In response to Claude Mariottini‘s post “Left Behind,” I releftecd a bit:

What infuriates me most about Camping and the ridiculous media attention devoted to his crackpot theories is that the Bible as the “Word of God” has failed again in the eyes of popular culture.

Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” –Matt 16:28

The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. –Rev 1:1

You see, the entire Bible is “false,” then, because the “Son of Man” did not come “in his kingdom” within that generation, and the events described in Revelation did not take place “soon.” This also means Jesus was a “false” prophet because the things he predicted did not come to pass when he said they would.

Playing these ridiculous games with the Bible as a kind of divining rod or a Ouija board comes from an utterly false and destructive view of the Bible as the “Words” of God. If we start with the particular view of God as a perfect and remote King somewhere “out there” who can do no evil, is all-knowing and all-powerful, and who perfectly inspired the words of the Bible and that some kind of pure crystalline “Truth” is captured therein with no contradictions, etc., then the Bible, and by implication God, will fail us miserably over and over.

The simplest metaphor I can think of for Christians to understand the Bible as the “Word of God” is that it is the Word of God because it reveals Jesus Christ as the Logos, the Word, of God.