The 1970 revision of our articles moved the statement on the Bible from first to second in order. In one sense, God who gave us the Bible should be our first affirmation of faith.

But often Protestants listed the article on the Bible first. It was the Protestant way of saying: From the Bible and not human tradition comes all our beliefs.

Stinson’s 1824 article was almost identical with United Baptist statements of the time. Our present reading is very close to Stinson’s. In 1949 the word “inspired” was added to Stinson’s wording.

By the time of the United Baptists (early 1800's), Protestant statements did not need to list the biblical books individually. The books of the Apocrypha (Sirach, Tobit, 1 Maccabees, and the others) were no longer being debated. So Stinson could simply say Old and New Testaments.

The Scriptures are for us (all at the same time): God’s very word of revelation, the record of revelation, and the medium of revelation.

The word of revelation means that the Bible makes known God’s will, nature and salvation.

The record of revelation reminds us that God’s revelation occurred in the past to people other than ourselves. God made himself known in a variety of ways and in multiple events. The Bible contains sermons, songs, proverbs, laws, and especially narratives.

The historical nature of these encounters between God and his people is indicated by the ancient biblical languages used and by the customs (foreign to us) assumed by the writers. Thus we study Hebrew and Greek or depend upon scholars for translations. We wish to understand fully what the Bible tells us.

The medium of revelation is one way to affirm that God through the Bible makes himself known today in order to accomplish his on-going, never-changing purpose. The same Spirit that inspired the original words continues to work to achieve the grand purpose of God for his creation.

The Bible is one aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seeks to accomplish God’s desire for a redeemed and holy people who would be God’s special possession and witness.

The Spirit reveals in the Bible the depth of human need and God’s act of redemption to create that people.

For us to exist as a people pleasing to God, the Holy Spirit reveals in the Bible the outward and inward aspects of a right relationship with God (holiness). What the Spirit seeks to do privately and subjectively with individuals, he has made known in the Bible. The inward work of the Spirit is toward a particular kind of life made known through the Bible.

Indeed, our study of the Bible is one way the Spirit accomplishes his work in us.

“Infallible”and “inspired” stress that the Spirit has so prepared the Bible that it truly and reliably fulfills its task to make God known and to guide God’s people in their walk with God. Stinson used the phrase “only safe guide.”

A lamp for our feet (Psalm 119:105) whose words are sweet to the taste (Psalm 119:103) and able to make us wise concerning God’s salvation (2 Timothy 3:15) is what the Bible is.

As people of the Bible we joyfully say: “In God, whose word I praise, in the Lord, whose word I praise–In God I trust; I will not be afraid” (Psalm 56:10-11b NIV).

Dr. Douglas Low, Professor of New Testament, Chapman Seminary and OCU