In this session we will continue to explore our understanding of the Bible. While last week's lesson focused on an overall view of the Bible as the one unified story of God's saving love, this session will focus specifically on the question of the Bible's truth and purpose.

How do we know the Bible is true? Probably many of the young teens in your group have at least considered that question. What is it about the Bible that makes it so important and so trustworthy?

There are a number of reasons for accepting the Bible as true---the beauty and coherence of its writings, the fulfillment of its prophecies, and its vast influence down through the centuries. However, John Calvin said that the one essential proof of the Bible's truth is the Holy Spirit's testimony in our hearts that it is the Word of God. In this book, through the Holy Spirit, we hear God's voice, or as Q&A 10 says, "the same Spirit tells me, in my heart, that this is the true Word of God."

Our scriptural anchor this week is not a story, but two verses from one of Paul's epistles where he speaks to Timothy, his young protégé, about how to teach the Scriptures. He calls them "God-breathed." What does that mean? Paul means that God, by his Holy Spirit, was actively involved in the writing of Scripture and is still active today in our understanding of it and faith in it.

This does not mean that the actual words of Scripture were dictated into the ears or even the minds of its authors. That view has been called "mechanical inspiration." The inspiration of Scripture is anything but mechanical. It could better be described as mysterious and organic.

The human authors of the Bible wrote in their own language, out of their own experience, and within the limits of their own understanding. God did not "channel" his words through them. Rather, God's Spirit gave the Bible's human authors unique insight, making sure that what they wrote accurately reflected the truths God wanted to convey.

Another way of understanding the Bible is to think of it in the same way we think of Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus is fully human and fully divine, so the Scriptures are fully human and fully divine---written by human hands but perfectly expressing the divine truth God wants to convey in them.

What does the Bible tell us? It is "a true and completely reliable account of God's saving promises and acts" (Q&A 10). The great arc of the story is often pictured this way: creation, fall, redemption, new creation. From God's good creation fallen into the distractive powers of Satan, God redeems the world through his son Jesus Christ and promises a new heaven and a new earth when Christ comes again. That's the story in a nutshell. It's the true story of the whole world, and the story out of which we live our lives today.

Paul also points out to Timothy that this God-breathed Scripture is useful. It's useful "for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God's people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Tim. 2:16-17). In other words, knowing this story and living out of it has very practical consequences in the way we live our lives every day. As the psalmist writes, "your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path" (Psalm 119:105).