Sacred Scripture -2-

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II. INSPIRATION AND TRUTH OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

This part will discuss more about the author of the bible, the "content" of the bible. First, who is the author of the bible?

105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."
"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."

Since the sacred scripture is the Word of God, obviously the author is God Himself. But it was written by man who are inspired by the Holy Spirit. God chose the people who became the writers of the Word of God.

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."

The chosen people who became the writters are the people, you and me that God want to call and use. As God has given us talents,He called certain men with the talents of writting and who had a close relationship with Him to be the writters. Those people listen and inspired by the Holy Spirit, which is God Himself to write the Sacred Scripture. Therefore we must understand that in the Bible there are both God and human elements there. The Holy Spirit inspiration guard the writters so that the meaning and the truth about God were written according to His will.

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."

This paragraph is also very interesting, the content of the sacred scripture is the Truth! and without error. Again I repeat the meaning and the teaching of the scripture are without error. However we must also taken note the writer is human, and we can't ignore the human factor in the scripture. When it is said that the scripture teach without error, we must remember that we can't take it as all the language or even the commas are flawless. The inspired writers, was not possessed by the Holy Spirit when they wrote it, but they are inspired. Therefore we need to read it and interpret the way God want us to read and interpret so that we can receive the truth without error.

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a "religion of the book." Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, a word which is "not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living". If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."

This is the teaching of the Catholic church that as a Christian we believe that the entire teaching of the scripture is truth, but not the entire truth is in the Scripture. That is why we don't agree with the Sola Scriptura. From the last sentence, Christ, through the Holy Spirit open our minds to understand the Scripture. We need to understand it as the way Christ want to reveal Himself to us through the Scripture. That is why we need the Magisterium (The Church) with its Living Tradition from the Apostle and passed down to us, to guide us so that we can read and understand the Word of God in His way.

Praise The Lord!!

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