01.09. Chapter 1 What the Bible is

Chapter 1 What the Bible is Hope for the world The Bible is a book that tells us about God and shows us his plan for the human race. It starts by telling us about his creation of the world and the people for whom he prepared it. These people began life in a state of perfection and lived in harmony with God, but when they rebelled against him the harmony was lost. From that point on, the Bible’s story is a record of human-kind’s repeated failures and God’s constant help.

All wrongdoing is in some way a rebellion against God. It is what the Bible calls sin, and all people are guilty of it. Therefore, they are liable to God’s punishment, but God in his love provides a way of escape, or salvation, for them. He makes it possible for them to be saved from the consequences of sin and find true life.

God offers this salvation to all. When people turn from their sin and ask for his mercy, they are assured of his forgiveness. But his forgiveness is not irresponsible; his salvation is not hap-hazard. He has a careful plan that gives meaning to the history of the human race. The Bible shows how that plan developed.

God’s plan To begin with, God chose one person (Abraham), and from that person he made a nation (Israel). He gave that nation a land to live in (Palestine, or Canaan) and a code of behaviour to live by (the law of Moses). This law-code was given not to threaten or burden people, but to regulate life for the maximum benefit of everyone. Israel was a privileged nation in being chosen to demonstrate God’s standards to the world. At the same time it was, in a sense, a sample of the world’s people, and therefore a sort of test case to show how people responded to God’s law.

Israel soon showed that people were unable to live up to God’s standards. The law-code, though good in itself, showed up human sin, as a light shows up the dirt in a dark and filthy room. But just as the light cannot remove the dirt, so no set of laws could remove sin. People needed more than a set of laws. They needed a saviour, someone to cleanse them from sin and save them from its consequences.

God then showed the chief purpose for which he had chosen Abraham and preserved Israel, namely, to produce a saviour for the fallen human race. God actually entered the human race through one of Abraham’s descendants, Jesus Christ. Jesus also lived under God’s law, and that law showed him to be sinless. Then, willingly, he died on behalf of the sinful, to bear God’s judgment for them. More than that, he rose to new life to give people new hope. Those who turned from their sin and accepted his salvation then took the news of that salvation everywhere.

One book in two parts The part of the Bible that covers the story before the time of Christ is called the Old Testament. It was written originally in the Hebrew language and is a collection of thirty-nine books of varying sizes and styles. Among the books in this collection are historical books, wisdom books, songbooks, prophetical books, law books, and short stories. With the coming of Jesus Christ, a new era dawned. The latter portion of the Bible, which begins with the birth of Jesus, is therefore called the New Testament. It was written originally in the Greek language and is a collection of twenty-seven books, all written within the first century of the Christian era. Some of the books are historical, but most are letters that leading Christians wrote to churches or individuals, giving instruction concerning Christian belief and practice. In most Bibles today, the books are divided into chapters, and the chapters into verses. These divisions were not part of the original writings, but were put in centuries later by well-meaning Jewish and Christian leaders. The divisions can be a help, because they enable readers to find a particular place more readily; but they can also be a hindrance, because they break up the continuity of the writing. The sixty-six books of the Bible were written over a period of perhaps 1400 years by about forty authors. In spite of this, there is an underlying unity to the Bible. Each of the sixty-six books can be understood by itself, yet each has greater meaning when seen as part of the whole. God’s plan of salvation, centred on Jesus Christ, gives unity to the Bible. It is one book. From God through ordinary people

One reason for the Bible’s unity is that it is more than just a collection of writings. The entire book comes from God; he is the source of its authority. The writers wrote what God wanted them to write, so that the Bible carries with it the authority of God. It is therefore called the Word of God, or Scripture. The activity of God upon the writers that caused them to write his Word is called inspiration. ‘All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults and giving instruction for right living’ (2 Timothy 3:16). The word ‘inspired’ is not able to indicate fully how God used people to write his message, but it is the best word the translators could find. The Greek word was literally ‘God- breathed’. God ‘breathed out’ his truth through the writers. The word means more than that the writers were inspired as a poet or musician might at times be inspired. It means that in some special way the writers were ‘under the control of God’s Spirit as they spoke the message that came from God’ (2 Peter 1:21). This does not mean that God used the writers without their personality or understanding playing a part. God did not use them as a person might use a typewriter. They wrote intelligently out of circumstances that prompted them to write.

Paul, for example, wrote to the church in Corinth partly because he had heard of problems there and partly because the Corinthians had asked his advice on certain matters. Luke wrote an account of the beginnings of Christianity to provide a high- ranking official with a reliable record. In doing so, he gathered his material from secular documents, conversations and other sources, and arranged it into an orderly presentation. Whatever the process may have been, God was working along with the writer so that the completed work was also God’s Word.

Human and divine

Different books of the Bible are written in different styles, and reflect the different personalities of the authors. Among the authors are lawyers, farmers, historians, doctors, fishermen, preachers, government officials and musicians. With each book, God chose the person whose personality, background and training suited his purposes at the time. He used a downtrodden farmer such as Amos to denounce the oppression and corruption of Israel’s upper classes. He used a university-trained person such as Paul to develop and apply Christ’s teaching to the early Christian church. The writers of the books of the Bible may not have been aware that their writing would one day be part of the Bible. But their writing was God-directed, whether they knew it or not.

Every part of the Bible is human and divine – not one or the other, but both together. It is God’s message in human language for the human race. Each book says what God wanted to say, and at the same time says what the author wanted to say. A variety of teaching methods

Through the Bible, God shows not only what is right but also what is wrong. The Bible therefore records things of which God disapproves. It may even contain statements that sound impressively religious but are wrong. In the book of Job, various orthodox believers in God argued at length with Job about his beliefs, but the book points out at the end that their overall argument was faulty. The person inspired by God was not the debater who spoke the words, but the writer who recorded the words. God inspired the writers to record those things that would make his truth plain. The Bible is not a collection of holy sayings. God does not necessarily teach people by using one-line instructions or simple proverb-like statements. Certainly, some books of the Bible give direct instruction, perhaps through a teacher or perhaps through the lessons of history. Others, however, contain stories without any direct religious teaching, and some, such as Job, teach what is right by exposing what is wrong.

Authoritative and living No matter how the Scriptures present their teaching, Jesus and his followers regarded them as an authority against which there could be no argument. Repeatedly they referred people to the Scriptures with words such as, ‘It is written in the Scriptures’ or ‘Have you not read in the Scriptures?’ The Bible’s authority was absolute. It could not be lessened or cancelled. What the Scriptures said, God said.

Christians are likewise aware that as they read the Bible, God speaks to them through it. The Bible is more than just a sacred book from a former era. It is something ‘alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet’ (Hebrews 4:12). The Bible’s work is not merely negative in exposing sin, but is positive in pointing to a better way. It is food for the spiritual life. Only as Christians read it, understand it and put its teachings into practice will they develop into the sorts of people God wants them to be. It is possible to become a Christian through only a small part of the Bible, but to grow as a Christian requires much more. If people want a fuller understanding of the sort of person God is and the kind of life he requires them to live, they will need all God’s Word, both Old Testament and New.