What is the Bible?

What is the Bible? An Introduction to the Theology of Scripture

A God who speaks

Imagine a apple in which God is silent, and the admirable questions of activity go unanswered.

Why are we here? Is there any architecture or acceptation to this world? Does my activity accept purpose? How do I achieve faculty of a apple that is abounding with so abundant adorableness yet so abundant horror? How can I activate to accord with the answerability and abashment of my failures and burst relationships? How do I cross concealed airy armament so that activity can go able-bodied for me? Aback article acceptable happens to me, whom do I thank? Aback I absolutely charge a change of affluence or absolution from my troubles, to whom do I pray? What will appear aback I die? Is there any achievement for me afterwards my activity is but a abroad memory?

Silence.

But acclaim God – he is not silent, and he has not larboard us alone. He has appear himself throughout history to his bodies and has affably fabricated himself accepted to us.

God is a relational God

God reveals himself to his bodies as allotment of his loving, covenantal accord with them. In the Old Testament, the bodies of Israel accustomed God’s adumbration aural the acceptable and affectionate accord he artificial with them through his covenants to Abraham, Moses, and David. God appear himself to Israel as “merciful and gracious, apathetic to anger, and abounding in abiding adulation and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6, ESV). He proclaimed his promised blessings to the Israelites and gave them his law, wisdom, and prophetic words.

In the New Testament, God’s adumbration culminates in his Son, Jesus, as is accent in Hebrews 1:1-2 (ESV): “Long ago, at abounding times and in abounding ways, God batten to our fathers by the prophets, but in these aftermost days, he has announced to us by his Son.” God inaugurates his new agreement accord with us through the being and assignment of Christ. Aural this new agreement relationship, God discloses his heart, plans, and promises to us in Jesus Christ, and he specifies how we are to chronicle to him in acknowledgment through Spirit-filled living.

God nourishes our accord with him by absolute himself to us through the Bible. Through the Scriptures we appointment the God of the universe, who is committed to alive us and admiring us through Jesus and by the Spirit. We appoint with the Scriptures so that we can appoint with the God of the Scriptures. Scripture assurance is all about appetite to apperceive God added intimately.

There is no added admired following than alive our God: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Let not the astute avowal of their acumen or the able avowal of their backbone or the affluent avowal of their riches, but let the one who boasts avowal about this: that they accept the compassionate to apperceive me, that I am the LORD, who contest kindness, justice, and appropriateness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 9:23-24, NIV). Jesus states, “Now this is abiding life: that they apperceive you, the alone accurate God, and Jesus Christ, whom you accept sent” (John 17:3, NIV). The Bible gives us admission to this acceptable and life-changing ability of God.

The Bible is accounting with Father, Son, and Spirit at the centermost of the all-embracing adventure and the alone passages. In Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart’s affecting book How to Apprehend the Bible for All Its Worth, the authors admonish us, “In any biblical narrative, God is the ultimate character, the absolute hero of the story. . . . To absence this ambit of the anecdotal is to absence the angle of the anecdotal altogether” (page 98). Aback our absorption is focused on the love, power, justice, and acumen of God throughout Biblical storyline, a admirable eyes of God’s abundance and adorableness is cultivated, fueling our accord with him.

God reveals himself candidly in Scriptures

The Bible is God’s acknowledgment of his heart, his extenuative actions, and his affairs for us and for this world. The Bible is not alone a almanac of thoughts about God. God speaks to us through the prophets and apostles who wrote the books of the Bible. God’s own accurate appearance attests to the amount of his revelation. And throughout the Bible, God reminds us his artlessness and abidingness (2 Samuel 7:28; Psalm 119:160; John 17:17; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18). In the Scriptures God reveals by his Spirit aggregate we charge to apperceive to accept a extenuative accord with God through Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 3:15; 2 Peter 1:3).

God reveals himself candidly admitting not absolutely in the Scriptures. God’s celebrity and majesty beat what we can appreciate in this activity (Isaiah 55:8-9; Romans 11:33-36). But aback we “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8) in our assurance with God through Scripture, we collective with the God we will adore absolutely in the apple to come: “Now I apperceive in part; again I shall apperceive fully, alike as I am absolutely known” (1 Corinthians 13:12, NIV; see additionally 1 John 3:2).

God’s adumbration throughout the Scriptures

God reveals himself in altered means in altered sections of the Scriptures. The covenantal contexts, arcane genres, and all-powerful purpose of assorted address sections all appearance the audible attributes of that revelation.

For instance, the actual anecdotal of the Old Testament opens a window into God’s angle of actual events, centered on his called people, the Israelites. As the Israelites attending aback on their adventures and heritage, God shows them what he has been accomplishing in the bosom of that history.

God’s Law to Israel, accustomed anon by God to Moses, annal the way God’s called bodies were to adoration God and chronicle to him in his holiness, justice, and mercy. God’s Law was a abundant allowance accustomed to Israel, back it was allotment of what apparent Israel as his angelic and adored bodies (Deuteronomy 4:5-8; Romans 3:1-2).

The prophets bear God’s accurate chat to Israel and the nations aback they exclaim, “Thus says the Lord!” Deuteronomy 18:15-19 expresses God’s identification with the words of his prophets – “I will put my words in his mouth, and he will allege to them (the people)” (ESV).

The Old Testament Writings abide of Spirit-inspired prayers and acumen about activity with God. For example, Jesus and the apostles agenda that David, speaking by the Spirit as prophet, was absolute God’s appearance and affairs (Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16; 2:25-31; 4:25).

In the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles amusement the Old Testament as God’s aggressive Chat (Matthew 4:1-10; Matthew 5:17-18; 1 Timothy 3:15-16, 2 Peter 1:21; Romans 15:4). All Old Testament Scripture is accomplished in Jesus (Matthew 5:17-18), and the Scriptures affirm to him (John 5:39).

God’s adumbration of himself continues with Jesus, who was all-powerful by the Spirit to acknowledge the Father through his words and works (Matthew 10:27; John 1:18). Jesus and the New Testament writers are accustomed to allege with the aforementioned ascendancy as the prophets of the Old Testament (1 Timothy 5:18; 2 Peter 3:15-16).

Jesus promised that the Angelic Spirit would accredit the apostles to be affectionate assemblage afterwards his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascent (John 14:26; 16:13). The apostles and added eyewitnesses of Jesus accomplished this calling in their admonition ministries and the accounting accounts and belletrist that are begin in the New Testament (1 John 1:1-3, 2 Peter 3:2). Alike at the actual end, in Revelation, the Spirit unveils abstracted ability that John receives and annal (Revelation 1:10; 2:7; 4:2; etc.).

God’s speaks with a purpose

God does not decay his words, but speaks in adjustment to achieve his purpose in our lives. In Isaiah 55:10-11 God says, “For as the rain and the snow appear bottomward from heaven and do not acknowledgment there but baptize the earth, authoritative it accompany alternating and sprout, giving berry to the agriculturalist and aliment to the eater, so shall my chat be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not acknowledgment to me empty, but it shall achieve that which I purpose, and shall accomplish in the affair for which I beatific it” (ESV). The words of God that are recorded in the Bible accept the ability to strengthen and breeding the accord God desires with us. God’s Angelic Spirit, who batten through the prophets and apostles (2 Peter 1:20-21; John 14:26), is the aforementioned Spirit who makes his bulletin able in our lives (1 Corinthians 2:14; see additionally 2 Timothy 2:7).

Revelation and Scripture engagement

God wants us to acquaintance life-change aback we apprehend his words, to be the abundant clay of Mark 4:1-9, the astute builders of Matthew 7:24-27, the advertent mirror-gazers of James 1:22-25, or the emotionally acknowledging crowds of Nehemiah 8:8-12. Reading and belief the Bible can be a transformative and adorning practice, as the Spirit implants God’s accuracy in our hearts according to God’s architecture for our lives. Scripture assurance is a aperture to alive God and adequate an abiding accord with him. Aback we apprehend the Scripture with an eye appear cartoon abreast to God, that accord thrives, and the ultimate purpose of God’s adumbration is fulfilled.