The only one in human history who did not get “justice” was the Son of God Himself, who had our sins imputed to Him. He is the only One who had any right to complain, and yet He willingly went to the cross for our salvation (so that God can be both just and justifier, Paul would say). At the cross we see both the justice of God and the mercy of God. Those who reject the cross get what they deserved anyway, and those who come to Christ get what they never deserved, but rather what God freely provides.

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The difficulty of the approach to Scripture that emphasizes “the point the writer was making” is determining what the point was. I think we agree that paraphrasing Jesus’ words does not change their basic meaning, nor does rearranging the order of event. But someone – such as Rogers – could suggest that Paul’s point in Romans 1 is to show how sin has corrupted everyone, not to teach that homosexuality is a sin.

That doesn’t mean that approach to Scripture is wrong – just that it can easily be misused. I was just reading today through part of Exodus, about the plagues in Egypt, and thinking how it’s hard for us today not to see God as having been unfair to the average Egyptian, who wasn’t responsible for the Pharaoh’s actions (after all, even Pharaoh’s advisers started telling him to let the Israelites go, but Pharaoh didn’t listen to them). What made the average Israelite any better than the average Egyptian?

At which point I remembered that the answer was “nothing,” and turned to the section in Deuteronomy where the people are told to remember that they’re not being given the land of Canaan because of their own righteousness, but because of the wickedness of the Canaanites. Which still doesn’t make the story of the slaughter of whole communities any easier to read, and it’s tempting to say that “the point the writer is making” is about God’s faithfulness to his people, and that what happened to other people in the process is just recording history, not necessarily what God really wanted to happen. But the text doesn’t seem to really leave that option open, no matter how much I might like it to.

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I would agree that the gospels are often not chronological in nature (neither are some of the historical events recorded in the epistles, with Galatians 2 being a strong possibility; I would argue that Acts is chronologically driven, however) but are thematically arranged in several cases (though they are, to some degree, chronological on a broad scale — the birth narratives are at the beginning and the death, burial, and resurrection are at the end!), particularly in Matthew’s gospel. This was a common writing method of the day, and it is silly to insist they confirm to modern Western literary standards. On the other hand, this is a far cry from saying they are not historically accurate (which I know is not what you are saying).

As far as the sayings of Jesus go, in some cases He may have spoken on a particular subject on more than one occasion (I have done this, of course), so there may different wordings because of this. Other times, some of the sayings are summarized (the Sermon on the Mount takes about 10 minutes to read; my own sermons are 3x that, and I’m pretty Jesus would have spoken for longer!). In other occasions, the gospel writers might use different words for theological emphasis in recording the written details in an account (such as recording synonymous words for “Lord” in some of the accounts). Inspiration (and this was our author’s point) does not hinge on any of these things. What is important (which is what I believe you are saying) is that the words of Jesus, the historical narratives, etc. are faithfully recorded (theologically, historically, etc.). Furthermore, the doctrine of inspiration is meant to extend to the documents themselves (i.e., that the Holy Spirit guided the NT authors in the events, word choice, etc.) that they recorded. I am oversimplifying this, of course, but that is the general gist.

To use a somewhat modern analogy: if I read a biography of Abraham Lincoln (or even a combination of biographies), I would not expect that bio to record ever single word that Lincoln uttered during his life or every event he lived through. Even if the bio did not include every word he uttered at the Gettysburg Address, that would not mean I thought it to be inaccurate or “untruthful.” If we do not expect this from literature in our time, I’m sure you would agree that it is an unreasonable expectation for literature 2000 years ago. And this is not taking into account the supernatural aspects of preservation, etc. with the NT documents.

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Nov 22 — China reversed a decision today to block a United States aircraft carrier from making a four-day port call in Hong Kong, but the change of heart by Beijing officials came too late to stop the ship from returning to its base in Japan and missing families who had flown to Hong Kong to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2122835820071122?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China has refused permission for a U.S. aircraft carrier and accompanying vessels to visit Hong Kong for a long-planned Thanksgiving holiday visit, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.

Let’s remember them all in prayer, as one child said in the article “I miss my daddy,” said Mark Curry, 14, whose father is aboard one of the vessels. “We thought he was going to be there, but we don’t know what actually happened. I was just depressed.”

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