The Bible is a controversial book. While many in society still hold it in high regard, its accuracy, purpose, and even interpretation are often the topic of much debate. John Wesley said that his followers were “Bible Christians,” and he said they were interested in plain old Bible Christianity. That describes the Church of the Nazarene quite well. We have spelled out in Article of Faith #4 our understanding of the Bible.
We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.
Legalese such as this can often be difficult to understand, so let’s begin to unpack it and expand upon what is being said. Let’s first look at this term “plenary inspiration.” It may seem that this term is trying to explain how we understand God’s inspiration, but plenary simply means complete or entire. We believe that God’s inspiration is present in all scripture. From the genealogies in Genesis, the steamy poetry of Song of Songs, to the prophetic revelation of Jesus’ return, God’s spirit was guiding each and every author. 2 Timothy 3:16 states that all Scripture is “God-breathed.”
We do not understand this to mean that God overtook the over forty biblical writers and dictated to them verbatim what to write. We see throughout scripture that each author’s voice is clearly heard and distinguished. The book of Matthew reads completely different from the book of Mark. This is the reason that the authorship of the book of Hebrews is often in question. While some church traditions attribute the writing to Paul, the literary style doesn’t match that of his other writings.
These authors used their full minds in their writings. They didn’t sit by while God took control of their mind. Instead, the Holy Spirit carefully inspired each person so that each book dovetails together with the theme of God’s love. This guidance by the Holy Spirit is demonstrated in John 2:17, “His disciples remembered that it is written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” It is unlikely that the twelve or more disciples with Jesus each remembered this same scripture at the same time without influence from the Holy Spirit. This is how we understand God’s inspiration within the scriptures. The Holy Spirit put a burden upon someone’s heart to write about a particular topic or event and guided them with thoughts or memories in order to bring about God’s message.
This idea of plenary inspiration is why I so adamantly stress the importance of reading scripture within context. Not only is it important to read a verse within the complete context in which it was written. It’s important that we take into account the context of the entire bible. We see God demanding what seems to be genocide in the book of Joshua, but if we look back into Genesis 15 we see that God had given the Amorites more than four hundred years to turn to him. They were ultimately destroyed because of their own sin. Likewise, we cannot ignore a verse of scripture because we don’t like what it says. Each verse was inspired by God and carries the authority of God.
Next we come to the topic of biblical inerrancy. As the Article of Faith states, we believe that the bible inerrantly reveals the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation. This means that the bible is reliable and trustworthy in revealing to us what we need to know about God. We can trust it when it states that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. We can trust it when it tells us that we are saved through the birth, life, death, and bodily resurrection of Jesus. It inerrantly reveals the will of God in all things concerning our salvation.
There are some, more so in the Calvinist tradition, that seek to extend that and say that the bible is inerrant in every little factual detail. While we don’t necessarily disagree with this, we don’t find it helpful or necessary to take that extra step. God’s purpose behind the scriptures was not to provide us with a user manual and scientific explanation for how the world works. It gives some insight into historical scientific aspects of this world, that was never the main point. We can get so caught up in nitpicking minor details and trying to determine what constitutes an error that we can miss the message that is clearly presented to us through scripture.
We hold firmly to the teaching of Paul in 2 Timothy 3:16 that states, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” A such, we believe that all doctrine should be based upon scripture. This is highlighted by the last phrase in the Article of Faith which stated, “so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith.” Nothing shall make it into the doctrine of the Church of the Nazarene unless it is biblically sound. We are in the same boat as John Wesley and his followers who were interested in plain old Bible Christianity.
With that being said, scripture must be interpreted. We do such by relying upon the traditions and understanding of those who came before us as well as our own experience and the reasoning minds given to us by our creator. We cannot rely upon just one of these areas else we fall victim to heresy.
Each of us has had our own experiences that help shape our understanding of God. You may have one experience and I may have another. However, as this article states, my experiences and your experiences alone cannot be doctrine. It must come from the bible.
We have been commanded to love God with not only our hearts and souls but also with our minds. As we interpret the bible we must use our God-given ability to reason, but no amount of reasoning or philosophy can be the basis for any of our doctrines. Everything must come back to scripture for its basis. If you look at the articles of faith within the Nazarene Manual you will find that each article of faith is followed by the scriptural references that we believe support that article of faith.
In summary, we believe in the plenary inspiration of scripture, that God has inspired the whole thing. We believe that the scriptures inerrantly reveal the will of God in all things concerning our salvation. And we believe so strongly in the validity of scripture that all doctrine must be based upon scripture.
We hold the bible and the scriptures in high regard, but why is this book so important? People have risked their lives for just a few pages of this book. Why did they, and why should we, put such great value on what is contained within this book? For the simple reason that we’ve stated before. All Scripture is God-breathed. We may disagree on what exactly that means, but there is no denying it. The only way for this book, written over the course of thousands of years, to come together and be cohesive is for there to be one mind behind it. You can’t get ten people in a room to agree on what type of pizza to get. However, over forty authors spanning countless generations were able to comprehensively write a cohesive narrative of God’s love for us without knowing what each other or what else was written. All of this while not contradicting but rather reaffirming what others had written.
This is the reason God has give us the scriptures. That we might be changed to be like him and that good works may result from the time we spend in his word. With that in mind, the obvious question must be asked. In what ways are good works being produced in your life because of your study of God’s word?