“The implanted word is able to save your souls” (James 1:21) Part I
Introduction
The second basic belief of our church concerns the Bible. This basic belief states, The Holy Bible, consisting of the Old and New Testaments, is inspired by God, the only scriptural truth, and the standard for Christian living. This belief is foundational to our faith. If we cannot accept that the words of the Bible are truly inspired by God and represent the only authoritative truth, then our faith would have no firm basis, and all that we believe would be in vain.
With this understanding in mind, this article will focus on addressing four important topics:
Why God gave us the Bible
How we should understand the Bible correctly
How we can trust the Bible that we have in our hands today
Why reading the right Bible version is essential for a clear understanding of the truth
The purpose of the Bible
The Bible is inspired by God, but we may ask: what is God’s purpose in doing so? Why did God put these words together for us to read? The Bible itself clearly reveals its own purpose. In Psalm 119:105, we are told that God’s “word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.” This shows that the Bible contains God’s words to guide our lives, so that we may find God and walk on the path that leads us back to the Kingdom of Heaven.
2 Timothy 3:15–17 further explains the purpose of Scripture. Strictly speaking, this passage originally refers to the Scriptures of that time, which was the Hebrew Bible, or what we know today as the Old Testament, since it was the only written word of God available when the letter was written. However, we can apply the same principle to all of God’s revealed words that we have today—that is, the entire Bible. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.” Through God’s word, we are made complete and equipped for every good work. Ultimately, as James 1:21 reminds us, we receive and accept the word of God so that it may save our souls.
Interpreting spiritual teachings contained within the Bible
The Bible contains God’s revelations, and therefore, to understand these revelations correctly, we need spiritual wisdom that comes from God Himself. Worldly wisdom, human intelligence, and academic knowledge alone are not sufficient to truly know God. As the apostle Paul explains, the wisdom of this world cannot enable a person to know God (1 Cor. 1:20–21). Rather, it is the Spirit of God who allows us to understand the things of God. In 1 Corinthians 2:9–13, Paul teaches that God’s truths are revealed through the Holy Spirit. It is by the Holy Spirit that God has revealed His truth to the True Jesus Church, and the understanding that our church has today would not be possible through human wisdom alone.
“But as it is written: "EYE HAS NOT SEEN, NOR EAR HEARD, NOR HAVE ENTERED INTO THE HEART OF MAN THE THINGS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.” (1 Cor. 2:9-13)
Therefore, when we find it difficult to understand the teachings of the Bible, we can ask the Lord Jesus to give us understanding. After His death and resurrection, Jesus did exactly this for His disciples. As recorded in Luke 24:44–45, the disciples already knew the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, yet they could not fully comprehend the Scriptures until Jesus opened their understanding.
“Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:44-45)
In the same way today, we can ask the Holy Spirit—whom the Lord Jesus has given to many of us—to lead us into all truth, as promised in John 16:13. For this reason, we should read the Bible every day and continually pray for the Holy Spirit to grant us wisdom and understanding.
The Bible we read today
The canonization of the 66-book Bible
Today, we all have easy access to the Bible, whether in printed form or on our smart devices, but we may not often stop to consider where the Bible came from or how it was assembled. Who decided which books and chapters should be included in the Bible? Who arranged these writings into the order we have today, and why are there so many different versions of the Bible?
In general, the Bible is a collection of sacred texts that were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. These writings were produced in different historical settings and over long periods of time. To better understand how the Bible came to us in its present form, we will look separately at the development of the Old Testament and the New Testament, since they were assembled in very different ways and during very different time periods.
The Old Testament comes from the Hebrew Bible
The Old Testament in our Bible is also known as the Hebrew Bible. It is a collection of ancient religious texts of the Jewish people, written over many centuries. The authoritative form of the Hebrew Bible accepted within Judaism is known as the Masoretic Text, named after the Jewish scholars, called the Masoretes, who carefully preserved and transmitted these writings. Most of the Bibles we are familiar with today—including English versions such as the KJV, NKJV, NIV, NASB, and ESV, as well as the Chinese Union Version (CUV)—base their Old Testament on the Masoretic Text.
Within this collection, the first five books—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—are known as the Pentateuch and were written by Moses through direct revelation from God. Other books, such as the prophetic writings of Isaiah and Jeremiah, were authored by prophets who received God’s messages and delivered them to His chosen people. Originally, these writings existed as separate scrolls, composed by different authors at different times. Over the centuries, these scrolls were carefully preserved, compiled, and transmitted by scribes. The process of recognizing which writings were authoritative Scripture was conducted by generations of Jewish scribes and religious leaders. By a few centuries before the birth of Jesus, a recognized collection of sacred writings had emerged and was commonly referred to as “the Scriptures.”
This explains why, by the time of Jesus, the Scriptures were already well established. People could enter synagogues and read from this recognized collection of writings. For example, in Luke 4:16–21, Jesus read from the book of Isaiah in the synagogue. Similarly, in Acts 17:1–3, the apostle Paul used the Scriptures to reason with the Jews in Thessalonica, showing that Jesus is the Christ foretold in the Scriptures. In Acts 18:24–28, Apollos is described as being well-versed in the Scriptures and teaching from them. Although Aquila and Priscilla later corrected some of his understanding, this correction allowed Apollos to defend the truth even more powerfully, using the Scriptures to prove that Jesus is the Christ. These examples show that the Scriptures were already a canonized and widely recognized body of text, and both devout Jews and early Christians studied them carefully—much as we seek to familiarize ourselves with the Bible today.
The Scriptures that Jesus read in the synagogue, and that were quoted by the apostles and in Paul’s letters, are the same in content as the Old Testament found in our Bibles today. The main differences are in the ordering of some books and the division of certain books, such as Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, which are split into two parts in the Protestant Old Testament canon—the Old Testament in most modern-day Bibles. Apart from these differences in arrangement and division, the Protestant Old Testament is the same in content as the Jewish Masoretic Text.
There are also other Old Testament canons, such as the Catholic canon, which contains 46 books, compared to the 39 books in the Protestant canon. During the Reformation, led by Martin Luther, reformers recognized that several books in the Catholic canon were not part of the Hebrew canon accepted by the Jews and were therefore not received as Scripture by the early church. As a result, these books were excluded to align the Old Testament with the Hebrew Scriptures. These excluded books include Tobit, Judith, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
For these reasons, we can say with great confidence that the Old Testament in our Bibles today, which is from the Protestant Old Testament canon, is the same in substance as the Scriptures read by Jesus and others during New Testament times. This text is authentic, and for the most part, the translated versions that we read today are reliable and faithful to the original writings.
To be continued.....
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