The Bible is God’s Word to us. Human authors, under the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit, wrote it. It is the surpreme source of truth for Christian beliefs and living. Because it is God inspired, it is the truth - without any mixture or error.

The struggle of the Word and the "American" believer...

“A number of years ago, Peter W. Stoner and Robert C. Newman wrote a book entitled “Science Speaks.” The book was based on the science of probability and vouched for by the American Scientific Affiliation. It set out the odds of any one man in all of history fulfilling even only eight of the 60 major prophecies fulfilled by the life of Christ.

The probability that Jesus of Nazareth could have fulfilled even eight such prophesies would be only one in 10 to the 17th power. That’s one in 100,000,000,000,000,000. That’s one in 100 quadrillion.

Stoner claims that the many silver dollars would be enough to cover the face of the entire state of Texas (268, 597 square miles) two feet deep. Now Ive been to Texas. I’ve driven for days to get across Texas. Texas is a very big state. Who in his right mind would suppose that a blindfolded man, heading out of Dallas on foot in any direction, would be able, on his very first attempt, to pick up one specifically marked silver dollar out of 100 quadrillion?” (Daryl E. Witmer, AIIA Institute)

“In comparison with the remaining manuscripts of any other Ancient Greek or Latin literature, the New Testament suffers from an embarrassment of riches. It is almost incomprehensible to think about the disparity. When it comes to quantity of copies, the New Testament has no peer. More than 5,700 Greek New Testament manuscripts are still in existence, ranging in date from the early second century to the sixteenth century. To be sure, the earliest ones (i.e., through the 3rd century) are all fragmentary, but they cover a substantial amount of the New Testament. Greek manuscripts do not tell the whole story. The NT was translated early on into a variety of languages, including Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, and Arabic. All told, there are between 20,000 and 25,000 handwritten copies of the NT in various languages. Yet if all of these were destroyed, the NT text coul be reproduced almost in its entirety of quotations of it in sermons, tracts, and commentaries written by ancient teachers of the church (known as church fathers or Patristic writers). To date, over a million quotations from the NT by the church fathers have been cataloged.

How does this compare with the average classical author? The copies of the average Ancient Greek or Latin author’s writings number fewer than 20 manuscripts! Thus, the NT has well over 1,000 times as many manuscripts as the works of the average classical author.” (ESV Study Bible)

Conviction of Scripture in our personal stories (done by the Holy Spirit).

We know when the Word penetrates our soul.

The recorded Word of God

The Bible was written by men over many years

“Shepherds, kings, scholars, fishermen, prophets, a military general, a cupbearer, and a priest all penned portions of Scripture. They had different immediate purposes for writing, whether recording history, giving spiritual and moral instruction, or pronouncing judgement. They composed their works from palaces, prisons, the wilderness, and places of exile while writing history, laws, poetry, prophecy, and proverbs. In the process they laid bare their personal emotions, expressing anger, frustration, joy, and love.” (Tim Chaffey)

The Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit