INERRANCY

"A communication can be in error only if it fails to live up to the intention of its author...if they fulfill this intention we regard them as inerrant." The purpose of biblical writers was, "to report the happenings and meanings of the redemptive acts of God in history so that men might be made wise unto salvation."

Daniel Fuller, "The Nature of Biblical Inerrancy", Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, XXIV (June, 1972), p. 47.

Imagine a family owned sausage factory. The head is a very scrupulous, clean, proper man. One day as he is walking in the plant, he notices that as a son is dumping in pork, a piece falls on the floor. Does he throw it away, or back into the machine? He throws it away. The sausage that is produced is labeled "Grade A" and sent to market. Across the street is a corporately owned and operated sausage factory. The floors are dirty, the machines are seldom washed. A supervisor sees a worker spill a piece of pork on the floor. Does he throw it away? No. He puts it back into the machine. The supervisor is happy. It too is labeled "Grade A" and sent to market. Both products nourish you, but which would you want to eat? "It doesn't matter if the human authors put a little dirt in with the rest of God's Word. We can still preach the Bible and people will get saved and grow." When the son takes over the first factory, he will likely follow in the father's tradition, but when the worker takes over for the supervisor, things can only get worse.

Dr. C. Ryrie, Biblical Introduction, Dallas Theological Seminary, Fall, 1978.

D.L. Moody often told this experience: "Mr. Moody, what do you do with that?" "I do not do anything with it." "How do you understand it?" "I do not understand it." "How do you explain it." "I do not explain it." "What do you do with it?" "I do not do anything with it." "You do not believe it, do you?" "Oh, yes, I believe it." "Well, you don't accept anything you can't understand, do you?" "Yes, I certainly do. There are lots of things I do not understand, but I believe them. I do not know anything about higher mathematics, but I believe in them. I do not understand astronomy, but I believe in astronomy...A man told me a while ago he would not believe a thing he had never seen, and I asked him if he had ever seen his own brain? Did you ever notice that the things at which men cavil most are the very things on which Christ has set His seal?"

When a liberal preacher declared that the story of Jonah and the  whale was a myth, reporters asked Mr. Moody his opinion of the question. His reply, contained in four words, was telegraphed far and wide: "I stand by Jonah."

H. Lindsell, The Bible in the Balance, p. 26.