The Scriptures sit at the center of our faith. It is within the Word of God that God’s nature is revealed to God’s people. Martin Luther said “the Bible is the cradle that holds the Christ.” At Trinity, we open the Word to see our Savior. This Word is living and active. The divine voice is booming and blaming, whispering and wowing, one minute accusing and the next absolving. It is operating in the sanctuary throughout the Divine Service and it flows out into the hallways of life.
We invite you to feast on the Word of God. To chew on it. Savor it. Feast upon it. The meal is one of beauty, of joy, of music, where the Word of God is shown to be not just ink on a page, but the living voice of Christ, just as alive and present now as when the words of Genesis or Matthew or Revelation were first spoken. The Word of God is far from dead and it doesn’t only have the appearance of life. Woven into all the narratives is Christ, the Word by whom the heavens and earth were made, who finally came down from heaven in his incarnation to our wild world, all to redeem us as his own.
We believe, teach and confess that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit and that God is therefore the true Author of every word of Scripture. We acknowledge that there is a qualitative difference between the inspired witness of Holy Scripture in all its parts and words and the witness of every other form of human expression, making the Bible a unique book.
For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 1:21
We believe that all Scripture bears witness to Jesus Christ and that its primary purpose is to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. We therefore affirm that the Scriptures are rightly used only when they are read from the perspective of justification by faith and the proper distinction between Law and Gospel.
Since the saving work of Jesus Christ was accomplished through His personal entrance into our history and His genuinely historical life, death and resurrection, we acknowledge that the recognition of the soteriological purpose of Scripture in no sense permits us to call into question or deny the historicity or factuality of matters recorded in the Bible.
We believe, teach and confess that because the Scriptures have God as their author, they possess both the divine power to make men wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus Christ (causative authority), as well as the divine authority to serve as the church’s sole standard of doctrine and life (normative authority). We recognize that the authority of Scripture can be accepted only through faith and not merely by rational demonstration. As men of faith, we affirm not only that Holy Scripture is powerful and efficacious, but also that it is “the only judge, rule, and norm according to which, as the only touchstone, all doctrines should and must be understood, and judged as good or evil, right or wrong.” (FC, Ep, Rule and Norm, 7)
We confess that “God’s Word cannot err” (LC, IV, 57). We therefore believe, teach and confess that since the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God, they contain no errors or contradictions but that they are in all their parts and words the infallible truth.
We hold that the opinion that Scripture contains errors is a violation of the sola scriptura, for it rests upon the acceptance of some norm or criterion of truth above the Scriptures. We recognize that there are apparent contradictions or discrepancies and problems which arise because of uncertainty over the original text.
We believe, teach and confess that since the same God speaks throughout Holy Scripture, there is an organic unity both within and between the Old and New Testaments. While acknowledging the rich variety of language and style in Scripture and recognizing differences of emphasis in various accounts of the same event or topic, we nevertheless affirm that the same doctrine of the Gospel, in all its articles, is presented throughout the entire Scripture.
