An Introduction to Thinking Biblically

The 21st century has revealed a rupture within cultural discourse and thought. Nominal Christianity is finding that many ideas previously and commonly held by the culture are now being threatened by “deconstructionism” or disappearing completely. There seems to be no tolerance for reason or truth and ultimately no place for the Christian worldview.

The Church has fallen prey to the gainsayers by having a weak epistemological foundation. What do I mean by that? Many Christians simply assert their worldview without ever checking under the hood to see what’s in there? What foundation have we built our house on? And more importantly, to properly build the Kingdom of God, as He wants it built, what tools provide a sturdy foundation for the claims Christians make? These are the questions I seek us to answer in this brief article. Let us Christians remind ourselves to firmly stand upon the ultimate rock who is Christ Jesus, revealed sufficiently and perfectly in the Holy Scriptures.

The Scriptures provide the Christian with the only solid epistemological grounds to be able to assert, use, and provide an account for truth, ethics, thought, philosophy, theology, mathematics, logic, etc. Without the revelation of the triune God found in the Bible, one cannot properly understand or have a meaningful justification for reason and thought. By grounding the Christian worldview in Scripture not only does it provide an objective basis for the believer but also aids him as he pushes the unbeliever to consistency in their worldview. He therefore can demonstrate the faulty theological and philosophical foundations the unbeliever stands upon. This is what Dr. Greg L Bahnsen described as “pushing the antithesis” which is the primary role of Christian apologetics.

Christians must understand how to identify the different worldviews at play to be able to have a biblically sound response to the madness of our times. There must be a return to the pillars of biblical Christianity. Christians must stop showing up to the gun fight and leaving their bazooka (the Bible) back at the house. Rather we ought to take after the instruction of Isaiah the Prophet: 

And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.” (Is. 8:19-20)

We must begin with the grounding presupposition, or starting point, that the Scriptures alone [Genesis 1-Revelation 22] are the inerrant, sufficient and final revelation of God. In many ways these terms and affirmations are what sets Protestants apart from other branches of Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, etc.), and thus it is quite important to have a decent grasp of what they mean. Let’s unpack them a little.

When we speak of inerrancy, we are simply saying that the Bible contains no errors within itself, hence, there are no mistakes and logically speaking, no contradictions. When God spoke, he spoke perfectly. This is what the Apostle Paul was communicating in Second Timothy when he said that “All Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16a), the greek translation for “breathed out” is theopneustos. Paul through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is telling us that all of Scripture, not some of it, not certain sections, but all of Scripture is breathed out from the very mouth of God. It is the speech of God, it originates from within, it is very literally His Words, which is why there is a divine quality to Holy Writ. (Rom. 3:2)

When we speak of the sufficiency of Scripture we are saying that within the Word of God, there is a “completeness”. The Bible is able to completely or sufficiently equip the believer for every good work, as Paul mentions in the previously quoted passage “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17) The profitability and sufficiency of the Scriptures present to us the comprehensive nature of the Bible for the Christian as he or she is equipped to labor in extending God’s kingdom into every area of life and thought (Gen. 1:26-31; Matt. 6:10; 28:18-20). Dr. John Frame affirms this foundational truth by stating that:

The only way to find truth is to bow before God’s authoritative Scripture… The very essence of knowledge is to bring our thoughts into agreement with God’s revealed Word. Thinking God’s thoughts after him is to be the rule not only in narrowly religious matters, but in every sphere of human life … history, science, psychology, sociology, literary criticism… business, sports, family life, worship, politics … God calls us to ‘presuppose’ him in all our thinking. This means that we must regard his revealed truth as more important and more certain than any other, and find in it the norms or criteria that all other knowledge must meet.1 

To speak of the sacred Scriptures as the final revelation of God is to assert that the Christian faith holds to a closed canon. This means that unlike many other world religions Christianity, due to the completion of the biblical canon before 70 AD2, does not receive any new revelation from God. He has spoken finally, perfectly, and sufficiently in the sixty six books of the Bible, all of the revelation that God wished to disclose with us is confounded within the Scriptures. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit is dead, nor that He does not work in and through believers. But it points us to what the author of Hebrews mentions when speaking of how God revealed himself through time: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Heb. 1:1-2) The author of Hebrews and the Apostle Peter who witnessed the transfiguration of our Lord confirm the final authoritative revelation of Jesus being graciously given to us in the Word of God: “... And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” (2 Pet. 1:19)

Lastly, we come to the heart of the debate that occurred during the Reformation, the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. There were other biblical doctrines recovered at the Protestant Reformation, however the main debate that took place was over authority. Luther and other Reformers had one rallying cry: ad fontes! (to the source or foundation!) A great desire to go back to the original source of divine authority, which lies within the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments alone. Although the Reformers acknowledged that the Church, tradition, creeds, and councils are real voices with genuine authority vested in them3, these are subservient to the Word of God. The Roman church disagreed. This is why and how the Westminster Divines could state that Scripture interpreting Scripture is the infallible rule of interpretation. Logically, it follows that the church and tradition are not the infallible rule to interpret the Word of God. Dr. Phil Kayser in his excellent work, The Canon of Scripture, succinctly explains why it is incorrect to appeal to church authority as the highest authority:

Because the Scriptures are the infallible “word of God” (John 10:35), and the “word of truth” (Ps. 119:43; Eph. 1:13; 2 Tim. 2:15; James 1:18) they are also said to be “the key of knowledge” (Luke 11:52). The Bible clearly states that God’s Word is the ultimate standard by which all other truth-claims are judged (John 17:17; Ps. 11:7; 119:89,151,160; Numb. 23:19). Christ’s statement, “Your Word is truth” (John 17:17), has profound implications for epistemology. If Jesus had simply said, “Your Word is true,” it would imply that the Word was being judged for its truthfulness by an outside standard. By saying, “Your Word is truth,” Jesus was affirming that the Bible is the standard of truth and the measure of all truth claims. Nothing in man is the standard, whether that be emotions, experience, tradition, science, human authority, etc.4 

Scripture alone must be the beginning and final authority for all matters of life and thought. It would behoove the Christian to remember that since the garden of Eden the battle has always been centered around the question of final authority; has God really said?. This pernicious question has not changed, man is still trying to inject himself as the final arbiter for his own life and thought. When societies begin questioning or changing biblical definitions such as inerrancy, sufficiency, and the finality of the Scriptures, Christians must boldly take a stand, no matter the cost. As Dr. Cornelius Van Til so potently reminded his students of the myth of neutrality in his book Christian Theistic Ethics, “There is no alternative but that of theonomy and autonomy.”5

The purpose of this article is to provide a mere introduction to a few very important concepts when considering the Scriptures, it is by no means an exhaustive study. Further resources for study will be listed below for those who want to explore these things.

Recommended Resources

• Always Ready by Greg L. Bahnsen

• Lectures on Calvinism by Abraham Kuyper

• Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul

• The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

• The Doctrine of the Word of God by John Frame

• Sola Scriptura: The Protestant Position on the Bible by Don Kistler (many authors)

• “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God: Some Evangelical Principles by J.I. Packer

• The Shape of Sola Scriptura by Keith A. Mathison

• Scripture Alone: Exploring the Bible’s Accuracy, Authority, and Authenticity by James R. White

• The Canon of Scripture: A Presuppositional Study by Phillip Kayser

• Inerrancy by Norman L. Geisler

• Can I Really Trust the Bible by Barry Cooper

• Can I Trust the Bible mini-series by Wes Huff

• Why Should I Trust the Bible? by Timothy Paul Jones

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1John M. Frame, “Cornelius Van Til,” Handbook of Evangelical Theologians, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), p. 163.

2This position is debated by certain scholars particularly on the dating of the book of Revelation, however, a very strong case can be made from internal and external evidence. See Dr. A.T. Robertson’s tremendous study on this, Redating the New Testament. For a thorough defense of a pre-70 AD dating on the book of Revelation see Dr. Kenneth Gentry’s great work, Before Jerusalem Fell.

3Protestants strongly reject the notion of Solo Scriptura, which posits that the only authority is the Bible and therefore a Christian only needs, “Me, my Bible, and the Holy Spirit”. For more on this caricature of the Protestant position of Sola Scriptura, see Keith Mathison’s great work, The Shape of Sola Scriptura.

4Phillip Kayser, The Canon of Scripture: A Presuppositional Study (Omaha, NE: Biblical Blueprints, 2021)

5Cornelius Van Til, In Defense of the Faith, Vol. 3: Christian Theistic Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1980), p. 134.