This post is driven by that same Wednesday night church experience last week behind that other post about choosing a home church. As a refresher, the Baptists had a new children’s winter Bible Study and through it, on day one, lesson one were teaching the kids that, “God wrote the Bible.” In fairness, the pastor quickly clarified or tempered this claim with something like, “…using men…” But my point remains. God did not write the Bible. Moreover and more to the point, no Baptist, alive, dead, or yet-to-be even believes that God wrote the Bible. So why teach a child that?

I’m actually a little at a loss on the topic overall, these days. Why even say, “The Bible is inspired by God?” Or, “The Bible is God-breathed?” I’m totally fine with quoting scripture as in, “In Peter’s second letter he (Peter) says the writings we consider as the Bible are…” But, if we’re talking amongst ourselves (Christians to Christians), the thing being communicated is known and part of the “Christian-ness”. It’s like two basketball players describing that there is air inside a basketball.

And if we’re not talking to Christians, then we’re telling a person who doesn’t believe in an admittedly invisible being that that self-same unseen being wrote a very visible book which is most evidently written by humans.

What, then, shall we say? Start with, “The Bible is coherent.” We Christians believe that both the Christian and the non-Christian/pagan/heathen can all understand the contents. No different than Romeo and Juliet or the Constitution of the United States of America. So start there.

Scrap all the virtue-signaling and holier-than-thou talk and just tell the truth. Say true sentences that are defensible to their core. Was the Bible written by God? I answer as a Holy Spirit filled follower of Jesus Christ and a literate human, “No.”