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“Faith-Building Fridays | The Bible's Own Claims”
Categories: Bible, evidences / apologetics
The Bible is a collection of things that prophets and apostles wrote over the course of many centuries, all brought together to tell us the story and the system by which humans can come to God through his son, Jesus. It’s a unified work, sewn together with common themes, common purposes, and a common story from beginning to end. And as Christians, we believe that the words contained in it were given by the mind and the mouth God.
We believe that God “inspired” the Bible writers, not in the sense that he just planted a small thought and left it to their best judgment to flesh it out, but that he put his actual words into their minds to be spoken and/or written down for people everywhere. That’s a big claim. One that is hotly contested by many, but one for which there is plenty of evidence.
The first big batch of evidence for this kind inspiration comes from within the Biblical documents themselves. The writers repeatedly state their belief that they are declaring words from the mind of God. Keep in mind that these claims were made by different men from different times and places. They did not claim to have contributed a chapter or a section to the overall work that is the Bible; they just understood that God was speaking a message through them which was relevant to the situation and the people right then. Consider a few examples:
When the Ten Commandments were given, the account began this way: “And God spoke all these words…” (Ex. 20:1)
When the commands in Deuteronomy were being delineated, Moses urged the people to “keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.” (Dt. 4:2)
When King David made his final speech, he opened by making the bold claim that “The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue.” (2 Sm. 23:2)
The introduction to Jeremiah’s large work begins with how the author got the message which he wrote: he was one “to whom the word of the Lord came.” (Jr. 1:2)
The Bible’s writers often stated their conviction that these words had come from beyond themselves. These words came from God, and that is why they must be heeded and obeyed. We’ll talk more about this same thought in next Friday’s post.
- Dan Lankford, minister
