Thank you for staying with me through all five of the criteria for determining the credibility of a source: Currency, Relevance, Accuracy, Authority, and now Purpose.
Purpose: Why does this document/website exist?
One CRAAP handout poses the following questions to help us determine the purpose of the source.
*What is the purpose of the information? Inform? Teach? Sell? Entertain? Persuade?
*Do the authors/sponsors make their intentions or purpose clear?
*Is the information fact, opinion, or propaganda?
*Does the point of view appear objective and impartial?
*Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional, or personal biases?
Let’s work from the bottom up. One of the most compelling arguments made for the truth of the Bible is in its factual, objective reporting. There are no pulled punches.
Biblical heroes are flawed. Moses was a murderer. Jacob, a deceiver. David, an adulterer.
Also, the gospels record embarrassing facts about the disciples themselves. James and John use their own mother to try and further their positions, Matthew worked with the Romans as a tax collector to cheat his own people, and Peter cowardly rejects ever knowing Jesus when things get a bit dicey.
And a review of Jesus’s genealogy reveals a former prostitute in his lineage.
Even more telling is the fact that all four of the gospels use the eye-witness accounts of women to support their claims, when culturally women were viewed as second-class citizens and their testimony not credible. Therefore, if the writers were really trying to sell a story or create propaganda rather than honestly convey what happened, they would have changed much of what they recorded to be acceptable to their culture.
But they didn’t. Why? Because, unknown to them (most likely), their writings were part of a much bigger purpose. One that started in Genesis and was finalized in Revelation.
The Bible’s Purpose is simple and extremely clear: God created man and everything on earth for him. Man chose to disobey and reject God by sinning. God in His perfect love for man, provided a way for man to be redeemed back to Him through the sacrifice and resurrection of His only Son, Jesus. And Jesus will return again, and at that time, every knee will bow and every will tongue confess, that he is LORD (Philippians 2:10-11).
The Bible is a love story, for it not only shows God’s providential care for his people and a way of salvation for man, but it also gives man purpose. If we are here simply by chance or the result of a chain of events, then why are we here? Not just man in general but each of us specifically? To what end? Though each person can make up a purpose for his or her life, there is no definitive answer in this scenario.
But if we were created out of love by God to be in relationship with God, then everything we do has a purpose—to bring glory to God.
There is a reason Purpose is the final criteria in the CRAAP test. The purpose of a source provides the motive for the source’s existence, and no other source on earth is motivated by such perfect love.
Purpose: Why does this document/website exist?
One CRAAP handout poses the following questions to help us determine the purpose of the source.
*What is the purpose of the information? Inform? Teach? Sell? Entertain? Persuade?
*Do the authors/sponsors make their intentions or purpose clear?
*Is the information fact, opinion, or propaganda?
*Does the point of view appear objective and impartial?
*Are there political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional, or personal biases?
Let’s work from the bottom up. One of the most compelling arguments made for the truth of the Bible is in its factual, objective reporting. There are no pulled punches.
Biblical heroes are flawed. Moses was a murderer. Jacob, a deceiver. David, an adulterer.
Also, the gospels record embarrassing facts about the disciples themselves. James and John use their own mother to try and further their positions, Matthew worked with the Romans as a tax collector to cheat his own people, and Peter cowardly rejects ever knowing Jesus when things get a bit dicey.
And a review of Jesus’s genealogy reveals a former prostitute in his lineage.
Even more telling is the fact that all four of the gospels use the eye-witness accounts of women to support their claims, when culturally women were viewed as second-class citizens and their testimony not credible. Therefore, if the writers were really trying to sell a story or create propaganda rather than honestly convey what happened, they would have changed much of what they recorded to be acceptable to their culture.
But they didn’t. Why? Because, unknown to them (most likely), their writings were part of a much bigger purpose. One that started in Genesis and was finalized in Revelation.
The Bible’s Purpose is simple and extremely clear: God created man and everything on earth for him. Man chose to disobey and reject God by sinning. God in His perfect love for man, provided a way for man to be redeemed back to Him through the sacrifice and resurrection of His only Son, Jesus. And Jesus will return again, and at that time, every knee will bow and every will tongue confess, that he is LORD (Philippians 2:10-11).
The Bible is a love story, for it not only shows God’s providential care for his people and a way of salvation for man, but it also gives man purpose. If we are here simply by chance or the result of a chain of events, then why are we here? Not just man in general but each of us specifically? To what end? Though each person can make up a purpose for his or her life, there is no definitive answer in this scenario.
But if we were created out of love by God to be in relationship with God, then everything we do has a purpose—to bring glory to God.
There is a reason Purpose is the final criteria in the CRAAP test. The purpose of a source provides the motive for the source’s existence, and no other source on earth is motivated by such perfect love.
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