That statement warns us against making the Bible into an idol, in which we worship it instead of the God it reveals to us. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ." The opening of the Gospel of John reminds us what the Word is: it’s Jesus, God's Word incarnate! Paraphrasing Martin Luther, pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber says, But what is the Word of God? Is it a collection of texts gathered into a canon and named the Bible (and if so, which canon? The Catholic canon, or Protestant, or Orthodox, or so on)? Is the Word of God a physical object you can hold in your hands? Must we take the Bible "literally" to take it seriously?Ĭhristians generally profess the Word of God to be perfect, truth itself. It is important to note that any attempt to simplify these complex beliefs will never be perfectly accurate, and that many Christians' beliefs around these topics reflect a mixture of "conservative" and "liberal" viewpoints - we do not all fall purely into one category or the other. If you have only ever been taught one way to interpret scripture and/or one way to understand the concept of "Divine Inspiration," it may surprise you to know that not all Christians understand these concepts in the same way! For instance, must we take the Bible "literally," or might some of it be figurative? Must every event described in the Bible have happened exactly as recorded? And must the Bible be a word-for-word message from God in order to be divinely inspired, or might we perceive God as working through human authors in order to speak to us through scripture?ĭrawing from an article by Andrew Village called "Assessing Belief about the Bible: A Study among Anglican Laity," the table below compares biblically "conservative" and biblically "liberal" beliefs surrounding Divine Inspiration and authority.
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