Editorial Standards

We promote Bible answer transparency primarily through discourse and contribution through public comments. We also want to be transparent in our editorial approach and standard, which boils down to three things:

  • AUTHORITY…by which Bible questions are answered,

  • PROCESS…of moving a question from draft to published,

  • OTHER…questions or topics that can be served with editorial.

Authority

Mission Statement

  • Provide answers to Bible questions that are literally built on Scripture by gathering any, only, all that God says about it.
  • Emphasize the process that leads to the Bible answer by building the answer on ‘Scripture-blocks‘ (using the Bible Study Framework), giving the full context of what God says about it…and not going beyond the full context.
  • Offer full transparency in the journey to any Bible answer by allowing anyone to comment publicly. Contribute what you have understood through your own Bible study or offer dissent. We don’t hold the “right answer”; we only seek to have God’s word divulge it.

In our experience, we have rarely come across anyone that is promoting an interpretation of God’s word that does not enthusiastically claim, ‘SOLA SCRIPTURA!’

To this, we add a hearty, “Amen!” We want to do everything to hold up God’s authority alone as the source of answering any spiritual question.

Regrettably, we have frequently found the practice of this principle falling short. The “right” answer is almost always presented in the exact same truth-killing ways:

  1. Commentary first. The author’s conclusion is presented front and center in a volume of commentary. It is usually an elaborate discourse almost always promoting the author’s knowledge in Greek, or their scholastic credentials.
  2. Scripture second. The scant few passages peppered throughout the commentary are cherry-picked in support of the position (BTW, we call this ‘Scripture Weighting’). Passages that are used are often twisted out of context at worst, or there’s no way to easily validate their contextual usage at best.
  3. Zero commenting. Finally, there’s rarely an opportunity to contribute or challenge. Whatever degree God’s word has been misrepresented or butchered is left to stand. Or, only those comments that support the author’s conclusion are allowed through (often experienced this).

Question Development Process

A question remains in “draft” state (unpublished and not available publically) until we believe enough scripture-blocks have been assembled to comprehensively answer the question. Of course, this is arbitrary on our part. Nevertheless, our goal is to have at least 90-95% coverage of all Scripture that might answer the question, while acknowledging and offering an open invitation for additional passages that might further shape the answer.

published

Enough scripture-blocks have been provided to adequately and sufficiently answer the question with no outstanding contrary passages

draft

This leads to our best practices which form the basis for how and when questions are published:

  • Public Comment: The transparency needed to allow anyone to contribute with a passage that might help to further shape the Bible-based answer.
  • The Minimum Requirement: Enough scripture-blocks to adequately and sufficiently answer the question without any known contradictory passages.
  • Overload: There are some questions that could contain dozens and dozens of scripture-blocks in support. A good example is the question, “Does man have free will?“ where literally hundreds of passages might be used. In these cases, we want to try to limit to the best 15-20 scripture-blocks or try to re-focus the question more narrowly. This naturally spawns other, related questions where the “other” scripture-blocks will be used.

Pure Editorial

After some deliberation, we have added an area for ‘other’ materials – a separate editorial section – that might support Bible study efforts and the core functions/mission of the site. Anything posted here is ascribed to the author and made clear it is their thoughts, not God’s.

Where appropriate, and as often as possible, these “editorials” will include references to related scripture-blocks. Additionally, they will link to or provide additional and deeper study resources for specific questions on the site.