Theology Thursday: Why does the Bible have authority?

Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him.

Welcome to Theology Thursday!

Today’s question:
Why does the Bible have authority? Should we even care what it says?

Pastor Brady’s thoughts:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. - 1 Timothy 3:16-17

In my Sunday sermon I preached these words about our faith: “Ask yourself: is this true? If so, so what? What does that mean for my life? If this stuff is hogwash, it means nothing. If it’s true, it means everything. What it cannot be is true and meaningless.”

This is the case for the holy scripture - our Bible - as well.

If the Bible is the inspired word of God, then it is true, reliable, and supremely useful in that it guides our convictions and character and, when properly interpreted and applied, it has authority to inform our thoughts, practices, and relationships.

To say it another way: if the Bible is God’s very word revealed to us, and we understand it accurately, the natural implication of that fact is for us to fashion our entire lives around being and doing what it says. It has authority over and beyond all other wisdom, tradition, and claims to inspiration.  

If!

Is it? Does it?

This can be a bit of a circular debate, because ultimately our knowledge of God and scripture comes from scripture, but at the same time we see its truths and the wonder of God’s creation played out all around us as we live out our faith and navigate our lives in relationship to God’s world.

Without getting too deep in the weeds here, there are significant historical, scientific, archeological, logical, and philosophical arguments in defense of the Bible’s accuracy, especially when compared to other ancient documents that span the same eras.

But, ultimately, our acceptance of the authority of the Bible comes down to our willingness to place our faith and trust in Jesus. Jesus often taught directly from the Old Testament scriptures, and the writings of the New Testament were crafted by authors whom Jesus directly commissioned with authority and competency to make disciples.  

The MCC Statement of Faith (available on our website) summarizes this whole discussion well:

When thinking about the Bible’s authority, I like to use the word “infallible,” by which I mean it cannot fail in what God sets out to accomplish. Which is to say, the 66 books included in the canon (the agreed-upon set of writings) of scripture, cannot fail to communicate the truth we need about God to be justified (saved into righteousness), and sanctified (trained in holiness and transformed into the image of Jesus).

As Orpheus J. Heyward puts it in his book God’s Word: The Inspiration and Authority of Scripture, “The Bible is God’s uniquely inspired message to humanity that infallibly reveals God’s identity, character, and will - and the path to salvation. Its purpose stands regardless of cultural winds or human weakness.”

This means the Bible is true regardless of how difficult it is to accept its truth, and remains so even when humans poorly interpret its passages or fail to follow its commands. We are not perfect, but the word of God is.

Of course, to say the Bible is infallible and authoritative is not to say that it teaches us everything there is to know about every single subject matter. Rather, the Bible is a reliable and trustworthy set of documents - written by human hands guided by the Spirit’s power - that expresses God’s will for humanity.

It’s important to remember that while we worship the triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit) revealed to us in the Bible, we do not worship the Bible itself. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring humanity to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God. We study and engage with scripture so that we may delight in the presence of God and know him deeply, not just with our heads but in our hearts as well.

God gave us scripture so that we could know him, and so that we could know more fully how he desires to save and change us.

The history of the church - the global family of believers across time and place and denomination - is the history of God’s people operating under the authority of scripture. Often faithfully, sometimes poorly, but always with the universal acceptance that God gave us his word in the writings of these works of history, poetry, wisdom, biography, prophecy, and letters.

That’s not proof, of course, but Jesus said in John 14:15 “If you love me, keep my commands.”  

We have a savior who died for us on behalf of the truth revealed in the Bible.

I guess the question is, then: how much do you truly trust Jesus?

Related Resources:
Article - How to Read the Bible
Video - How is the Bible Our Final Authority?  
Book - Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible

To know Him and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to minierccstaff@gmail.com and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.