What is the Bible?
The Bible is the most important piece of literature for Christians.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, CSB)
Bible Basics
Oftentimes you will hear the Bible called “The Word”, “God’s Word”, or “Scripture.” The Bible isn’t just for the elite or only pastors and priests, but for everyone, from the youngest children to the oldest adults. While we can agree it was written by different human authors, it is a book about God, even in places where He isn’t directly mentioned.
There are seven words that we use to describe the Bible. We can even use the acronym IIISCAN to help remember them.
1.The Bible is INSPIRED. This means we believe that the words were penned by humans but inspired by God Himself. They are Divine words. 2nd Timothy 3:16 clearly supports this: “all Scripture is inspired by God…” 2nd Peter 1:20-21 also supports this:
Above all, you know this: No prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 20-21, CSB)
2. The Bible is INERRANT. Well, this isn’t a word you hear often. This word simply means free from any errors. We believe that the Bible has no errors in it. Some skeptics do not agree with this characteristic of the Bible because they find what they believe to be “errors” within the English translations of the Bible. But we must remember that the Bible is a compilation of books written over the span of thousands of years and in original languages that were not English. The Bible that we think of was simply separate scrolls and parchments until around the year 367 AD when it was put together as the canon we know today. Keeping these things in mind, we can conclude that there were no errors in the original transcripts in the original languages of the texts in the Bible.
Psalm 18:30 supports this fact:
God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is pure. He is a shield to all who take refuge in him.
3. The Bible is INFALLIBLE. Another word we don’t hear often. This word means that the Bible is literally incapable of having an error. Because we know this, we can believe wholeheartedly that the Bible is trustworthy!
Psalm 119:60: “The entirety of your word is truth, each of your righteous judgments endures forever.”
4. The Bible is SUFFICIENT. So the Bible contains all we need. Looking at the main verse for this post, we can see this truth.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17, CSB
5. The Bible is CLEAR. Now this one gets me sometimes because my humanly self doesn’t always understand what I am reading when I open my Bible. But just because of my human failure to understand, does that mean that this principle of the Bible is invalid? Nope. So some things to keep in mind with this principle are: some portions of the Bible are more clear than others; not every passage in the Bible has an obvious meaning; the main things we need to know, believe, and do are clear in Scripture; what is necessary for salvation is very clear and can be understood by anyone. So while smaller parts of the Bible may be confusing, the most important aspects are clearly stated for us.
For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17, CSB
6. The Bible is AUTHORITATIVE. So the Bible alone has the final standard of truth. All authority for how we should live our lives is given to God’s Word.
“This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands. The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him.” 1 John 2:3-5, CSB
7. The Bible is NECESSARY. Simply put: we need the Bible.
He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4, CSB
We know that the Bible is God-centered and supports the concept of the Trinity, even though we do not see the word “Trinity” ever written in the Bible. While yes, the Bible was penned by human people, it contains words that are directly given by God.
But How?
You may be wondering how we got the canon of the Bible, or the thick book with 66 smaller books that we use today. For the New Testament, early church fathers looked at all the writings that the church had traditionally used or thought of as words from God. They decided the parts that were inspired by God based on three things: apostolicity, catholicity, orthodoxy. (I know, I know. Here we go again with the big words that are weird. Let me explain.)
Was the text written by an apostle or someone close to them? (That is apostolicity.)
Was the text being used in Christian worship and widely affirmed? (That is catholicity.)
Does the text affirm and not contradict other parts of the Bible? (That is orthodoxy.)
Translations
There are a variety of translations that have been made from the original parchments and scrolls of Biblical texts. The earliest translation of the Old Testament into Greek is referred to as the Septuagint or LXX. You may often see this mentioned in the footnotes of your Bible. About 630 years after the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate became the first translation to have all scripture in the same language within one book and one binding. Translations for the English Bible began in the middle ages due to several men who felt that average people deserved to be able to read the Bible themselves. These all influenced the 1611 King James Version of the Bible.
Fast forward to 2023, and now there are well over 50 different translations, just in English! That’s crazy to me! Why so many you may ask? There are three main systems of thought when it comes to translations: word-for-word translations, thought-for-thought translations, or a combination of the two. Examples of word-for-word translations you may be familiar with are the English Standard Version (ESV) or the New American Standard Bible (NASB). Examples of thought-for-thought translations include the New International Version (NIV) or the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). The version we on this blog quote mostly from is the Christian Standard Bible (CSB), which can be considered one of the translations that is a balance and combination of word-for-word and thought-for-thought.
As of September 2023, the entire Bible has been translated into 736 languages. This sounds amazing until you learn that there are over 7,000 languages spoken in the world. I look forward to the day when we can say the Bible has been translated into that many languages so every person can have the ability to read God’s Word in their natural language.
Fun Facts
There are 66 books total in the Christian Bible.
39 books are in the Old Testament and 27 books are in the New Testament.
The oldest book is Job.
In the book of Acts, 14 of the 30 Old Testament references are about Christ.
In the entire New Testament, there are about 280 directly quoted references to the Old Testament.
The Bible was originally written in 3 different languages.
The Bible was originally written from 3 different continents.
In the original languages, the Bible is about 611,000 words long.
The longest book of the Bible is Psalms.
The shortest book of the Bible is 3 John.
Conclusion
The Bible is a massively important book for us as believers. Yes, sometimes it may be challenging for us to read and understand because the culture in which it was written is so different from ours. Nevertheless, it is vital that you study the Word and seek to find the meaning that God has given.
