Baptist Faith and Message: The Scriptures
All around us we see the ideological ruins of every mainline denomination. What do these ruins have in common? The compromise of the doctrine of Scripture. Jettison divine inspiration and with it you’ll abandon the authority of Scripture and its trustworthiness. What you’ll be left with is a book of myth, tradition, or quasi-historical information. With the many problems facing the SBC, one distinctive that has allowed our denomination to survive the liberalizing cataclysm that has swept through much of the religious culture in America is the Baptists unwavering, non-negotiable, won’t-back-down, declaration that the Bible is God’s Word, infallible and inerrant, communicated by the spirit, through men filled with the spirit, and is, therefore, God’s intended voice and message to mankind, obligating every person to submit to its authority.
You must be committed to this doctrine, you must grow in this conviction, you must teach your people this precept, and you must defend it against any compromise. For the Word of God is more precious than life, because it gives life. Its message of creation, fall, redemption, restoration, and glorification is the message of Good News. This is the only thing of unique value we have to bring to our people and communities. There is a God, this God saves, and He saves you through Jesus who is the Word of God made flesh. This outlandish idea according to the world is perfectly suited for Christians to declare with boldness because the authority of the Word says it is so.
So feelings, experience, emotion, intuition, etc are never to be accorded the same place of authority in our lives as the Scripture. To allow that to happen is to subject oneself to a fallible authority and it will lead to a shipwrecking of your faith. All of these things are vitally important, God created us with these capacities, but they only function correctly when they are yoked to and follow the Word. In a hyper-emotional culture, you may need to repent of a habit of responding to God’s Word only when it makes you feel “good” or warm or fuzzy. The Word that brings light and life also brings joy but only to those who are committed to it without compromise.
Is the doctrine of Scripture new to you? Wonderful! We want to help you grow. Are you still wrestling with this doctrine? We want to inform you of what the Bible says. If you are already committed to the authority and sufficiency of God’s Word, let us remind ourselves that we never grow past foundational doctrine and that it is good to revisit and rejoice those truths which grow our faith.
Further Study in the Scripture
Exodus 24:4; Deuteronomy 4:1-2; 17:19; Joshua 8:34; Psalms 19:7-10; 119:11,89,105,140; Isaiah 34:16; 40:8; Jeremiah 15:16; 36:1-32; Matthew 5:17-18; 22:29; Luke 21:33; 24:44-46; John 5:39; 16:13-15; 17:17; Acts 2:16ff.; 17:11; Romans 15:4; 16:25-26; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-2; 4:12; 1 Peter 1:25; 2 Peter 1:19-21.
Resources
The Battle for the Bible, a Historical Recap the-inerrancy-of-scripture-the-fifty-years-war-and-counting
Go Further, Know Your Roots, Celebrate Your Legacy 1689 Baptist Confession
Learn the Terms, a glossary of terms that will help you understand the Doctrine of Scripture better.