What Exactly Is The Bible, and How Does It “Work”?

As evangelical Christians, we believe that the Bible is special—that it’s unlike all other literature because it has “something of God” about it. We get that “something” from 2 Timothy 3:16, which says that Scripture is divinely “inspired” (literally, “God-breathed”). Although at the time the writer had in mind the Jewish Scriptures (which is a better title than the Old Testament, but essentially the same thing), Christianity has perfectly reasonably extended that status to what we now know as the New Testament.

So far, so good. But here is where it gets complicated. What, exactly, did (and does) that “inspiration” or “God-breathing” “do to” the text? As they used to say, answers on a postcard, please! (Feel free to stop at this point to Google “postcard”).

Whatever that is, it’s the basis for Christians to speak of the Bible as “The Word of God,” usually capitalized like that. And it’s that phrase—or more particularly, what Christians think that means in practice—which then takes on a life of its own. Here, I would say, is where the problems begin.  

Within evangelicalism, the nature of “The Word of God”—God’s involvement in what the text says and how he intends us to “use” it or apply it—is what gives rise to the idea of “the authority” of the Bible for faith and practice. Already we can probably see the potential for the Bible to be inappropriately deployed in an authoritarian way (“weaponized” as it were). Why? Basically because of three things.

Number one, the Bible is an ancient world text written several thousand years ago, in very different cultural circumstances and contexts. We have to somehow navigate that, wisely and faithfully, in its meaning and application for today. And not least, the extent to which the involvement of a God who is outside of time causes some (much? all?) of “his Word” to be “timeless” in what it says (which bits?).

Number two leads on from that: the Bible requires interpretation. By no means is it all “obviously” self-evident in what it means and what it’s saying. Even “the main and the plain” is not always that plain. So whose interpretations are authoritative? Who gets to decide what is mainly meant and plainly meant? The Bible’s authority, in practice, means the interpretations to which we grant authority!

And number three also leads on: it is all too easy for a speaker to implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) claim God’s authority for their interpretations and applications. Usually, of single Bible verses. Almost invariably, taken out of context (and not just for reasons of efficiency, to save sermon time). Watch out for liberal doses of “The Bible says . . .” and its even more authoritative sounding cousin, “The Bible clearly teaches . . .” Obviously, a speaker may be right in that—I always am, for example . . . ahem—but beware a speaker commingling “what the Bible says” with “what I say it means by what it says,” especially when it comes to application in people’s lives. NB all speakers will claim that the authority of what they’re saying resides in the text itself, rather than in their interpretation—obviously!          

These problems are further exacerbated by some other words and ideas that evangelicals apply to the Bible: specifically, its “inerrancy” (having no errors or mistakes in it) or “infallibility” (a similar idea, but a bit less absolute—more like “fully trustworthy”).

All of the foregoing are by-products of what people think 2 Timothy 3:16 means, plus a bit of “tradition” on the side (which evangelicals are happy to claim authority for when it’s part of their tradition, but not so much when it’s other Christians’ traditions). By “tradition,” I simply mean the historical continuity of certain beliefs and practices in a particular church context. It is kind of ironic that evangelicals generally have a scepticism if not also disdain toward religious tradition but will nonetheless claim it selectively, where the subject suits them.   

Now don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying any of these words are necessarily inappropriate; the big question is what we mean by them in practice because they end up bearing a lot of weight. If we look to the authority of the Bible to tell us what it is and how God intends it to serve us in Christian faith, we find that it uses none of those words to describe itself. All we have to work with is what we think 2 Timothy 3:16 has in mind, which is enigmatic at best (and probably the reason that evangelicalism has supplemented, aka, “interpreted,” its meaning in these ways). The reason for evangelicalism’s historic downplaying of the authority of tradition is the Reformers’ mantra of sola Scriptura: “The Bible alone,” which they placed directly in opposition to that.

And as we all know, church tradition has a murky past; hardly an exemplary track record. Hence, for evangelicals especially to claim authority for church tradition is a double-edged sword (Catholics have a far better excuse). For evangelicals to assert tradition as an argument in favour of something must necessarily be a selective exercise, because to fully recognize the authority of church tradition would mean repenting of the Reformation and all becoming Catholics again. So, we are not so much talking of the authority of church tradition here per se, but which traditions we are selectively claiming authority for (and the extent to which those claims have credibility).  

So, bringing this to land, there are lots of challenges to navigate. And while I can understand a reader wondering “Why do we have to complicate things like this?”, my response is that it’s complicated already. We are not making it that by asking sensible and serious questions. Facing up to these rather uncomfortable questions is unavoidable because of the significance of the Bible—how it is used in the church, and especially in evangelical churches.

Let me be blunt: the authority claimed for the Bible (usually, in practice, the authority claimed for verses taken out of context and deployed stand-alone) is at the root of almost all bad teaching and application. If a speaker can quote a Bible verse that appears to provide the authority for what they’re saying, it is tantamount to saying “God agrees with me on this.” To question them is to question God (which for most Christians is not a happy place). It’s why “biblical” teaching is such a poor phrase—why the word “biblical” should probably be banned. Or at least, why Christians need their critical faculties to be on alert when they hear it deployed to provide apparent authority to what’s being said. 

In everyday Christianity, people respond to these challenges about the nature of the Bible in different ways. These range from selectively applying the parts of it that appear to reflect the kind of God they believe in while leaving to one side the bits that seem outdated or irrelevant (actually everyone does that, really, so it’s not all bad), through to treating it as a book of magic spells (slight exaggeration, but you probably know what I mean).  

Let’s finish by affirming that the Bible is, indeed, the Word of God. But let’s also beware of anointing it with divine status. That capital “W” has a lot to answer for! There is plenty of humanity there too—intentionally so, from God’s perspective—and yes, we need to navigate that blending.

If only Jesus had written the entire New Testament for us, things would have been so much easier. But he didn’t. In fact, he didn’t write any of it. That in itself tells us something about the nature of the Bible.

We can also affirm that the Bible is authoritative for life and practice. And we can even stretch and say it’s inerrant. Not in the sense of a timeless presentation of medical and scientific matters, but insofar as the Bible we have in our hands is the Bible as God wants us to have it. But here’s the deal: the Bible is only ever any of those things when it’s being read well—in other words when it’s being interpreted well and applied well. Does that answer every question and harmonize every different opinion? No, of course not. But it should at least show the need for all of us to be more circumspect (dare I say, more humble, and certainly less pugnacious) in deploying the Bible. Evangelicals have historically loved the authoritative preaching of God’s Word, but stylistically we need to dial that down if we’re to be heard in a postmodern world.    

A final word on “correct beliefs.” Most sermons—certainly most evangelical sermons—want to provide us with “correct beliefs” on things, one way or another. There’s nothing wrong with that in one sense, but we need to be aware of some of the pitfalls, as this article has tried to point out. The historic definition of “correct beliefs”—what it means to be a “proper Christian”—is contained in the short and simple affirmations of the early creeds, such as the Apostles’ Creed. Although many hundreds of evangelical statements and confessions of faith (all of them somewhat different, by the way) have been published since the Reformation—a trend that continues to this day—we can still be a “proper Christian” without having to doff our cap to any of them. Unless, of course, someone tells us that we can’t be in their gang unless we do!     

In the next blog article, we will look at some simple, basic, dos and don’ts of reading the Bible well versus reading it badly.