God has a variety of ways to communicate with us but there is none more foundational than through the Bible. Among other things, the Bible is called the Holy Spirit's sword. "... and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God" (Ephesians 6:17).
The Bible is also called God's Word because it is authored by God. In other words, it is not a book that originates from human minds, but from God—it is God-breathed.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
How could the Bible claim to have been written by humans and also by God?
Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:20-21
The Bible is relevant today and God uses it to instruct and bless us.
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12
This notion of the Bible being composed by both God and humans is called "dual authorship." The message originates from God, but He implants His thoughts into the human author. The writer, in turn, uses his style and personality to communicate the message. It is clear that the final product, in its original form, was without error and exactly what God wanted to communicate (the theological term is "inerrant").
Calling the Bible "a book" is a bit of a misnomer. It is really more of a small library. It's a collection of 66 books written by 40 different authors in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek) over a period af about 1,500 years. Amazingly, even with so many different authors (most of whom never knew each other) from completely different cultures and writing from three different continents, the Bible has a consistent theme. It is the story of how God relates to humans. More specifically, every book points to the main character: Jesus Christ. The Old Testament (written before Jesus) points to the need for a Savior to come, and the New Testament communicates how Jesus filled that need.
There are many proofs to verify that the Bible is true, including a substantial number of historical and archeological discoveries that verify what the Bible teaches. A noted archaologist, Dr. Nelson Glueck, was quoted in a book review for The New York Times as saying, "No discovery has ever been made that contradicts or controverts historical statements of Scripture."
There are also a number of prophecies (predictions) written in the Old Testament that come to pass in the New Testament. For instance, dozens of messianic prophecies were made hundreds of years before Jesus Christ came and He fulfilled every one of them including where He would be born, what His ministry would be like, and how He would die (even describing death on a cross centuries before that form of torture was invented—see Psalm 22). The fulfillment of prophecies has always been one of the primary proofs for biblical divine authorship.
How are we sure what was originally written by authors like Moses, David, and Paul is the same as what the Bible says today? For centuries manuscripts were hand-copied down through the ages and the accuracy of what we have today is based on how well they were preserved. We have good reason to be confident in their authenticity. Because of the great reverence the Jewish scribes held toward the Scriptures, they exercised extreme care in making new copies of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The entire copying process was specified in meticulous detail to minimize the possibility of even the slightest error. The number of letters, words, and lines were counted. If a single mistake was discovered, the entire manuscript would be destroyed. The church scribes of the New Testament had similar thorough guidelines as to how they made copies.
Scholars of almost every theological stripe attest to the profound care with which the New Testament books were copied in the original language. We have over 5,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments of portions of the New Testament that have been preserved from the early centuries of Christianity. Overall, 97-99% of the New Testament can be reconstructed beyond any reasonable doubt, and no Christian doctrine is founded solely or even primarily on textually disputed passages. Craig Blomberg, Reasonable Faith
When we pick up our Bibles, we can be confident we are reading what God intends for us to read. But knowing we have God's Word is only half the battle.
God's intention for us is to ingest God's Word on a regular basis so it changes the way we think, speak, and act. The Bible gives us a godly world-view we can never gain from any other source.
During Rooted, you will be using this workbook for daily reading, and we also encourage you to read your Bible. The last reading of this week will give practical advice on how to understand God's Word and apply it to your daily life.