the prophet's bible

​Written by God.  That’s the claim the Bible makes.  While it was being written, the authors used…the Bible! How exactly did they do that while it was being written?  The answer is SCOPE.  Because the Bible was written over 1600 years by 40 different authors, those authors used the Scriptures that were available to them.  Consider when Hilkiah found the books of the law during the reign of Josiah (2 Kings 22:8) or when Jeremiah criticized the priests for not reading it (Jer 8:8) Daniel referred to Jeremiah’s writings (Daniel 9:2) The quotations across biblical writers of each other are abundant.  In the New Testament we see Jesus referencing Abraham (Luke 19:9; John 8:39, 58) and John quoting Daniel in Revelation (Rev 14:14)  Even later in the writing of the New Testament, we see Peter identifying all the writings of Paul as “Scripture” (2 Peter 3:15-16).  Reflecting all this causes me to stand in awe at the great processes of God. If that isn’t enough the apostle Peter basically describes this wonderful journey of inspiration: “because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Pet. 1:21) Praise God!

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