Biblical Authority

OMC said:

I honor your confidence in the King James Bible, because it is a remarkably faithful and stable translation.
But inspiration itself happened in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek — the very words God breathed out.
The KJV carries those inspired words into English with extraordinary accuracy, yet it is still a translation of inspired wording, not the inspired wording itself.
English can express the meaning, but it cannot replace the original languages God used.
So while the KJV is trustworthy, authoritative, and proven, the precise words God originally gave were not English, and studying them deepens our understanding of what the KJV faithfully conveys.

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OMC said:

Your entire argument rests on a premise Scripture never teaches: that what Jesus and Paul cite determines what Jesus and Paul affirm. That is not how inspiration works, and it is not how either Jesus or Paul treat Scripture.
You are building a canon‑within‑the‑canon based on frequency of quotation, and then treating that frequency as a measure of divine authority.
Scripture never gives us that principle, and the apostles never operate by it.

You say Jesus and Paul “probably valued” some books more than others. But Scripture never says that.
Jesus refers to “the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms” (Luke 24:44), which is a shorthand for the entire Hebrew canon.
He does not carve out Ezra, or Song of Solomon, or genealogies, or Levitical legislation as less inspired.
He affirms the whole.
Likewise, Paul says “all Scripture is God‑breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16).
He does not say “all Scripture that we cite,” or “all Scripture we personally prefer,” or “all Scripture except the parts we never mention.” You are inserting a distinction the apostles never make.

Your claim that “what is not cited is not affirmed” is not only unsupported — it is contradicted by the way Jesus and Paul treat Scripture.
Jesus appeals to the authority of Scripture as a whole: “The Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).
Paul appeals to the authority of Scripture as a whole: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction” (Romans 15:4).
Neither of them ever suggests that inspiration is measured by citation frequency.
If that were true, Job, Judges, Chronicles, and large portions of the Torah would be downgraded.
But Jesus and Paul never downgrade them.

You also assume that “God‑breathed” means “not dictated,” and therefore some parts may be less inspired because we do not know the human authors.
But inspiration is not tied to authorship transparency.
We do not know who wrote Hebrews, yet its inspiration is not questioned.
We do not know who wrote portions of Kings and Chronicles, yet Jesus treats the historical narratives as fully authoritative.
The identity of the human author has never been the criterion for inspiration.
The divine origin of the text is the criterion.

You suggest that Jesus and Paul “left the door open to speculation” because they did not specify what Scripture includes.
But Jesus did specify the canon by referring to the Law, Prophets, and Writings.
Paul did specify the canon by referring to “the sacred writings” Timothy had known from childhood — the Hebrew Scriptures.
The apostles did not leave the canon ambiguous.
They assumed the canon their audience already recognized.

Your argument also assumes that the compilers of the canon used Paul’s “parameters” to decide what belonged in Scripture.
But the canon was not created by theological committees evaluating books against Paul’s criteria.
The canon was recognized because the people of God already received these writings as inspired.
Jesus and Paul inherited a canon; they did not construct one.
And they affirmed it as a whole.

Finally, you say “there is no way to avoid walking by faith with regard to what is Scripture.”
But biblical faith is not guesswork.
It is confidence in what God has spoken.
Jesus did not leave His followers guessing about the canon.
Paul did not leave Timothy guessing about the canon.
The apostles did not leave the early church guessing about the canon.
The canon is not a leap into uncertainty; it is the reception of what God has already given.

So no — it is not correct to say that “what is not cited is not affirmed.”
It is not correct to say Jesus and Paul valued some books less.
It is not correct to say inspiration depends on authorship transparency.
And it is not correct to say the apostles left the canon open to speculation.
The canon they used is the canon they affirmed, and the canon they affirmed is the canon the church received.

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OMC said:

Your reply is honest but built on a definition of faith that Scripture itself never uses. Walking by faith is not “a good guess” or “rational opinion”; Hebrews 11 calls it substance and evidence, not educated uncertainty. Faith is confidence in what God has spoken, not speculation about what He has not revealed. And when you say we must “wait until heaven” to know whether Jesus and Paul considered some OT passages inspired because they never cited them, you’re assuming a principle the apostles never teach — that inspiration depends on quotation frequency. Jesus affirmed the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms as a whole; Paul said all Scripture is God‑breathed; neither left the canon open to personal aesthetic judgment. You find some passages “no more inspired than non‑canonical books” because they feel less edifying, but inspiration is not measured by emotional resonance — it is measured by divine origin. I find those parts inspired because Jesus and Paul did: they treated the entire Hebrew canon as God’s Word, not a curated anthology of personally meaningful texts.

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OMC said:

You’re trying to turn “walking by faith” into “living with permanent uncertainty,” and that is not how Scripture defines faith.
Faith is substance and evidence (Heb 11:1), not “rational confidence built on partial evidence plus unavoidable uncertainty.”
Thomas did not receive a special category of sight‑based certainty that the rest of us lack; Jesus told him, “because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” — not “blessed are they who must live with uncertainty,” but blessed are those whose faith rests on what God has spoken, not on physical sight.
And your claim that Jesus and the apostles “did not cite certain OT passages because they did not think them sufficiently important or inspired” is not only an assumption — it contradicts Jesus’ own words: “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35), “all things… written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning me” (Luke 24:44), and Paul’s “all Scripture is God‑breathed” (2 Tim 3:16). You’re treating apostolic citation frequency as a canon‑rating system, but Scripture never uses that metric.
The apostles didn’t quote every verse because they weren’t writing a commentary — they were proclaiming Christ.
Citation is selective by purpose, not by inspiration.
The parts they didn’t quote are not less inspired; they simply weren’t the passages needed for the argument at hand.

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OMC said:

What you’ve written sounds modest on the surface, but the underlying assumption is one Scripture itself never permits — the idea that the parts of the Old Testament not obviously about Christ are somehow of lesser importance, or that their value is measured by how often preachers use them.
When I read your words, “I did not find anything concerning Jesus in the parts I mentioned… which is why I wonder about their importance,” I hear a conclusion built on absence of discovery, not on the testimony of Scripture.
Jesus Himself told me that all things written in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms concern Him; He did not say “the parts you can easily catalogue.”
The apostles never treated any portion of Scripture as optional, marginal, or expendable. The fact that your thread didn’t uncover Christ in certain passages doesn’t diminish those passages — it simply shows the limits of human cataloguing.
And the fact that preachers don’t preach from genealogies or administrative records doesn’t mean those texts lack importance; it means sermons are selective, not that Scripture is.
When I fear the Lord, I let the text judge my conclusions; when I fear being wrong, I let my conclusions judge the text. The canon does not shrink because my list is short.

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OMC said:

When I read your summary, I must speak plainly: you are treating the Old Testament as though its books must justify themselves by offering you a “new key teaching,” and that is not how Scripture presents itself. I cannot adopt that posture, because the apostles never adopt it. They never measure a book’s worth by whether it adds something “new.” They receive the canon as God‑breathed, and I must do the same.

You say Chronicles “contains nothing new,” but that is not the Spirit’s purpose in inspiring it. Chronicles is not written to innovate; it is written to interpret. It retells Israel’s history through the lens of covenant fidelity, priestly responsibility, temple centrality, and the theological meaning of exile. Kings gives you the political story; Chronicles gives you the spiritual one. That is not redundancy; that is divine emphasis.

You say Song of Songs offers only one key teaching, but the book is not a moral footnote about romance. It is a poetic celebration of covenantal love, the joy of exclusivity, and the sanctity of mutual delight. Its imagery is not meant to excite you; it is meant to sanctify your imagination. The Spirit does not waste poetry.

You say Obadiah “contains nothing new,” but Obadiah is the sharpest prophetic indictment of pride in the entire Old Testament. It exposes the arrogance of Edom, the sin of gloating over a brother’s downfall, and the certainty of divine justice. If you cannot see the key teaching, the problem is not with Obadiah.

You dismiss Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther because they “contain no new key teachings,” but Ezra reveals the seriousness of covenant purity, Nehemiah reveals the nature of godly leadership under opposition, and Esther reveals the hidden providence of God when no prophet speaks. These are not optional themes; they are pillars of biblical theology.

So when you ask me to “submit one passage from each book worth citing,” I cannot treat Scripture as though each book must be defended by a single verse. Every book stands because God breathed it. Every book teaches because God speaks through it. Every book is profitable because Paul says all Scripture is profitable — not the parts we find exciting, not the parts we deem novel, not the parts we personally resonate with.

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OMC said:

Jesus and Paul did not cite every book because citation is not the measure of inspiration.
Jesus never quoted Judges
Paul never quoted Joshua.
Neither quoted Esther.
Neither quoted Ecclesiastes.
Neither quoted Chronicles.
Neither quoted Job.

Are these books uninspired? Of course not.

The apostles quoted what was necessary for their argument, not what was necessary for your list.
Your list is not the canon. Your list is not the measure of inspiration. Your list is not the measure of value.

Song of Songs is not weird—Song of Songs is honest. And honestly, many believers feel that way at first. The imagery is poetic, intimate, emotional, and unlike any other book in Scripture. It is Scripture teaching covenant love, loyalty, purity, and devotion through poetry. It is the only book that shows marital love from the inside, not the outside. It is the only book that celebrates love without shame. It is the only book that uses human intimacy to illustrate divine faithfulness.
So when someone says it is “weird,” I gently remind them: It is only weird until you understand what it is doing. Then it becomes beautiful.


My summary of Obadiah,
Obadiah teaches that pride blinds, betrayal condemns, and the Day of the LORD brings justice upon all nations—especially those who rejoice in the downfall of their brothers. Yeah, that's it lol. I can offer more but not sure what you are after so I will just start there.

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OMC said:

I respect your position. Truly.
You’re not wavering, you’re not hedging, you’re not trying to blend systems. You’re stating plainly:
God preserved His words perfectly in English in the King James Bible, and all other translations are in error.

I understand that conviction. I’ve walked with enough believers who hold it to know it isn’t born from arrogance — it’s born from a desire for certainty, stability, and confidence in the text. And I will never mock that desire.

But here is where I speak gently and honestly:
Your conviction is a theological conclusion, not a statement Scripture itself ever makes.
Scripture teaches preservation, absolutely.
Scripture teaches purity, absolutely.
Scripture teaches authority, absolutely.

But Scripture never says:
God will preserve His words in English.
God will preserve His words in one translation.
God will preserve His words in 1611.
God will preserve His words in the KJV alone.
Those are inferences, not inspired statements.

And I say this kindly: once a system elevates a translation to the level of the preserved form, it begins to treat the translation as though it were the original autographs. That’s where I must gently challenge the attitude — not the reverence, but the equation.

The King James Bible is faithful, beautiful, stable, and trustworthy.
But it is still a translation of the inspired Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

To say God used “no other translation” is not something the Bible itself ever claims.
It is something a system claims.

And here is the key distinction I want you to see: Believing the KJV is the best English Bible is a conviction. Believing the KJV is the only preserved Bible is a doctrine. But Scripture itself never teaches that doctrine.
You can hold your conviction.
You can prefer the KJV.
You can trust it, study it, love it, defend it.

But you cannot say Scripture teaches KJV‑only preservation without going beyond what Scripture actually says.
I’m not asking you to abandon your confidence.
I’m asking you to anchor it in what the Bible actually claims, not in what a system adds on top of it.

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OMC said:

If I believe the KJV is the word of God preserved in English (and I do), then I must believe that all other English translations are false since they contain different words with different meanings and even different truths.

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OMC said:

According to Scripture, your conclusion doesn’t follow, because preservation applies to God’s inspired words, not to one exclusive English translation, meaning you can believe the KJV is the best or most faithful English Bible without claiming that every differing translation is “false,” since the apostles themselves used multiple Greek renderings of the Old Testament and treated them all as authoritative Scripture.

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OMC said:

My friend, the emphasis God places on the “originals” is simply this: inspiration happened at the moment God breathed out the words, not at the moment later scribes copied them or translators rendered them, and the example of the tablets proves the point—not that copies become inspired, but that the inspired words remain inspired even when rewritten, because the authority lies in the divine speech, not the physical stone Moses shattered; likewise, Joseph speaking Egyptian and Scripture recording his words in Hebrew does not prove that translations become newly inspired, but that the Spirit‑superintended Hebrew record is inspired, because inspiration attaches to the text the Spirit produced, not to the Egyptian sentences Joseph spoke, meaning your conclusion “God can inspire a translation” is only true in the narrow sense that God can inspire an author who translates, not that any translation itself is automatically inspired; the originals matter because they are the locus of God‑breathed wording, but faithful copies and faithful translations carry that inspired meaning with full authority, which is why Jesus and the apostles quote translations without ever calling the translations inspired in themselves.

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