I recently had a conversation with a colleague about the Bible. More specifically about tithing. I told him that I tithe and he was a bit dumbfounded by that.
He started telling me all the reasons why tithing was basically not required. The most dominant being that the Bible is written by man. I agreed with him that man wrote the Bible, but you either believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God or you do not.
His comment was that a group of people decided what should be and what should not be in the Bible. Also, he commented that unless we understood Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek that we cannot fully understand the Bible because there may be incorrect translations. I agree that the translations may not be 100%, but is that important or is the meaning important.
I decided to contact my pastor to get his input on how the BIble came about and it was interesting, but I am not sure it is practical when trying to talk to someone.
So my statement is that yes man wrote the BIble, but the Bible is the inspired word of God and either I serve a very powerful God or I do not. I believe that if God is truly almighty, then no matter what He could have made changes to the Bible if it were incorrect.
As far as I know, there have been no drastic changes to the Bible. There are new translations to be more accuracte, but like I said that meaning has not changed.
This is also where faith comes in. I believe that God made sure His words were not only written down correctly, but that they were translated correctly to provide the meaning that He intended.
I do agree with him that I can tithe a lot of different ways. I choose to tithe money and time. Money because the church always needs finances to operate and time because to me that is the most precious thing on the planet that I have and I want to give God the best that I can.