What is the Bible?

The bible is a compilation of 66 books to make a larger book. It was written over a period of around 1500 years and has nearly 40 authors. Ultimately, it has one central author which is God. We believe that the bible is what you would call inspired. The words in it, even though humans penned them, are inspired by the Holy Spirit in people. This means that every word that is written in the bible, we believe is the words right from God.

What you may not have thought about with inspiration though is how can we have different translations of the bible that have different words in them? I want to deal with the translations first. There are numerous different translations of the bible. You have some that are word for word, thought for thought, and what you would call a paraphrase. I would typically shy away from paraphrases because I believe there are details that could be missing. So I would suggest a word for word translation or a thought for thought.

A lot of people put a big emphasis on what translation you use. There are churches that will not let you be part of the church unless you will affirm that the bible they use is the only one that is real and all the other ones are wrong. So let’s talk about that.

How do we get translations? The translation process is where they take the original documents in the original language and translate it into a modern language. For us that is English. The most well known English translation is the KJV. But it was not even the first one. The first complete english translation of the bible was the Wycliffe Bible that was released in 1382. I think that one thing that all of us could agree on is that our english language has changed significantly in the last 700 years.

But not only has our language changed, but they have discovered thousand more manuscripts that they can use to ensure accurate translation. When the KJV was translated, they only had a handful of manuscripts that they were able to use. Because of discoveries of more manuscripts, there are over 5,000 manuscripts to look to for accurate translation. This is not me saying that the KJV is a bad translation. It is a good translation and I believe that it has stood the test of time. But it is not the only translation of the bible that is accurate. Even the translators put a preface in the KJV of the bible that they knew it was not perfect.

There is no perfect translation of scripture. I am going to help us out with this because this may be unsettling. But if I use the NIV and someone else uses the NASB and we both think that those translations are perfect, then one of us is wrong. Because they use different terminology and phrases, so if they aren’t exact replicates of each other, then they aren’t perfect.

We have what seems like 100’s of english translations of the bible and we still call it the inspired word of God. How do we reconcile this? The doctrine of inspiration does not deal with the translations that we hold in our hands today. When we say that God’s word is inspired, we are referring to the process of how the original documents were composed. Inspiration ended when the pen was put up. After this, the doctrine of preservation kicks in. This means that we believe that God has preserved his word in a manner that accurately gives us the stories in scripture and displays his character to us today.

So do we believe that all of our translations that we have today are inspired and inerrant? The simple answer is no, but we believe that God has preserved his word for us to continue to have today in an accurate manner. We must trust and have faith that God has preserved scripture for us to accurately have today and we trust that what the bible translations we have today say are true.

The bible is 66 books broken up into two main parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The OT deal with the founding and the history of the nation of Israel. How he uses the nation of Israel to bring about the coming of Jesus and how he preserved the genetic lineage of Jesus through the people of Israel. The NT is about Jesus. His life, death, and resurrection. And how his followers were tasked with spreading the gospel and the building of the church. This is what the bible is. But what about what the bible is characteristically. In the bible, it displays certain attributes about itself that we believe and we are going to look at.

Authority

I made a statement already that is the argument for the authority of scripture. I said that ultimately, all the words in scripture are the words of God because of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There are statements all throughout scripture that are made with the phrase, “Thus says the Lord”. This is because they are truly the words of God that are spoken and written by humans. When we read the NT, we see that they speak of the OT of being God’s word. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”. All scripture is breathed out by God. When this was written by Paul, their bible was the Hebrew bible. It was what we call the OT. So is Paul saying that only the OT is considered breathed out by God? What about the NT? It wasn’t all written and compiled yet. So do we consider the NT books to be inspired?

Even during the time of Paul when he was writing to individuals and churches, they considered the writings of Paul as scripture. 2 Peter 3:16 “16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” They considered the words of Paul to be the very words of God.

But even more than that, in the book of 1 Timothy, Paul quotes two scriptures in one thought and calls them both scripture. One being a quote from Deuteronomy and the other a quote from the book of Luke. He does not hesitate to call both of these scripture.

God claims that the words of scripture are his words. So if he claims this, then there is not authority higher than his that we could go to for proof of this claim. Scripture authorizes itself as the authority. And that is because it is the very words of God. If the bible were to contradict itself in anyways, it would discredit itself. But it does not do this. The bible supports and defends the bible. It has authority.

Clarity

Have you ever read a passage of scripture and thought that you have no idea what this says? I think we all have. But, we do believe that everything that we absolutely need to understand about scripture, is extremely clear. There are some mysteries in scripture but we can trust that the things that we absolutely have to know are clear.

Scripture makes us wise to understand scripture. So the first time you pick up a bible as a believer, that doesn’t mean that everything is going to make sense. And even as you develop and mature, how you interpret scripture may be different than someone else. Does this change the clarity of scripture? Absolutely not. We may disagree on how certain passages are interpreted.

When we disagree on how to interpret things, the problem is not with the scripture. The problem is us. Sometimes, we just don’t understand. This does not change the clarity of scripture. What we need to do is to keep digging and studying to better understand scripture.

Necessity

I remember growing up that I was told there were only 2 things that I had to do in this life. Pay taxes and die. But as a believer, we can add one more. We need scripture. What we need to live as Christians and grow as Christians is presented to us clearly in scripture. We need it. We need to read it and we need to hear it explained to us. This is how we know God personally. Through his word.

Romans 10:17 “17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

We need God’s word. We need God’s word to be able to come to faith. That is clear. But do we need it afterwards? Absolutely. Because it is through God’s word that the Holy Spirit grows us. We need it to live out a Christian life. This is why we should no longer affirm someone’s salvation if after they make a proclamation, that they turn from the church and ultimately the word of God. They see no need for God’s word and therefore see no need for God.

Matthew 4:4 “4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ””

We need it to live. To neglect God’s word would be detrimental to our spiritual health. You would not go days and days without eating food. That would not be healthy. This is why we need spiritual disciplines in our life to help us spiritually. God’s word feeds us more than any physical food ever will.

It feeds us. It also is the one place where we clearly see God’s will. Have you ever heard someone tell you that God “told” them to do something. Well if it goes against scripture, we know that this is not true. God is not going to tell you to cheat on your husband or wife. That would go against scripture and make God’s authority null and void. God’s will in his word is the clearest place that you will find God’s will.

Sufficiency

This is one of the best words to describe God’s word. It is sufficient. We now have the complete bible. Unlike the ones that we read about it scripture, we can pull out God’s word and search it for answers. It helps us to grown and learn and do and to love.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

For teaching , reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. It is profitable for all of these things.

Let’s say that an issue comes up. For example, I have a friend who pastors a church and his family had begun going to church there. His brother had been outspoken for many many years about his support for gay marriage and for abortions. Well his brother decides he wants to join the church. My friend tried to work with his brother on these issues but he refused to declare what God’s word says about these things to be true. Should he have let his brother join the church? Absolutely not because he is declaring that God’s word is not true in this instance. He is denying the sufficiency of scripture.

We go to God’s word to see what we must believe about things like this. Now, if you are wanting to know quantum physics, scripture is not where you need to go. If your kid needs help on their homework, you might need to find a scripture to pray to give you the strength to help, but you won’t find the answer there. But for morality issues and the issues of life, this is where the answer is found. It is sufficient.

So, if scripture does not deal with something that is explicitly or implicitly, then we have a hard time calling it a sin. If it is lawful to do, and scripture does not forbid it, then we can’t call it sin. So we must be careful of not putting our own thoughts as a law or a sin. Is it a sin for me to smoke cigars? Although it would be better for me to go to the gym instead of smoke one, it is not a sin.

Here is a good one that was told to me that I broke. A preaching must wear a suit and tie. I would love to know the scripture it says that in. It may be in the book of 2nd Opinions but it ain’t scripture. They didn’t even know what a suit and tie was when the bible was written. So just be mindful that although you may think something should be right, that doesn’t mean that it is a sin to go against your opinion.

Conclusion

So we have talked about where the bible came from, and why it is authoritative, clear, necessary for us to have it, and how it is sufficient to all of our spiritual needs.

So let’s end this with a couple of questions for you.

Why is it important that the bible be the basis of our beliefs?

Will the bible definitively answer every question we bring to it? Why or why not?

What is one issue that the bible speaks clearly on? What is one issue that it doesn’t? How does this effect the emphasis that we place on these particular issues?