#STRask - Could Inherently Sinful Humans Have Accurately Recorded the Word of God?

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Questions about whether or not inherently sinful humans could have accurately recorded the Word of God, whether the words about Moses in Acts 7:22 and Exodus 4:10 contradict each other, and why we’re told to say, “If it is the Lord’s will,” in James 4 but not James 5.   How should I respond to the objection that humans, who are inherently sinful, could not have accurately recorded the Word of God? How do we reconcile the seeming contradiction between Acts 7:22, which says Moses was mighty in word and deed, and Exodus 4:10, where Moses says he is slow of speech and tongue? James 4:13–16 instructs us to qualify our plans by saying, “If it is the Lord’s will,” but his words in the next chapter about our prayers healing the sick include no qualifiers regarding God’s will. How does James 5 fit with James 4?

– music – Well, it is that special time of the week that you look forward to, where there's a new episode of Hashtag STR Ask today. I know I do. And this first question comes from Carly. I recently heard the objection that humans who are inherently sinful could not have accurately recorded the word of God. How could one respond?

Thanks. Well, I respond with a question. Since it is possible for humans to err, does that mean they always err? Well, the answer to that is no. Even though it's possible, doesn't mean they always do. Okay, so there's a logical flaw built into this, the presumption of error from someone who is prone to error. Now, I do think if the Bible is not the word of God,

and we have 66 books that are giving us claims about history that are actually tied to claims about the spiritual realm and theology, I think it is appropriate to, I don't know, John just is a bit strong, but at least to take the writing with a grain of salt, knowing that, well, these are these guys' opinions and they could be wrong. That they could be wrong doesn't mean they are wrong. And this is why even if we can't succeed

in making a case for biblical inerrancy, it doesn't mean that the things that are taught by human beings who might be in error, are in error, as it describes the broader Christian worldview. And one question I ask, so that I'm in tactical mode here, is do you have any books in your library? Sure. This is of the skeptic. Are any of those books written by God? No, of course not. So they're all written by men. Yeah. Do you trust them to give you accurate information about the world? Well, the answer is, generally, yes, depending a little bit on the bona fides, etc. But generally, yes. So you don't

have to have a book written by God in order to give accurate information about the world. So there's another thing to think about there. But there's a piece being left out of this equation. If men are fallible, then men can't have written the word of God or the Bible. How is it characterized there? Humans who are inherently sinful could not have accurately recorded the word of God. Okay, so that's really interesting that it was phrased that way, because there's a built-in contradiction. If it is the word of God, which is presumed by the way the question is worded,

then human fallibility is not a factor, okay? And I kind of jokingly sometimes would say, do you have a dog? Yeah, sure. Can you get your dog to sit? Yeah, sure. Well, if you can get your dumb dog to sit, why do you think God can't get fallible human beings to write down exactly what he wants them to write down?

You see, it's a flaw of thinking. If God's involved, it doesn't matter whether men or monkeys wrote it, they'll still write what he wants because God is bigger than any limited creature that's involved in the process. Now of course, this hinges on whether or not God wrote it or was God ultimately responsible for it, was he the ultimate author? But the question is worded in such a way that it presumes it. So if it is the Word of God,

it does not matter the limitations of the human agents that God used. God is certainly strong enough to accomplish that particular goal through him. Now there might be a question, somebody asked whether it in fact is the word of God or not, that's a different issue, but the way it's worded here, I can just appeal to that. There is a presumption that humans who are prone to error, or possible error, then they have made an error, but that doesn't necessarily follow. Even if they have made errors, it doesn't mean we can't trust the bulk of the book, And this is why people have books in their library written by humans, and they trust these books in principle. And with God involved, that closes the gap.

If God's involved, like I said, it doesn't matter if men or monkeys wrote it, they'll still do exactly as God intends. Particularly in the way that inspiration is characterized. It's characterized as God breathing out, men moved along by the Holy Spirit. And it's not that they were hearing a voice and then trying to copy down what they heard. The Holy Spirit was working in them

through their personalities, through who they were. It's not like they, it wasn't automatic writing, but in God's providence and specifically moving in them to breathe out his revelation about himself, he was accomplishing what he wanted to have written. So, if somebody's going to make this claim, generally they're not Christians, they might even be an atheist. So in that case, I think what you can do is say, look, this is not one piece of evidence by itself. You have to look at this in light of the entire Christian worldview. If the Christian God exists, then there's no problem with him inspiring a perfect Bible. There's no problem with him inspiring a perfect Bible.

There's no problem with that. So we have to look at it in the whole. It's not just that you're making this wild claim with no other, nothing else connected to it. So if you can just say in hypothetically, if the Christian God exists, can you see that this would be possible? And at least maybe they can get there and just start with that. So that brings the focus on the main question, is there a God?

That's the key question here. So, and incidentally, I would add this, this question of inspiration and attached to it, the idea of inerrancy, which is part of this question, men make mistakes, to it the idea of inerrancy, which is part of this question, men make mistakes, they err. And that is not, it's not a good idea to engage that issue with an outsider. And there's a very practical reason for this. Inerrancy is an in-house debate based on the nature of scripture understood by Christians who already understand that God is involved in some fashion. If you try to engage the issue of the accuracy—let me back up, that's not the right word—the inerrancy of the Bible with a nonbeliever, you're going to invite a torrent, a cascade of alleged contradictions that you're going to have to deal with in order to move

forward on that. And most people can't do that, all right? So I side-sept the issue entirely, and I say I'm not arguing here for the inerrancy of the Bible as the Word of God. I am rather making the case that in the life of Jesus, we have an historically reliable accounting from four different sources, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, of people who were either eyewitnesses to the event or wrote based on the testimony of eyewitnesses. And we can understand the essentials of what happened in Jesus' life

and the things that he taught from those historically reliable documents. Now we're not looking at the Bible as the Word of God, just as a primary source historical document, which is the way historians deal with it. But from that document, we can make the case that Jesus died, was buried, the tomb was empty, and the disciples all say they saw Jesus and this radically transformed their lives, and we can infer from that evidence the resurrection of Christ, which makes our case. And curiously, and Christians need to keep this in mind, there was no New Testament the early church had to appeal to as the word of God,

to make the inerrant word of God to make their case. Now they did have the Old Testament and Paul used that with Jews because they already accepted it as authoritative and inerrant. But when they went to Gentiles, that wasn't the case. What they did is proclaim Christ crucified and risen, and we were witnesses. And believing in him has this consequence, rejecting him has another consequence. And that was the essence of their message. They didn't make an appeal to inspired texts, the Gentiles that is, they made their appeal when talking to Gentiles to the history,

the historical facts, and that was the gospel they communicated. The word, in fact, we've talked about this before, when you look in the book of Acts, and just isolate the places where it talks about preaching the word, they are not preaching scripture. They are communicating the message, the basic message about Jesus crucified and risen. The preaching the word in those contexts means something different than quoting verses. Just look it up and you'll see what I'm saying. Okay, Greg, let's go to a question from Deborah.

In Acts 722, Stephen says, Moses was mighty in word and deed. Yet when God commissioned Moses, Moses said he was slow speech and tongue. In Exodus 410. Are they talking about the same thing or before and after perspectives? Could Acts view what God made of Moses as a leader in Exodus be how he started out when God called him? How do we reconcile this seeming contradiction? When there is no contradiction, there's no need to reconcile. And sometimes you can determine there's no contradiction. Remember, a contradiction is to say opposite,

diction speak contra opposite, to say the opposite, all right? So let's read the texts in question, Act 17. Act 722. I'm sorry, 7. You're on the right page. Yeah. So this is Stephen making his defense before the Jews who were not happy with what he said, they executed him. But he refers to the history, and he's talking about Moses, as Deborah has pointed out. And there it says that

Pharaoh's daughter picked him up, took him away, nurtured him as her own son, and he was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds. He was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians and he was a man of power in words and deeds. Now we go back to the Exodus passage and remember this is 40 years later. And the text says that Moses said to the Lord, as God was commissioning to go back and tell Pharaoh to let my people go, please Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue."

Now the only difference here, what the passage in Acts says is that he was educated and a man of power in words and deeds. Now he was a prince of Egypt, all right? That means whatever words that he spoke and things that he did had to be followed. In virtue of his authority in that circumstance, he had significant impact. That's the way I would understand this passage. All he's saying in this passage here in Exodus chapter 4 is he's not clever, he's not a clever speaker, and plus he's been herding sheep for the last half of his lifetime. Remember, he left when he was 40, now he's 80, all right? Now he says, I have never been

clever of speech in this particular one, and that seems like, oh, that sounds like it's contradicts Acts 7. But I don't think so. I think what Acts 7 is referring to is his official role that gave him power in the words he spoke and the things that he did. It doesn't mean that he was eloquent. Here he says, I was never eloquent and I'm not now. So send someone else, not me. I don't think there's a contradiction here. It also could just be fear. I mean, he's not necessarily evaluating himself correctly there.

God's telling him you're going to be doing these things and he's like, I'm not good enough for this. This is everybody's reaction. Who doesn't have that reaction when they're given a huge task even if they're better, even if they're more equipped for it than they think they are? I mean I don't think, I think that's a perfectly good option too, but I think what you said about power makes sense. Yeah well we just had our 32nd anniversary of Stand to Reason and when we had our 30th they made, your wonderful team made a film about it.

And I was interviewed and at the very beginning, I just said candidly, I didn't wanna do this. I didn't wanna do this. This sounded like too much work is too hard. No, I never had any idea of what would eventuate from the minor efforts, modest efforts in 1993 as Melinda Penner and I kind of started laying a foundation there. But even then, it seemed like too much work.

And then as things developed, then I rose, you know, when you're challenged, you rise to the challenge much of the time, and step by step, little by little. That was the case here. But it's not surprising then to see, especially after 40 years of tending sheep for Moses to say, not me, Lord, I'm no thanks. I'm not very clever here. Maybe in the past, but actually it doesn't say maybe in the past. He just says I never was.

But I think that's the best way to take it. I don't think this is a significant, what's the right word here, difference in these two passages regarding Moses. And I think another, I'm trying to think, I'm looking at it right now, I'm also wondering, is he just summarizing Moses' whole life there? He was a man of power and words and deeds, ultimately. He did show power in his deeds, like he did all those miracles, he was a mouthpiece for God, all those sorts of things. But, and then he goes back and tells, that's a possibility too, I'm not sure about that. I'd have to look at that a little more closely. Well, I'm looking at the after it says, he has man of power of words of deeds. The next verse says,

but when he was approaching the age of 40, enter his mind, visit his brethren, etc. So this seems to be a characterization of how he was before he was 40. Yeah, that could be. All right, let's go to a question from Carl. James 4, 13 through 16 instructs us that it is evil to boast about tomorrow. We should qualify it with, if it is the Lord's will. Then in chapter 5, he says, absolutely, the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. He includes no qualifiers regarding God's will.

How does James 5 fit with James 4? Well, I think there is a little bit of a frustrating element in James 5, but not the one you pointed out. What's his name? Carl. Carl. Not the one you pointed out, Carl. Because it's kind of an apples and oranges comparison here. In James 4, people are just making plans. And they're saying, well, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, etc., etc., etc. And James says, making plans without keeping in mind the sovereign hand of God, which may intervene

and send you elsewhere, or slam a door in your face, or not allow you to accomplish your goal, that's vain-boasting. Oh, I could just do this or that. And that's why it's better to say, well, these are the plans that I have. Maybe it'll happen if the Lord allows it, and that's the sense of God's will there, his sovereign will, if God allows this to move forward. Then that's what I plan to do at least. I don't know God's will in the sense of

his sovereign purposes. I don't know what God's going to do, but I'm moving in this direction, and God is free to do as he likes. That's a very different circumstance than we encounter in chapter 5, where you have sick people going to the church, and God is instructing them to perform in a certain way, anoint with oil, lay hands, and the one who is sick will be healed. Actually, that's the problematic one for me because it sounds like a guarantee when it doesn't work out that way. But this is the appropriate thing to do, bring the sick people.

Now keep in mind, this is before doctors of any significance. Luke was a doctor, but you know, back then it was a lot less, they were a lot less capable than nowadays. But you got sick, this was bad. And so here was a way that God used to deal with it, go to the elders, and then in the context of the local community, you will have the elders

pray over you. And I don't think there's anything magical about the oil. It's just a sign or a representation of the Spirit maybe moving here. And so it says, this is the way you do it, and God's going to take care of it. So I don't think they're even marginally similar. One's planning without reference to God, the other one is obeying a command of God, trying to do a deal with a problem the way God has designed it to be dealt with. And then you'll see, as God will heal, I think he says the man who is sick will be healed. Again, I don't think that's an airtight promise, but I think it's a generalization and saying this is the way to go about the healing and God's going to intervene in many cases in this way.

Yeah, Greg, you put it almost exactly the way I have it here. The first one is a proclamation of what we will make happen and it leaves God out. But the other one is a request of God and prayer by nature includes God because you're already acknowledging that he is the one doing the work, not you. So if you are, if you're saying, I'm going to make this happen, I'm gonna do this and this and this, and leaving God out of it,

now you're leaving him out of it. But the other one by nature doesn't leave him out. So it was almost a carbon copy and content, but you said it so much better. I'm envious, Amy, nice job. Well, thank you so much. Let's see, who did we have today? Carly and Debra and Carl.

Carly and Carl, I didn't even notice that. There you go. How about that? Alliteration. Well we'd love to hear your questions, so send it on X with the hashtag STRask or go to our website at STR.org. Thank you so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Koockel for Stand to Reason.