The Bible is Infallible and Normative Language

"The Bible is language. It describes itself. Not only is it preinterpreted by God (as all facts are), but it also interprets and describes its own facts. And Scripture's self-interpretations and self-descriptions are infallible and normative; in the most important sense, they cannot be improved upon" (John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 78).

 

The Bible - "The things needed for salvation are as clear as daylight."

"Men may tell you that there are difficulties in the Bible, things hard to understand. It would not be God's book if there were not. And what if there are? You don't despise medicines because you cannot explain all that your doctor does with them. But whatever men may say, the things needed for salvation are as clear as daylight. Be very sure of this -- people never reject the Bible because they cannot understand it. They understand it too well; they understand that it condemns their own behavior; they understand that it witnesses against their own sins, and summons them to judgment. They try to believe it is false and useless, because they don't like to believe it is true. An evil lifestyle must always raise an objection to this book. Men question the truth of Christianity because they hate the practice of it" (J. C. Ryle, Thoughts for Young Men, 37).

Scripture and Christian Formation

"The Christian Scriptures are the primary text for Christian spirituality. Christian spirituality is, in its entirety, rooted in and shaped by the scriptural text. We don't form our personal spiritual lives out of a random assemblage of favorite texts in combination with individual circumstances; we are formed by the Holy Spirit in accordance with the text of Holy Scripture. God does not put us in charge of forming our personal spiritualities. We grow in accordance with the revealed Word implanted in us by the Spirit" (Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book, 15).

Col. 3:16-17, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Worship, which is Spirit-led and Scripture-saturated, is corporate discipleship; by Spirit and Word, worship provides both corporate-formation and personal spiritual-formation.

Evangelical Christian

"We must learn to know the Scriptures again, as the Reformers and our fathers knew them. We must not grudge the time and the work that it takes. We must know the Scriptures first and foremost for our salvation. . . . But one who will not learn to handle the Bible for himself is not an evangelical Christian" (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 54-55).

Bible and Lordship of Christ

"The Bible is authoritative not because we accept it as such, but because it is the word of the risen Lord. It has a claim on all people. Its truth is the truth for every person in every place. Why, then, would we be reluctant to communicate that truth in our apologetics? Perhaps because we have not reckoned with the actual lordship of Christ. Perhaps we haven't really set him apart as Lord in our hearts" (K. Scott Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith, 37).

Internal Evidence of Scripture's Divine Origin

"The Bible claims to be the word of God; it speaks in his name, it assumes his authority" (Charles Hodge, The Way of Life: A Handbook of Christian Belief and Practice, 17).

Praying and Reading

What to pray while reading Scripture: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law" (Psalm 119:18).

Treasury of Scripture

"When Scripture is stored in the mind, it is available for the Holy Spirit to take and bring to your attention when you need it most" (Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, 42).

High-View of Scripture in a Nutshell

An illustration from one of C. H. Spurgeon's sermons: a high-view of Scripture in a nutshell.

"I believe in the Bible," said one. 

"How can you do that?" sneered another. 

"Because I know the Author," was the fit reply.

Bible and History (and the Historical-Critical Method)

Since "[t]he faith of Israel and the faith of historical Christianity is founded not in lofty ideas or ideals but in God's acts in human history" (24), and since, that is, ever since, Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923) paved the way for the open display of presuppositions which have become the routing logic and functional architecture that back the historical-critical method (e.g., "Troeltsch insists that this principle [the principle of criticism and probability] be applied impartially to all historical traditions, including biblical traditions (25)"), then we should find it no surprise that there is a conflict between the former's view, that the Bible is unique (since it is God's self-revelation of His acts in human history), and the latter's view, summarized by Sidney Greidanus, that "the Bible is to be treated like any other document."

Greidanus, in The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature, addresses this antithesis, and commits an entire chapter to examining the historical foundations of biblical preaching. Look it up, it is a good read.

In the first half of the chapter, Greidanus provides an appraisal and critique of the historical-critical method, demonstrating that the assumptions provided by Troeltsch have been above, beneath, and around this initiative since the get go. Greidanus then, in the second half of the chapter, goes on and provides an alternate "holistic historical-critical method," which, if we want to do justice to the Scriptures, he insists "must make a radical break with the assumptions held by Troeltsch."  Therefore, what we have are two views: the view that  "God acts in human history" vs. the Troeltshian view of a historical-critical method shaped by Troeltsch's assumptions.

Greidanus airs his concerns:

The accepted historical-critical method shows its bias when it first eliminates God as a factor in history and then declares certain reported events unhistorical because they speak of God's acts in history. Aside from pointing out the obvious circularity in this argument, I would make the following observations: If a historical-critical method, by definition or otherwise, cannot acknowledge all factors in history, it loses the right to make subsequent judgments concerning the historicity of reported events. Now the historical-critical method, as a matter of fact, has been making probability judgments regarding the historicity of reported events. That being the case, the method--if it is to be credible--must of necessity take into account all possible factors that may be operative in history. 

Greidanus hits the nail on the head. Contrary to Troeltsch, the Bible is a radically different document. Therefore, if the assumptions of Troeltsch remain above, beneath, and around the historical-critical method, then the answers posed by the historical-critical method will, in the end, be found to have already resided in the questions asked by the historical-critical model.

Preach with Divine Authority: Submit to Scripture, Echo the Word of God

"If preachers wish to preach with divine authority, they must submit themselves, their thoughts and opinions, to the Scriptures and echo the word of God" (Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature, 12-13).

Expository Responsibility

"Whether it [the text] is long or short, our responsibility as expositors is to open it up in such a way that it speaks its message clearly, plainly, accurately, relevantly, without addition, subtraction or falsification." Quotation from Stott's Between Two Worlds, as quoted by Sidney Greidanus (The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature, 11).

Pass on Message of the Bible: Preach Biblically

"To preach the word today means, therefore, to pass on to the church here and now the message of the Bible. The call to preach the word is a call to preach biblically" (Sidney Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text: Interpreting and Preaching Biblical Literature, 10).