Tag Archives: inspiration of Scripture

Books of the Bible

If Ecclesiastes Is Inspired, Then Why Isn’t It Quoted in the New Testament?

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The NT writers quote the OT hundreds of times, yet they never once quote from the Book of Ecclesiastes. Doesn’t this indicate that the NT writers did not consider the book to be inspired by God?

Norm Geisler and Tom Howe answer this question in their book, When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties:

There are several OT books that are not directly quoted in the NT, including Ruth, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Esther, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. However, all these books were considered inspired by both Judaism and Christianity. Several points should be kept in mind.

First, being quoted in the NT was not a test for the inspiration of an OT book. Rather, the question was whether it was written by a spokesperson accredited by God and accepted by His people. Ecclesiastes meets this test.

Second, while no text of Ecclesiastes is cited as such in the NT, many of its truths are. For example:

‘What we sow we reap’ (Ecc. 11:1, cf. Gal 6:7)

‘Avoid lust of youth’ (Ecc. 11:10, cf. 2 Tim. 2:22)

‘Death is divinely appointed’ (Ecc. 3:2, cf. Heb. 9:2)

‘Love of money is evil’ (Ecc. 5:10, cf. 1 Tim. 6:10)

‘Don’t be wordy in prayer’ (Ecc. 5:2, cf. Matt. 6:7)

Third, the NT writers had no occasion to quote from every book in the OT. Few Christians have quoted recently from 1 Kings, yet the NT did (Rom. 11:4). Indeed, few believers ever cite 2 or 3 John, and yet they are part of the inspired Word of God. Whether, or even how often, a book is quoted does not determine whether it is inspired.

Essential Beliefs, Inerrancy

Is the Doctrine of Inerrancy an Essential Doctrine of Christianity?

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I recently posted on the essential doctrines of Christianity, and I left out a doctrine that probably surprised many traditional Christians: inerrancy. 

The reason I left this doctrine out is because I was defining an essential doctrine as one that must be true for salvation.  A person does not have to believe that the Bible is inspired by God, and therefore inerrant, in order to be saved.  Many people have been saved in the history of the world without ever reading a Bible and even knowing what the word inerrant means.

However, the doctrine of inerrancy is an essential doctrine in another way.  If the Bible is not inerrant, then we lose our confidence in the doctrines that must be true for our salvation.  The Bible teaches that Christ is God, that He died on a cross for our sins, and that He was resurrected.  If the Bible has errors in it, then how can we know that these things are true?

Whenever I meet people who deny inerrancy, but they firmly believe Christ died for their sins, I ask them how they know that those verses in the Bible talking about Christ dying for their sins are true.  Maybe those are the very verses that are in error!  I have never heard a reasonable answer to this question.

Inerrancy provides the foundation for our knowing the revelation of God.  If you don’t affirm inerrancy, you can’t be sure of  the very gospel you claim to believe.  Inerrancy is the firm ground we stand on to affirm everything we believe about God.  Take it away, and you have two feet planted firmly in thin air.