The Inspiration of the Bible

There is a familiar saying that you can tell what a man is by the company he keeps, and what is true of men is also true of books. The character of a book can be judged by the kind of person who reads it, and the influence it exerts upon its readers. The good man reads a good book, the man of low and vicious disposition reads books which suit his depraved tastes. Judged by this standard, the Bible holds a unique and unchallenged position. The great and good men who have loved the Bible are legion; a few names come to mind, such as Milton, Priestley, Sir Isaac Newton, Davy, Faraday, Kelvin, and Gladstone and, among women, Queen Victoria and Miss Nightingale. In the night clubs, the gaming houses, or in the homes of the thief or the prostitute, the Bible finds no place. Where vice, drunkenness and improvidence abound not a single Bible will be in use. There is in the Bible that which no other book possesses to a similar extent, a spirit which pervades it and which can influence men and women towards higher and better things.

Whence came that spirit? The answer is supplied by the Bible itself, where we read that God “at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets”. The good spirit, then, is of God, who has inbreathed it into a book, from which it goes forth again to the world.

No other book has, or ever has had, such a wonderful record as the Bible. No other book has been published, broadcast in so many millions; no other book has been translated into so many languages; no other book has had so great an influence on the lives of men, or on the destiny of nations. The Bible has withstood the assaults of infidels and survived them all; it has been banned, destroyed and publicly burned, but has arisen triumphantly over all its foes because it is of God.