The Apostle Paul, speaking in commendation of Timothy because from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures (and by Holy Scriptures the Apostle meant the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi—these were the Scriptures Timothy as well as every Jew knew as such), tells him that all Scripture (and of course any decent exegesis of the passage with its weight of context would recognize that the Apostle was referring to the Scriptures Timothy had known from childhood, the Scriptures as we have them to-day from Genesis to Malachi)—Paul tells Timothy in the most precise terms that all these writings are inspired of God.
The Apostle Peter, corroboratively speaking of these very Scriptures of the Old Testament, says they came not “by the will of man, but holy men of old spake as they were moved (literally, carried along) by the Holy Ghost.”
Thus, this book we call the Bible comes to us with the enormous and uncompromising claim that it is not a man-made book, but a book whose real and sole author is the living and eternal God.
This claim stands face to face with human need.
Here we are from birth to death, pilgrims on the highway of time, not knowing whence we come, nor whither we go. We need a guide to lead us, a light to shine when we stand at that parting of the ways—where eternity becomes the end of time.
This book meets us and claims to be all that—a guide through time, a light to shine upon the road that leads to God and to be, in every line and accent, the inspired, incorruptible, infallible Word of God.
How may we know it is all it claims to be?
Never more than now did we need to know it.
Voices in the air are crying that we have been deceived; that this book upon which our fathers pillowed their heads when at the end of life’s journey, they laid them down to die; this book we have held as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path is, after all, at its best, only the word of man and not the Word of God at all.
Every now and then resounding blows are heard as they strike against the old foundation. Those who pretend to be working in the interest of the truth bid us stand aside, lest we and our hopes be buried in the impending ruin.