We believe 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 believe 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 believe 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 believe the completion and sufficiency of Scripture so that there is no need for continuous revelations of God in the form of modern dreams, prophecies, and visions (Deut. 4:2; Heb. 2:4).
We believe 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 believe 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 believe that mankind is to fervently search the Scriptures, through historical-grammatical interpretation in order to discover God’s intended meaning (2 Pet. 1:21) and apply the unchanging truth to modern settings.
