In this video, Grace@Work leader Cortney Alexander talks about what the Bible is.
The Bible is a collection of books written by forty authors over a period of almost 2,000 years. The various books have different purposes and styles, including historical narratives; songs of praise, prayer, thanksgiving, and lament; wise sayings for living a flourishing life; accounts of the life of Jesus; letters from early church leaders addressing specific issues and aspects of Christian life; and even prophetic books foretelling future events. But while these books were written in different styles for different purposes, they share one thing in common. They were written by men, but they were not merely written by men.
The apostle Peter wrote that “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21). Similarly, the apostle Paul wrote that Scripture “is breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16). While Paul was speaking specifically about the Old Testament Scriptures, the New Testament also recognizes New Testament writings as Scripture. For example, in 2 Peter 3, the apostle Peter characterized Paul’s writings as being on the same level as the Old Testament Scriptures. Peter said that some people “twist” Paul’s letters, just “as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Pet. 3:17). This tells us that Peter believed that Paul’s letters were not merely Paul’s words, but that Paul was carried along by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, the apostle Paul, in his letter called 1 Timothy, quotes from the gospel of Luke—a New Testament book—and refers to it as Scripture (1 Tim. 5:18).
It’s difficult for us today to grasp how amazing this is. That the apostles recognized almost immediately that God had inspired these new writings just as he did the Scriptures the Jewish people had accepted as the word of God for hundreds of years.
The Bible’s claim that all Scripture was breathed out by God is critical for one reason: people often get things wrong; God does not. So if Scripture is breathed out by God, we can trust it to be correct. As Jesus said, “Scripture cannot be broken” (Jn. 10:35).
It is because Scripture is breathed out by God—who is not a man that he should lie (Tit. 1:2)—that we can trust the promise of eternal life it contains. Were Scripture merely the work of men, we could have no such confidence in its promise. No man can promise eternal life. God, who created life itself, can.
It is also because Scripture is breathed out by God that it serves as the governing authority for Christians. Stated differently, Jesus is our King, and Scripture is the word of our King. His ways are our ways; we love what he loves and hate what he hates.
That means that, as Christians, our gospel invitation to our surrounding culture is based in Scripture even when the culture seems hostile to that very Scripture. For we trust in what God said through the prophet Isaiah: “For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout . . . so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
Christians can have no such confidence in the power of the words of men, but we can have such confidence in the power of the words of God.
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