Day 18: What is the Bible?
We all need an authoritative source—someone or something—to give us the answers we need to our core life questions. The Bible claims to give us THE Truth about life; not A truth, but THE Truth. At the center of this TRUTH is the person of Jesus Christ. This week, we are going to consider why we are convinced the Bible gives us these answers.
2 Timothy 3:16–17
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The Bible is a controversial book. Some believe it is the most important book that has been given to us; some believe it is nothing more than a collection of good myths and wisdom tales. Others think it is completely useless and “out of date.” The goal for this week is to present the evidence for our confidence in the Bible as the source of Truth that tells us what is really real—reality.
We realize that we cannot prove that this is true, nor do we believe that we can convince anyone that this is true; that is the work of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:12-16; 12:3). However, we do believe that it is important to be able to give evidence for our confidence; we should be able to give a defense of the hope we have in us (see 1 Peter 3:15).
Key Definition: TRUTH
Truth describes and reveals reality—what is really real.
The Bible is unique among all other books.
The Bible has long been labeled Holy or Sacred. Both of these words point to the belief that the Bible is a unique book, different from all other books. Opponents and enemies of The Faith have long tried to destroy the Bible. Men and women have given their lives to protect and pass the Bible down to future generations. In our times, the Bible irritates and infuriates the elite intellectuals. There is no other book in the world which has been so loved and so hated.
There are many religious books in the world. We believe and affirm that the Bible alone gives us THE Message that the One True God wants us to know and understand. As we seek to find answers to our basic and core questions about life, the Bible give us an eternal perspective on our world and our place in it.
The Bible is also the ONLY book which leads us to Jesus Christ as our Creator, Savior, and King. This is why we believe it is unique and deserves our attention.
The Bible claims to be THE Truth.
One of the main reasons that the Bible is so controversial in our time is The Bible claims to reveal THE Truth; not just some truth or a truth, but THE Truth. Even more than this, the Bible claims that THE Truth is found in a person—Jesus Christ:
Ephesians 4:21
…you have heard about Him and were taught in Him,
as the truth is in Jesus…{NET}
This truth is specific and exclusive: The Truth is found IN Jesus. We are not going to try to “prove” these claims now. Instead, we first want to see how they fit into the Master Story the Bible reveals.
The Bible claims to be produced by God’s Holy Spirit working in the Hearts and Minds of its human authors.
2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is breathed-out by God…{ESV}
The Bible also claims that it is a Message that has come to us directly from God. The Bible was produced by God’s Spirit working through Human agents. In 2 Timothy 3:16 we hear that every Scripture is “breathed-out by God.” Just as our breath gives “life” to our vocal cords so that we speak, so also God’s “breath” (His Spirit) gave “life” to the thoughts and words of the human authors of the Bible. This is often referred to as the inspiration of the Bible.
Sometimes, God worked “behind the scenes,” moving the authors along so that their words were the words that God wanted to speak. Sometimes, God spoke directly through these people as with the Prophets. Peter makes this a little clearer when he tells us that the Holy Spirit of God was “moving” these men along:
2 Peter 1:21
… no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Peter is using the word “prophecy” in the sense of a “message directly from God.” These are messages from God, not from human imagination and thought.
The Bible tells One Master Story in its many individual books.
The Bible is made up of 66 individual books written by over 40 different human authors. When we trace the themes of the Bible from the first book Genesis to the last book Revelation, we discover that it is telling one unified and coherent story.
The Old Testament lays the foundation of the Master Story. The Bible is divided into two sections. The first section is referred to as the Old Testament and it tells the first and foundational part of the Master Story from Creation through the history of God’s chosen nation, Israel. The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew, the language of the Israelite people (The Jews), and so we will often refer to it as The Hebrew Scriptures. There are 39 books that make up the Hebrew Scriptures. These are divided into three general classes: Historical Writings, Wisdom Writings and the The Prophets.
The New Testament reveals the completion of the Master Story. The New Testament picks up the Master Story where the Hebrew Scriptures leave off and takes us from the birth of Jesus all the way to Eternity (Future) in the New Heavens and Earth. The New Testament was written in Greek and so we will often refer to it as The Greek Scriptures. There are 27 books that make up the New Testament. These books can be divided into three general classes as well: Historical Writings, Letters, and Prophecy.
Visualizing the Master Story
Take a look at this:
Named one of the best science images of 2008 by the National Geographic News, “Visualizing the Bible…brings to light the interconnected nature of one of the world’s most familiar books.”
What you are seeing: The dark bar graph that runs along the bottom represents all of the chapters in the Bible. The length of each bar denotes the number of verses in the chapter. Genesis is represented on the far left, Psalm 119 is in the middle, and Revelation on the far right. The arcs represent 63,779 cross references identified by Christoph Römhild. These threads show how key concepts are connected throughout the Bible.
The amazing thing about this illustration is that is clearly shows that the first chapters of the Bible are connected with the last. The Story of the Scriptures ends, in a sense, where it began. The Bible is not a haphazard collection of unrelated ideas. The Bible presents a unified and coherent message.
This graphic was created by Chris Harrison, a Ph.D. student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with Christoph Römhild, a Lutheran Pastor. You can visit his site to find the full resolution version of this image: http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/bibleviz (* We have inverted the colors in the version above)
Tomorrow, we will deal with the question: “Why Should We Trust the Bible?”
*You can find a complete list of all the MilktoMeat readings here.
