The Nature of Scripture

Historically the church has understood the nature of Scripture much the same as it has understood the person of Christ — the Bible is at the same time both human and divine. ‘The Bible,’ it has been correctly said, ‘is the Word of God given in human words in history.’  Because the Bible is God’s Word, it has eternal relevance; it speaks to all humankind, in every age and in every culture. Because it is God’s Word, we must listen — and obey. But because God chose to speak his Word through human words in history, every book in the Bible also has historical particularity; each document is conditioned by the language, time, and culture in which it was originally written (and in some cases also by the oral history it had before it was written down.)  Interpretation of the Bible is demanded by the ‘tension’ that exists between its eternal relevance and its historical particularity.           — from p. 21 How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart