The Bible as the Word of God

The Bible has always fascinated me. Even when I was an atheist, the stories and explanations seemed intriguing. Yet I have always wondered how people can draw the conclusion that, according to my church, "The Bible is our final authority in every area of faith and practice." It seems reasonable, but what exactly does that mean? What about reason, interpretation? What about cultural differences and perspectives?

Let's look at what the Bible has to say about itself:

• "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
• "These are true words of God." (Rev. 19:9)
• "Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored." (1 Corinthians 14:36-38)*
• "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:20,21)

All of these passages declare that God initiated what we now call scripture (or "prophecy") and that what we have in the Bible is "true".

I don't put quotation marks around the word true to be cute or make some oblique deconstructionist comment. I am not really venturing into a metaphysical argument either about the Bible's origin here. Rather, I am saying that the authors of the Bible recorded, as best they could, the words of God Himself. Note too what these passages are NOT saying:

They are not saying that every detail, every word, turn of phrase and punctuation is perfect. God did not reach down and write the Bible Himself. Rather, He prompted men to transcribe, for lack of a better word, what the Holy Spirit lead them to write. (Perhaps, it might be best to describe the process as transliteration from the Language of God to Hebrew or Greek.) The Bible is also something that requires some effort and faith to understand; it requires interpretation and application before it truly is the Word of God. Without our effort and the work of the Holy Spirit, it is possesses no power on its own.

To say that the Bible is the "final authority" may be correct in a pragmatic sort of way. Without the Bible as a uniform code of behavior and practice, we certainly would have a much more difficult time defining the word "Christian". How would we know what a Christian is if we had no recourse to the unifying set of beliefs represented by the Bible? Obviously, we wouldn't. That is why the Bible, as the Word of God, is useful as the binding document for Christianity.

The Bible claims that it's words are true, should be heeded as important and useful. They originate with and flow from God Himself. The Bible can make us "wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:15); we can grow in our understanding of life and spirit when we put our hearts and minds to the task of learning from it. Certainly, I believe this to be so.


* or, perhaps more fitting, "If he is ignorant of this, let him be ignorant."