Bible

God Has Spoken—to You!

Imagine hearing God's voice! Moses did (Num. 1:1). Scripture gives little indication of what that experience was like, but it does say that the Lord spoke to Moses “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex. 33:11). Perhaps you wish that God would speak to you that directly. But actually, He has—through the Bible.

The Bible claims to be from God. Though its words were written down by people, they are words that God has spoken. Throughout the first five books of the Bible, Moses states again and again that he is presenting what God said to him (for example, Ex. 24:4).

Likewise, Moses declares that the Law was revealed to him by God (Ex. 25:1, Lev. 1:1; Num. 1:1; Deut. 1:6). In fact, the phrase “the Lord spoke to Moses” is repeated thirty-three times in Leviticus alone. Later, the New Testament would affirm Moses' insistence that his commandments came from God:

• Jesus used the words “God spoke” in citing the incident of the burning bush (Mark 12:26).
• Both Jesus and the Pharisees acknowledged the authority of the Law as coming from God (Matt. 19:4–7; John 9:29).
• Stephen cited Moses' writings as God's words (Acts 7:6).
• Peter indicated that Moses and the other prophets “spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21; compare Heb. 1:1).

God spoke clearly to Moses. He has likewise spoken clearly to us, through His written Word, the Bible. Countless Jews and Christians down through history have preserved His message since it was given. Many have spent their careers and even their lives to make it available to us today. The Bible has been banned, burned, and, to some, supposedly “debunked”.yet still its truth stands. It remains the test of orthodoxy for all who claim to be of God or speak of God's ways.

Yet the question remains: Do we read and obey what God has said?

A Word to Live By

For many people today, the Bible remains a closed book. One reason is that some people have the mistaken idea that the Bible is a mysterious collection of encoded teachings that only a few wise or holy people can interpret. But God's Word is not a mystery. It never has been. From the beginning of time, God has spoken clearly, in terms that humans can understand (Heb. 1:1–2).

Moses reminded the Israelites of this fact as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. God had given them His Law at Sinai (Deut. 5:4–5, 22), so there was no need to go searching to find out what He wanted (30:11–14). He had already made plain what His will was. He even wrote down His Law on stone tablets so that the people would have a permanent record of it.

Believers today also have a permanent, written record of God's Word—the Bible. And though a few parts of Scripture may be hard to understand (2 Pet. 3:15–16), it is generally not a mystery. We need not resort to subjective revelations or any other strange practices to interpret its meaning. The Bible's message becomes evident when we read it according to normal principles of reading.

However, the most important thing about Scripture is not just that we read it or study it, but that we live it, that we obey the Lord (James 1:22). God did not give us His Word merely to inform us, but to change our lives.

A Completed Story

Peter wants us to feel confident that the Scriptures are as valid and trustworthy today as they were when they were first written (2 Pet. 1:21). He also gives some information on the process God used to get His Word written down in a permanent form.

The “older testament”.which exists today in thirty-nine books, was written mostly in Hebrew over a thousand-year period, hundreds of years before Christ. The twenty-seven books of the “newer testament” were written in Greek during the first century after Christ's birth. As the various writings came into existence over the centuries, the people of God corporately studied and recognized them as being the Word of God.

The two testaments together tell a completed story. Testament means “covenant” or “agreement” between God and humanity. The Old Testament is “old” in the sense that it reveals a covenant made at Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:3–6; 24:3–8). The New Testament or covenant was accomplished by Christ through His death on the cross (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25)

The Bible: Getting the Big Picture

As Paul indicates to Timothy (2 Tim. 3:16–17) and many other passages affirm, the Bible is the ultimate authority for Christian faith and practice. It is crucial to interpret Scripture in light of its overall context.

The Bible as it has come down to us is laid out in two parts: the Old Testament, covering the period before Christ, and the New Testament, the period after Christ. The biblical record is a three-part story:

Part I: God's Original Creation (Gen. 1–2). The eternal God created a perfect, beautiful world and put it under the management of Adam and Eve and their successors (Gen. 1–2). No one knows how long this part of the story lasted, but Scripture devotes only the first two of its 1,189 chapters to telling it.

Part II: The Human Dilemma and God's Response (Gen. 3—Rev. 20). The second part of the story takes up all but the last two chapters of the Bible. Two story lines weave throughout the record. One reveals how the balance and beauty of creation is terribly damaged by sin and rebellion. The other unfolds God's response to rescue His creatures and the creation from this dilemma. His redemptive work is promised through Israel (as recorded in the Old Testament), provided through Christ (as recorded in the Gospels), and then applied in and through the church (as told in Acts and the letters). The Book of Revelation's first twenty chapters display events related to Christ's return to earth.

Part III: The Achievement of God's Original Design (Rev. 21–22). The last two chapters of the Bible tell the final third of the story. They offer great hope to the reader by promising a new heaven and earth. God's original intentions for the creation will finally and fully be achieved. This parallels and fulfills Genesis 1–2 and also reflects the values of Christ, who is the focus of the whole Bible.

The Bible: Trustworthy and True

Is the Bible a trustworthy document? Are the Scriptures true as written? Or are they full of myths that may have symbolic value but little if any basis in fact? People have been questioning the biblical record almost from its beginnings. Peter, for instance, encountered skepticism as he presented the gospel in the first century. His claims about Jesus were nothing but cleverly devised fables, some said—a charge he vehemently denied (2 Pet. 1:16).

Today the Bible's credibility and authority are still attacked. Yet how many of its critics have carefully studied its teaching? How many have even looked at the story of how it came to be written?

A careful reader will recognize that the Bible is not so much a single book as a library of sixty-six books. It contains a variety of literary genres: history, poetry, narrative, exposition, parable, and “apocalyptic” (see Rev. 10:1–10). Its many authors wrote during a period of some two thousand years using three languages—Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Probably all but one were Jews.

Remarkably, the writers tell one unified story:

• They offer the same understanding of God throughout. He is one God, Creator, Savior, and Judge. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and eternal. His character is holy, good, loving, and just.
• They offer the same understanding of human nature. People are made in God's image and are capable of great good. Yet they are also sinful and capable of great wickedness. The great need of humanity is to be reconciled to God and to each other.
• They offer a common understanding of Jesus Christ. He is both God and man. He became a real human being in order to show the world the God it could not otherwise perceive. Something deeply significant happened as a result of His death on the cross, making it possible for God and humanity to be reconciled.
• They offer the same hope. God will accomplish His purposes for His creation.

Aside from the internal evidence that Scripture is what it claims to be—the very words of God—is a growing body of external evidence that supports its reliability as a document. For example, scholars have found many contemporary sources that parallel the Scriptural record. For instance, Jesus is mentioned by two Roman writers of the first century, Tacitus (Annals 15.44) and Pliny the Younger (Letters 19.96), as well as by some Jewish writings of that period, including Josephus (Antiquities 18.3.3) and the Mishnah, a collection of traditions under compilation in Jesus' day.

Another body of research that proves invaluable for biblical studies is archaeology. Countless discoveries have helped to verify the text of Scripture, most notably the Dead Sea Scrolls. Likewise, digs throughout the Mediterranean have supported biblical references to various places and people and the events of which they were a part thousands of years ago.

The more one examines the evidence, the more one becomes convinced that the Bible is more than a cleverly devised tale. It has the ring of authenticity. But in that case, readers ought to pay attention to its message. That is the ultimate issue. As Mark Twain aptly put it, it is not the things in the Bible that people can't understand that prove troublesome, but the things they can understand. Even if people are convinced that the Bible is true from cover to cover, will they heed its message?

The Power of God's Word

This publication that you are reading is based on the belief that Scripture really is the living and powerful Word of God (Heb. 4:12). As this verse shows, the Word speaks to heart matters—intentions and motives. Ultimately, people make choices and act on the basis of their underlying values and notions about what is true and right. God's Word is the authoritative standard by which all thoughts and actions are to be measured.