Foundation Topic

Is the Bible Authoritative?

We come under the authority of the Bible because we want to trust, listen to, and obey the voice of God, who speaks through it. The Bible's authority comes from its Author and his claim upon our lives. Whenever we want to reject the authority of the Bible, it's often because of the change it would require in our lives.

Short Content

What Is Your Authority?

Let’s say you get a desk delivered to you in the mail. If you start assembling that desk from the box, you will refer to the manual that comes with it. You will probably carefully read the instructions and make sure the manufacturer included all the parts and pieces before you begin. You will plan how you will finish the task and pay careful attention to the images and directions inside the manual.

You would not start reading the gardening magazine on your coffee table to help you assemble your desk. That wouldn’t make sense. You don’t refer to any authority when you need help, you refer to an authority who is an expert about your need.

We read cookbooks when preparing a meal, home magazines for interior designing tips, and consult professional athletes for fitness tips. Professionals create content with the intention of making your life easier by helping you with a task or question in their field of experience or education.

You refer to authoritative voices when in need of specific guidance.

So, what do you refer to when your entire life needs guidance?

By entire life, we mean your biggest, deepest questions like why am I here, what’s the meaning of life, how do I know what’s right and wrong, and what happens when I die?

Do you refer to self-help books? Blogs of people with similar experiences? Advice from friends and family? Can these resources handle these questions accurately, and authoritatively?

Ultimately, our authorities all seem to originate in other people. But where did these experts get their information? Other people. And where did they get their information? Other people. You can see how the cycle doesn’t seem to end.

We find ourselves asking, who is the final authority on these things?

There is one book that was written by someone perfect in wisdom. He didn’t need to refer to bloggers or authors when he wrote his content. He didn’t need to do research to make sure he was accurate. He didn’t need to write, edit, proofread, and rewrite over and over. His work has always been infallible.

His content is the Bible, and "he” is God. The Bible addresses all aspects of our lives in principle, and the most crucial life questions, directly. Whatever problem you face, the Bible can comfort, correct, or counsel you.

What, would you say, is your ultimate authority on the most foundational questions about life?

Your conscience? Science? The universe? Has that been an infallible authority for you? Has it ever failed you? Is it a reliable authority for your entire life?

Many people want to be their own and only authority. This is a dangerous way to live (Jeremiah 17:9). Our guess is if you’re anything like us, you have failed you more than anyone else in your life. You’ve said nastier things to yourself than anyone else in the world. And, you have led yourself to do things you regret. And, you don’t really have all the answers.

God did create us to wield authority. He made us little kings and queens of creation because he made us like himself (Genesis 1:26-27). Though he told all creation to bow to us, he designed us to bow to him. He has not left us without counsel—we have just chosen to reject his authority (Genesis 3; Romans 1:21-25).

But the Bible in our hands or on our phones is a living testimony that there is a God in heaven who has spoken and preserved his Word for you. Your Creator can tell you what you need to know most about life. Life is best when resigned to the design of our good creator.

The question is, will you open his book?

by Bibles.net 

OPEN YOUR BIBLE

Theme Verse

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

John 17:17 NIV

Why Is the Bible Our Authority?
Article: 7 Min

An Open Letter
to My Friend
Who Does Not
Believe in Jesus

by Bibles.net
Definition

The Authority of the Bible

Our claim is that God has revealed himself by speaking; that this divine (or God-breathed) speech has been written down and preserved in Scripture; and that Scripture is, in fact, God’s Word written, which therefore is true and reliable and has divine authority over men.

by John Stott

Quote

What Has the Last Word in Your Life?

Whether we realize it or not, we all give someone or something the last word—our parents, our culture, our community, our feelings, the government, peer-reviewed journals, opinion polls, impressions, or a holy book. We all have someone or something that we turn to as the final arbiter of truth claims.

For Christians, this authority is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Of course, we can misunderstand and misapply the word of God. But when interpreted correctly—paying attention to the original context, considering the literary genre, thinking through authorial intent—the Bible is never wrong in what it affirms and must never be marginalized as anything less than the last word on everything it teaches.

by Kevin DeYoung | Source
Verse
2 Timothy 4:3-4 NIV

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Quote

The inspiration and
authority of the Bible
are the bedrock
upon which our
faith is built.
Without it,
we are doomed
to uncertainty,
doubt, and a
hopeless groping
in the darkness of
human speculation.

Messages: 47 Min

What Is Truth?

by R.C. Sproul

Verse
John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Quote

What then is truth?
Truth is what God says,
and we have
what God says...
in the Bible.

Article: 5 Min

Six Views of the Bible

by Bibles.net

How Does the Bible Have Authority in Our Lives?
Quote

You are to
deal with Scripture
in such a way
that you bear
in mind that
God himself
says what is written.

Messages: 44 Min

The Authority of the Bible

by Alistair Begg

Quote

Why the Bible Is Our Standard of Truth

"Evangelicals derive their doctrine of the Bible from the Bible. Isn’t that circular reasoning?” Well, yes, but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate the reasoning. Our doctrine of the Bible is no more circular than scientific theories. Everyone uses circular reasoning to defend the ultimate authority for beliefs. While the ultimate standard of truth for evangelicals is God and his Word, for most others it is something else—usually themselves. The heated debates about whether the Bible is God-breathed and without error hinge on one issue: whether you accept what the Bible claims about itself. Many useful arguments show that the Bible’s claims about itself are reasonable (e.g., its historical reliability and fulfilled prophecies), but ultimately God’s Spirit must convince us that its claims are true because sin has distorted how we perceive reality. We can’t prove that the Bible is God’s Word by appealing to any authority besides the Bible itself because such an authority must be superior to God—and there isn’t one.

Quoted from the book, "Don’t Call it a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day" | Source
Article: 7 Min

A Question of Authorship: How Do We Know the Bible Is God’s Word?

by Jason Lisle at Answers in Genesis

Quote

How Do We Know the Bible Is Our Final Authority?

One might object that this is a circular argument: we know that the Bible is God’s Word because it is God’s Word. We answer this objection by noting that all arguments for an ultimate authority must be circular because one can appeal to nothing higher. Furthermore, it is irrational to recognize supreme authority in anything other or less than God and what God has said. For those whose eyes are opened, the Bible’s authority is no blind leap of faith, but as plain a fact to them as knowing that the sun shines. Calvin said, “Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do of their taste.” For this reason, philosophical and evidential arguments are not necessary for faith (though they can be helpful in answering enemies of the faith), for the least educated person illuminated by the Spirit can see the glory and authority of God’s Word.

by Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley | Source
Definition

The Authority of Scripture

The authority of Scripture means that all words in Scripture are God’s words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.
Quote

Scripture alone
has the authority

to bind the conscience
precisely because
only Scripture is the written revelation
of almighty God.

Quote

The Bible Is Our Final Authority

The Bible claims for itself a singular and final authority concerning all matters it addresses. No other instructions, written or verbal, represent a higher or even equal authority. This authority was not granted to God at one of the historical councils of the church; God does not need men to agree with him or determine the extent of his authority. The Scriptures carry ultimate authority for one reason: They are the words of the sovereign Ruler of the universe.

by Daryl Wingerd | Source
Quote

Sin began when
God’s command
was reduced to a question
(Genesis 3:1).

At that moment
the most deadly
spiritual force
was
covertly smuggled
into the world:
the assumption

that God’s Word
is subject to
human judgment.

Verse
Isaiah 66:1-2 ESV

Thus says the Lord:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word."

Article: 30 Min

The Shift From Authority to Preference and Its Consequences for the Church

by Os Guinness at 9Marks

Verse
Genesis 3:1 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Quote

Scripture will be the lens
through which you
view the world
or the world
(science, politics,
worldview, etc.)
will be the lens
through which you
view Scripture.
Ultimately one
or the other will
be your authority.

Messages: 63 Min

How Do We Know the Bible is God’s Word

by Al Mohler

Verse
Matthew 5:17-19 ESV

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

Quote

The Bible
has the final say
on everything that
the Bible means
to say something
about.

Kevin DeYoung
Verse
John 7:16-17 NLT

So Jesus told them, “My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me. Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or is merely my own.”

Hymns

O Great God

by Sovereign Grace Music feat. Matt Boswell
Books
Books