What's So Special About the Bible

  • by Jody Sledge
  • Saturday, March 12th, 2011
  • Series: Your Word is Truth

If you’ve spent any time in the church, you’ve probably realized that Christians are a people of the Bible. We read the Bible. We sing the Bible. We listen every Sunday to the Bible being read and preached. We love the Bible.

But have you ever wondered why? Maybe a love for the Bible is so common and normal for you that you’ve never stopped to ask this question: What makes it so special?

We live in a world that is full of cultures and religions. And most of the world’s major religions devote themselves to a book. Christians have the Bible. Jews have the Torah. Muslims have the Koran. Mormons have the Book of Mormon. Hindus have the Vedas. Buddhists have the Sutras. There is no shortage of holy books in the world.

So how can we say the Bible is superior to all these books? Why is the Bible the only book that we should follow? What’s so special about the Bible?

The Bible is God-Inspired

Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that all of Scripture has been God-breathed. The words of the Bible come from the very breath of God. The Bible is a special book because it is contains the Word of the One, True God who made the heavens and the earth. Other books claim to be the word of God. They may be the word of a god. But they are not the Word of the Living God.

But wasn’t the Bible written by men? Aren’t there human authors for the books that we find in the Bible? Yes. But look at what Peter says:

“Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21 ESV)

It is true that the Bible was written by many different men in many different ways. But Peter tells us that the things they wrote did not originate in them. Instead, they were carried by the Spirit of God. That means that God did a supernatural work in these men so that the words they wrote were His. The Bible is the very words of God. That is what makes the Bible so special.

The Bible is Without Errors

Just about everywhere you turn around in our culture, you see someone on T.V. or in a magazine article claiming that the Bible can’t be trusted because it is full of errors. It seems almost impossible that a book the size of the Bible, as old as the Bible, as biased as the Bible would have no errors. There has to places where the biblical authors just go it wrong. Right?

No. The Christian church throughout its history has affirmed that the Bible is trustworthy and true. This comes as a natural conclusion from the first truth - that the Bible is God’s Word. God cannot lie. God cannot make a mistake. God cannot err. Therefore, the Bible, which is His Word, is without errors. 2 Samuel 7:28 says, “O Lord GOD, you are God, and your words are true.” Proverbs 30:5 says, “Every word of God proves true.” Anything that Bible speaks to - creation, faith, history, whatever - it speaks with truth.

But doesn’t the Bible contradict itself? This is the claim of many who would seek to discard the Bible. For instance 2 Samuel 24:1 tells us that the Lord provoked David to take a census of the people of Israel. While 1 Chronicles 21:1 tells us that Satan provoked David to do it. See, a contradiction! While it is true that this is difficult to make sense of, it is not a contradiction. A contradiction would be if 2 Samuel said that God did it and 1 Chronicles said He did not do it. That would be a contradiction. The Bible may contain some things that are difficult to understand and difficult to make sense of. But their presence in the Bible does not make it full of errors. In fact, it more amazing that around 40 different people, in three different languages, on three different continents, over the span of at least 1,500 years complied a book that is so consistent and unified no other book can compare. But what should we expect? The Bible is the Word of God. And as so it is without error. That is what makes the Bible so special.

The Bible is Clear

While it is true that the Bible has some difficult teachings in it (and it even acknowledges it! - 2 Peter 3:15), that doesn’t mean that as a whole it can’t be easily understood. One of the glorious things about the Bible is that its basic message and teachings can be easily understood. Of course it takes some practice and some skill to understand it. But as a whole the Bible is clear. The Bible is not some sort of secret code that has to decoded to be understood. Nor is it a book that only the super educated can understand.

You might be thinking of a number of passages right now and saying to yourself, That is supposed to be clear? I’m not saying that everything in the Bible is easy to understand. But for every difficult passage that you are thinking of, there are hundreds of simpler ones.

Have you ever read the stories of the Old Testament to your children? Have you ever explained to someone what the Bible tells us Jesus has done to save sinners? Have you ever read the Bible and come away with a deep sense of awe and love for God? Hopefully so. And the reason you could do this is because the Bible is clear. That is what makes the Bible so special.

The Bible is All We Need

In the same passage that Paul tells us that all of Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17), he tells us that the Bible is all that we need. Here is what he says:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV)

The Bible gives us everything that we need to understand what it means to have faith in Him and what it means to live a life that pleases Him. We don’t need to go outside that Bible to find any advice on pleasing God. We don’t need to turn to any other religious book to find wisdom to live our lives well. Of course, we can read Christian books that help us understand God better, understand faith better, understand Christ-honoring living better. But they are only as good in the measure that they use the truths and teachings of the Bible.

After a large crowd had left Jesus because he had given them some difficult teaching (John 6:60-71), he turns to his disciples and asks them, What about you? Are you going to leave too? And Peter turned to Jesus and said this: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” (John 6:68 ESV). This should be our attitude to God’s Word. Lord, where else can we go. You have given us the words of eternal life. The Bible is all that we need. That is what makes the Bible so special.