and 1:14.