The Bible in Less Than Two Hours?

Search the Scriptures Daily Program #4405b Transcript follows: This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Still to come, answers to your questions in Contending for the Faith, and in Understanding the Scriptures, Dave and Tom will resume their conversation on God’s salvation.             Does God love only some of us?  Has He already determined those elect who will live forever with Him in heaven?  Are you one of the elect?  And if not, is there anything you can do about it?  The Doctrine of Calvinism, It’s five points and their implications for the body of Christ are discussed and debated in two powerful books from Dave Hunt and The Berean Call.  Debating Calvinism, Five Points, Two Views, features a written debate between Dave Hunt and James White, published by Multnomah.  In an easy to read format, Hunt and White exchange energetic letters addressing this long argued topic.  Co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, and co-host of Search the Scriptures Daily Radio, Dave Hunt:  The influence of Calvinism is growing greatly in the church today.  It’s very important that we understand and we did debate in Calvinism so that you could have a debate in writing.  You can go back and forth and read exactly what each side said, think it over carefully, rather than an emotional debate.             And, in what some are calling the definitive work on this topic, don’t miss Dave Hunt’s What Love is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God.  In this recently expanded and updated edition, Dave exhaustively documents the unscriptural nature of this doctrine that comes perilously close to blasphemy.  Once again, Dave Hunt:  We did a new revised, updated edition of What Love is This? because so many Calvinists were criticizing what I had said.  I went through all of their criticisms and answered them in this new and expanded version.  Debating Calvinism, Five Points, Two Views, and What Love is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God in e-book or hard cover are both available from The Berean Call.  Information on how to order in just a moment.             It’s on the horizon, it’s almost in view, get ready for Judgment Day, Islam, Israel and the Nations, the new book from Dave Hunt and The Berean Call.  Is God about to judge the world over issues related to Israel?  This highly informative and revealing work cuts through the political to the prophetic, alerting us to the judgment about to befall this planet.  Hans Kristian, President of the International Sakharov Committee, calls it “The most important book on the issues of the Middle East and the Holy Land.  Joseph Farah, Founder, WorldNetDaily.Com, says, “Dave Hunt has nailed it.  This book is a wake up call to a sleep-walking world trying to make sense of events that were foretold in the greatest book ever written, the Bible.”  Lecturer and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Dave Hunt:  Judgment Day is the  most important I have written.  God’s judgment is coming upon this world.  The leaders of this world are defying what God has said about Israel and about that land that belongs to them, and they are taking the side of people who pretend that that land belongs to them, and it does not, and God is going to punish this world and we document that in the book.             This treatment of the topic offers no room for political correctness or ecumenical accommodations, the truth is more devastating than fiction.  Judgment Day, Islam, Israel and the Nations, the latest by Dave Hunt is now available from The Berean Call in e-book and hard cover.  Information on how to order in just a moment.  In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly Newsletter, which we make available free of charge.  We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials, including books, video and audio tapes and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word.  For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at PO Box 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708.  Call our toll free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of this broadcast, ask for Program #4405, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station.  We’ll repeat this information at the end of the program.             RELIGION IN THE NEWS Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This weeks item is from News.Yahoo.com, September 21, 2005, with a headline:  Speedy, but Spiritual.  British cleric unveils 100-minute Bible, London.  Business folk are used to reading executive summaries of important documents and now would-be Christians are to have the same privilege in the form of a chopped down Bible that can be read in under two hours.  A church of England Vicar was on Wednesday unveiling his self-styled, 100-minute Bible, an ultra condensed addition of the Christian Holy Book which claims to neatly summarize every teaching from the creation to the Revelation.  The Reverend Michael Hitton was launching his work at Canterbury Cathedral in Southern England, the headquarters of the Anglican church.  Publishers, the one-hundred minute press say the book has been written for those who want to know more about Christianity, but do not have the time to read the original in full.  This is a book for adults and has been written in a style to encourage readers to keep turning the pages, but without resorting to any literary gimmicks, said Lynn Bud from the publishing firm.  As the Bible itself, the one-hundred minute bible should be a best seller.             Tom: Dave, you know, to think about that I think about my old days, my old ways and in college I always wanted the Cliff notes, get the abbreviated version, didn’t have to wade through the big stuff, and so on.  But now I think, wait a minute!  Doesn’t the Word of God say, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  So this is one more thing—we’ve been talking about Bibles, everything from the Renovaré Bible to the so-called Bibles, The Message and so on, but this is just one more travesty that Christians are going to  line up for.             Dave: I haven’t read  it, Tom, so I don’t know what it leaves out, but of course it leaves out most of the Bible.             Tom: It has to.             Dave: Now, the Bible says, Every Word of God is pure.  So now we are going to cast some of these pure Words of God aside.  We’re going to give people a condensed way to get to heaven.  Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.  He told the Pharisees, You search the scriptures, in them you think you have eternal life—These are they that testify of me.  I wonder how much of Jesus and who He really is and the prophecies concerning Him and the proofs of who He is, was left out of this shortened version of how you get to heaven.  Tom, as you said, it is a travesty, it’s an insult to God, we’re editing what God wrote.  God, apparently didn’t know what was needed, He over spoke Himself, He became too verbose, used too many words, He was a little bit wordy, and now we can cut this whole thing down.  I can tell you, Tom, I don’t remember much about my math degree, I do have a degree in mathematics from UCLA from way back there, but I can tell you, you cannot condense mathematics, you’re not going to get the right answer.  You cannot condense physics and astronomy and think you will get to the moon in a rocket ship.  In fact, you cannot even build a rocket ship unless you use the full instructions, every part is important, everything about it.  But now we’re going to cut out most of what God has said, we’re going to condense down to what we think are the essentials, and Tom, it is an abomination.             Tom: You know, Dave, when I was interviewing people after the Passion of the Christ came out, I’m talking about interviewing evangelicals.  I would say, Well, what about this scene, and what about that scene, and most of them had to think for a minute as to whether the scenes were really in the Bible or not, that was a problem.             Dave: And most of them were not in the Bible.             Tom: Exactly.  So then, it made me think, what’s going on here, do we really have a plague of biblical illiteracy among Christians?  I think so.  But worse than that there’s a plague of alliteracy, meaning people know how to read, they have the Bible, but they are not willing to do it.  That’s going to lead to so  many problems, I mean, we are already seeing it today.  Christianity is being dumbed down, made not just superficial but so shallow that people can’t be Bereans, they can’t search the scriptures, they don’t have any basis for it.  I’m not saying this about everybody, but Dave, you know and I know we’ve been looking at trends in the church for the past 25 years or longer, you longer, certainly and we see this developing.  It’s pretty scary.              Dave: Tom, it reminds me of a quotation from Eugene Peterson, which we had in The Berean Call—what was it, a month or two ago?  And Eugene Peterson said,—I’m just paraphrasing him now, he paraphrases God, I guess I can paraphrase him because I don’t have a quote exactly in front of me—but he said, “I’m not impressed with all of this Bible study, we need to study the Bible less not more.”  So, we are being encouraged to study the Bible less and of course he doesn’t give us the Bible, he gives us his own words, shoves God’s Words aside in the so-called , Message.  Tom, I don’t know whether I could say this is direct fulfillment of the scriptures but the scriptures do say, In the last days there will be a famine, not for bread, we’ve got plenty of bread today, in America certainly, and most of the Western world.  A famine not of bread, but of the words of God.  And we are really getting that today.             Tom: Back to this 100 minute Bible, if there’s any value in it at all, it’s that people get interested and say, hey, alright, this is the abbreviated version, now let me see what it really says.  So, I would hope that.  It’s wishful, but that would be my prayer about this, that whatever it takes to get people back to the BIBLE.  That’s important.             Dave: Yeah, but Tom, this is not going to encourage them to do that.  There may be a very, very few, but the vast majority are going to be just satisfied with this.  Wow, they think they’ve got the Bible now.             Tom: And they think they understand the Bible, which is worse.