What We Believe - About the Bible

We teach that God has revealed Himself. In nature, characteristics of God can be seen in the created universe and in man’s conscience (Psalm 19:1-4; Acts 14:15-17; 17:24-29; Romans 1:19-21; 2:15). God has also specially revealed Himself in His Word (Ps. 19:7-11) and in His Son Heb. 1:1-4). In the Bible God has revealed to us specifics about Himself and His ways that cannot be known apart from His Word.

We teach that the Bible (limited to the 39 books of Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament) is the supernatural, inerrant, authoritative, and inspired revelation of God (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:19-21). We teach that God is the source of the Bible and that He miraculously worked through human instruments (2 Sam. 23:2; 2 Pet. 1:20-21; Matt. 1:22; 1 Thes. 2:13). We teach the completion and sufficiency of Scripture so that there is no need for fantastic continuous revelations of God such as modern dreams, prophecies, and visions (Deut. 4:2; Heb. 2:4).

We teach the power of the Word to sanctify believers (Ps. 119:9-11), give life (John 6:63), grant faith (Rom. 10:17), illuminate and reveal spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:9-14), and so on (Heb. 4:12-13).

We teach that God has preserved His word for centuries through the faithful duplication of manuscripts and translation into modern languages. We do not teach that inerrancy extends to copied manuscripts or modern translations but trust translations that are faithful to the manuscripts Neh. 8:8).

Based upon this high view of the Holy Scriptures, we teach that mankind is to studiously search the Scriptures, seeking by historical-grammatical interpretation to discover God’s intended meaning (2 Pet. 1:21) and apply the unchanging truth to modern settings.