hope sem

Using this hols to do my reflection piece for Hope Sem. There are a total of 10 weeks' worth to be done. Shall post them up one by one. I often do this for my sch modules but it feels weird doing this essay style for bible study...


Topic 1 – Introduction to Christian Faith
In the first lesson, I learned about the definition of doctrines and an overview of what it is. According to the notes, doctrine is defined as the truths of God’s words to be taught. It can also be viewed as an instruction manual from God.

In my opinion, this understanding is important for our lives and how we treat the bible. The bible is more than just a storybook or a set of do-s and don’t-s; it is God’s way of speaking to us directly. I remember something I learned some years ago- many times people ask: “I will only believe in God if I see Him.” And the answer is “God has already appeared to us. Look at the bible.” As Christians, we are ‘born again’, leaving our old self and walking towards a new life. In this process of becoming more like Christ, we need guidance, advices and words of wisdoms. All these can only be found in the bible.

One of the purposes of the doctrine is to guide believers to God’s intended destiny for them. To me, this is crucial as our lives are clouded with many distractions, especially with living in a fast-paced society such as Singapore. We need to be firm in our belief and certain of where we are heading. Otherwise, our lives will just go through the motion, similar to any non-believing friends we have. God has a unique plan for each of us and His method of revealing it is usually step-by-step. The key to unlocking life’s mystery could simply be faithful in reading the bible and asking God to reveal it through His words or prayers.

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Topic 2 Bibliology- The doctrine of Scripture
In this lesson, we learned how the scripture is formed, preserved and written by the apostles. A key concept learned is ‘inspiration of scripture’, which means ‘the personal influence of the spirit of God on the mind and soul of man’.

The fundamental principle is the involvement of the Holy Spirit in writing the doctrines; a picture to explain this concept is a scene of a sailing boat being carried forward by the wind (2 Pet 1:20-21). Similarly, the writers’ emotions, minds and wills are all directed by the Holy Spirit. The terms to describe this are ‘divine-human interaction’ and ‘plenary-verbal inspiration’, which means that even the choices of words the writers used are inspired by God.

In my opinion, inspiration is the most important factor for us putting our entire faith into the Word of God. This concept proves that the bible is infallible and that it is literally the word of God. With this is mind, we can then trust the bible and its instructions fully. Otherwise, the bible will only become a set of instruction manual written by any spiritual guru or famous authors. The fact that the bible is inspired also tells us that the Word of God is of absolute divine authority and our lives should be subjected to the bible. Thus when we read the bible, we can be absolutely secure in the authenticity and trustworthiness of God’s words.

Additional Information describing plenary inspiration which I found helpful:
A divine influence full and sufficient to secure its end. The end in this case secured is the perfect infallibility of the Scriptures in every part, as a record of fact and doctrine both in thought and verbal expression. So that although they come to us through the instrumentality of the minds, hearts, imaginations, consciences, and wills of men, they are nevertheless in the strictest sense the word of God (Hodge, 1860).