Being a Christian and believing in the Bible

I received this comment, on one of my posts, recently:


Can a person consider a true believer if he believes only the modified version of the scripture? Should he consider himself to be a true believer if he believes on the selective part of the scripture? Should he consider himself to be a true believer if he mentions certain part of the Bible is not genuinely from God or is not applicable to him? Should he consider himself to believe in God and Jesus if he changes the God’s words to suit his own intention? If he should not be considered as truly believing in the scripture when he changes the meaning of the scripture to suit his intention, how he could be saved then. Salvation is through our faith in God and Jesus.

I hope God would save them.

What if God do not treat them to have genuine faith in Jesus, their salvation is questionable.

Good questions, and I'll try to deal with them, although I'm not an expert in such matters. (The questioner's first language is not English, but I believe what he asked is quite understandable. I didn't want to change what he said.)

First, we aren't redeemed by having correct doctrine. No one, including me, is correct on all points. The early church had disagreements about various matters, especially how to treat Gentiles, but, it is generally agreed, most or all of the disputants were, and still are, after their deaths, redeemed. We are redeemed by belief in the sacrifice of Christ, the sinless Son of God, for our sin, and in His resurrection, and acceptance of Christ as Lord. We don't have to have every jot and tittle of doctrine right. Christians who are believers, and part of Christ's Kingdom, disagree about many things, such as church government, eternal security, ordination of women, the mode of baptism, end times, the meaning of communion, speaking in tongues.

Second, it is true that there are limits to how far we can go in our belief, as I understand the Bible. It's up to God to judge, not me, of course, but if our beliefs don't conform to the bold statement in the previous paragraph, we are in spiritual danger. Deliberately changing the meaning of scripture, or leaving part of it out for that reason, or adding to the scripture to suit one's fancy, is a mistake, a sin, and puts one in spiritual danger. It doesn't matter how one "consider[s] himself." How God considers us is what does matter. Followers of Christ should continue to read, pray over, and think about God's revelation in the Bible, and read and listen to the teaching of others. As we do so, some of our peripheral beliefs will probably change.

Third, interpretation of scripture is a tricky business. If you want examples, see my book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which may be obtained free of charge, or purchased from Amazon for $0.99, which is the lowest price Amazon lets an author set. I'll summarize very briefly. The Bible was written for all time, but it was also written, usually, so that the people of Bible times could understand it, in their culture. For example, Christ wasn't in the tomb for three days, even though the Bible literally says He was -- He was placed in the grave on Friday afternoon or evening, and had arisen by Sunday morning. That culture used an expression for time differently than we do. For another example, the Bible was written with the understanding of science of that day -- bacteria aren't mentioned, and the solar system and the universe are assumed to have a fixed earth at their center. Bacteria weren't known, and it was assumed that the universe was geocentric. We should remain suitably humble about what we personally believe -- we may not be interpreting scripture as God meant for it to be interpreted. It wasn't all meant to be taken literally. See my book for more on this.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to the commenter for the questions.