The Whole, Beautiful Truth of Scripture

Since God is the Author behind the authors—the ultimate source of revelation—Scripture must be interpreted as true in all its parts, and the unity of all its parts must be sought.

True in All Its Parts

Since Scripture is true in all its parts, it will not do to distort one’s interpretation of Scripture or to disallow a portion of Scripture because it might seem to be in conflict with a scientific theory, a historical source, or some contemporary psychological, sociological, or anthropological theory. For example, God created the world; it did not spontaneously arise. So, any understanding of the first chapters of Genesis must treat those chapters as true, or the interpreter will have used naturalistic presuppositions. Did God command Israel to destroy certain people, or was that Moses’ idea? Who wrote the book called “Isaiah”? There are many passages whose interpretation depends on answers to questions like those, but the interpreter who accepts the evaluation of Jesus Christ concerning the Bible must make every interpretation on the assumption that the Bible is true.

All Scripture is trustworthy, simply because God is the Author.

The Unity of Its Parts

If, indeed, the Bible is true in all its parts, a true unity must be sought by the one who would understand Scripture. Scripture must be compared with Scripture, and the context of the writer and the first receiver of the writing must be examined. Questions might arise such as: How does the Old Testament relate to the New? What does one do with historical records that do not seem to agree, such as certain genealogies in the Old Testament or accounts of Christ’s life in the New Testament? The task of harmonizing Scripture requires certain skills that we shall study in some detail in chapter 15. But we must begin with the basic principle that because all parts of Scripture are true, the harmony is already there, and our task is to search it out.

The searcher for truth is responsible for compiling all that the Bible says on a particular subject. Furthermore, it is a worthy task to seek to relate all biblical teaching in a comprehensive understanding of the whole body of biblical truth. At present, however, we may conclude that all Scripture is trustworthy, simply because God is the Author. Therefore, it is not only legitimate but necessary to work toward finding the unity among all the teachings of Scripture to understand more fully the will of God.