Astonishment receives God’s word with humility. We have no claim to our Creator’s words, no right, yet he speaks to us freely, opening his heart to us, showing us his character, inviting us to fellowship with him. By such gracious speech, he shatters our pride and sheds light on our dark ways.

A new year of Bible reading is upon us. Some, like the five wise virgins who prepared their lamps beforehand, have already sketched out a fresh strategy to read through the whole Bible or to study select portions; others are scrambling at midnight to find new fuel for the faint light of their ambitions. Wherever you find yourself, the intent to structure your Bible reading in the new year is commendable. We Christians are, after all, a people of the Book.

But why even make a plan to read? Does such planning flow from a sense of duty, the feeling that disciplined daily reading is something you ought to do? Does it come from a sense of shame based on the failure of last year’s good intentions, which perhaps burned to ashes in the fires of the sacrificial codes of Leviticus? Perhaps mere habit propels you to open the Bible each day. Habits of reading God’s word are good; shame for past failure might be helpful if it drives you toward godliness; a sense of duty can serve as a powerful impetus to pursue holy actions.

However, by itself, neither habit, shame, nor duty will lead you to open God’s word daily with a heart posture of humble expectation and joy. Such an attitude toward the Bible comes only from the astonished realization that in these pages God actually speaks.

Book of God’s Breath

When the prophets spoke to their audience — kings or widows, the people of God or heathen nations — they frequently used the introductory formula, “Thus says the Lord.” No miraculous proof was needed. The prophets did not provide detailed arguments to demonstrate that what they spoke was from the Lord. God spoke. Through his prophetic mouthpieces, he addressed a particular person or people. Human as the heralds were, the words were God’s (2 Peter 1:21).

Paul explains clearly that Scripture — all of it — is theopneustos, God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). He entertains no discussion about whether some parts of it are man’s additions or no longer relevant under the present cultural conditions. He holds without qualm to the prophetic formula: “Thus says the Lord.” Scripture is God’s word.

Moreover, Scripture is God’s word. It is the self-revealing word of the triune God, the one who was and is and is to come, the eternally perfect Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is the word of the faithful one, in whom there is no variation or shadow of changing, who rules over all things in absolute and perfect sovereignty. It is the word of him who creates and redeems his people to bring them into his own triune fellowship as his adopted children through the lovingly sacrificial work of the incarnate Son. The words of this God are absolutely authoritative and true because he speaks them.

Addressed by God

What does this mean when we open the Bible? Simply and amazingly this: God is not silent. The words we discover in the pages of the Bible are his — all of them. What we find between those leather covers is not a loose collection of texts, jumbled together by a few ancient scribes and holy men and containing bits of wisdom and tips for self-help. They are not merely interesting snapshots of history from which we can draw life lessons or stories we might appropriate however we see fit.

On the contrary, these words are revelation, God’s address to his people by which he makes himself known and through which he calls his people to “fear [him], to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve [him] with all [their] heart and with all [their] soul, and to keep [his] commandments and statutes” (Deuteronomy 10:12–13).

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