[Darris McNeely] Can you rely on the Bible as the Word of God inspired, and the authentic teaching and voice of God the Creator? It's an important question. Once again this year, I've been going through the fundamentals of belief and taking young minds at Ambassador Bible College through teachings of the Bible. And helping them at the beginning to understand that the Word of God, a basic bedrock belief that a Christian must have, is one that one can rely on, that it is the teaching and the revelation of God. 

There are two key scriptures that we always take students through to help them appreciate the fact that they can, at least from the Bible, believe God's Word and trust in what it says. 2 Timothy 3:16 is a key verse in this regard, let's read it. It says that, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, as profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and for instruction in righteousness." Doctrine, basic teaching. How are we to look at God? How are we to understand the nature of humans? How are we to look at the spirit world? How are we to look at God's law? That's how we look at doctrine. 

Reproof is correction that goes a little deeper than teaching. It's teaching about how to live righteously, to correct our own lives, and to change, to conform, to repentance, to God's life and to God's way. And then, instruction in righteousness, how to treat our fellow man, how to live before God. 

The Bible itself says that it is profitable for doctrine reproof and instruction, and that it is inspired by God. I like the word, "Inspired by God," it comes from a word that means that it is "God breathed," literally is what the Greek means here. Theopneustos, it is "God breathed." 

When we look at the Scriptures, when we look at the Bible, we have to understand that those words, in their original form as given to the authors who actually penned the Bible in the original pages, what are called autographs, were writing down the words that were breathed by God to them. Therefore, it's inspired by God. The Bible's a unique book, it's not like other pieces of literature. It's not like any other human book or writing. It is God's inspired words through human instruments. 

There's one other Scripture that we always turn to, to help us in this, and it's in 2 Peter 1:21, where it says, "No prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." God's Spirit moved individuals to write these words that were God-breathed. They're not initiated by men, they were initiated by God and put there through his instruments. They are not...whether it's the prophecies and the other writings. 

This helps us to understand how the Bible is as a book that we can rely upon from God. Now, there are many other evidences of the truth of the Bible that we can, in a sense, take to the bank and rely on. That's much, much deeper than we wanna go into here, but I wanted to, at least, re-establish in our minds of our viewers, a confident belief from two pieces of internal evidence, which are valid pieces of evidence for us to examine. 

That we can rely on the Word of God as the words of God breathed from Him, inspired by Him, written and transmitted, and given, by Him to us as a way of life. This teaching, as to how to understand Him, relate to Him, and to live our lives. It is something that we can rely on, and we should appreciate that.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.