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Doctrinal Statement on the Bible

We believe that God has revealed himself to mankind through both general and special revelation. General revelation refers to God’s self-disclosure through creation, history, and the human conscience (Romans 1:20; Daniel 2:21; Romans 2:15). This revelation began at the dawn of time and will continue until its end. Special revelation, on the other hand, is God’s specific revelation to humanity through Scripture, with its focal point being the person of Jesus Christ and his redemptive work through his death and resurrection (Ephesians 1:8; Colossians 2:2-3). This special revelation was imparted to select men of God and has been faithfully recorded in the Scriptures (Luke 24:27, 44-48).

The Bible as the Inspired Word of God

We believe that Scripture was written by men of God and is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). While the Holy Spirit did not dictate the Bible word-for-word, he guided the biblical authors to write what they did (2 Peter 1:20-21). Unlike other religions, such as Islam, Christian inspiration does not involve the revelation of a pre-written text or the dictation of exact words. Therefore, we reject the idea that inspiration overrides the personalities or writing styles of the biblical authors.

We affirm that each biblical author had the freedom to choose their vocabulary and grammatical structure, and in doing so, they were guided by the Holy Spirit. This collaboration between the Holy Spirit and the unique personalities of each author produced the Scripture we have today. Consequently, we strongly affirm that the Bible is the written word of God and is unequivocally normative for the life of all Christian believers.

We hold that the Bible is true in all that it affirms, and none of it can be excluded, marginalized, or set aside as irrelevant or inapplicable to the lives of Christians in our modern age.

The Inerrancy of the Bible

Despite the presence of textual variants, we believe that the Bible is inerrant—not only in the original autographs but also in the Bibles we have today, insofar as they reflect the original texts. We deny that any such variants undermine the inerrancy of the Bible. We firmly hold that God has preserved his written word true and unchanged for our generation and will continue to do so for generations to come.

The Canon

We affirm that the canonical books of the Bible include the 39 books of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, and the 27 books of the New Testament, from Matthew to Revelation. While we recognize the historical and literary value of the Apocryphal books, we do not consider them part of the biblical canon, nor do we believe they are inspired by God.
 

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