Why We Have the Bible
I treasure our church’s Statement of Faith. I carry a copy of it around in my Bible. You can call me weird for doing that, but you probably should have called me weird a long time ago for a number of other things. Anyway, our church’s Statement of Faith is based in large part upon the 1853 New Hampshire Confession of Faith. It is a wonderful confession that aptly summarizes the most important Biblical truths. It helps me when I’m trying to put a deep doctrine into biblically succinct words.
A few weeks back I jumped for joy (not literally) when a friend pointed me to a copy of What Baptists Believe: The New Hampshire Confession, an Exposition. The book was written in 1913 by O.C.S. Wallace and while I’m only a ten or so pages in, I’ve already found a few nuggets. Like this one, “We have the Bible because we have God.” What a simple, profound, and truth-filled statement. We have the Bible because we have God.
I’m so grateful that we have God’s revelation of himself (the Bible), and I’m so grateful that he is who he has revealed himself to be. He is, to use his own words, “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Exodus 34:6-7). We have the Bible because we have God, and because we have God we have worship. That is why in Exodus 34:8 Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Our Bibles lead us to God, and thus lead us to worship. May our God use our reading of his Holy Word to fan into flame our worship of him.