Why we love, teach & obey the Bible

Phil Allcock
February 23, 2018

‘You have to be mad to base your life on the teachings of a 2,000 year old book. Utterly mad!’

I had just explained to another dog-walker that my position on some controversial issue was determined by the Bible. He almost exploded in apoplectic amazement. The ‘discussion’ only ended because he had recently had a stroke and the others hastily changed topic for fear he was about to have another one.

Every year since records began the Bible has been the best-selling book in the world – and the most shoplifted!  Yet in London it is increasingly ignored or despised.

In our churches we love, obey and teach the Bible. But why? Why is Bible-focussed ministry one of our non-negotiables?

The Bible is the Word of God

At its heart, the answer is very simple: we love, obey and teach the Bible, because it’s the Word of God. The Bible is not just words about God. It is the Word of God. The theologian BB Warfield declared, ‘what Scripture says, God says.’ But why do we believe this? Why give the words of this book more credibility than our own thoughts about God, or the teachings of the church? Ultimately, it is because that is what Jesus teaches us to do.

Things are relatively straightforward when it comes to the Old Testament. Jesus repeatedly affirms that it is the Word of God. Perhaps the most helpful passage is Mark 7, where Jesus states that the Old Testament is God’s word and that as such it should have authority over the teaching and traditions of the religious leaders:

“‘You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother’…[but] you nullify the Word of God by your tradition'” (Mark 7:9-13)

What about the New Testament? Jesus gave his own teaching equal status with the Old Testament Scriptures. In the sermon on the mount he declares:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” (Matthew 5:21-22)

Of course, he never wrote anything himself, but he commissioned the apostles to preserve his teaching for us: “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26) The apostles understood that their writings had the same status as the Old Testament – Peter talks of Paul’s letters alongside ‘the other Scriptures’ (2 Peter 3:16). The clear, consistent message is that from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21, the Bible is the Word of God.

‘But how can a book written by humans be the Word of God…?’

The traditional term for explaining how words written by humans can also be the Word of God is ‘inspiration’. It means that the Holy Spirit enabled the writers – He breathed His words through theirs. Peter writes that the “prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:21) The verb ‘carried along’ is also used to describe the storm wind driving Paul’s ship across the Mediterranean in Acts 27:27. Just as a boat moves by the power of the wind and the steering of the sailor, so the Scriptures were produced both by the writing of men and women, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Note that Paul affirms that “all Scripture is God-breathed…” (2 Timothy 3:16). We cannot say that some bits are the Word of God and  others are not.  Of course we must interpret it carefully giving due attention to matters of genre, context and biblical theology, but as Calvin declared ‘We owe to the Scriptures the same reverence which we owe to God, because it has proceeded from Him alone, and has nothing of man mixed with it.’

‘I want God, not words about God…’

What is the relationship between God and His word? People sometimes say that they want an experience of God, not just the words of the Bible. What they (and perhaps we also) fail to realise is that God is present through his word. This should not surprise us, because when you think about it, words are more like people than things. Try saying to your friend or your spouse, ‘I’m not ignoring you, just your words…’ Although we are not our words, they are an extension of us. That is particularly true of God. When we read through the Bible we see that God is personally, powerfully present in his world through his word. Where God’s word is, God is. 1 Samuel 3:21 tells us “The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.” When God’s voice is heard, you can say ‘God has appeared.’ So Jesus, the word made flesh, is the climax of this pattern. God is personally, powerfully present in his world through his word.  As we open our Bibles, ‘the Lord is here!’

Authority, Necessity, Sufficiency & Clarity

Traditionally, reformed, evangelical theologians have spoken of four attributes of Scripture. We might call them four implications of the fact that the Scriptures are the Word of God: The authority, necessity, sufficiency and clarity of scripture. All our churches happily endorse these doctrines, but what do they mean?

Authority

God is our creator and king and so his words are not to be debated, doubted and weighed; they are to be trusted and obeyed.

The authority of Scripture often comes under attack from two directions:

Since the Enlightenment, many have doubted the intellectual credibility of a book that describes a man living for three days inside a fish, a literal Adam and Eve and Jesus walking on water. Although there are robust intellectual responses to the various attacks, our ultimate trust is not in an argument, but a person. We believe that Jonah survived miraculously in the fish and that God created humans, because Jesus teaches it (Matthew 12:38-42; 19:1-4). It boils down to this: there is good, solid historical evidence that Jesus died and then rose to new physical life. If that central claim about Jesus is proven, then we can trust him for all the other claims too.

In the 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza suggested that we strip out the supernatural and historical claims of the Bible so that we are just left with the moral teaching. But today it is the morality of the Bible that people find more objectionable than the miracles! Again there are cogent, robust responses to the attacks of the New Atheists, but ultimately we trust the morality of the Bible because we trust the person of Jesus. If Jesus is God he has the right to tell us what to do with our lives. Furthermore, in Jesus’ example we see the beauty and health of a life lived according to God’s word.

Of course the most significant attacks on the authority of Scripture are those that we find in our hearts – the stubborn resistance that wells up when Scripture says things we find hard. These are perhaps the things that will cost us relationally or financially, the  things that will involve great pain and self-sacrifice. At that point we need to remember that these commands are not just words on a page. They are being said to us by the Lord who loves us. We need to hear them as spoken from the lips of one with nail marks on his hands, as well as a crown upon his head.

Necessity

We are ignorant of God and can only know him because he has chosen to reveal himself to us through his written word.

Psalm 19 and Romans 1 teach us that all humanity should know of the existence of God through the creation around us. However, as the second half of that Psalm declares, it is only through the word of God that we can move from knowing about God to knowing God. Both our sinfulness and our creaturely limitations mean we are incapable of arriving at the truth about God ourselves.  We need him to reveal himself to us.

More than that though, we need him to reveal himself through the unchanging words of the Bible. As sinners who justly deserve God’s wrath and eternal death in hell, our greatest need is not a relational experience of God speaking into my heart, but concrete certainty about the salvation he has achieved in Jesus Christ.  Francis Schaeffer was an intellectual giant of the Christian faith in the second half of the 20th century. But old age robbed him of his sharp mind, and as the approach of death began to overwhelm him he asked that they would place his Bible within reach. He could no longer read it, but he wanted to be able to hold onto something concrete, something tangible. As he faced death he needed promises he could physically touch! How kind of God to give us his written word.

But of course, that’s only half the story. Never forget the stunning words of Hebrews 3:7. The writer introduces a quotation from Psalm 95, written a thousand years beforehand, in this way, ‘So, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear his voice…”’ The unchanging words of this book are also the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to you and to me today!

Sufficiency

In Scripture God has told us all that we need to know to find salvation in Christ and to live a life pleasing to God. This doctrine is grounded in Paul’s teaching in 2 Timothy 3:15-16:

“…the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work”

We rely on the Bible in evangelism because people are saved when they put their trust in Jesus, and the only true Jesus is the Jesus revealed in the Bible by the apostles. We don’t love the Bible because we love books, but because we love Jesus. To move from sound to sight, the Bible is the window through which we see the glory of Jesus Christ. Without the window we cannot see Christ at all. We don’t love the window because we have a passion for glass and an obsession with sash fittings. We love the window because it is the only way that we can behold the beauty and majesty of Jesus our saviour. It’s not a perfect analogy, but I hope it helps.

The Bible is also sufficient for life. Many of us harbour a nagging inner desire that God would speak to us directly with his guidance – ‘Holy Spirit satnav’ telling us what to do as we face all the tricky decisions of life. God could do that, but let’s not turn what God could do into what God can be expected to do. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that the Bible is sufficient for all of life. The Bible contains commands that guide us through the moral maze of life. The Bible also teaches wisdom where there are no relevant commands. The wisdom teaching of the Bible shapes our characters, so that we become the kind of people who make wise choices even when we can’t find a verse that addresses our particular situation. God has not hidden his guidance in impressions, dreams and coincidences. He has spoken clearly, giving us all that we need.

Clarity

The Bible can be understood by us as we make use of the help God has provided. Of the four attributes, this is the one we are most likely to doubt. After all, we have had experience of struggling to understand the Bible, and we know that lots of people interpret it differently. So what does it mean?

In essence, the clarity of Scripture affirms that God is God, and so we should not doubt that he is capable of communicating in a way that we can understand. That doesn’t mean that all parts of the Bible are equally easy to understand. Peter says in 2 Peter 3:16 that some parts of Paul are ‘difficult to understand’ (Paul might respond that 2 Peter 2 is not the easiest passage!).

Likewise the New Testament assumes that to understand the word properly we need to pray for one another (most of the New Testament is addressed to us a group, not individuals), and that we need Bible teachers (Acts 8, Ephesians 4:11, Titus 1:9, etc). Remember that Jesus appeals to the Bible when arguing with unconverted Pharisees. He assumes its meaning is clear (see Matthew 19:3-19, 22:23-33, etc). Let’s not think we know better than our Lord!

Of course, 2 Timothy 2:7 reminds us that it requires more than hard work to understand the Bible. We need “the Lord [to] give you insight…” This perhaps explains why nothing makes the Bible harder to understand than a heart that is determined to disobey.

I heard recently of a Bible seller in Syria who was charged with spreading ‘inflammatory political propaganda’ – he had been distributing copies of the book of Romans. The magistrate demanded that the author be brought before the court. The man explained that this might be difficult as its author, Paul, had been dead for almost 2,000 years! What’s striking is that the official would not believe him, because as he read the text of Romans it seemed to him so clearly written to address the issues of modern life in their state.

Around 3.6 trillion words are written in emails and on social media every single day. A blizzard of new words greets us every morning of our lives. All these new words really don’t have anything new to say. The same news in different places, the same ideas in different forms. In our Bibles we have words that have not changed for thousands of years. Yet every morning as we open this book, they come to us anew with freshness and relevance, because ‘the Word of God is living and active!’

That’s why as Co-Mission churches, we will always love, obey and teach the Bible. As we open our Bibles, ‘the Lord is here!’

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