Recently a store that’s part of a huge retail chain labeled its Bibles as “fiction.” A pastor shopping for a gift came across the Bibles and saw “Fiction” written on the price tag. So he took a pic and posted it on social media with the comment: “[Name withheld] has Bibles for sale under the genre of FICTION. Hmm.” The retailer has since apologized, saying the Bibles were mislabeled and the mistake had been corrected.
You wouldn’t ever find the apostle Peter making a similar mistake. He was emphatic that he didn’t create cleverly invented fiction, but wrote from the real-life angle of his eyewitness experiences (2 Peter 1:16-18). “For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes” (2 Peter 1:16). In other words, the Bible is grounded on historical truth.
At the transfiguration, God affirmed Jesus as His Son. Philip said, “We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus” (Matthew 17:1-9; John 1:45). And whatever the prophets wrote, it wasn’t the product of the authors’ “own understanding or from human initiative” (2 Peter 1:20-21).
Ensuring the accuracy and reliability of what was written, the human authors were “moved by the Holy Spirit”—the divine Author (2 Peter 1:21). In fact, the Holy Spirit guided different people of diverse backgrounds to reveal God’s inspired truth (Numbers 22:38; Jeremiah 1:6-7; Amos 7:14-15; Luke 1:1-4). So as he wrote of the power and trustworthiness of Scripture, Peter affirmed their authority to speak into our lives.
May we recognize God’s timeless wisdom as we read and study the Bible. It’s definitely not fiction.
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Ephesians 1:3-23
More:
What do John 5:39, John 6:63, and 2 Timothy 3:16 say about the authority and application of Scripture?
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How can you know with certainty that the Bible is God’s Word? Why is it important not to simply know the Scriptures but also to apply them?
Gary Shultz on November 29, 2015 at 6:43 am
Many today would leave the Bible in the Fiction section, they mistakenly feel God’s word is little more than a collection of folklore and ideas. We can believe in extra-whatever experiences, vampires and an assortment of wizardry, but not many want to believe the opening words of God – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. If folks should consider that, they will have to make a decision which won’t meet most of their life styles. I am sorry for such a reluctance that people will entertain almost any other though then a real, living, holy, loving God. It’s all about choice. Thanks
Winn Collier on December 6, 2015 at 9:14 pm
That passage in II Peter has always meant a good deal to me, reminding me of the firm power of the Scriptures.