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I suggest that you write down, as briefly as possible the answers to these questions.

1. What is your present knowledge and understanding of God? Answer this under two headings:
(a) What is he like?
(b) What does he do?

2. What is the source of your belief, or of each aspect of that belief?
(a) What have you been told or read?
(b) What is the product of your imagination, what you would like God to be like?
(c) What have you reasoned out yourself?
(d) What have you learned by experience?

3. Have you had any ideas and beliefs about God in the past, which you have now discarded? If so, what were they? What was it that made you change your views?

Along with these, there are two supplementary questions:

A. Have you ever questioned the motives of the people who taught you about God, i.e. that they were doing it for their own benefit, to get your behaviour to conform?

B. Have you ever said that you believed in God for the wrong reasons, to please somebody, or to gain some advantage or position for yourself?

Do you accept that when different people answer these questions, there will be many different answers? Do you accept that your answers may be partial (that you do not know everything), and that you may be wrong in parts? Are you prepared. to accept that there is one source of knowledge about God that is completely valid and trustworthy? There is a yardstick against which all the differing ideas about God can be measured. This source of truth is the Bible. All that we need to know, and all that we are able to understand about God is revealed in the Bible, or as we refer to it very often, the Scriptures. The words mean the same. Bible is from a Greek word meaning "Books", and Scriptures is from a Latin word meaning "Writings". We have been given the Scriptures to help us in a number of ways. Very important is the fact that we are shown a clear and unmistakable picture of the character and nature of God. The Bible provides a standard, against which all our other thoughts and ideas about God can be tried and tested. Whatever the source of our beliefs about God; whether it is our reasoning, our intuition or our experiences; whether it is the views of people we know and respect, the teaching of the world's greatest philosophers or mystics, or the doctrines and traditions of any religion: if it does not accord with Scripture, then it has to be discarded.The Bible is our ULTIMATE AUTHORITY.

I did not just say that the Bible was written for us. I said that the Bible has been given to us. This is an important distinction. The actual writing was done by about forty people, over a period of about 1500 years. These were men of different occupations and social standing, from kings to fishermen. As they wrote, some were writing about the past, some their present situation and some about the future. However, through all the writings there shines a universal truth; that which is true at all times, in all places, and in all situations. The words of Scripture were true when they were written, they are true now, and they will be true at any and every point in the future.