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Authority In The Bible Essay

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When thinking about the relationship between the authority of scripture and the historical reliability of the Bible, it is important to understand the definitions of the two key words at hand. According to the Oxford Dictionary, authority is defined as “the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.” Reliability is stated as “the quality of being trustworthy or of performing constantly well.” From the beginning of our Christian lives, we are taught, or perhaps told, that the Bible is God’s truthful word and that we should not only trust it, but base our lives around serving Him through what is written in it’s pages. As it says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, …show more content…

But the Bible delves so much deeper than that. The Bible is in itself, a translation of history and humankind, showing how people, as individuals or groups, have either been blessed or disciplined by God for their demeanor towards Him and His holy laws. It is this unique account of the moral and spiritual factors behind the historical narrative, that continues to make the Bible so relevant to modern day society today. God’s word reveals the will of God in each of our lives through showing His divine nature as depicted in hundreds of real-life illustrations throughout the Bible.
When speaking about the authority of scripture, it is necessary to understand that while all Scripture was given to us by God, the form in which it was given was transcribed in two different ways. First by direct revelation; by which the literal words of God are chronicled by the prophets. Second by inspiration; by which the Holy Spirit oversaw the prophets as they wrote and thus the prophets wrote ‘Divine Truth.’ As seen in 2 Peter 1:20-21, “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.” Nearly four thousand times in the Bible there are written words or

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