Why We Can Trust the Bible

[intro]The inspiration of the Bible is ground zero for the Christian faith. In fact, it’s really the starting point to understand anything about the foundational ideas of the Christian faith. You might ask, “Well, why not start with God, or Jesus, or the creation of the world, or the plan of salvation?” And the answer to that is simply this: Everything we know about God, or Jesus, or the creation of the world, or the plan of salvation is all based on what the Bible says about it.[/intro]

The Bible as Inspired

Todd Miles, the Director of the Master of Theology Program at Western Seminary in Oregon, captures the meaning of the Bible’s definition of inspiration:

“Inspiration is that concurrent work between our holy God and a fallen human author, whereby the Holy Spirit so moved the human author that God gave exactly what he wanted, a perfect product, without destroying or overwhelming the personality, training, vocabulary, or experiences of the human author.”

That’s an amazing statement! It means that the Bible, written over 1500 years with 40 human authors, really has only one Author! Each human author brings his own vocabulary, tone and construction to the writing, but it remains God’s word. Christians believe that the inspiration of the Bible teaches that the Bible is the very word of God. And there is a weightiness of authority to that. What that means is that to disobey or disbelieve the Bible is exactly equivalent to disobeying or disbelieving God. This is not how we read other books. When we open up the Bible, we are reading to understand God Himself. And this is an objective reality, and our motives or feelings cannot alter that fact.

Todd Miles went on to say, “Inspiration brings with it an authority that is awesome. To interpret the Bible is to seek and hear the very personal and authoritative voice of God. Inspiration entails that the bible reader is to seek to discover the meaning of a biblical text to its original audience, not create his or her own meaning … or own desires. Inspiration entails that there is a cost to sloppy interpretation. Inspiration also entails that when I interpret rightly and I disagree with the text, I really only have one option: Repent.”

The Bible claims to be the word of God; it claims to be truth – and therefore must be interpreted as such.

Paul, writing to Timothy, made the definitive propositional claim concerning the inspiration of the Bible:

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Notice that Paul talks about what the Bible is, before he proceeds to talk about its usefulness. First he says it “is breathed out by God.” Scripture is making a claim that that it finds its source and origin in God, not man – and that is why it is useful. There’s a difference between saying “it’s useful, therefore it must be inspired” versus “because the Bible finds its source and origin in God, it is useful.” Do you see the difference? Because Scripture is from God, it has authority in and of itself! It carries weight.

The Bible as Inerrant

Inerrancy means “without error” and that’s why we have those words in our Riverview statement concerning the Word of God. Millard Erickson defines inerrancy like this: “The Bible, when correctly interpreted in light of the level to which culture and the means of communication had developed at the time it was written, and in view of the purposes for which it was given, is fully truthful in all that it affirms.” Therefore, in the original autographs, the Bible is fully truthful and infallible – it does not err.*

The Bible is not a science book. It’s not geography book or geology book or an anthropology book. But, inerrancy means that the Bible is truthful when it speaks to areas relating to geography, astronomy and history, for instance.

The Bible was not written to have exhaustive knowledge in these areas, but it does truthfully point to historical people who lived in real geographical locations and understood things about the physical earth like the stars, the sun and the moon.

“If the Bible is not inerrant, then our knowledge of God may be inaccurate and unreliable.” – Millard Erickson*

Jesus and the Bible

Jesus held that controversial parts of the Bible happened just the way the Bible explained. In Matthew 19, it’s clear that Jesus believed in the account of Adam and Eve. In Matthew 12, Jesus believed the Bible’s account of Jonah and the fish. Also, in Matthew 24, Jesus held to the Bible’s account of Noah and the world-wide flood as accurate, reliable truth. In fact, Jesus staked his entire credibility as the Messiah and Savior of the world on the fact that all these things happened just exactly the way the Word of God claims.

Jesus lived his life on the basis that God’s Word was inspired and sufficient for all He would face in His earthly life. Therefore, God’s Word is sufficient for all we face in our earthly lives. We must treat the Bible with the same gravity, respect, and authority that Jesus did. Because the Bible is God’s Word, it is sufficient for all we face in this life.

This has been excerpted from the book Credo. Download a copy, or get a physical copy for free at your venue’s info center!

* Erickson, Millard J.,  Christian Theology, Second Edition, published by Baker Academic. Twelfth printing, 2009.