Why is the Bible so important for Christians?

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”
2 Timothy 3:16

Characteristics of the Bible
The Bible has some distinguishing characteristics, and they are visible in texts as:

“The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”
Psalm 19:8 NASB (all quotes)

The Scripture is able to change humans positively: by joy, insights, and even by training.



Holy and True
Short and powerful is the saying of Jesus: “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”
John 17:17

The implications of Jesus’s saying is that the word of God is holy and true.
Only holiness can uplift us above ourselves.
Only truth can bring a lasting change.

Jesus himself used the word of the Old Testament in confrontation with the evil one (Matthew 4:4-11). He made the word of God fight for Him, as this word is holy and true. The evil one hates holiness and hates truth, as he is unholy and untrue. And with these negative qualifications he makes life difficult for many individuals, not to say hard and cruel.



Necessity of the Bible
Jeremiah declared: “The (human) heart is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?” (17:9)
Even our own heart we don’t understand and it is often uncontrollable. Therefore it is a privilege to give the seat of our heart to God, to make it firm and steady. That’s evangelical faith.

This is only possible if we have discovered that the word of God is holy and true, that can work for us while God is present. “Who has seen Me, has seen the Father,” Jesus declared. As soon as we understand that we can know Jesus through his words, we begin to rise, out of confusion. Listening to his words, is listening to Him.

However, in the 20^th century the secularization of the Church began, along with the urge in theology to make the Bible to a secular book (not holy, not true). A series of  misconceptions came to life in theology.



Misconceptions of Our Forefathers
The apostles would have written the gospels at the end of their lives after the period of apostolic preaching, a period of oral tradition which caused many changes entering into the stories of Jesus.

• The best proof for this theory would be the many differences between the gospels, particularly with regard to the sayings of Jesus.
• According to neo-Calvinism (neo-orthodoxy) this was no problem, as the gospels would not represent the very words of Jesus, but only an impression of his words and doings.
• Jesus would have spoken in the Aramaic language to the people. And later on his sayings would have been translated and published in the gospels.
• The theological result was that Christianity would be the only religion in the world without the original sayings of its founder. (That’s not an opinion to be very proud of, is it? The worst is, it is verifiably false.)
• Copy errors occurred during the transmission of bible texts in history. So we don’t possess the Bible in infallible state, one supposed.
• One forgot that Jesus in the last 24 hours of his life was delivered into the hands of men and holes in his body appeared (torturing, crucifixion). Did that make a different Jesus? Of course not. The Bible also delivered into the hands of man has approximately an undamaged text of about 95%. Did that change the Bible text and its power? Of course not.
  
  
  

What Many Christians Don’t Know

• There are enough Bible texts that show abundantly how Jesus’s sayings were written down during his life and work.
• When Jesus appeared as a teacher, Greek stenography existed already for nearly one century in all the centers of the Roman empire.
• Christians are ignorant that it was an invention by slaves and practiced in the lower social layers of society, where Jesus recruited his followers.
• The Gospels were brought out shortly after Pentecost, in the language of the lower circles of society: Greek (Acts 6:1).
• The apostles brought them out as one testament. A will of Jesus, documented during his life, that became active after his death (Hebrews 9:15-17).
• Paul’s letters are not the first documents of the Christian Church, as the vast majority of theologians declare mistakenly, but the Gospels.
  – Nobody seems to understand what Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:3-4:
  “³If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching which accords with godliness, ⁴ he is puffed up with conceit; he knows nothing;” (RSV)
• Was this word of Paul not applicable to Christians who would not possess already the Gospels? Of course not. This statement included that the Gospels were the testament for the Christians from the outset of the Church.