Understanding Scripture – What the Bible Says About Itself
Isaiah 40:8: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
Estimates suggest that over 5 billion copies of the Bible have been printed, making it the most widely circulated book in existence. It has been translated into over 3,500 languages, with over 700 translations of the entire text. Launched in 2008, YouVersion, the digital Bible app, has been installed in over 400 million devices as of 2020, and Gideons International, the organization known for placing Bibles in hotels, hospitals, schools, and prisons, has alone distributed over 2 billion Bibles since its founding in 1899.
In contrast, the Quran and the Book of Mormon are the next most widely circulated religious books, with hundreds and tens of millions of copies distributed. On the non-religious front, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (The Little Red Book) is estimated to have over a billion copies printed, Don Quixote by Cervantes has distributed over 500 million copies, A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens over 200 million copies, The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien over 150 million copies and Harry Potter’s seven-book series by Rowling collectively has over 500 million copies in distribution.
The Bible has a significant influence by sheer volume alone, but it remains an enigma to many. What does it mean? What does it offer? And how can it be appropriated?
In this series, I’ll attempt to answer these questions. We should begin by understanding what the Bible says about itself.
What the Bible says about itself
The Bible claims both to offer salvation and to be the inspired word of God:
2 Timothy 3:15-17: “…you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Think about that for a moment. The Bible—the most widely circulated book ever written—claims to be the actual words of God, the creator of the universe, and that it offers the way to salvation for humanity. Approximately 40 different biblical authors, including prophets, kings, priests, shepherds, fishermen, and apostles, writing throughout a 1,500-year period of history, are unified in their belief that the Scriptures are the actual communication of God with an offer of salvation. One can either believe this, assume they’re all lying, or that they’re all insane—there are no other options. Since they’re harmonious and without disputes, they would have to be all lying, all crazy, or all telling the truth.
The Bible claims that only those who are saved can even understand the Bible:
1 Corinthians 2:14-16: “The natural [unsaved] person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual [saved] person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
The Bible claims that since it is spiritually appraised or inspired by the Holy Spirit, it can only be truly understood by someone who has been redeemed. It makes no difference if one has a doctorate in theology or not; the Bible can only be understood by one who is a true believer in the saving faith of Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:26-27 supports this notion when it states, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” Over and over, the Bible shows that salvation is a sovereign choice of God, not something according to worldly standards of wealth, prestige, and power.
The Bible claims its words to be the very power of salvation:
Romans 10:17 makes this claim distinctly, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Other verses confirm this; for example, Paul, in Romans 1:16, exclaims, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
Granted, Christ’s Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 commands all believers to share the gospel and train up new believers, but they are only ambassadors; the real power is the words of the Bible, which, again, are the very words of God Himself.
The Bible claims to be complete unto itself and should not be added to or modified.
The Old and New Testaments command us not to alter God’s word. Deuteronomy 4:2 states, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.” Revelation 22:18-19 is even more graphic in its warning, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which is described in this book.”
All religions outside of Biblical Christianity openly violate this command. Many who call themselves Christians have either added another book to the Bible, added the traditions and magisterium of the church itself to the Bible, or outright altered the very words of Scripture. All of these efforts to circumvent God’s pure word with man’s thoughts and ideas change the context and meaning of what God intends and is a violation of His commands.
In summary, the Bible is the inspired, perfect word of a perfect God. It offers salvation and can only be understood if one is saved. Finally, the Bible is complete unto itself.
The power of the Bible is not through osmosis; it’s through reading and hearing the word. A challenge: maybe start with 1 John and read the entire book.
Next week, we’ll discuss the different translations.
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Go here to read more articles in this mini-series.
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I “second” your summary that “the Bible is the inspired, perfect word of a perfect God”.
Yet, statistics and behavior show that only 4 to 6% of those who identify as Christians are Biblically literate... so sad.