Sinclair B. Ferguson

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And Jesus himself was actually quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 3.

Of course, Paul puts it the same way, but in different words.

He tells us that the scriptures are God-breathed.

So, I think we could say, in thinking about the doctrine of Scripture, that perhaps the simplest, the most basic, and in many ways the most helpful way for us to read the Bible is to think of it as the mouth of God, and when we read it, to think of ourselves as listening to God Himself speak, because indeed He does speak through the Bible.

And because that's true, it tells us a lot about the authority of the Bible and also about the reliability of the Bible.

If God is speaking through it, we can trust it.

And if God is telling us something by it, we should do it.

But you know, this little phrase, the mouth of God, has the power not only to instruct the way we think about the nature of the Bible, but to help us to read the Bible.

I quoted the other day some words written by Isaiah about the coming Savior, that morning by morning the Lord opened his ear and he heard as one who was taught.

He listened through the Word to the voice of God.

Think about it this way, and I think you'll find yourself paying more attention to it.

More than that, I think you'll begin to think, there can be few greater privileges in all the world than this, that I'm able to sit here with my Bible and listen to our Heavenly Father speaking to me through it.

Remember how in Hebrews chapter 12, when the author of Hebrews quotes from the book of Proverbs, he doesn't say, this is what God said.

He says, this is what our Heavenly Father is saying to us.

He is now, through the Scriptures, addressing us as sons.

I think we need to recover that sense of the amazing privilege we have in possessing the Bible.

There are more editions of the Bible, more shapes and sizes of the Bible.

More Christians own many, many copies of the Bible.

But all the statistics tell us that we are a generation that knows so little about the Bible.