The bible, overview of the history and origin, infallacy.

John 14:6 Why the bible? As Christians, we believe that the bible is the inspired Word of God and that there’s no other book that God uses to reveal Himself to mankind. And the way that God has revealed Himself to the world is through Jesus Christ, and through His death and resurrection, we can have salvation and eternal life. Of course, you know all of this. But have you ever wondered – how do you know all of this? All because of the Bible.

This one book is timeless – it’s old, yet still applicable today. The message is always current in every culture, every civilisation, every era, and for every person. It answers all of the big questions – who we are, where we come from, the purpose and reason for life, and everything in between. It helps people individually, but also gives answers for all of humanity.

First thing to understand is that there are two testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The word testament simply means covenant or agreement. So the Old Testament is full of the old agreements between God and humanity and the New Testament is full of the new agreements between God and humanity. The defining factor is Jesus. Jesus divides the Bible into two agreements. He fulfils the old and brings in the new. The old was mostly about the law and the new is mostly about grace. Remember, the new doesn’t override the old, it’s simply that Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the law to bring in grace.

Within the bible, there are 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew and a tiny bit in Aramaic. The New Testament was written in Greek. While the book contains stories, the poetic, songs, instructions, and prophecies, nothing ever feels out of place or like it doesn’t fit – they all come together to point to Jesus. The bible has different authors, but all were inspired by God to write something cohesive and to make it all divine, even though they were written separately, apart, and at different times.

Each book has its own context and purpose, which we need to understand when we read the books. We need to know the context, the author, the purpose why each book was written. In everything that you read in the bible, make sure that you’re looking for Jesus. Everything in the bible points to Him. It doesn’t matter what you’re reading, it all points to Him.

Every single part of the bible is essential, there are no less important or less powerful parts of the bible, everything is required to hold the bible together. We need both the Old and the New Testament, they work together, not against each other. It’s important to read the books of the bible as complete books. Rather than read parts of each book and to scatter our way around, it’s important that we read the books as a whole to fully understand what each book is about. Each book is self-contained, meaning that there is understanding to be gained if we read a book as a whole.

For example, we’ve all heard 1 Corinthians 13, which talks about love and what love is and what love does. What we forget is that before 1 Corinthians 13 is 1 Corinthians 12. And that talks about spiritual gifts. And then 1 Corinthians 14 talks about spiritual gifts. And rather than read about love and ignore the context, or read about spiritual gifts and ignore love, we need to read it as a whole, and we start to understand that Paul is talking about using our spiritual gifts to love one another, that love is the way in which we are to exercise our spiritual gifts, that spiritual gifts are all about building and edifying one another, about showing love to each other.