Listening "To" or "For" the Word of God?

Before the reading of Scripture, does your Pastor (or whom ever is reading) say listen "to" or "for" the Word of God? The preposition makes a great deal of difference. Is the Bible the Word of God, or does it simply have some of the Words of God hidden within its pages? Is the Bible reliable and authoritative, or must it be deciphered by scholars who can tell us what parts are the "Word of God" and which parts are just "stories of man?"

I don't claim to be able to explain everything found in Scripture, but I do claim it ALL to be the Word of God. We may never understand it all until we are in our glorified bodies in heaven, but that doesn't change the fact that the Bible (all of it) is the Word of God. It doesn't make since that the Lord would provide us with His Word and then have it full of errors or untruths. I am not against critical study of the Bible, I am simply against those who go into the study with an agenda of separating the "true" Word of God from the rest of Scripture.

The difference is in how we look at the Bible. Is it a book that we are looking at judgmentally, or is it the Book that stands in judgment of us? The attitude we take makes all the difference. We live in a time where too many people believe the Bible is scientifically inaccurate, historically confused, and full of errors. Because of this perception, many people feel that it is intellectual suicide to accept the whole Bible as the Word of God.

It comes down to this--either the Bible (the WHOLE Bible) is the Word of God or it isn't. There really isn't a middle ground. Given the option of trusting a scholar to tell which words are God's words (and not all scholars agreeing as to which words are God's words) or trusting God to have provided His Word to His people, I choose God over scholars every time!

As a final note, I believe that the reason we have so many people who do not read and know the Bible today is a direct result of scholars having demeaned the Scriptures for so long. Why should we study and learn something that isn't true? Well, the answer is very simple. The Word of God IS true and that is why we should know it and live it!