Category Archives: Scripture

The Bible Created the Church

Posted on by

It is not the church that gave us our Bible, rather it is our Bible the gave us the church. When the church made a list of the inspired Scriptures, these were already acknowledged to be so in the Christian community. The Church did not stand over the Scripture in authority but submitted to them, using the Latin phrase “Recipimus” meaning “We Receive.” That is vital to understand. The Scriptures are self authenticating, having their source in God. The church merely recognized and received the word of God. God created the world by His word and creates Christians the same way – “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23)

– John Samson

The Supremacy of Scripture

Posted on by

Quotes by Tim Chester from his upcoming published book “Scripture is Supreme”:

  1. “When Christians say that Scripture is supreme, we are saying that the Bible is the authoritative guide to God.”
  2. “Scripture is supreme because it is wholly trustworthy, and it is wholly trustworthy because God himself inspired its creation, acting through human authors to ensure Scripture’s complete accuracy.”
  3. “We accept Scripture as our supreme authority because we recognise God as our authority. By submitting to Scripture, we are submitting to God.”
  4. “We accept the supremacy of Scripture because we accept the supremacy of its author.”
  5. “The true Christ is the Christ we find in Scripture. And therefore, the supremacy of Christ becomes the supremacy of Scripture.”
  6. “Through the Holy Spirit, God himself speaks through the Bible as it is read and preached. That’s why Scripture is our supreme authority—because it is the voice of God.”
  7. “The supremacy which God-through-Scripture claims over us is the loving, liberating, life-giving rule of a loving, liberating, life-giving God. If ever we have reason to doubt this, then we can look to the cross, for at the cross we see the love of God in all its height, depth, and breadth (Rom. 5:8).”
  8. “Whenever we have to choose between what the Bible says and what anything else says, we choose the Bible every time.”
  9. “The supremacy of Scripture is not a dictate imposed on us by a faceless despot. The words of Scripture are the words of Jesus, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his people.”
  10. “God becomes supreme in our hearts not by battering us into submission but by gently changing our desires and fuelling our love. This is why we read the Bible every day: to hear God speak to us in love and so be energised to serve him.”

Quotes on the Word

Posted on by

“When the canon closed on the OT [Old Testament] after the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, there followed four hundred ‘silent years’ when no prophet spoke God’s revelation in any form. That silence was broken by John the Baptist as God spoke once more prior to the NT [New Testament] age. God then moved various men to record the books of the NT, and the last of these was Revelation, also the last book in our Bibles. By the second century A.D., the complete canon, exactly as we have it today was popularly recognized. Church councils in the fourth century verified and made official what the church has universally affirmed: that the sixty-six books in our Bible are the only true Scripture inspired by God. The canon is complete. Just as the close of the OT canon was followed by silence, so the close of the NT has been followed by the utter absence of new revelation in any form. Since the book of Revelation was completed, no new written or verbal prophecy has ever been universally recognized by Christians as divine truth from God.” – John MacArthur, Does God Still Give Revelation, TMS Journal

“An ambassador is not a man who voices his own thoughts or his own opinions or views, or his own desires. The very essence of the position of the ambassador is that he is a man who has been sent to speak for somebody else. He is the speaker for his Government or his President or his King or Emperor, or whatever form of government his country may have. He is not a man who speculates and gives his own views and ideas. He is the bearer of a message, he is commissioned to do this, he is sent to do this; and that is what he must do. In other words, the content of the sermon is what is called in the New Testament ‘The Word’. ‘Preach the word’, or ‘preach the Gospel’, or ‘the whole counsel of God.’ That being interpreted means the message of the Bible, the message of the Scriptures.” – Martyn Lloyd Jones

“Let the man who would hear God speak read Holy Scripture.” – Martin Luther

“The Word of God can take care of itself, and will do so if we preach it, and cease defending it. See you that lion. They have caged him for his preservation; shut him up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes! See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion. What a clatter they make with their swords and spears! These mighty men are intent upon defending a lion. O fools, and slow of heart! Open that door! Let the lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure gospel go forth in all its lion-like majesty, and it will soon clear its own way and ease itself of its adversaries.” – C. H. Spurgeon