Walk Through Christian Theology: A Six-Day Devotional Exploring God’s Grand StorySample

SCRIPTURE: INSPIRED BY GOD

2 Timothy 3:16: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

Hold a Bible in your hands. Feel its weight. Flip through it and notice how many pages, sections, and books it contains. Do you know who wrote those books? How long ago? How did the complete Bible come to rest in your hands? Do you believe what it says?

The Bible speaks to its own authorship, written by both God and humans. The authors of Scripture lived in many different times and places and their works reflect this beautiful diversity, informing us of the context of each revelation. The Holy Spirit controlled the message of the writings while allowing the authors to express themselves.

The Bible says that God inspired all Scripture, which leads to several conclusions. We use the term inerrant to express the Bible’s complete lack of error—we can trust every word. The term sufficient relays the fullness of God’s Word for knowing him and teaching, training, and correcting us—everything we need. Scripture possesses God’s absolute authority over all people and things, and we must obey it. The Bible you hold in your hands now, called the canon, consists of exactly the books, writings, and letters that God intended.

God gave the Bible to specific people at specific times, so we must study the context of the original readers as well as our own. And God gives this same word to us today, revealing himself and his love for us. We can extract God’s timeless truths for today as we read and interpret the original message of each passage. The Bible speaks to all people at all times.

APPLICATION: When you read Scripture this week, use a study Bible or commentary to learn about the author and original audience of your passage. Imagine how the writing would have affected the people who received it. Then read and extract timeless truths intended for us today.

PRAYER: Almighty author of Scripture, thank you for speaking directly to us through both supernatural and human means, in perfection. Show me the truth of your Word.

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