Taking God at His Word

I think this is an extremely important book for the times we live in. Times where even those who profess Christ are rejecting the authority and inerrancy of Scripture.

Kevin DeYoung says of his book here:

"This is a book unpacking what the Bible says about the Bible. My aim is to be simple, uncluttered, straightforward, and manifestly biblical."

I believe this was accomplished with this book. It was easy to read and understand, as well as encouraging. It's fairly short, but included a lot of great insights.

One of the main points of the book, I found to be, was the importance of realizing God speaks to us through the Scriptures.

The God of the universe speaks to us through the Scriptures.

How privileged are we to hear His voice whenever we pick up His Word.

I've heard and read of many Christians, in this world, who would do anything for a Bible, to hear God speak, and yet many have one and rarely pick it up.

I loved what the author says here:

"There is no calamity like the silence of God. We cannot know the truth or know ourselves or know God's ways or savingly know God himself unless God speaks to us. Every true Christian should feel deep in his bones an utter dependence on God's self-revelation in the Scriptures. 'Man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.' (Deut. 8:3;Matt. 4:4)."

Chapter seven stood out to me the most. Titled 'Christ's Unbreakable Bible' it delves into what Jesus believed about the Scriptures.

The author says here:

"...we must conclude that whatever the perfect Son of God believed about the sacred writings, we should believe the same. There should be nothing controversial at all in affirming that Christ's doctrine of Scripture should be our doctrine of Scripture."

I am someone who agrees with what this author teaches about Scripture. So for me reading this book was a bit of a refresher. But I found this particular chapter really encouraged me, as I'd never thought of believing the Bible because Jesus believed it. It gave me a lot to think about.

Quotes like this were eye-opening...

"Our Messiah sees Himself as an expositor of Scripture, but never a corrector of Scripture. He fulfills it, but never falsifies it. He turns away wrong interpretations of Scripture, but insists there is nothing wrong with Scripture, down to the crossing of t's and dotting of i's. "

And here:

"Jesus believed Scripture was the Word of God, and as such, it would be gross impiety to think that any word spoken by God, or committed to writing by God, might be an errant word, a wrong word, or a broken word."

And here:

"In the Gospels we see Jesus reference Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaac and Jacob, manna in the wilderness, the serpent in the wilderness, Moses as the lawgiver, David and Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, Elijah and Elisha, the widow of Zarephath, Naaman, Zechariah, and even Jonah, never questioning a single event, a single miracle, or a single historical claim. Jesus clearly believed in the historicity of biblical history."

And  here:

"Jesus has no problem referencing human authors of Scripture like Moses, Isaiah, David, and Daniel. But they stand in the background. They are the sub-authors working beneath the principle author of Scripture, namely, God Himself.

So Jesus can quote from Psalm 110, saying, 'David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared' (Mark 12:36), just as Paul in Romans 9:17 and Galatians 3:8 can use 'Scripture' as the subject where God is the Old Testament speaker. Holy Spirit, God, Scripture - they are not three different speakers with three different ranks. They refer to the same divine author with the same divine authority. 

Which is why Jesus can talk down the Devil by saying 'it is written,' and why he can claim, without any hint of controversy or hyperbole, that the Creator of the universe wrote Genesis. For Jesus, Scripture is powerful, decisive, and authoritative because it is nothing less than the voice of God."

And finally here:

The Lord Jesus, God's son and our Savior, believed His Bible was the word of God down to the sentences, to the phrases, to the words, to the smallest letter, to the tiniest specks - and that nothing in all those specks and in all those books in His Holy Bible could ever be broken."

Kevin Deyoung elaborates on all these points and shares Scripture to support them.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and if these points have interested you, I highly recommend reading it.



Buy it HERE on Amazon