We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors.
#Word of god speek free#
Here’s how we say this in our statement of faith (from the Evangelical Free Church of America), and it is affirmed by everyone who becomes a member of this church: It is not our word about God, it is God’s Word to us. I want to make it very clear that in this church, we do not view the Bible as a collection of human words or thoughts about God.
If the Bible is merely a collection of human words about God, it will be natural for you to say, “That was then, but this is now.” If you believe that the Bible is a human word about God, you may want to read it for inspiration, but when it does not fit well with your view of life or of the world, you will feel free to disagree and choose your own path. What you believe about the Bible will shape how you use it, and how you respond to it. In the other, the Bible is our word about God. In the one, the Bible is God’s Word to us. These are two very different views of the Bible. If you believe this, then it is reasonable to conclude that it began very crude, and over time, our view of God has become more sophisticated. And the Bible would not be God’s words to us, but the record of our words about God. If this were true, then the Bible would be the evolving story of human thinking about what God might be like. You can imagine how some began to say, “We’ve been told that the story is all about God. The Bible is essentially a story about God: God’s world and God’s Word to mankind.īut the new thinking turned all of that on its head. The church believed that God exists, that God has made himself known, and that the Bible tells us what God has said and what he has done. The church had always held the conviction that the Bible was God’s word to us. It’s fascinating to follow the story of how in the years that followed, some leaders in the church began to recast their view of the Bible in the light of evolutionary theory. I say nearly 2,000 years, because about a hundred years ago some people introduced a new and very different view of the Bible.Ĭharles Darwin grasped the minds and hearts of many people with his theory of evolution, suggesting that the world could be explained entirely by natural causes and processes. The Christian church has been in agreement for nearly 2,000 years that the Bible is the Word of God, one that speaks primarily about his Son, Jesus Christ. The word of Christ, the Bible, is God speaking to us about his Son, or God speaking to us through his Son. In him, believers are rooted and built up and established in the faith (2:7). In him, God has triumphed over all the dark powers (2:15). This is the great theme of Colossians: In him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (1:19).
The whole point of the Bible is that we should come to know and enjoy and love and serve and believe in and live for Jesus Christ the Son of God, who is the Savior, the Lord of all. In the New Testament, he is revealed and enjoyed. In the Old Testament, he is hidden and anticipated. Jesus Christ is the central figure in the whole Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus took two confused disciples through the Old Testament Scriptures, showing them “ in all the scriptures, the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:27). Jesus said to the Pharisees, “ The Scriptures… bear witness about me” (John 5:39). The whole Bible is one story and it is all about Jesus Christ. That phrase is only used here and one other place in the New Testament, but it reminds us of a very important truth that we often emphasize here at The Orchard. Notice that God’s communication with us, which is normally referred to as the Word of God, is described here as the Word of Christ. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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