Make the Bible Your Final Authority

I grew up in a church where the Bible wasn’t central. Both at home and in the pews, God’s Word wasn’t our primary source of truth.

After graduating from high school, I attended a “Christian” university in a nearby city. In one of my first classes called “Judeo-Christian Life and Thought,” the professor quietly but confidently proclaimed that “God was dead” and “the Bible was filled with many errors and historical myths.”

I ditched that college after a year and traveled to New Zealand where godly people taught me about the primacy of God’s Book–the Bible. Under their wise discipleship, I made it my “Book of books.”

Fifty-years later, God’s written Word is still my truth-seeking GPS in all things.

Make the Bible your final authority.

Make the Bible Your Final Authority

All of us look to someone or something as our primary source of truth. Hindus look to the Vedas, Muslims to the Koran, Buddhists to meditation, and secularists to professional elites, big government, or other sources for meaning and direction.

But the practical reality is that most people view themselves as the final authority in life (self-centeredness). Bill O’Reilly opines often that “people believe what they want to believe.”

Their final authority is me.

Yet, Rick Warren points out in his best-selling book The Purpose Driven Life: “It’s not about you.” Or as Francis Schaeffer wisely taught, there is The God Who is There who has revealed himself through the Living Word (Jesus) and the written Word (The Bible).

We know the truth through Jesus and the inspired book that points to him.

My purpose today is not to convince you of the Bible’s uniqueness and authenticity. I’ve done that in other blogs–but here’s a quick summary.

There is no book like the Bible. It contains 66 books written over 2000 years by 20 different writers in three different languages. It’s God’s love letter revealing the truth about life, morality, history, money, salvation, and eternal life. The principles taught in God’s Word apply to every area of life and all decisions I make.

Over the past half century, I’ve made the Bible my final authority on everything. In other words, I judge everything–including myself–on what the Bible says.

Recently I was reminded of the principle of biblical authority as I perused a footnote in my daily Bible reading. and also, a portion from a famous devotional. In both cases, I knew I needed to “measure” the words by what the Bible says–not people’s opinions.

The first was from the footnote to 1 Samuel 28:14 in the 1599 Geneva Bible. This was the Bible translation the Pilgrims brought to the New World. I’m using it (fascinating!) in my 2025 daily Bible reading.

In the story, King Saul asks a witch to call up Samuel from the dead. Here’s how the Geneva Bible puts it:

“Then he [Saul] said unto her, What fashion is he of? And she answered, An old man cometh up wrapped in a mantel; and Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he inclined his face to the ground bowed himself.”

The footnote to this passage says:

“To his imagination, albeit it was Satan, who to blind his eyes took upon him the form of Samuel, as he can do as an Angel of Light.”

That’s possibly correct–that Satan took the form of Samuel. But in the story, it simply mentions Samuel appeared and told Saul: 1) The Lord had rejected his kingship, 2) David would be the new king, 3) Why? Because of his disobedience in handling the Amalekites, 4) And that he and his sons would die in battle.

All those statements were true, not a lie or deception. If the “imagination” had really been Satan, wouldn’t his words have been more seductive, or the narrative mention Lucifer or an evil spirit?

I said to myself: “Do I believe the footnote (not inspired) or the Bible itself?

I chose the Bible. It’s my final authority (arbiter) of everything.

That same evening, I read the April 30 devotion from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. It’s called, “The Spontaneity of Love.” Here it is in its entirety.

“Love suffereth long and is kind…” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Love is not pre-meditated, it is spontaneous, i.e., it bursts up in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of mathematical certainty in Paul’s category of love. We cannot say, “Now I’m going to think no evil: I’m going to believe all things.” The characteristic of love is spontaneity. We do not see the statements of Jesus in front of us as a standard; but when the Holy Spirit is having his way with us, we live according to the standard without knowing it, and on looking back we are amazed at the disinterestedness of a particular emotion, which is the evidence that the spontaneity of real love was there. In everything to do with the life of God in us, its nature is only discerned when it is past.

The springs of love are in God, not in us. It is absurd to look for the love of God in our hearts naturally, it is only there when it has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we do not love him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, it comes naturally. In looking back we cannot tell why we did certain things, we did them according to the spontaneous nature of his love is us. The life of God manifests itself in this spontaneous way because the springs of love are in the Holy Ghost (Romans 5:5).

I love Oswald Chambers. Thanks to his wife “Biddy,” who took shorthand of his talks, and then published them after his untimely death in 1917 at the age of 43, My Utmost is the number one biblical devotional of all-time.

Two friends gave me an engraved, leather-bound copy in 1983 with a special introduction by Dick Halverson. He was the Senate Chaplain at the time and a father-figure mentor.

There is no more thoughtful, convicting, Christ-centered author I admire more than Oswald Chambers (except maybe Charles Finney). I agree with Chambers probably 99% of the time in My Utmost for His Highest.

But not the above devotion. I understand his point: that true love often erupts spontaneously from our hearts by the Holy Spirit. But I believe he goes too far when he says, “The characteristic of love is spontaneity.”

Is it? Is it always spontaneous? Or are there other Bible examples of it being planned (creation, salvation), or a choice (Gethsemane and Golgotha)?

I believe the Bible teaches a broad definition of love. Chambers is not wrong–just limited as we all are. (Chambers was a very spontaneous, emotional man and very artistic).

What’s the point?

Always live by the three-word phrase Billy Graham made famous:

THE BIBLE SAYS.

Whether reading your devotions, watching the news, analyzing history, talking to people, or pondering an important subject–make the Bible, the inspired Word of God your final authority in everything.

Including analyzing my words today (smile).

Make the Bible your truth-seeking GPS in all things. All else is shifting sand.

“The sum of your word is truth. All your righteous ordinances are everlasting” (Psalm 119:160).

“To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them (Isaiah 8:20).