The fundamental issue in the moral questions the church addresses always come down to this: Do you believe what the Bible says is true? One may seek address those questions simply by saying, “I believe this verse means this, though you may believe it means that.” Thereby, some people may think they have given a neat body-swerve to the question.

The one issue that is hard to avoid is what the Bible says about itself. It is not just that there is a verse or two here or there that one can avoid. It is all over the Bible. Read what B. B. Warfield says about it:

The effort to explain away the Bible’s witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding — possibly by the aid of diagrams and mathematical formulae — how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler’s triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones, and demonstrate of stone after stone that its pathway is definite, limited, and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately do not come upon us stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each in turn: but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction. Just so we may explain away a text or two which teach plenary inspiration, to our own closet satisfaction, dealing with them each without reference to its relation to the others: but these texts of ours, again, unfortunately do not come upon us in this artificial isolation; neither are they few in number. There are scores, hundreds, of them: and they come bursting on us in one solid mass. Explain them away? We should have to explain away the whole New Testament. What a pity it is that we cannot see and feel the avalanche of texts beneath which we may lie hopelessly buried, as clearly as we may see and feel an avalanche of stones!