WHAT IS THE BIBLE?

Man is meant to have fellowship with God. We cannot have fellowship with anyone we do not know. Part of the purpose of all God's dealings with man is that He may be known by man; and He so made us that we are capable of knowing Him.

We cannot know God of ourselves. He must reveal Himself to us. He has done this most clearly in Jesus Christ His Son. It is said of Jesus that He is God's "Word", living among men in a form that men could see, and speaking with a voice that men could hear (John 1:14). God has put us in a material world, in which all that we know reaches our mind first through eye, ear, smell and touch. But we are not only material. We are also of the spirit. That which we know may remain real to us, may even become more real to us, as it becomes part of our spiritual nature. When we truly love people it is no longer important whether their physical bodies be near us or not.  In the same way, Jesus may be as real to us today as He was to His disciples in Galilee. Through the presence of His Spirit He is as near to us as He was to them. Jesus remains always the highest and the only full and perfect revelation of God.

Next to Jesus and His Spirit, God's Word comes to us in the Bible. God, Who speaks so clearly in Jesus Christ, speaks to us also in the men, good men, chosen men, who wrote the Bible. God new that man understood truth best when it is represented in the form of a story. So this very great revelation of God comes to us in the form of a story. Jesus used this way of teaching. God, Who showed Himself in Jesus Christ so that man could see Him clearly, still speaks to man through other men in the Bible.

Let us then look at several answers to our question, "What is the Bible".

1. A LIBRARY OF BOOKS

We have said that a number of men wrote the Bible. It is NOT ONE BOOK, but a collection of sixty-six books. None of the people who wrote these books new at the time that they were helping to write sacred Scripture. The Spirit of God Who taught them, uses their work to reveal God to others.

All Kinds of literature are found in the Bible. There are books of history and law. There are books of meditation expressed in poetry and hymns of praise. There are stories of the lives of great national and religious leaders, and collections of the sermons of the prophets. There letters addressed to groups as well as individual people, and traditions coming down from the early days of history. Many writers, known and unknown, produced this wonderful collection of literature over a period of perhaps a thousand years. The early Greek-speaking Christians called this collection by a word from which we get a word "Bible", meaning simply "the books". The word "Scriptures", which means "writings", is also commonly used in speaking of the Bible. The books are in two groups, each bearing the name "Testament", a word that means "Covenant".

2. A LIBRARY OF CHOSEN BOOKS

Both the Jews in Old Testament times, and also the early Christians in New Testament days, produced many more writings than those we find in the Scriptures of the two Testaments. The sixty-six books of the Bible have been chosen from a large mass of religious writings. These chosen books are called the "Canon" of Scripture. This is a Greek word meaning a measuring-rod are rule. Used in this way the word means that a certain rule or measure is applied to sacred literature to determine which books must reach a standard of spiritual value so high and true that they must be included among the recognized Scriptures.

A large collection of books not included in the recognized Scriptures is called the "Apocrypha", a word which means "hidden" or, "not for public use". This collection is sometimes bound up together with our Bible, between the two Testaments, because many of it's books were concerned with the period. 

THUS the books of our Bible have been selected from among many holy books, because the church found by its own experience, and through he guidance of God's Spirit, that they contain the "Rule" or "Canon" of that faith proclaimed by men in whom God spoke (2Timothy 3:16).

3. THE STORY OF UNFOLDING REVELATION

There is no kind of knowledge that man's mind can grasp perfectly and at once. It is true to say that "all education is progressive". Man's power to understand truth is a power that develops with age, experience and training. If this is true of other kinds of knowledge, it is certainly true also of knowledge of the things of the spirit, that is, knowledge of God.

We know that Jesus, the perfect teacher, said to His disciples: "I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear them now"; and His words are linked with a promise that the Spirit will guide them into truth (John 16: 12-13).

Two of the most important things to remember in Bible study are these:

a) The revelation the Bible gives us is an eternal revelation of God's nature and purpose;

b) This revelation comes to us through forms suited to a people whose understanding was at first limited, but whom God leads through many centuries from low things to high things; in other words, it is a revelation which is gradually unfolded as man is able to understand and comprehend.

We are not left without guidance. The Spirit of God did not cease His work of enlightening mans mind when the Canons old the Old Testament and the New Testaments were fixed. We use the help of translators and commentators who seek to make truth clear to us, comparing one with another and reaching our own conclusions with honesty and courage. But let us do it all in sincere and humble reliance upon the leading of the Holy Spirit; for He alone can reveal to us the deep things of God.

from "The Bible - Its Meaning and Purpose" by Edward W. Grant

In conclusion:

THE BIBLE IS THE TRUE WRITTEN WORD, INSPIRED BY GOD, BY WHICH HE MAKES HIMSELF KNOWN TO MAN.

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