Bibliology

            The doctrine of Scripture is vital for how Christians present the Bible to others.  The world questions things like the Bible’s reliability and if it is really a revelation of God.  Christians even question the doctrine of the scriptures by challenging the necessity of the Old Testament and if God’s presence with us resides solely in a book. 

        The first place often turned to in defense of the reliability of scripture is 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “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 complete, equipped for every good work.” (ESV).  This is a powerful text that is hard to deny if one believes that there is a God.  For now we will stick to the doctrine of the scripture for believers in God and deal with Christian evidences later.

A second argument for the reliability of scripture is to consider the prophesies and their fulfillments through the ages, “And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 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 1:19–21).  The Bible is reliable because it contains fulfilled prophecy confirmed by time. 

It is vital that Christians not throw out the Old Testament in their Bibliology.  Paul wrote, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).  The “Scriptures” the 1^st Century Christians had were what Christians today call the “Old Testament.”  They certainly did not call them “old,” but considered them living and active (Hebrews 4:12).  God’s presence resides with us through his Spirit by which Christians speak through the word of God, the Bible, the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).