A book does not become the Word of God because someone gives it a religious title. A writer may claim divine authority, promise missing truth, or announce a new revelation. The claim still needs testing.
God’s truth is the standard by which we examine the claim. The claim does not get to rewrite the standard.
I receive the sixty-six books of the Bible as God’s written Word and the authority by which teachings about Him must be judged. A commentary may explain a passage. A history book may help us understand its setting. Neither becomes Scripture because it helps us read Scripture.
The same boundary applies to my own writing. A book about the Bible must answer to the Bible.
That distinction matters when another text claims the right to correct, replace, or stand beside it as divine revelation. We need to examine what the text actually teaches, especially what it says about Jesus Christ.
John opens his Gospel by declaring that the Word was God, then tells us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The identity of Jesus belongs at the heart of the message. A teaching that denies His divinity changes whom we are being asked to trust.
The Quran does precisely that. It honors Jesus as Messiah and messenger while rejecting the claim that He is God. That disagreement reaches much deeper than a different spelling or translation. The two teachings cannot both be true about the same Savior.
The Book of Mormon makes a different claim. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints receives it as the word of God alongside the Bible, while qualifying its acceptance of the Bible according to correct translation. That places another claimed revelation before the reader. Its authority cannot be established merely by announcing that it came from God. We test that claim against what God has already revealed in Scripture, asking the Holy Spirit to help us understand His Word.
The Apocrypha raises a different question again. These are ancient religious writings whose place in Scripture Christians dispute. I do not receive them as part of the sixty-six-book standard upon which this work rests. Their historical interest does not give them authority to establish doctrine.
We should make these distinctions honestly. Different books make different claims. Naming the actual disagreement gives us something to examine; calling every book the same kind of deception leaves the argument unfinished.
English Bible translations also require care. Many differences concern how Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek are expressed in English. Others involve differences among the surviving manuscripts. Those questions deserve examination, rather than dismissal as word games.
A difficult passage is a reason to study its wording and context. It is not automatic proof that the Bible has been replaced, nor does it establish the authority of another religious book.
In Berea, people listened to Paul and searched the Scriptures daily to see whether what he taught was true. His message received a hearing, and its claims received examination. Scripture commends that response.
We should bring the same willingness to listen and the same determination to test. Respect for a person does not require accepting every teaching that person holds. Firm disagreement does not require contempt.
The question remains what God has revealed. Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh, the Savior who died and rose again. Salvation is received by grace through faith in Him. A message that substitutes another identity, another saving work, or another way to purchase eternal life changes the substance of the gospel.
Religious language cannot make that change harmless.
Every teacher, every claimed revelation, and every page I write must face the same test. We do not honor God’s Word by protecting our favorite claims from examination.
A claim to speak for God is where the testing begins.
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” —1 John 4:1
—Jeff Wager
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