The Crucial Relevance of Every Word in the Bible for Today’s World

By Sam Rainer, Op-ed Contributor

All of Scripture is for every part of our lives.

Every single word in the Bible is powerful, purposeful, and prescient. Understanding the Bible as a whole is worth your whole effort. Every word in the Bible matters because every minute of your day matters. In Luke’s Gospel, we learn that God counts the hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7). God is always involved in every area of your life. Since He always knows every hair on your head, God must actively count each one.

The lesson is simple: God is always active, caring, and present in your life. The way He wants you to interact with Him is through the Bible.

The Bible is God’s story. And the first step in understanding the Bible as a whole is realizing the biblical story is not about you but rather for you. The first words in Genesis are, “In the beginning God,” not, “In the beginning you.” God is the protagonist of the Bible, not you.

God creates. God speaks. God saves. He is not just part of creation or a power in creation but the Sovereign over all creation. The story of the Bible is about God, but this story exists because God wants to redeem us. Paul wrote that God gave us the Bible for our “hope and encouragement” (Romans 15:4). The Bible is God’s roadmap to hope.

The Bible reveals God’s plan for redeeming his people. The story has ups and downs, unexpected plot twists, failures and successes. It’s not G-rated, and all the characters are flawed, with one exception — Jesus.

In the same way, Jesus is alive, and so too the Bible is. Grasping the power of the written word is one thing, but believing the written word is alive is entirely different. The Bible is God’s own words with the purpose of drawing people to Himself.

Because the Bible is from God, it is personal communication from Him. That means we can trust that it is true because it is God’s own words — authoritative, inspired, infallible, and sufficient.

The Bible is authoritative

You are not the authority over the Bible. Rather, the Bible is the authority over you. Do not read the Bible like you go through junk mail envelopes, looking for a deal and then tossing the rest aside without even opening them. Do not read the Bible like you read the newspaper’s opinion section, looking for an angle that supports a viewpoint you already have. Read the Bible like a love letter where you devour every word and feel each phrase. The Bible contains the greatest words of love ever written. Indeed, the Bible’s words define love. You don’t just search the Scripture. You must let the Scriptures search you.

The Bible is inspired and infallible

When you read the Bible, you are hearing directly from God. The Bible is inspired by God, which means it is a direct word from Him. As such, the Bible is infallible, which means it will not lead you astray. You can trust the Bible. All truth is derived from God, which means the Bible is the gold standard of truth. It will not deceive us or prove unreliable. Indeed, God’s Word is wholly reliable — always and everywhere.

The Bible is sufficient

God’s Word is all you need to live in a way that honors Him. Nothing else is necessary to understand the good news of Jesus. No other books are required to know God and follow the Holy Spirit. What we have in the Bible is perfect, trustworthy, right, clear, pure, and true. No other written words can claim this sufficiency. The Bible alone is sufficient. You can trust the whole of Scripture, so now I hope you read the whole of Scripture.

If you don’t have it near you, then go get your favorite copy of the Bible. Prayerfully ask God to give you a passion for reading it. Don’t wait. Open your Bible now and read, even if for a few minutes. The words contained in your Bible are eternally more important than any other words ever written.

Originally published at Church Answers.

Sam Rainer is president of Church Answers and pastor at West Bradenton Baptist Church in Florida.