Gospel singer Don Francisco has ministered God’s Love and Grace to countless millions of people all over the world. Using his tremendous talent for songwriting, coupled with his superlative guitar skills, Don brings to life familiar Scripture stories and tells them in a gripping and moving way. All of Don’s work is based on his relationship with Jesus, Who called him with an audible voice some decades ago. Over those decades, Don has also grown in wisdom, and has written some excellent thoughts on theology, some of which I have featured in my blog before. Here’s a short prose from Don, on balancing the ‘inerrancy’ of the Bible with the reality of God and His Love; a great piece and well worth reading.

“I believe that the Bible is the greatest of all books, not the inerrant Word of God. Jesus– and only Jesus– is the inerrant Word of God. Some of the Bible’s writers have told us what they knew of Him in the hope that we, too, would come to know Him. Jesus Himself said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life– and they testify of me. Yet you are unwilling to come to me that you may have life.” Trying to replace the living Son of God with a book is idolatry, just as much as bowing down before one of the Baals.

“The Bible was written by many different people, people who disagreed– sometimes violently– about whether God is an angry judge, requiring sacrifice to be appeased, or is loving, gracious and forgiving. You are the one who must choose which of those gods is real in your life; patching together a god from two “inerrant” testaments only results in one who’s frighteningly schizophrenic. Trying to use scriptures to prove you’re right doesn’t work, either– there are just as many “inerrant” scriptures that will say you’re wrong.

“Those who knew the Old Testament best were the ones who murdered Jesus on Calvary, and they justified their deeds with their scriptures. In his second letter to the church at Corinth Paul called those same scriptures “a ministry of death” and “a ministry of condemnation”. Moses and Paul weren’t both right– one of them was very wrong about the character of God, and the choice is ours. I believe that those who are committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, besides being involved in idolatry, are being intellectually dishonest with themselves as well: “Don’t confuse me with facts! My mind is already made up.”

“Both Jeremiah and Paul wrote that the truth is in our hearts. What does your heart say? Can you hear it? In the end, we will all stand (or kneel!) before God with nothing in our hands, not even a book.

“For those of you who couldn’t hear what I said above, let me put it another way. Here are two of the most obvious Biblical contradictions, one from each Testament:

“2 Samuel 24 says that God moved David to number Israel; 1 Chronicles 21 says that Satan did it.

“Matthew 27 tells us that Judas threw the 30 pieces of silver into the Temple and went and hanged himself; Acts 1 says that Judas died by falling headlong in a field that he’d purchased with those same 30 pieces of silver.

“If the the Bible’s authors couldn’t get such simple facts straight, why do we swallow much more important concepts whole and unexamined?

” ‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.’

“He didn’t say to hack each other to pieces with well-sharpened Bible verses. Why not have a conversation? Afraid you might be wrong? It happens to the best of us… and it’s forgivable.” — Don Francisco