Why The Big Deal About A Book?

Why do Christians hold on to a book so tightly? Why do they base their whole lives on words written thousands of years ago? What is it about the Bible the draws in so many people’s absolute trust?

The answer is simple; there is simply no other book on earth that compares to this one….it is the word of Almighty God Himself!

It Is Where God Is Revealed To Us

The Bible contains the entire and complete revelation of God. Everything we know about Him - in fact, everything we can know about Him has been written in these pages. His love, His mercy, His power, His faithfulness...these are all discovered in His Word.

It’s important to realize that all of God’s nature is revealed in the Bible. We don’t see it all, because so much of His nature is beyond our understanding. But whether we can understand it or not, it’s all contained in the pages of Scripture.

How do we know this? Psalm 138:2 tells us that God has “magnified [His] Word above all [His] name.” We’ve spent the last few week discovering His nature that is revealed in His various names. But here we see that God places an even greater emphasis on His Word than He does on His name. That’s how important this book is...it’s greater than His own name!

It Is Perfect And Complete

God’s Word contains His entire revelation; there is simply no truth outside of it. John 17:17 tells us that God’s Word is truth. Psalm 119:43 takes it a step further and declares “The entirety of Your word is truth.” All of the truth is found contained inside the sixty-six books of the Bible.

How do we know that the Bible we have is complete? After all, aren't there different churches that have different books in their Bibles? Could there be something in our Bible today that wasn’t actually intended to be scripture? And could it be possible that there is more out there that should’ve been included?

To answer this question, we must look at the two-fold history of the writings.

The Hebrew Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) was already intact long before Jesus’ birth. The dead sea scrolls prove to us what the Jewish scribes considered Scripture and what they did not. The twenty-four books in the Hebrew Scriptures contain the same words that we have in our Old Testament, although it's arranged differently. (For example, they don’t separate the books of Samuel, Kings or Chronicles like we do.) This text was well-known to be the words of God Himself when Jesus arrived in Bethlehem. And we see in the life and ministry of Jesus, that He placed His seal of approval on the Old Testament scriptures; not discounting any of it or adding anything to it.

Incidentally, none of the Apocryphal books that are sometimes called “scripture” (such as the Maccabees or Tobit), were ever considered by the Jews to be Scripture. In fact, we see clear evidence that Jesus Himself did not hold to the Apocrypha in Luke 11:51 “...from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.”
Abel was killed in the Book of Genesis - the first book of the Jewish Scriptures.
Zechariah was killed in the Book of Chronicles - the last book of the Jewish Scriptures
Jesus point in this passage was that the blood of all of the righteous men killed in the Old Testament was going to be laid on the heads of the generation that rejected Him. But He noticeably did not include any of the Apocryphal books - even though there were plenty of righteous men killed in them too. Jesus sealed up the debate of what Old Testament Books were scripture...and it’s the thirty-nine books of our Old Testament.

The New Testament has the same type of authority behind it. We know that the early church was already using some of the New Testament books as scripture - even before the New Testament was finished.
1 Timothy 5:18 calls the book of Luke “scripture”.
2 Peter 3:16 refers to the writings of Paul as “scripture.”
The Gospel of Matthew was already being circulated among the church during the events of the book of Acts!
The Early church kept a firm grasp on the writings of the original apostles, and had a good understanding of what books were scripture and what books weren’t.

It’s a fascinating thing to see how much the first generation of church fathers (those who led the church after the death of the original apostles) quoted from the writings of the New Testament. We could actually reproduce most of the New Testament simply from the writings of these men! They were studying, teaching from, and quoting the words of the New Testament writings even before they were collected together into one book!

Christian understand this: No church council made the New Testament God’s Word. Sure, there were different councils that revoked heretical and incorrect books from being considered “canon”. And there were other councils that worked to collect and reproduce the books that were already known to be scripture. But these writings were already God’s word...no human authority made it that way!

Nothing to be added

The twenty-seven books of the New Testament complete the thirty-nine books of the Old. Together, they give us the perfect and entire revelation of God and His plan for us. There is no book that can add to this revelation!

In fact, Hebrews 1:1-2 clearly tells us that there was a shut-off point for Biblical authorship. Here’s what it says: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son…”

First, understand that “the prophets” is a Jewish term for the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. The men that wrote down God’s words as He revealed them were correctly referred to as His prophets. Over time, that term came to refer to the writings themselves. So as the writer of Hebrews refers to the “prophets”, he’s speaking specifically of the writings of Scripture.

Second, take a look at the phrase “in these last days”. In the Greek, this phrase literally says “in the last of these days”. What does this mean? In the last of what days? He’s speaking about the last of the days that God would reveal His written word to human writers, the way He did with the prophets of old.

So this verse is understood this way: “God, Who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets (who wrote His words in scripture), has in the last of these days (the days that men would be used to write Scripture) spoken to us by His Son…”

Evidently, according to this passage, the days of God revealing Scripture to men - and then having those men write it - will come to a close when God speaks directly by His Son. The point when His Son personally speaks His Word to a prophet to write down - that point will be the last of the days when Scripture is written. That’s the cut off. Nothing after that point could be called God’s Word.

So isn’t it interesting that the final book we have in the New Testament was given directly from the mouth of Jesus Himself? The Book of Revelation was given to the prophet John straight from Jesus Himself. Revelation is the direct fulfillment of Hebrews 1:1-2, and this was the last of the days when God’s Word was being written.

It’s in the last chapter of this final book that we read this:
Revelation 22:18-19 “For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
The final “Amen” in Revelation 22:21 is the close of God’s Word...and nothing can be added to it and be called Scripture.

It Was Written By God Through Men

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…”

This phrase has only three words in the Greek, yet it is a powerful statement concerning the origin and authority of the Word of God.

The first Greek word is “pas” - which means “all” or “the whole”. This is referring to the Bible in its entirety. It reaches all the way back to the book of Genesis - the beginning of the Jewish Scriptures. And at the time when Paul wrote this verse, the word “all” also reached forward to the books of the New Testament that hadn’t been written yet! This one phrase applies to all of the Bible!

The second Greek word is “graphe” - which means “writing”. This is an important point: It wasn’t the writers that were inspired, it was their writings. That’s a crucial difference! The men themselves were ordinary men like you and I. They weren’t capable of producing inspired writings by themselves. The writers did not produce the Word of God on their own, but once their pen hit the parchment, the Holy Spirit took over and inspired their words.

The last Greek word of this phrase is “theopneustos” - and it’s what we’ve translated as “inspiration of God”. When we use the word “inspired” today, we tend to mean “motivated” or “energized”. Today it’s come to mean something like this:
“I was having company over tomorrow, so I was inspired to clean my house.”
“That song was inspired by the artist’s wife.”
“My friend is my inspiration to go to the gym.”
“This movie is inspired by a true story.”
Unfortunately, the word inspiration has simply come to mean, “the reason why we do something.”

But the Greek word “theopneustos” means something totally different than what we often call “inspiration”. It comes from two Greek words:
“Theo” - God
“pneuma” - breathe
So theopneustos literally means “breathed by God.” That’s the origin of these writings, they were God-breathed!

Now put these three words together: “Every word written in scripture was breathed out of God’s own mouth.” What a powerful statement of authority! Everything thing that God is, everything that makes Him God, was breathed out of His mouth into the writings of the men that He chose. This is the whole reason we call the Bible “God’s Word”.

It Is The Only Book Deserves Absolute Faith

This is why we can confidently say that there are no mistakes, errors, or contradictions in the Scripture. The Bible contains “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4) Since we know that it is “impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18), we can completely trust in whatever the Bible says.

Time and time again, external evidences have confirmed the accuracy of what’s written in the pages of Scripture. History, science, anthropology, paleontology, archaeology, biology, astronomy, and anatomy have all backed up and strengthened the truth that we find in the Bible. There have been countless times when the secular world had to admit they were wrong about something and the Bible had it right all along. It can be trusted completely!

This is good news for us believers! After all, if the Bible can be trusted when it speaks of history or science, then other claims that it makes can be trusted as well.
Statements like this one - “What manner of love the Father has toward us, that we should be called His children” - have much more of an impact when you realize that the Bible has never lied.
Promises like “by whose stripes you were healed” and “my God will supply all your need” can be trusted wholeheartedly because the One Who promised them has always been true to His Word!

No other book on earth has ever been as proven as the Bible. No other book has been criticized, slandered, laughed at...and then has always been proven right. No other book deserves this kind of faith.

We’ll talk about the evidence that supports the Bible later on. But for now, know this: The only reason you need to trust the words in its pages is that it is the Word of the almighty God!