Eric English of Emergent Village says, “The bible is not the WORD OF GOD.” Notice the lower case letter “b” in “bible.” Eric English rails against the Bible as a postmodern deconstructionist saying:
The bible is not the WORD OF GOD. However, our elevation of the bible to almost divine status has seemingly resulted in the Church believing it is to be the moral authority over the world – as though they speak for God. We have equated the language of the bible with the Words of God. This has seemingly resulted in the bible being used as a weapon of power to oppress others. Incredibly, the Church’s oppression has not been limited to the secular world, but has even been used as a weapon to oppress its own people. (Source)
Certainly the Bible is the moral authority over the world because it is the Word of God, not the words of men. Paul thanked God for the Thessalonians who received the Apostles words “not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
Certainly the Word of God is a weapon. We are exhorted by Paul to take up the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). As a weapon, “the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Eric English flatly contradicts Hebrews 4:12 when he writes, “The Bible is not the WORD OF GOD. It has no special powers.”
Notice Eric English does not quote from the Bible in order to present his argument. He concludes, “The bible is not the WORD OF GOD. The WORD OF GOD is Jesus Christ.” True, the Word of God is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Word of God made flesh (John 1:1-14; Revelation 19:13). But this is not always the case and context we find in the Bible. For instance, in the Parable of the Sower, Jesus said, “Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11). “The Seed” referred to the preaching of the Word of God. In other words, the sower sowing seed is a preacher preaching the Word of God. Furthermore, Paul referred to the Old Testament Scriptures as “the Word of God” (Romans 9:6). Jesus also referred to the Old Testament Law and Prophets as the Word of God. Jesus said:
Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death: But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye. (Mark 7:9-13)
It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. (Luke 4:4)
Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? (John 10:34-36).
Let’s stop playing with the clear language and believe the Bible for what it simply proclaims to be in truth, the word of God. Contrary to Emergent, the Bible teaches that God carried along the writers of Scripture by His Spirit to write precisely what was on his heart.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Timothy 3:16,17).
While Paul was referring to the “God-breathed” inspired writings of the Old Testament canon in 2 Timothy 3:16, and Peter was referring to Old Testament prophets who were moved by the Holy Spirit in 2 Peter 1:19-21, the Apostle Peter also considered the Apostle Paul’s letters in the first century to be considered Scripture as well. He said:
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction (2 Peter 3:15,16).
To Peter, a Jew who believed in the inspiration of the Old Testament, Paul’s writings were on par right alongside them. If A = B and B = C, then A = C. In other words, Peter referred to Paul’s writings of the New Testament as Scriptures like the Old Testament Scriptures and Jesus and the Apostles referred to the Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God. In conclusion, the BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD.