For Christians, the Bible really is God’s word. And it commands their allegiance. But for many, this is only limited to their personal concerns and family issues. It can give us prophecies, promises, and precepts, but we don’t go to it for principles. It does not guide how we invest, what job to accept, or whom to vote for.  We love it, we believe it, but it remains in a box.

We need to bring the Bible out of this box and into life – human life. The Bible is the word of God. It is God speaking to us – to our art, to our business, and to our politics. By confining scripture to the narrow sphere we call ‘personal life’, we have dishonoured God and impoverished ourselves.

The history of Western philosophy reflects this. By neglecting biblical revelation, and attempting to reason autonomously, Western thought has spurned all kinds of ideas and systems. Idealism, pantheism, materialism, existentialism, nihilism, along with various theories about the relation between mind and matter, the nature of knowledge, and so on. To a large extent, these are man’s attempts to make sense of reality without input from God. Interestingly, the Bible itself has often been enlisted in support of some of these ideas!

Think of our global cities: London, New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, Johannesburg. Think of their amazing landmarks. For a moment, consider the great movies of the west, the Fortune 100 companies, and the national parliaments. Think of them as relying on God’s revelation. Imagine them operating on biblical principles. Envision them living out of the Christian view of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. This is what our world should look like. And that is what we would get when our world recovers the authority of God and the rule of his word, the Bible.