Scripture, Authority and Relevance

First posted at VirtueOnline:

Submission to Scripture. Submission to Scripture is for us evangelicals a sign of our submission to Christ, a test of our loyalty to him. We find it extremely impressive that our incarnate Lord, whose own authority amazed his contemporaries, should have subordinated himself to the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures as he did, regarding them as his Father's written Word. --- From "Essentials", by David L. Edwards and John Stott Authority and relevance.

The modern world detests authority but worships relevance. So to bracket these two words in relation to the Bible is to claim for it one quality (authority) which people fear it has but wish it had not, and another (relevance) which they fear it has not but wish it had. Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance - to a degree quite extraordinary in so ancient a book - and that the secret of both is in Jesus Christ. Indeed, we should never think of Christ and the Bible apart. 'The Scriptures ... bear witness to me,' he said (Jn. 5:39), and in so saying also bore his witness to them. This reciprocal testimony between the living Word and the written Word is the clue to our Christian understanding of the Bible. For his testimony to it assures us of its authority, and its testimony to him of its relevance. The authority and the relevance are his. --- From "The Authority and Relevance of the Bible in the Modern World" (Canberra: The Bible Society in Australia)