What does the Bible teach us about the Bible? (pt. 3)
A. The Bible is Authoritative (pt. 2)
B. The Bible is Necessary (pt. 3)
Many people reflect upon the time of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or the early decades of the new covenant Church and conclude, “We don’t really need the Bible. The Patriarchs didn’t have a text. And neither did the Church in its early years. It may be good for us, but we don’t need it.”
This line of thinking is greatly mistaken, though. Couldn’t a text be unnecessary for them but necessary for us? Yes, of course! And that is precisely the case. In those eras, God was revealing His word to the Patriarchs, Apostles, and Prophets through vision, dream, etc. Thus, the Patriarchs and the Church during the time of the Apostles had God’s word. That same word, however, needed permanence, which is why it was committed to writing. We no longer have Apostles and Prophets walking among us, which is why we need their message, which God committed to writing.
Our minds are darkness (Rom. 1:21; Eph. 4:18; 5:8) and our hearts are more deceitful than anything (Jer. 17:9). We are not righteous, we lack understanding, and we do not seek true goodness (Rom. 3:10-12). In other words, we cannot look for God’s word within us, as if our intuitions, ideas, and feelings were trustworthy. Rather, we must discover it outside ourselves, in the text of Holy Scripture. The Bible is necessary for us to rightly know God’s message to us.
