Unit 1

Doctrine is a deeper study of the Bible and a study of surrounding books. It is very good to study doctrine, so that you can have a better understanding of the Bible. Doctrine helps you build your faith in God. The Bible only gives us certain things. We use doctrine to give us more history and stories that were not put in the Bible. God only wanted certain things in the Bible to give us a general base to rely on. In John 20:30-31, it is told that Jesus did more miraculous signs but they were not put in the Bible. So the question that I am asking is, are the other miracles recorded and if so where? This is why we should study the other books so we can learn more about Jesus and his other miracles. Now that we have other books and other resources we can use those and learn more about the past and possibly the future. We should pay more attention to what people have written in the past. This helps a lot so that we can learn from our mistakes and possibly better our future. It also lets us know about different stories in the past and lets us have a better understanding of how life was back in time. The Bible is infallible which means that it is perfect. This means that the original manuscripts were perfect. The original handwritten documents were without error. The Bible was inspired by God. He was there the whole time that the Bible was being written. The Holy Spirit helped guide the different people on what to write, how to write and on what to leave out. So God knew exactly what he was putting in the Bible. We need the Bible for many things. The Bible can be used to teach, rebuke, correct and train in righteousness. (2Timothy 3:16) Now with the Bible we can be equipped for every good work. It is important to know scripture and how to use it. So that if the Devil ever comes at you and tries to take you down. You can use the scripture to go against him. This will also help you use it for every good work possible. Studying

the Bible will also help you grow and develop more as a Christian. Because we should want to grow and want to become better so that we can go out and spread the gospel. But to spread the gospel we may need to learn more languages and also to help translate the Bible to different languages. The Bible was originally written in Greek, Hebrew and in Aramaic. The outside world had a big influence on what language it was written in. Now we have a lot of different translations we have Navajo, Hebrew, Spanish and English. It is a lot easier now because there are a lot of scholars that work on it together. Many years back I think that it would be a lot harder to do because you would have to do it on your own. I use the English version and I like to use the NIV. The NIV is a lot easier to understand but when I get confused I use the American Standard Version. I really dont like using the KJV or the NKJV I find it more difficult to understand. The Dead Sea Scrolls are scrolls that were found in the Negev desert. They are hand written manuscripts of the O.T. The scrolls are the most accurate manuscripts that we have. They are also the latest and most recent we have. They date back all the way to the 400-100 BC. The Apocrypha are a bunch of writings that are included in the Catholic Bible. They are important because they give history during the Inter-Testament Period. They also have books that were not included in the Bible like the rest of the books of Esther. Most of the stories are far stretched and I dont really think they are real. I dont think that God wanted it in the Bible if he wanted it he would have included them. But I do not know if God wanted them in the Catholic Bible maybe someone disobeyed and put it in there. God was always there when people were writing the Bible and while they were choosing what books to be in the Bible. He wanted certain books in and he wanted books out.

To interpret the Bible literally we would have a totally different understanding of the Bible. Like some people believe that Earth was created in 7 24 hour period and some people believe that the 7 days we supposed to be taken figuratively not literally, which opens the door for evolution. This is a very important topic because if we take it literally we will have a lot of monsters by the end of the world. I think that we should take the Bible figuratively but also we should take it literally. I believe the flood really happened so I think that we should take it literally. In Revelation we should take it more figuratively. Like when it talks about dragons we should not think that dragons will really come and destroy the world. But we should be careful about what we should take literally and figuratively. This means that you should really pray and ask God on what to do. We know God through everything we do. God is everywhere and is will always be with you. We should all have the desire to get to know God more and try to strengthen our faith. I do not think that we all fully know God. We all learn new things about him every day. Getting to know God is the most amazing thing ever. God is the greatest friend to have. He will protect you and in the end he will bring you to heaven. Being a Christian is not just following God it is more of a friendship. Like I said he is the greatest friend you will ever have. He will always be there. He will lend a helping hand and will always listen to what you have to say. He will always have the answers and wants to build a better relationship with you. That is all he wants. Giving my life to him and becoming his friend is one of the greatest choices in my life. Knowing God is knowing the truth. God is the truth. As stated in John 14:6 he is the way, the truth and the life. That is the only thing we need to now. God is the truth. I cannot put it simpler than that. So knowing God is one of the best people to know.

Jalyn Gorman Doctrine 9/3/12