Hello! If you haven’t been following this topic from the beginning, this now is the 4th post in a six-part series that is looking at the question: What makes the Bible so special and why bother at all to read it today?
One of the basic things understood by People of the Book (followers or ‘Believers’) today is that, as the Maker’s Handbook, the instructions that Father God has for those He made in His own image, and that are laid out for us in the Bible, are vital because…
– The Creator God is its Author.
If it’s the ‘Word of God’ then it’s His word – the words are His words:
“All Scripture is inspired by God [God-breathed – it comes from the mouth of God] and is valuable for teaching, reproof, correcting and training in righteousness.”[i]
Practically, we all know that it was penned by humans. About 40 writers were involved from all walks of life: kings, shepherds, scientists, attorneys, royal administrators, an army general, fishermen, priests, and a physician to name a few. They wrote a collection of 66 books in the library that makes up the Bible and it was compiled over 1,500 years!
If this doesn’t already make it a unique book, it’s completely out-of-the-ordinary for its perfect harmony, consistency and supernatural cohesion. Not one book conflicts with another in any way – even with the incredibly wide variety of people involved, the diverse situations and life experiences that are spread out over the number of centuries that it took to compile it. This is because they wrote under the inspiration of the One transcendent Spirit – God’s Holy Spirit – who is not limited by our own time and space. Peter, one of Jesus closest friends, said:
“We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it … Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”[ii]
Because the Bible is the library of words from the perfect Creator God for those He made, then…
– The Scriptures are “Infallible” – they’re perfect – faultless.
Anyone who follows the Creator God will agree to one thing: He’s perfect. He doesn’t make mistakes nor does He do things in half-measures. So thinking logically then, a perfect God wouldn’t have given us imperfect or insufficient communication. Neither would He preserve so amazingly for us such imperfect or insufficient communication. But there’s an old English saying though: The proof is in the pudding. So the proof that the scriptures in their original language are ‘the infallible Word of God’ comes in two ways:
- In the everyday experience of more than two billion people worldwide. People who have read the translated versions of it in their own language, and who then claim it’s faultless in their own personal experience. Surely a third of the world’s population can’t be wrong!
- The scriptures have also been supernaturally preserved like no other ancient documents in the history of literature. The Creator God’s Words have been miraculously handed down to us for more than five millennia. So using logic, if it wasn’t 100 percent of what our perfect God wanted us to have, He wouldn’t have preserved them. He could have conveniently lost the message in time – as has happened to the literature of all of the other great empires from the ancient past. This would be way easier than preserving them in perfect detail right down to the content of private conversations.
If we stop to think about it, ancient Israel was a tiny, insignificant country compared to the great empires of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome who seemed to take turns in overthrowing her. So how did that tiny little country manage to leave us 66 books in perfect condition? We also have tens of thousands of manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts! No other ancient empire left us such a complete range of documentation like that is Israel!
So the Scriptures are said to be ‘God Word’ – His own message for us though penned by humans. That being so, they are considered infallible – without fault. But if you are wondering whether the script in our modern day languages can be trusted, especially after a two thousand year gap in time, then I invite you to click on to my next post: 1.5 How Reliable are Today’s Bibles?
[i] 2 Timothy 3:16 (making reference to Deuteronomy 8:3 and Matthew 4:4)
[ii] 2 Peter 1:19-21 [NIV]