How Do I Know the Bible is the Word of God
By: Steve Johnson, DDS | September 7, 2025
In the Beginning was the Word
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, John 1:1. In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophillas, Luke 1: 1-3. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever, Isaiah 40:8.
It is amazing to think about the God of this universe and everything He created, pointing to Him, and that He would give His word to people to write it down so we would have it in the form of the Bible. It is by far the most read book ever written, and many people have died or been imprisoned for having it in their possession. Here we will briefly discuss the importance of the inerrancy of Scripture, a few of the things that tie the Old and New Testaments together, and what the canon is and why the canon is important.
Inerrancy of Scripture
Inerrancy is the doctrine that the Bible is fully truthful in all its teachings. If the Bible is not inerrant, then our knowledge of God may be inaccurate and unreliable (1). Inerrancy is important for the church theologically and historically. Theologically, Jesus, Paul, and others used the scripture, both Old and New Testaments, in their teaching, and if one of God's attributes is that He is omniscient, He would not allow writers of the Bible to write verses that aren’t true. Historically, if the Bible is not inerrant, then what other doctrines the Bible teaches aren’t true either. (2)
Tying the Old and New Testaments Together
The Old and New Testaments can be tied together as the whole Bible by the number references or direct quotes the New Testament has from the books of the Old Testament. There are a couple of hundred direct quotes and hundreds of other references in the New Testament. Jesus Himself quoted the Old Testament books numerous times. Matthew 22:39 and Mark 12:31 directly quote Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Mark 10:7-8” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall be one flesh,” a quote from Genesis 2:24, to name a few. Isaiah 52:13-53 references the future story of Jesus taking our sins on the cross. These are a few examples of the Old and New Testaments being tied together and why both are needed to be the whole Bible.
The Canon
How were the books of the Bible determined to be included in the Bible? It is called the Canon; the Canon is basically the books that Christians accept as authoritative. We have both the Old and New Testaments. Canonization is the process by which the church recognizes which books were authoritative and therefore belonged in the Bible (3). The Old Testament canon was closed by the time the New Testament canon process started. There are several reasons why New Testament writers viewed the Old Testament canon closed: 1) quotations of the Old Testament books, 2) list of outside Old Testament canon not referenced as scripture, 3) no hint from writers that any of the Old Testament was incompatible with developing Christian faith, 4) communality Jews and Christian Scripture (4). To be part of the New Testament, it had to pass three tests: 1) Who wrote the books? What the apostles wrote was given authority because they lived with Jesus and He promised to send the Holy Spirit to help them, Matthew, Mark (who wasn’t an eyewitness, but who got his information from Peter), John, Luke (because of his ties to Paul), Paul’s writings, and Acts. Twenty-one books (the 4 Gospels, Acts, Paul’s 13 epistles, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelations) were consistently included in the canon, 2) the second test was, were the teachings consistent with the 21 books already considered part of the canon, 3) the third test is the church as a whole consistently using the book down through the ages. That is how we ended up with 27 books of the New Testament. There have been a number of other books that haven’t met these criteria, such as the book of Thomas, and as a result were excluded from the New Testament (5).
Conclusion
In a world in which there are so many erroneous conceptions and so many opinions, the Bible is a sure source of guidance. When correctly interpreted, it can be fully relied on in all that it teaches. It is a sure, dependable, and trustworthy authority (6).
About the Author
Steven Johnson, DDS
Steven served 36 years as a dentist in his hometown of Buffalo Center, Iowa before retiring from his practice. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa Dental School in 1987. He currently resides in Mankato, Minnesota. Dr. Johnson is a devout disciple of Christ. He faithfully attends Wooddale Church of Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Steven was the husband of our late beloved Dr. Michelle Johnson
Dr. Johnson’s desire is to continue to honor Michelle with the passion she held so dear–writing articles that glorify God. He hopes to offer believers further reasons to trust in the risen Savior and desires to share the gospel with the lost, prompting them to accept Christ as their Savior.
Notes
(1)Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology: Second Edition, Baker Books,246.
(2)Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology: Second Edition, Baker Books,251.
(3)William D. Mounce, Why Should I Trust the Bible, Zondervan Reflective,95.
(4)D.A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, Zondervan Books,731.
(5)William D Mounce, Why Should I Trust the Bible, Zondervan Reflective,100-105.
(6)Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology: Second Edition, 8.
Your pushing of inerrancy is problematic for several reasons:
1 - Jesus' followers were largely illiterate. That might explain why he never expressed or implied that when outsiders accuse the OT of factual error, a Christian is under the slightest obligation to defend the original text as inerrant.
2 - I would not argue that something has no importance merely because Jesus stayed quiet about it. However, I would argue that if Jesus truly is the author and finisher of your faith (Hebrews 12:2), then a) what he taught likely had importance to your salvation and sanctification, and b) what he stayed quiet about likely didn't have importance to your salvation or sanctification. So because Jesus stayed quiet about any alleged duty his followers had to defend the inerrancy of the OT, it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus did not think defending the inerrancy of the OT was important to anybody's salvation or sanctification. Therefore, a Christian can possibly be reasonable to completely ignore the entire bible inerrancy issue.
3 - If then anybody else in the NT expressed or implied that Christians do have a duty to defend biblical inerrancy, I would accuse those NT authors of sinfully going beyond the word of the Lord.
4 - For obvious reasons Jesus never expressed or implied the inerrancy of the NT, yet today's inerrantists pretend as if the inerrancy of the NT is no less foundational to Jesus' teachings than his parables were. Outsiders rightly fear that concerns about "inerrancy" can lure us into Phariseeical error. And indeed, despite inerrancy being demonstrably unimportant to salvation/sanctification, the church of the last 200 years has often chosen to waste its time devoting thousands of pages to discussion of this trifle, pages that could have been better used to simply preach.
4 - Because defending bible inerrancy necessarily involves disagreements about what a biblical word or phrase means, defending biblical inerrancy unnecessarily increases the risk that the Christian will commit the sin of word-wrangling (2nd Timothy 2:14). Christians don't wish to provide a workable example of word-wrangling to help us make sure we can tell when that sin is about to materialize, because they fear that the only reasonable examples would be those that routinely occur within biblical scholarship. So since Paul's followers don't want to have Paul prohibiting the kind of scholarly interchange apologists love to indulge in, they conveniently fail to provide educational examples of the kind of word-wrangling that plausibly fit the context of 2nd Tim. 2:14. And they then assure us that whatever "word-wrangling" might mean, it surely doesn't mean the kind of disputing of word meanings that comprises 80% of Evangelical and Reformed biblical scholarship.