Discovering the Most Amazing Book

Copyright © 2014 by Charles Stebbing.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-9058-1

              eBook           978-1-4990-9059-8

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Rev. date: 02/16/2015

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Contents

Foreword

Introductory

Part One

The Bible: The Inspired Written Word Of God

Chapter One

The Bible – Origin, Authorship, Inspiration And Canonization

Part Two

The Bible: Composition And Message

Chapter Two

The Bible – Composition And Message

Part Three

Survey Of Old Covenant Books

Chapter Three

Survey Of The Pentateuch

Chapter Four

Survey Of The Historical Books

Chapter Five

Survey Of The Poetical And Wisdom Books

Chapter Six

Survey Of The Major Prophets

Chapter Seven

Survey Of The Minor Prophets

Part Four

Survey Of New Testament Books

Chapter Eight

Differences Between The Two Covenants And A Survey Of The Gospels

Chapter Nine

Survey Of The Book Of Acts

Chapter Ten

Survey Of Paul’s Letters

Chapter Eleven

Paul’s Letters To Individuals

Chapter Twelve

Survey Of The General Letters

Chapter Thirteen

Survey Of Revelation

Part Five

Bible Study

Chapter Fourteen

How To Read And Study The Bible

Addendum

Glossary

Bibliography

Endnotes

Foreword

This book is based on a discipleship course that we have done. The overwhelming interest of students from various age groups who signed up for the course was a clear indication that there is still a hunger for God’s Word. That encouraged me to compile the course material into a book, in order to make it available to a wider audience.

The content of this book is not merely a personal opinion, it is rather an informed opinion because I have done much research to ascertain the facts. However, some information may still be tentative because we do not have full knowledge on everything that the Bible reveals, and opinions on subjects that are more difficult to interpret differ.

The purpose of this book is not merely to make information available, but to give the readers a workable knowledge of the Bible and to tickle their appetite to study and examine the Word of God for themselves. For that reason, I have kept the studies concise, not giving too much information but enough to arouse curiosity for further investigation.

The Bible is certainly one of the greatest tangible gift that God gave us. We should treasure it. Every person (including nonbelievers) should invest time in discovering the wonderful life-changing Revelation that this Amazing Book presents.

Charles Stebbing

Cork

Ireland

September 2014

Introductory

People are curious beings. They love to discover things. Naturally, the more wonderful and exciting the discoveries are, the more enjoyable. The greatest discovery that anyone can make is to discover one’s Creator. Once you have found Him, then you will realize that everything you could possibly need in this life is in Him.

The starting place for discovering God, and for that matter, life, love, meaning, purpose, and truth is the Bible.

The Greatest Book

The only authoritative Resource that truly answers the greatest questions that people of all ages have asked is the Bible. Where do we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? What will eventually happen with mankind? Is there something such as truth?, and, How can we know the truth?" Because the Bible doesn’t speculate, but reveals the truth about God, explains the origin of mankind, highlights the age-old problem of sin and suffering, and points clearly to the only way to salvation and eternal life.

The central, overarching theme of the Bible is mankind’s need of salvation and God’s provision of atonement in Jesus Christ. The unity and progress of Biblical revelation are convincingly demonstrated in the truth that Jesus Christ is the sum and substance of the revelation contained in the Bible. The person and work of Jesus Christ are promised, prophesied, and pictured in the types and symbols of the Old Covenant. The four Gospels reveal Him in all His power, glory, and dignity; and the full meanings and applications of His life, death, and resurrection are explained in the Letters to the different churches. The glorious Second Coming of Christ and the restoration of all things are unmistakably foretold in the book of Revelation.

The great purpose of the written Word of God is to reveal God, His redeeming love and plan of salvation for man (see John 1:1-18).

Because the Bible is a message from God, it has a many layered message – the message can be made applicable to an individual, a group of people, a society, a nation and even the whole world. The Bible’s message is transcultural and is eternally relevant.

Moreover, the Bible itself declares that it will remain forever (Mark 13:31; Ps. 119:89); what a consolation! It is obviously the greatest Book ever written.

Amazing Facts About The Bible

The following are a few Amazing Facts about the Bible.¹

• About fifty Bibles are sold every minute of every day of every week and month and year.

• The Bible is the most shop-lifted Book in the world.

• The first verse in the Bible contains seven Hebrew words (in the original language); the meaning of the number seven in the Bible is: completeness or perfection. The last word in the Bible is: Amen! So be it!

• The Bible is the oldest actual Book known to man, some parts of it are around 3500 years old.

• The Bible is old without growing older; it always remains new and fresh. Among all the books of antiquity the Bible alone is modern. Further, a book that is produced by man can be exhausted by man, but over many generations the Bible could not be exhausted – because the infinite and inexhaustible knowledge and wisdom of God are concealed in the Bible.

• The Bible has survived thousands of years of persecution and attempted destruction. Its would-be destroyers are gone, and yet the Bible still lives, and has even presided over some of their funerals.

• The Bible is the most copied, translated and historically attested piece of literature that the world has ever known.

• The Bible is translated in over 2300 languages and dialects.

• The Bible was the first Book to be printed on a printing press.

• The Bible is the only religious Book in the world that tells of a Coming One and then records the fact of His coming, verified by history.

• The Bible declares the redemption of man by God Himself through Jesus Christ.

• The Centre of the Bible: the shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 117, the longest chapter is Psalm 119, the chapter between the shortest and longest chapters is Psalm 118. There are 594 chapters before Psalm 118 and there are 594 chapters after Psalm 118, add these numbers together and you will get 1188; Psalm 118:8 says: It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. What a verse for the days in which we live!

The Bible remains the most extensively printed, widely translated, and frequently read book in the world. Its words have been treasured in hearts of multitudes like none other. All who have received its gifts of wisdom and promises of new life and power were at first strangers to its redemptive message, and many were hostile to its teaching and spiritual demands. In every generation its power to challenge persons of all races and lands has been demonstrated. Those who cherish the Book because it sustains future hope, brings meaning and power to the present, and correlates a misused past with God’s forgiving grace, would not long experience such inner rewards if Scripture were not known to them as the authoritative, divinely revealed truth. To the evangelical Christian, Scripture is God’s Word, given in the objective form of propositional truths through divinely inspired prophets and apostles, and the Holy Spirit is the giver of faith through that Word. – Carl F H Henry

Scope and Purpose of this Book

Through the pages of this book you will gain a proper understanding of the Bible and the glorious message it proclaims. First and foremost you will learn that the message of the Bible is divinely inspired by God. This will lay a solid foundation for your faith upon which you can build your Christian life, and will also give you a greater appreciation for the Book of Ages. We will then look at the composition and message of the Bible by journeying chronologically through Biblical history and looking at a synopsis of every book of the Bible. This will help you to see how God worked in Old Testament times, and you will learn what changed with Christ’s coming and why. We finish our exciting learning experience by considering how to read and study the Bible.

All this will strengthen your faith, you will experience greater confidence and have more knowledge when expressing your faith to others. It will enrich your life and even equip you for effective Christian living. Above all, you will have deepened in your love and appreciation for the Author of the most extraordinary Book.

An extensive addendum is added that consists of the following: a Suggested Chronology of New Testament Books, Outstanding Bible Books, Outstanding Bible Verses, Where to turn When …, Scriptural answers concerning law keeping, the Five Covenants in the Bible, and a Glossary to explain Biblical terms.

On your journey in discovering the most amazing book, you will stumble on many fascinating facts, and will certainly encounter the most amazing Person who ever lived as well as the amazing grace of God. Amen!

Part One

The Bible: The Inspired written Word of God

Chapter One

The Bible – Origin, Authorship, Inspiration and Canonization

The Origin of the Bible

From where did we get the Bible? Perhaps … long, long ago and far, far away a devoted Christian prayed to God asking Him, Lord please give me your Word in written form, so that I can have a point of reference, read it, do studies, reflect on it, develop a better understanding of You and your plan for mankind. And then God dropped a Bible from heaven. No, the Bible has a very rich history.

The Bible originated in the heart of God – His desire, as a living and loving God, to reveal Himself and His plan and purpose to mankind.

Dividing the origin and history of the Bible into different stages, helps us to form a better understanding of how we eventually received the most amazing Book in our own language.

The First Stage

The Oral Tradition and Primitive writing period – from Adam to Moses. This was the period of storytelling and primitive writing. During this time God revealed Himself directly to people. We think of, for example, the instances when He revealed Himself to Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Moses. These revelations from God as well as cultural and historical material were transmitted orally from one generation to another. The oral records presumably originated soon after the actual events occurred.

Later, when primitive writing arose, many of these oral records would have been committed to writing. It is suggested that the transfer to written format may have happened earlier than we generally suppose.

Primitive alphabets are known to have circulated in the early second millennium BC, and with the discovery of the Palermo Stone we have evidence that the Egyptians wrote detailed historical records (in hieroglyphic text) at least as far back as 2600 BC, a time that predates Moses by about 1100 years. (The Palermo Stone is one of the seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The Palermo Stone is held in an Archaeological Museum in the city of Palermo, Italy, from which it derives its name.) The inscriptions on the Palermo Stone reach back towards the dawn of Egypt, naming kings from 3100 BC. So, we can suggest that key events and remembrances of early human history were preserved and passed down to later generations. We also suggest that God supervised these oral and written records so that reliable histories were preserved for inclusion in the Biblical record.

Furthermore, it is reasonable to say that writing was a well-developed art by the time of Joseph. He and his family would have had the opportunity to learn writing in Egypt. It is only credible to suggest that Joseph, as the chief bearer of Abraham’s lineage, would have been keen to preserve his family’s traditions and the experiences with and revelations from God of his ancestors. Thus, history and significant encounters and experiences with God, were preserved by recording it carefully, either orally and/or in writing.

As writing skills and material developed, and generations passed on, the need to write down the history and revelations of God became more evident.

The Second Stage

The writing down of God’s revelations. Moses was the first person to receive a commandment from God to write down His words and revelations (Ex. 17:14; 34:27; Acts 7:38 compare with verse 22). Moses’ inheritance as a Levite, the fact that he was commissioned by God, plus his upbringing and fine education in Pharaoh’s household, put him in a good position to write early history from a Hebrew perspective.

Many events in Exodus through Deuteronomy coincided with Moses’ lifetime, and so he recorded that as an eyewitness. It is reasonable to suggest that Moses was able to write about historical events that took place long before his birth by drawing upon pre-existing sources (the preserved oral and written accounts), all while he was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This model of research is supported by Luke 1:1-4. In Numbers 21:14, 15 we read that Moses refers back to the now lost Book of the Lord’s Wars. On the other hand, it is also reasonable to suggest that God could have revealed to Moses the historical events that predated him, particularly the Creation Account. So, we see that the Bible is not the product of divine dictation, but Bible composition involved both supernatural and natural means, which was supervised by God.

It has been argued that Moses could not have written the account of his own death. Deuteronomy chapter 34 contains an obituary (a notice of his death with a short account of his life) that was most probably written by his successor Joshua.

Moses was the first writer and after him all the other inspired writers of the Old Testament recorded what God said and revealed to them.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with parts of the book of Daniel in Aramaic, and the New Testament in Greek (parts of the Gospel of Matthew are written in Aramaic).

The early writers wrote on papyrus and parchment. The papyrus, a paper-like material, was made from the sticky fibrous inner pith of the papyrus plant. The outer rind of the plant was first removed, and the sticky fibrous inner pith was cut lengthwise into thin strips of about 40 cm long. The strips were then placed side by side on a hard surface with their edges slightly overlapping, and then another layer of strips is laid on top at a right angle. While still moist, the two layers were hammered together, mashing the layers into a single sheet. The sheet was then dried under pressure. After drying, the sheet was polished with some rounded object, possibly a stone or seashell or round hardwood. Sheets were cut to size or glued together to create a longer roll. To form the long strip scrolls required, a number of such sheets were joined, placed so all the horizontal fibres parallel with the roll’s length were on one side and all the vertical fibres on the other. Normally, texts were written on the lines following the fibres, parallel to the long edges of the scroll. Although relatively cheap, papyrus was fragile and not very durable.

Parchment, which was significantly higher in quality and durability, was made of animal skins (goats, sheep or calves). Those made of calf skin are called vellum. The animal skins were treated with lime, stretched and scraped to make it smooth and to get the correct thickness, and then dried under tension. These dried skins were cut to size and joined to form longer rolls.

The Third Stage

Handwritten Copies. There were no printing presses or photocopiers back then, all copying was done by hand. Thus, literary copying was an important skill in the ancient world. The handwritten copies are called Manuscripts (MSS). These copies were made in order to spread the Word. Copying was done by scribes and copyists, who took exceptional care when copying the scrolls, because they believed that the writings were authoritative and inspired by God.

Although they took utmost care in copying the scrolls minor mistakes, called variants, were made (these variants are minor and will never change the message of the Bible). These mistakes are things such as: an omitted letter or word, a misspelling, a duplicate line, and rearrangements of words. By comparing the many different manuscripts with each other these minor mistakes can be easily identified and eliminated.

We also suggest that scribes updated and edited the manuscripts to reflect contemporary word usage (see Judges 1:10, 11; 1 Samuel 9:9). These changes would have been undertaken with great care to preserve the meaning and intention of Scriptures.

There are many MSS of the Old Testament, perhaps over ten thousand including the very valuable Dead Sea Scrolls (found in 1947). The Dead Sea Scrolls include the earliest known surviving manuscripts of portions of the Hebrew Bible. One Scroll contains the book of Isaiah and it is reckoned to be approximately a thousand years older than most of the MSS of the Old Testament that we have.

The text of the Old Testament MSS is very accurate, because the Jews preserved and revised it since the earliest days. The Hebrew MSS were revised since the time of Ezra.

There are approximately 5700 MSS of the New Testament available; these are not complete New Testaments but portions and fragments of it.

The oldest MSS were written in capital letters with no spaces between letters, called uncials (meaning inch-high, referring to the size of the letters). For instance: INTHEBEGINNINGWASGOD. What a joy to read, copy and translate! Only later, in the ninth century, cursive writing was used. The writers began a sentence with a capital letter and left spaces between letters. The majority of MSS are written in cursive writing, known as minuscules (referring to the smaller letters that were used).

The Manuscripts of the Bible didn’t contain chapter or verse divisions in the numbered form that we have today. The division of the Bible into the standard modern arrangement of chapters came much later. Cardinal Stephen Langton’s (AD 1150-1228) system of dividing the Bible into chapters was used to do the chapter divisions of the Bible (AD 1226). The division into verses was done by Cardinal Hugo De Santo Cato in the mid-16th century.

The making of handwritten copies was a laborious undertaking. The first Bible printed on a printing press, known as the Gutenberg Bible, was printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450. The Gutenberg Bible was also the first book printed on a printing press.

The word Scripture means: holy writings.

The Fourth Stage

Translation. Before the existence of the New Testament there was already a need to translate the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) into other languages. The earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek is the Septuagint (280 BC), also known as the translation of the seventy (since 70 scholars worked on the translation). This translation was made to serve the then Greek world during the Intertestamental Period (more about this later).

There are also other older translations such as the Coptic translation (4th century AD), the Latin Vulgate (late 4th century AD), the Armenian translation (5th century AD), the Syriac translation of the Gospels (5th century AD), and the Ethiopic translation (5th century AD). These older translations are also valuable resources in determining the original meaning of Scripture.

Later, English translations of the Bible followed: the John Wycliffe English New Testament (1380); the William Tyndale New Testament in 1525 and the Pentateuch in 1530; the Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535 was the first complete English translation of the Bible. The King James Bible, also known as the Authorised Version (AV) was finished in 1611. Today there are approximately 151 different English translations available.

As you can imagine, translating the Bible from the original languages is no easy task. While translating the Bible into German (1522), Luther said to one of his friends that he undertook a task that was far above his powers. Therefore, today, we should rejoice and be very thankful that we have the Bible in our own language. We should highly appreciate the written Word of God. Only God could have preserved His revelation to man in such an amazing way.

The Authorship of the Bible

Over and over, we are assured that the Bible is not merely a collection of human writings about God. Instead, it contains the words of God Himself, written through the pens of men, as many as forty over a period of about 1500 years. These men, with different backgrounds, were called and inspired by God to record what He wanted them to write down. They were kings, generals, fishermen, shepherds, priests, and prophets. One was a physician. One was a tax collector. Some were wealthy while others were poor. Some were educated while others had no education.

There are three terms we need to understand when we talk about God writing the books of the Bible through the pens of men. The first one is revelation, derived from a Latin word, which means unveiling. It indicates that God has taken the initiative to make Himself known. Revelation is the general term that covers all the ways that God reveals Himself and truth to man. We cannot discover God by ourselves. What we know about God is only what He reveals about Himself. The second term refers to the process by which God moved these men to write the different books of the Bible: inspiration. This refers to what theologians call Special Revelation. The Bible is the Special Revelation of God to man. The third term is: authority, the power or weight Scripture possesses because of what it is, namely, divine revelation given by divine inspiration. Scripture is authoritative and fully trustworthy because it is inspired by God. So Revelation by Inspiration gives us Authority.

When the last words of the book of Revelation were written, the Special Revelation was complete. This kind of inspiration or Special Revelation is no longer happening.

Now, after all, we can say that God is the First Author of the Bible, while the men who wrote God’s words down are the secondary authors.

The Inspiration of the Bible

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21)."

What is meant by Biblical inspiration?

Our view of the Bible is mostly determined by our belief as to its inspiration. The word inspiration has more than one meaning. For instance: we refer to the inspiration of poets and artists – that inspiration which comes from the soul of the artist that inflames his passion to express his feelings or thoughts in pure art. That is not the same as Biblical inspiration.

The inspiration of the artist comes from his inner being; that is to say, his soul and spirit. But the inspiration of the Bible is from God – He is the source. In Biblical terms the word inspiration means: to breathe in. That is why the apostle Paul writes: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (God breathed), and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16). The inspiration that the Bible writers received was a supernatural and special work of the Holy Spirit – it is that special work of the Holy Spirit that moved and led the writers to write down that which God revealed to them, and what they saw, heard and experienced. For instance, He gave them the thoughts and then also led them in their writing down of those thoughts. As we know words are merely expressed thoughts. Thus, the inspiration and leading of the Holy Spirit were not only extended over the thoughts but also over the words that they used. As somebody once said: The Bible is God’s thoughts clothed with vocabulary." The Holy Spirit led them in choosing the right words and gave them the thoughts and words after which they could express God’s precise thoughts to man. The apostle Paul, for example, could declare that in communicating to others what God has revealed to him, he did not use "words taught by human wisdom but … taught by the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:13)." This means that even the words and the writing down of those words are inspired. Thus, inspiration refers to the original Word that came directly from God by way of revelation to the writers, who then wrote it down as it was revealed to them.

We have to keep in mind that it does not mean that all the words in the Bible are the words of God, because in the Bible we also find the words of people. For instance, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:12: But to the rest I, not the Lord, say … (here we can also keep the oral and written records in mind of which some writers made use). However, the whole Bible is God’s Word in the sense that there is nothing in the Bible that God didn’t want therein, and that nothing is excluded that God wanted to be in the Bible. Thus, the complete process of compiling the Bible by different authors is inspired and supervised by God. However, although everything in the Bible is inspired, we should take care not to look for inspiration in every loose standing word and letter, but in their correct context and meaning.

The Bible makes it clear that the writers were not like unconscious and passive objects, dictated to by the Holy Spirit as to what they should write down. No, the writers were not robbed of their own personalities. They wrote themselves within the framework of their own personalities, capabilities, talents, characters and styles. This is the reason why we find a variety of literary types in the Bible, namely, poetry, dramas, letters, history, prophecies and parables. Every writer reveals his own style and character. We can distinguish the differences between the books of Moses and Joshua, Samuel and David, Peter and Paul, and so on. Therefore, we believe that the Bible is organically inspired and not mechanically. (Organic inspiration means precisely what we just said: God used living human beings within the framework of their own individual personalities, abilities and styles.) In fact, the way in which God works in and through human beings is always in such a way that He will not annihilate man’s self-activity.

By God’s inspiration the mystery of the Triune God becomes clear and real, and Christ becomes a living and real Divine Person who came to pay the ultimate price for the redemption of mankind and the restoration of all things.

How Inspiration worked

There are different ways in which the Holy Spirit moved someone to write down the things that God revealed. The following are some examples:

• Moses. He had to record and write down, as an eyewitness, what he experienced and saw with Israel. Moses wrote down the history that he himself experienced. As we have seen, under the leading of the Holy Spirit Moses also made use of preserved oral and written records. Also, God could have revealed to Moses what He exactly wanted him to record, for instance, the Creation Record.

• The Prophets. They supernaturally received messages from God and were then led by the Holy Spirit to write them down.

• Luke. He was inspired and led by the Holy Spirit to examine and research everything regarding the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus before he accurately wrote it down (Luke 1:1-4).

• The Apostle Paul. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he wrote to different congregations as well as to individuals. And he also wrote down what Jesus Himself revealed to him, particularly the Justification by Faith message and the revelation regarding the Church (Acts 26:15-18; Eph. 3:1-7).

• The Psalmists. Under the inspiration and leading of the Holy Spirit they wrote from their hearts so that the entire range of human emotion is expressed in songs of prayer, praise and worship.

These writers wrote in the time in which they lived, and spoke about circumstances of their time.

Reasons why we believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God

It is important to know what you believe, but it is equally important to know why you believe it. Given below are the reasons why we believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

1. Prophecies concerning Jesus as the Christ

Recorded in the Old Testament we find predictions made by God’s prophets that foretold every significant event concerning Jesus Christ as the Messiah. All these prophecies are fulfilled to the exact detail in the New Testament. When each one of these prophecies came true, the Bible says that it happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled. There are about 330 prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus Christ the Messiah.

The following diagram lists a few specific events concerning Jesus Christ and shown to be precisely fulfilled in every detail in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life.

Jesus Christ and the Bible are both called the Word of God.

2. The History of the Nation of Israel

The Bible has predicted the course of Israel’s history accurately for the past 3500 years. Here are only a few specific aspects of Israel’s history predicted by the Bible long before they occurred:

• Enslavement in Egypt (Genesis 15:13)

• Deliverance with wealth from Egypt (Genesis 15:14)

• Possession of the land of Canaan (Genesis 15:18-20)

• Turning to idolatry (Deuteronomy 32:15-21)

• Assyrian captivity (Amos 5:27; 6:14; 7:17)

• Babylonian captivity (Jeremiah 16:13; 21:10)

• Destruction of the first Temple (2 Chronicles 7:19-22)

• Return from Babylon (Isaiah 6:11-13; 48:20)

• Destruction of the second Temple (Matthew 24:2; Luke 19:43-44)

• Scattered among all nations (Leviticus 26:33-34; Ez. 12:15)

• Persecution and oppression (Leviticus 26:36-39)

• Re-gathering from all nations (Isaiah 11:11-12; Zech. 10:9-10)

3. Claims from the Old Testament Authors

The Old Testament writers claimed to speak for the Lord more than 3800 times. The Bible shows us that the writers and prophets always acted in a way that clearly indicates that they were conscious of their specific calling from the Lord (Ex. 3; Isa. 6; Jer. 1; Jonah 1). Many times the writers state: Thus says the Lord, The word of the Lord came to me and He said to me. David could say: "The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue (2 Sam. 23:2)." Zechariah said: "… hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets (Zech. 7:12)."

We find these statements throughout the Old Testament as well as statements that clearly declare God as the speaker. The following are only a few examples:

• Genesis 1:3 – Then God said appears 9 times only in Genesis 1.

• Exodus 4:12 – Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.

• 2 Samuel 23:2 – The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue.

• Jeremiah 1:7 – And whatever I command you, you shall speak.

• Ezekiel 1:3 – the word of the Lord came expressly to Ezekiel the priest.

• Ezekiel 2:1 – So when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of One speaking. And He said to me, ‘Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you.

• Ezekiel 2:4 – Thus says the Lord God.

• Micah 3:8 – But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

• Zechariah 7:12 – … the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.

4. The Testimony of the Bible’s Unity

Although the Bible consists of two Testaments, together they form a coherent whole. As someone once said: The New is in the Old contained and the Old is in the New explained. When we consider the unity of the Bible we should realize that the two Testaments were written by forty different writers – 31 in the Old Testament and 9 in the New Testament. These writers came from different backgrounds and lived in different circumstances over a period of approximately 1500 years – from 1440 BC to AD 95. These writers were kings, fishermen, shepherds, priests and prophets. One was a physician. One was a tax collector. Some were wealthy while others were poor. Some were educated while others had no education.

Each book of the Bible contributes to the one main theme: mankind needs a Saviour and Jesus Christ is the only Saviour.

The Scriptures clearly agree on every important area of belief. They agree on the Tri-unity of the Godhead, the fall of mankind, the problem of sin, and salvation by grace through faith. The unity of the Bible is a clear testimony that God inspired the Scriptures.

The following chart, showing the unity of the main subject of different books and groups of books, throws light on the overall unity of the Bible.

Furthermore, we identify a symmetrical unity in the Bible. By symmetrical we mean that which is characteristic, in both the structure and spiritual teaching of the Old Testament can be identified in the New Testament. The Pentateuch (first five books) is in the Old Testament what the four Gospels are in the New Testament: the foundation on which the remainder of the books rest, so that the Pentateuch and the Gospels are books of the revelation of God to mankind, and the rest of the Old and New Testaments are books of realisation of that revelation to mankind.²

The following outline is an explanation of what is meant by the above.

1. Revelation (Pentateuch) – God to His chosen people (Israel)

Revelation (Gospels) – God to the world

2. Realisation (Joshua to Malachi) – God in His people

i) In outward expression – Historical Books

ii) In inward expression – Poetical Books

iii) In forward expectation – Prophetic Books

Realisation (Acts to Revelation) – Christ in His Church

i) In outward expression – History (The book of Acts)

ii) In inward expression – Doctrine (The Letters)

iii) In forward expectation – Prophecy (The book of Revelation)

The nature of the overall unity of the Bible can only be accomplished by divine inspiration.

5. The Testimony from Jesus

Jesus believed that the Scriptures were from God. He called the Old Testament the word of God and said that "the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35)." Jesus spoke of even the least of the Biblical commandments as important, "I tell the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the least smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear until everything is accomplished (Matt 5:19)." By quoting Scripture in response to Satan’s temptation (Matt. 4), Jesus demonstrated that the Old Testament Scriptures have authority. Jesus quoted frequently from the Old Testament, for instance: Matt. 4:6, 15; Mark 4:12.

6. The Belief of the Apostles

The apostles believed that the Old Testament was from God. Paul declared: "All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16)." Peter wrote that prophecy did not come from "the will of man, but holy men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21)."

In 1 Corinthians 2:13 Paul said: These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. In the same book Paul wrote: "the things that I write to you are the Lord’s commandments (1 Cor. 14:37)."

They frequently quoted from the Old Testament. For instance: Acts 13:22; 15:16 and 17. Also, in 2 Peter 3:15-16, Peter referred to Paul’s words as Scripture, and Paul referred to Luke’s Gospel as Scripture in first Timothy 5:18. Thus, the New Testament writers believed that both the Old and New Testaments were the inspired Word of God.

7. The Testimony of Millions of Christians

If the Bible is truly the inspired Word of God, then it should change lives. One man testified of how he had once been a thief who picked other people’s pockets for a living. One day he picked a man’s pocket and, to his disgust, found that he had stolen a pocket Bible instead of a wallet. Since he had the Bible, however, he decided to find out what it was about. He read how Jesus became a man and then died for the sins of all mankind. As he read, the Holy Spirit began to convict him. After just a few days, the thief believed in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and his life was completely transformed. He returned what he had stolen and found a new occupation. The transformed life of every genuinely born-again believer is a testimony to the power