What Really Divides Christians

The great divide in Christianity today boils down to one thing. What do you believe the Bible is? In a discussion the other day, I used a passage from the Bible to prove a point. The other person in the discussion responded by saying that she didn’t believe that passage means the same today as it did then and more than that, she didn’t thing Jesus would agree with the passage. Then she made the statement, “the Bible contradicts itself.” Compare that to the follow excerpt from the doctrinal statement my church has adopted:
The Scriptures are God's inerrant revelation, complete in the Old and New Testaments, written by divinely inspired men as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (II Tim. 3:16; II Peter 1:21). Those men wrote not in words of human wisdom but in words taught by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 2:13).

The Scriptures provide the standard for the believer's faith and practice (II Tim. 3:16, 17), reveal the principles by which God will judge all (Heb. 4:12; John 12:48), and express the true basis of Christian fellowship (Gal. 1:8, 9; II John 9-11).
The two views are complete incompatible. Are the scriptures God’s words recorded by men, or are they just words written by men who were faithfully trying to worship God, just like we are? If the Bible isn’t God’s words, then the Bible has little more value than the books you can find on the shelves of your local Christian bookstore. But more than that, if the Bible isn’t God’s words then we disagreements concerning doctrine must come from other sources. This makes it very hard for two people who disagree to come to any form of agreement on how God intends for Christians to live.

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