John 16:4-15
If you go to our church website and click on the “Who are we” tab, you would find our statement of beliefs. The first statement you will read goes like this – “We believe the Bible is God’s Word given by divine inspiration, the record of God’s revelation of Himself to humanity.” It is trustworthy, sufficient, without error—the supreme authority and guide for all doctrine and conduct. It is the truth by which God brings people into a saving relationship with Himself and leads them to Christian maturity. Now it’s easy to read this statement. It’s possible to brush over it as some common religious declaration. But it makes an astonishing claim. It claims that this book, written by human hands, is the Word of God. John Piper writes “If the claim is true, and if the book claims to teach the only path to eternal life, then this book is more important than any other book. It has more to offer us than any other book. And what it offers is of infinite importance.”
But as we saw last week, a lot of people don’t believe there’s anything special about the Bible. And why do we need a Bible anyway? Many people around us don’t pay attention to it at all. They live their lives with no reference to the Bible. Our country used to base some of its laws on the Bible. But now we remove any reference to the Bible from our laws or public discussion.
So do we really need the Bible?
