I believe that it is important to state what we believe up front and with full disclosure. Watch out for places of worship where they are unwilling to tell you what they actually believe. If they are hiding something, they are likely a cult. Cults are religions that are at least somewhat related to Christianity (sometimes very much related to it) but base much of their beliefs on writings contained in something other than the Bible. That would include Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witness.
In the case of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, though they use parts of the Bible as a hook, they base much of their beliefs on the writings of Joseph Smith. In the case of the Jehovah’s Witness, much of their theology is based upon the ‘Watchtower’ and their own translation of the Bible (the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures), which differs drastically from our own Bible. Both of these religions have things in common with mainstream Christianity on which we could find common ground. However, they stray so far afield from NT teachings that we can not call them ‘Christian’ in practice.
I state all this to make a point: Nazarene theology is based solely on the Bible, which leads us to our fourth Article of Faith, which is:
The Holy Scriptures
Here is the description of this 4th tenet of our faith:
We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.
First of all, there is that word ‘plenary.’ What does that mean? Plenary means complete or absolute. We believe that the Holy Scriptures are the absolute inspiration of God to man. God not only told the various writers of the Old and New Testaments what to write, but also led the leaders of the church to decide which books were included in the ‘canon,’ or list of books of the Bible. Since we believe that the Bible is Divinely inspired, we can not and will not add to it in any way. In fact, that paragraph from the Manual specifically states that we cannot put anything in our Articles of Faith that is not in the Bible to begin with.
Well, you might say, there are a lot of things contained in the Manual for the Church of the Nazarene that aren’t in the Bible, and to that I would say that you are right. However, they are not part of our Articles of Faith. What is the difference?
In his book, the Church Awakening, Chuck Swindoll gives a beautiful illustration about erosion. He recalls a time when he was around 10 years old visiting his grandfather at his South Texas cabin, which overlooked a bay. His grandfather told him that every year, some of the cliff wore away. His grandfather walked to the edge of the cliff and then paced off a distance and put a stake in the ground to mark the spot. The next year, Chuck returned to the cabin. There had been two hurricanes that had occurred during the year. When they checked the distance, eight inches had disappeared. He would never had noticed if it had not been for the stake that had marked the spot. That is erosion and it is what can happen in our church if we do not put our stake in the ground to make sure that we are aware of any erosion that takes place.
But where do we put our stake? That is what our Articles of Faith are for. Since these are the fundamental teachings of our church that are based solely on biblical principles, these are the things that we must keep safe by placing our stake in the ground before them.
The rest of the stuff in the Manual may change over the years as our culture changes. While much of the manual are guidelines as to how to govern and such, some of it applies to our Christian conduct. However, these things can and do change over time and are not where we will place our stakes. At one time, the Christian code of conduct said that you couldn’t bowl, go to movies, or dance. These things changed, thankfully, and at some point other things will change as well. But our Articles of Faith must not change or we cease to be the Church of the Nazarene and become something else.
And this Article is the crux upon which all the others must stand. If the Bible is the complete and absolute authority upon which we base our theology, then this is the most important of all of the 16 Articles of Faith.
It is important to understand that the statement regarding this Article differs, somewhat, from the concrete stance that the Baptists and Calvary Chapel takes on the Bible. Both of these denominations have declared that the Bible, in its original languages, is without error. Our statement does not go that far in its support of the scripture. It says that the Word of God inerrantly gives us everything we need for salvation, but does not state that the Bible, as a whole, is without error. Neither does it state that the Bible has errors. It leaves open the possibility that there are places where the Bible where there may have been some spelling errors or that there could be a few translation errors. It also leaves open the possibility that the Bible is without error as well. Let me give you an example.
If you have your Bible, turn with me to Mark 16. Look at what immediately follows verse 8. Depending on the translation that you use, it will tell you right here that some earlier manuscripts did not contain verses 9-20. I use the NRSV, and it gives me the shorter ending of Mark and the longer ending of Mark. There is also a place in the Gospel of John where this occurs. There are other places that scholars believe that copiers of the Bible accidentally duplicated a verse or so from another one of the writers by mistake. From an outsider’s point of view, these things would be considered errors. The Baptists would say that these ‘errors’ were not in the original language text and therefore do not apply.
None of these occurrences are integral to the understanding of the Bible or especially, to the understanding of salvation.
I believe that the Bible was inerrant in its original form. There could have been some errors caused by lost materials, incorrect translation, or by the copiers, who did the work of copying the Bible by hand, but I believe that God was involved in every aspect of the completion of His Word, so there is nothing to prevents accurate interpretation of His Word.
I also believe that you should take the Bible literally, whenever possible. If I get to heaven and God says “you took that literally?” I think that would be preferable to God saying “why didn’t you take the Word I gave you literally, as I had intended?”
Now that I have showed you the meaning behind our statement of faith regarding the Bible, let’s look at a few scriptures regarding that statement. Remember, it says that the scriptures have everything needed for salvation, so Luke 24:44-47 says:
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
So Jesus, Himself, ties in the OT to the NT. The OT is not only a composite of books written for a historical record of God’s work on earth. It is also a prophetical book written to point to the life of Jesus Christ and His eventual return.
The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4:
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures…
The Apostles and all of the authors of the Bible were divinely inspired to pass on the Word of God to a dying world, just as we should.
After His resurrection, Jesus told Thomas (John 20:29):
…“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
The Bible is our way to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because we were not there and did not see. And the Holy Spirit within us tells us that we must trust in God and in His Word.
So the Bible points the way to salvation. It also teaches us how to live our lives in obedience to God’s commands. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14-17
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.
That is the purpose of the Holy Scriptures, or the Bible, in a nutshell. They are to guide us to salvation and teach us how to live this Christian life, helping us to do the work that God has called us to do. All of it is inspired by God. None of the perceived errors that we have in our current Bible will lead us away from God in any way, so we should take Him at His Word.
God’s Word is a precious gift that far too many of us do not take advantage of. People in the Dark Ages would have given anything to have been able to read the Bible, but they couldn’t read and there were no Bibles available to them. Today, you can purchase one at Walmart and yet, most of the time, they stay in our cars or on our coffee tables gathering dust until time to wiped them off and bring them to church. We must read His Word if we are to grow.
Finally, the prophet Isaiah 40:8 says:
The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.
(Prayer)
*All scriptures are in NRSV unless otherwise stated.
